Chapter 9

NINE days later, on June 3, 1992, Anna Lopez didn’t pick up her monthly social security check. Her mother knew at once that she was dead.

Ever since her daughter became addicted to crack six years earlier, María Alonso knew she couldn’t count on Annie for much. But she also knew that Annie would never disappear and not call. And she knew the social security check Annie received on the third of every month meant a guaranteed visit. On that day, Annie would arrive early in the morning and settle down at the kitchen table, waiting impatiently for the mail. How angry she got if the mailman was late!

It was then that María Alonso tried to reach her daughter. “Annie,” she’d say, “you need to get your life together. You need to join the program. The drugs, Annie. You need to get clean.”

“I will, Mommy,” Annie always said. “I will.”

Sometimes, late at night, María thought back to a time when drugs hadn’t claimed her daughter. Annie had been a happy child. María could still picture her skipping to school, clasping her big sister Claudia’s hand. María had been protective of her girls. She remembered the first time she let Annie and Claudia walk the three blocks to school by themselves. As the girls hurried down the block, excited by their newfound freedom, María ran to the roof of her apartment building. From her vantage point, she watched carefully to see if her children waited at the corner and looked both ways.

María Alonso didn’t know what went wrong. What weakness in Annie had caused her to turn to drugs? she wondered. María knew she’d done her best to keep her three daughters off the streets. No mother had tried harder.

But early on there had been troubling signs. It seemed as if Annie had no self-confidence at all. Then, when she was thirteen, Annie tried to commit suicide.

María could never forget that night. She had gone to play bridge, leaving her three daughters at home: Claudia, Annie, and Monica, the baby.

It was Annie’s turn to do dishes. All the Alonso girls knew their mother didn’t take kindly to excuses; she expected her daughters to pitch in around the apartment. The Alonso home was always immaculate.

But that night, Annie procrastinated for hours. She had a friend visiting. The dishes could wait.

Big sister Claudia was not so understanding. As the oldest, she felt a responsibility to see that chores got done. She kept the pressure on Annie.

“It’s your turn,” Claudia kept saying. “Mommy’s going to be mad.”

“I’ll do it,” Annie insisted. “In a minute.”

Finally, Claudia lost her patience. Annie had been chatting with her girlfriend all evening. María would be home within the hour. Claudia yelled at her little sister. Then, she slapped her across the face.

“Mommy’s going to be so mad at you,” Claudia announced.

Humiliated, Annie ran to the bathroom and slammed the door. She stayed locked inside for a long time. Inexplicably, she swallowed a fistful of pills, medication she had been taking since she had been in contact with someone who had tuberculosis.

María Alonso believes it was the embarrassment of being scolded in front of a friend that pushed Annie over the edge. She thinks her daughter had a weakness, an extreme sensitivity that made her easily fall apart. If there was something more going on with Annie at that time, María never understood it. All she knew was that she did her best to be a good parent.

María Alonso remembers arriving home that night, shortly before midnight. The dishes were done. The children were sleeping. She went to bed.

Forty-five minutes later Annie stood at the foot of her bed. “Mommy, Mommy,” she moaned.

María snapped on the light. Annie’s face was blue. She collapsed on the carpet and went into convulsions.

María called an ambulance. Annie was rushed to Kings County Hospital. María watched in horror as doctors placed electrical paddles on Annie’s chest and delivered shocks to stimulate the heart. She saw her daughter’s body jerk violently.

These days, María Alonso thinks about how her daughter died twice.

The first time, though, a miracle happened and Annie came back. In the hospital, the morning after she swallowed the pills, Annie opened her eyes.

“Mommy, where am I?” she asked. “What happened?”

María could hardly see through her tears. “Where do you live?” she asked softly.

“Brooklyn.”

“What are your sisters’ names?”

“Claudia and Monica.”

María Alonso thanked God. He had answered her prayers.

When Annie was released from Kings County, doctors reminded María to bring her daughter in regularly for follow-up visits. Convulsions were serious, they explained. There was always a possibility of brain damage.

But once she got home, Annie refused to return to the hospital. She said she wanted to forget what had happened.

“I don’t need it,” she said. “I’m fine.”

Looking back, María Alonso wonders if Annie did have brain damage. Maybe that’s why she didn’t think straight, María often thought as she lay in bed, trying to make sense of her daughter’s life and death. Maybe that’s why she turned to drugs.

Over the years, María Alonso shared her theory with her sister Blanca, who lived around the corner. They’d sit in the kitchen for hours, smoking cigarettes and talking about Annie.

