Finding Sam (Featured)

Chapter 31 - Starting Over

I got out of the car, pushed open the rusty gate, feeling the neighbors eyes watching me closely. Two women and a young boy sat on the balcony, the little boy playing a game on his Nintendo handheld console.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in," the older one said. "It's been a long time, baby girl."

As I stopped and peered at her, I wished I remembered her name but I didn't. I had completely forgotten almost everything on this street, even it's people. But as the older dark-skinned woman with large white teeth smiled at me, the taste of chechebsa returned to me then, served with a side of fresh yogurt that she usually made the night before. I remembered how she would have me come over for dinner, knowing that too many days would have gone by that I didn't have anything to eat for Anna would have it all on drugs and cigarettes.

Her name, I remembered now as the memory of the Ethiopian pancake she used to make came to me, was Adina. She pulled herself up from her lawn chair and walking down the steps, came towards the wire fence that separated both houses.

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Alyssa Marlin," she said, her Ethiopian accent still intact after all the years living in LA. "She may not be the perfect mama but she still do much for you, you know. And what do you do, girl, but you run away. You give her no way to contact you. You give us no way to contact you, not even when she got sick - with no one to take care of her. Ten years now you been gone."

"When did she get sick? What from?"

"Three months ago. I think it's hep C, the one about the liver," Adina said. "But she's feeling much better now, but there be no guarantees, no. It's not like she's rolling in the dough to afford any of the medicines, but she manage alright. She gettin' herself clean, you know."

Adina's words made me wither. Shame and humiliation washed over me and I fought back the tears as I approached the fence and reached out for her. "I'm so sorry."

"You apologizing to the wrong woman, Alyssa," she said, shaking her head, her hands on her hips. "She told me what happened this morning. Broke her heart, you did, just when she was picking herself up because she said you were going places. She so proud of you, your art, and her grandson. She didn't even know she has one."

"I'm so sorry, Adina," I whispered again. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

Just then the door opened, and a tall man with dirty blonde hair and earphone wires hanging from his ears strode out, leaving the door open as he sprinted across the lawn and hurried into the darkness. I could hear the faint sounds of the music he was listening to as he walked by, barely noticing us.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"That be the drug dealer come back to do some business," Adina said. "Did you know Anna was clean for at least two weeks before this morning? You too good for your own mama-?"

Suddenly I was running as fast as I could, up the front steps and through the door. I didn't need to know the reasons why someone could relapse back into addiction. It could be anything - from stress to the pain of withdrawal symptoms despite the alternative drugs that someone like Erik could give them. Even the humiliation of being turned away by one's own daughter could do it.

I expected a house that was filthy, with maybe Anna already lost in her heroin-induced haze on the couch. But what I saw when I stumbled into the living room took me by surprise. Though it was barely decorated except for a simple living room set in one corner and one of those folding card table sets in the dining room, the place was immaculate. It took me a few moments to take in everything I was seeing in front of me, inhale the smells of home that had long ago ceased to be my home. Upstairs, I heard the sound of a bed creaking.