Breaking Night by Liz Murray Read Free Book Online

attacks were unlikely because this had happened years ago, and Ma had been all right since. Either way, I was convinced that Ma could never be anything less than one hundred percent herself, partly because the very thought of her being any different frightened me.
    Inside the kitchen, Grandma laughed knowingly to herself, in some private joke.
    “There she goes,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes at me and spinning her finger in small circles beside her head. Until Lisa and Ma pointed it out, I’d never once connected Grandma’s solo conversations with her insanity. I blushed at my gullibility.
    “I know she isn’t talking to God. What do you think, I’m retarded?” I snapped back.
    In the summertime, Ma bridged some of the gaps in our income by feeding us through other government programs, like the free lunch offered throughout local public schools. Lisa and I often had to coax her out of bed to dress us and ready herself, so we were almost never on time. Having waited until the last minute, Ma would rush around the apartment frantically, feverishly scrambling to make the cut-off time.
    “Just—sit—still! If you move around, it’ll only be worse.”
    My head jerked and swayed with the tug of Ma’s fine-toothed comb, which ripped fire like nails along my skull. “Owww, Ma!”
    “We have only fifteen minutes, Lizzy. We need to go. I’m being as gentle as I can. If you sit still, it won’t hurt,” she insisted, tugging my hair to prove her point. I knew from experience that this was a complete lie. From the doorway, Lisa poked her tongue out at me; her hair was manageable. My cheeks burned with anger. As I went to return the gesture, the teeth of the comb snagged an enormous knot. Without hesitation, Ma dug furiously, snapping the stubborn pieces like dry grass. I winced my eyes shut and grabbed the corner of the mattress beneath me to wrestle with the pain.
    “See. If you sit still, it’s not so bad.”
    I would rub my throbbing scalp for the rest of the morning.
    We were in danger of being given cold servings for the third time that week—or worse, there might be no food left at all. This was especially difficult when we were between SSI checks, and the free lunch was often our only full meal of the day.
    July’s intense sun broke the Bronx open, split it down the center, and exposed its contents. High temperatures drove our neighborhood’s occupants out from their muggy, un-air-conditioned apartments to crowd the cracked sidewalks.
    I waved hello to the old ladies who spent all day sharing gossip on lawn chairs, each claiming one full square of cement for themselves and their battery-operated radios.
    “Hi, Mary.” I smiled at the woman who gave me nickels to buy peanut chews whenever I saw her downstairs.
    “Good morning, girls. Good morning, Jeanie.” She waved back.
    Old Puerto Rican men played dominoes in front of the corner store on planks of rotted wood suspended over cinder blocks. Ma always called them dirty old men and said that I should stay far away, because they think dirty thoughts and would do dirty things to little girls if given the chance. As we approached the men, I tried to keep my eyes on my shoes to show Ma that I was obedient. They called things out to her that I never understood. “Mami, venga aquí, blanquita.” And they made whistling and sucking noises with their wet, beer-shiny lips.
    We passed a few of Ma’s friends sitting nearby, perched on stoops, eyes trained on their children, clutching overloaded keychains decorated with plastic Puerto Rican flags and smiling coqui frogs in straw hats. The plastic jumble of trinkets clinked with each disciplinary raise of the mothers’ hands. Children circled sprinklers and teenagers claimed street corners.
    The block thumped salsa as we crossed University onto 188th, Lisa and I tugging on Ma’s arms, helping guide her through traffic while she squinted.
    “Four more blocks, Ma, all right?”
    Ma smiled absentmindedly. “Yep,