“I feel guilty,” María often began. “If I’d insisted that Annie go to the doctor for those follow-up visits…”

Blanca always cut her off. She reminded her sister that she had been a good mother. Annie’s drug problem was not her fault. “It’s not you,” Blanca would say earnestly. “It’s the environment. You can’t fight the environment.”

María Alonso would always agree, nodding wearily. “You see things coming,” she’d say softly. “You see it coming and you try to warn them, try to make them see the light. I tried. I tried so hard to keep my girls off drugs.”

María Alonso did see it coming. When Annie dropped out of school in the eleventh grade, María pleaded on her knees.

“The only way you’ll get ahead in life is to finish school,” she said, weeping. “Please, Annie. Don’t throw away your life. Go to school. What else will you do with your life?”

“I’ll go back, Mommy,” Annie said. “Just not now. But I will. I promise.”

*   *   *

When Annie was twenty she married José Lopez. They had a daughter, Venus. María Alonso had mixed feelings about her son-in-law. He was kind, smart, and a good husband. She knew José Lopez loved her daughter. And Annie adored him.

But José Lopez had a drug problem, and before long, Annie was doing drugs too. A few years after they married, José was arrested for selling guns. He spent six months in prison; Annie wrote to him every day. She sent pictures of herself working at a sweater factory. On the back she wrote, “This is me at my job. I am working hard for both of us. I don’t look too cute here but at least you could see what I am doing while you’re away. I love you much, darling. Te Amo, Papi.” Beneath the words she placed a lipstick kiss.

For a while after José Lopez was paroled things seemed to be going well. María Alonso was hopeful that the bad times were over. Then, shortly before Christmas of 1985, José Lopez died of a cocaine overdose. Little Venus was just four years old.

At the funeral, María held her daughter, rocking slowly. “You will get better with time, Annie,” she whispered. “You will get on with your life. It will be alright.”

It never was. Annie’s grief was overwhelming, and she quickly turned to crack. Almost overnight, she was an addict.

María didn’t know about the drugs. But she knew her daughter was suffering. For months she tried to convince Annie to move back home.

“Live with me,” María pleaded. “I have the room.”

“No, Mommy,” Annie always said. “I want to make it on my own.”

But drugs were siphoning all her money. Even though she worked at the sweater factory, and tried to earn extra cleaning offices, Annie was always broke. A year after her husband died, she hit bottom. She’d blown all her money on crack and couldn’t pay the rent. She and Venus were evicted from their apartment. At last, Annie confided in her sister. She told Claudia about the drugs.

Claudia was adamant. “Annie, you’ve got to talk to Mommy,” she said. “She has to know.”

“I can’t,” Annie said, sighing. “I just can’t tell her this.”

“You have to,” Claudia insisted. “Mommy is the only one who can help you.”

Annie had little choice. She told her mother about the crack.

At first María Alonso was angry. She raised her voice in frustration.

“This was my battle all my life,” she said sharply. “To keep my daughters off drugs.”

But María recognized the pain in her daughter’s eyes. She knew how difficult this was for Annie. She softened. She leaned across the kitchen table and took her child’s hand.

“It’s not too late,” she said earnestly. “There’s help. Let’s go get help, Annie.”

Annie entered Monticello Hospital and spent a week in detox. Then she called her mother.

“Mommy, I’m ready to go home now,” she said.

María felt a sense of dread. For the past week she had been talking to friends about Annie’s addiction. Everyone had warned her that Annie had a long way to go before she was ready to return home.

“No, Annie,” María said slowly. “You have to go to a rehabilitation center. You have to stay away from here so you’ll be strong when you come home. You’re not ready. Stay there. I’ll take care of Venus. I’ll visit you every week. I’ll bring you anything you want. Please, Annie. Please.”

“No, Mommy,” Annie said solemnly. “I learned my lesson. I’ll never use again. I promise.”

Two days after Annie returned home, she relapsed.

It was just before Christmas of 1986, a little over a year after José Lopez’s death. Annie was going to a party with her sisters and cousins. She looked so pretty. María beamed when she saw her.

“You look beautiful, Annie,” María said. “Are you going to eat here?”

“No, Mommy, I’ll eat with my friends.”

María Alonso turned to the stove for a minute. When she looked back, Annie was gone.

She must have gone to Blanca’s apartment, María thought.

But Annie wasn’t there. She was walking down Atlantic Avenue headed for a crack house about ten blocks away. She didn’t return home for days. Her Christmas presents went unopened that year.

*   *   *

Until the day she died, Annie’s life never improved. She’d spend a few days at home and then disappear. Crack controlled her completely.

