Author's website: http://www.geocities.com/unhingedds/

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be, but a girl can dream.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Morgan for being my own personal beta-boy.

Story Notes: This story is based, in part, on an actual case that occured in a large city near where I live. I've always wondered what happened to the oldest girl.

Mamacita
By MR

I look over at Ray deep in conversation with the patrol officer who answered the call. She's talking softly, head down, possibly crying. I could listen and ascertain this for sure but do not.

Again I glance at the houses around us. When I first came to Chicago, I was in total ignorance that such things as 'good' and 'bad' neighborhoods existed. I was, I now realize, almost frighteningly nave; it's amazing I survived long enough to learn the difference. Ma Vecchio used to say the saints protected me and they surely must have.

This is not a bad neighborhood. Older perhaps, the houses beginning to look a bit shabby, but it's obvious the people living in them are doing their best. The lawn of this particular house could use a good mowing, but there are flowers planted around the fence and the front porch. A large plastic child's gym set takes up most of the available space, and I find myself turning to look at the children huddled in the back seat of the police car.

Several years ago, Chicago began experimenting with the concept of beat officers in certain neighborhoods. There are perhaps a two dozen of them scattered over the city. The 16-block area this house stands in is part of Sharon Cortez's beat. She and her partner, Chris Amadio, have been patrolling it for just over a year. Sharon Cortez grew up here. She knows most of the families on a first-name basis. She certainly knows the five children huddled in the back seat of her car.

A 911 call. Ray would say this is where it started, but in fact it truly started four days ago when Evangelina Ruiz tried to wake up her mother and couldn't.

How does a child's mind work? Does anyone truly know? Had Evie been unable to wake up Mama before and so thought nothing of it?

I look at the children in the car. Evie is seven. She is the oldest. Officer Cortez told Ray and I that when Evie answered the door she was carrying the baby on her hip. Her brothers and sister were sitting on the floor in front of the television eating bowls of dry cereal. They apparently ran out of milk two days ago. Since then Evie had been feeding the baby Kool-Aid in his bottle. The younger children, Officer Cortez said, were washed and neatly dressed. Evie had to rinse some of the baby's diapers out in the bathtub because they'd run out of clean ones and Mama was too sick to go to the Laundromat to do laundry. That's why she called 911, because Mama had never been sick for so long before and Evie was worried she needed to go to the hospital.

The coroner's ambulance has since taken the body out via the back door, to spare the children. But police draw attention. Officer Amadio is next door now talking to Mrs. Silverio. Eventually they will talk to everyone who lived close to the Ruiz's. For now the cause of Carmen Ruiz's death remains unknown.

What is known is that Evie Ruiz spent four days taking care of her younger brothers and sister while their mother lay dead upstairs. She kept trying to wake her up, she told Officer Cortez, but she couldn't. Yesterday she apparently quit trying, concentrating instead of taking care of the children.

Evie is small for seven. A solemn girl with large brown eyes, she holds the baby, Hernando, carefully on her lap. Hernando just turned a year two weeks ago. Her two other brothers, Hector and Jesus, are three and four. Her sister Marta is five. All of them call Evie "Mamacita." Little mother.

I return my attention to Ray. He has an arm around Sharon's shoulders. Her eyes are red, but she's pulled herself together. I know he's telling her this isn't her fault; there was no way she could've known what had happened. She wants to believe him but isn't quite ready to absolve herself of guilt yet. I walk over to where they stand.

"You know what she's most worried about?" She's saying to Ray, and I follow the direction of her gaze to Evie. Dief has decided to have a look at the children and the older boys are laughing as he licks their hands and faces. Only Hernando looks uncertain, and I know in my heart that if Dief makes him cry, Evie will order him away. "She's worried they're going to be separated. That they're going to take the kids away from her." She sniffs slightly. "When she asked me that, she asked it in English. Because the little ones don't speak it yet. She doesn't want them to know."

Ray's eyes meet mine and a silent understanding passes between us. This will be with us tonight after we leave work. We will take it home, and probably into our bed as well. We will see it reflected in each others eyes as we kiss, feel it in each other's bodies as we make love. It will keep us from sleeping peacefully. Until we find out what killed Carmen we will be nervous and edgy. If it turns out to be suspicious, we will expend all our time and energy trying to hunt down leads. If it was a drug or alcohol overdose, we will shake our heads at the waste of it all.

And at some point, before it is supplanted by more pressing matters, more murders demanding our attention, we will cry. Perhaps alone; perhaps together. We may hold each other as we weep.

I wonder when the last time was that someone held Evie Ruiz when she cried?

FIN

End Mamacita by MR: psykaos42@yahoo.com

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