I left a message for Tina to call me. After I hung up, I thought about Ellen Martinez’s comment about Tina going “off the rails.” Maybe she was. Maybe being raised by an angry, overworked mother had spurred her to deviant behavior. With her mother dead, Tina was left with a poor excuse for a father who allegedly forgot her birthdays.
I strained to remember what it was like to be 13. When I entered my teen years, my parents had been four years dead. Although my life with them in Bed-Stuy had been far from idyllic, loneliness overcame me, as I recalled the void left by their deaths. I shivered and redirected my thoughts elsewhere.
The memory of my cousin took its place. Addie stepping in like a deus ex machina and whisking me off to live with her in Takoma Park, Maryland, saving me from th