In the beginning, she took Venus with her to buy drugs. The little girl was just five.

“Don’t expose her,” María pleaded. “Why take your child, Annie? Don’t. Don’t take her.”

Annie paid no attention. María was scared. She’d read in the newspapers about mothers selling their children to men for drugs. She couldn’t believe Annie would do that. But she didn’t trust her. And Venus needed protection.

María made up her mind. One night she pulled Annie aside. Her voice was firm. “If you take Venus again,” she said, “I’ll call the Bureau of Child Welfare. And I mean it.”

She did. The next day, when Annie took Venus with her to buy drugs, María called city officials. Early the next morning a social worker appeared at the door.

Annie told the social worker the truth. She admitted that she had a drug problem. She said she was trying to fight it.

The social worker listened patiently. Then she laid down rules.

“You cannot take Venus with you anymore,” she said firmly. “Venus stays under your mother’s care. And you can no longer live here. If you want to see your child, you must be in a program.”

*   *   *

But Annie didn’t go into a program. For the next few years she lived off and on with friends or in a crack house. To earn money for drugs, she became a prostitute.

Sometimes María and Venus saw Annie when they walked down Atlantic Avenue to the laundromat, or to go for lunch at a Greek restaurant that Venus liked.

Annie always hugged them and smiled. She’s such an actress, María would think. Always pretending that nothing is wrong. But a mother knows. A mother knows her child’s pain.

Annie was so thin. At five foot two, she was under one hundred pounds. It hurt María to see her daughter that way. When Annie arrived on the third of every month to pick up her social security check, María implored her to eat.

“You don’t eat, Annie,” she’d tell her. “Just look at you.”

“I will, Mommy,” Annie would say. “I will.”

Annie would artfully change the subject. She asked about the family—her sisters, aunts, and cousins. She always wanted to know about Venus.

When the mail arrived Annie would slip the check into her pocket and quickly kiss her mother goodbye. The money meant vials of crack. María Alonso knew it.

“Take care of Venus,” Annie would always say as she left. “And take care of my plant.”

*   *   *

In 1989, Annie had another child, a daughter she named Salana. The little girl lived with her father. Then, three years later, Annie got pregnant again.

This time she didn’t know who the father was. As her pregnancy progressed, Annie began to talk more seriously about getting into a drug rehabilitation program. She said she was tired. She was getting older. It was time to turn her life around.

María Alonso nodded enthusiastically. Always, she’d stayed hopeful. For the first time, her daughter seemed genuinely ready. Perhaps this would be it. Perhaps Annie would at last break the addiction.

While she was pregnant, Annie knitted an outfit for the baby. She spoke with her aunt Virginia, her mother’s younger sister, about taking care of the child.

“When you get clean, you can have the baby back,” her aunt promised. “Get clean, Annie. Do it for your baby.”

The baby was born addicted to crack. But she was a good size—seven pounds, seven ounces. Venus picked the baby’s name—Megan.

In the hospital, Annie fed the baby and rocked her. After a week she was ready to be released, but Megan wasn’t. Doctors told Annie that her new daughter had to stay in the hospital for detox.

Annie felt terrible leaving Megan behind. She felt bad that her baby was suffering. She thought of her aunt’s promise. Get clean. Raise your child. It was time, Annie decided. This time, she really began to believe she could turn things around.

María Alonso met Annie at the hospital the day she was released. It was Valentine’s Day, 1992. Mother and daughter walked hand in hand to the corner. Annie had an appointment with a social worker. She was going to take the bus.

“I’m going to go into a program, Mommy,” she said. “I am.”

“That’s good, Annie,” María said. “This is the best time for you. You were in the hospital, so you’re off drugs for seven days. Your system is clean. It’s your mind you have to fight.”

Annie nodded. The bus pulled to the curb. She leaned over to give her mother a hug.

“Annie, what do you want to eat tonight?” María asked. “Shall I get an Oven Stuffer and cranberry sauce? Your favorite? What should I make, Annie?”

Annie smiled, only the smile seemed sad. All the love, all the promises, all the plans. Crack was stronger than everything.

“I like everything you make, Mommy,” she said softly. “Anything you want.”

María Alonso suddenly felt cold. Annie wasn’t coming home tonight. She knew her daughter. She knew the pattern.

“Annie, you’re coming back?” María said. “Are you sure, Annie?”

“I will, Mommy. I promise.”

That night, María Alonso glazed the chicken with cranberry sauce. A few hours later she lay her head on the kitchen table and cried. Annie hadn’t come home. A short time later, she didn’t show up to pick up her social security check.