Searching For A Home

Please

"Wait a second," I said, putting my cellphone down to open the door and enter my house. "Jasmin," I called out to my daughter. "I'm home." I returned to my phone before she could answer. "What were we talking about?" I said to Vera, a woman I only met a week ago at the corner store.

I went to the kitchen and poured myself orange juice. "Yeah, I just got home from work."

"Papi," said Jasmin from behind, startling me.

I turned, seeing her sitting at the kitchen table. "You scared me. Why are you sitting in the dark alone?"

"Can we talk?" she said in a low voice.

"Sure, just give me a minute."

I went to the living room to finish my conversation. "Yeah, everything's okay. When would be a good day for us to go out?" I saw a picture laying face down and I picked it up. It was a picture of Jasmin and her best friend at Six Flags with human size Bugs Bunny. "Saturday works for me. Do you like amusement parks?" I put the picture back down, setting it up right this time. "Alright, sounds good. I'll see you then. Bye."

I walked back to the kitchen to find my daughter still sitting at the table. "What did you want to talk about?" I sat across from her and took a sip of my drink.

"I did something stupid," she said, looking down at the table.

I chuckled. "Really? What did you do?"

She pulled out a medicine bottle, setting it in front of me.

I grabbed it. "What's this? You doing drugs now?" I joked. The bottle belonged to my brother, medication for his crohn's disease. "What did you do?"

"I took them," she said, still not making eye contact.

"Why did you do that?" I asked, looking at the empty medicine bottle, not comprehending what it meant, but then suddenly figuring it out. An old memory returned to me of a friend doing something similar. Not again. Time slowed down as all these emotions flooded in at once, shock, sorrow, and shame. I couldn't even begin to think straight.

"Sorry papi."

Jasmin's voice snapped me back. I looked at my little girl's face, the sadness in her eyes, wondering what went wrong. How could I have messed up so badly? How didn't I see this coming? Then I remembered when I arrived home. She wanted to talk but I made her wait till I was done on the phone. I had no idea. At no point had it crossed my mind what was coming.

She grabbed my hand. "I'm sorry papi. Please don't cry."

I hadn't realized I was crying. Holding her warm hands in mine, it dawned on me I hadn't called for an ambulance. I took my phone and dialed 911, still holding her hand. I concentrated on her face, her brown eyes watering up. I was so lost in those eyes I hadn't noticed the operator speaking.

"911, what is your emergency?" he repeated.

"Yes, can you please send an ambulance to 47 Matahunt Street? My daughter," I said, my voice cracking. "She accidentally took too much medicine."

"The paramedics should be there shortly. How is your daughter at the moment?"

"She looks fine."

"What type of medication did she take? How much?"

I picked up the medicine bottle and before I could read him its name, the doorbell rang. "The paramedics are here. Thank you," I hung up the phone. "Let's go," I said to my daughter, shoving the empty bottle in my pocket.