Prologue

With all this money, Carlos could stop dealing and they could live decently, downright...uprightly and respectably. Patti mentally built the house and the neighborhood where they could settle down. They could get married and be a real family. "We could have another kid or two of our own and one of those big yellow dogs and a yard with a barbeque and everything." She told Carlos in her mind. "We could have a life, Carlito, a real life." She was pleading now. She looked over at him asleep against the car door and then down at the drug paraphernalia on the floor. She toyed with the idea of just taking Linda and disappearing with her and of course, some of the money. But that would get complicated and he might come after them for the money.

She knew that he was capable of violence. She had witnessed a horrible and tragic scene brought on by Carlos and his dealing. She had only seen his violence directed at others, but he had threatened her with a beating several times when he was stoned. She could leave the money with him and just take the little girl. She could only imagine what an out of control, drug-crazed Carlito could do to a helpless little child. Linda would only be a pawn in his next scam. Patti always imagined herself able to reform Carlos and sometimes she could almost see, deep inside of him, the Carlos that Margarita believed in. --But to risk the child's well being on him? The whole thing made her so uneasy.

Unconsciously, she reached for another joint and then caught herself.

"Who am I kidding?" She said aloud. "What a joke. Sure I can be Betty Crocker and Carlito can be Father of the Year." She gave in and smoked the marijuana and softly cried knowing that things would never really change because Carlos would not change. If she stayed with Carlos, she would not change. The little dream world she had created dimmed from her mind. She looked back at Linda and heaved a sigh of genuine sadness and regret.

Somewhere in North Carolina, a sign on the side of the highway caught her attention. It read, "St. Thomas of Aquinas Convent. Little Sisters of the Poor."

With hardly a thought, Patti took the exit and followed the narrow road back into some rolling hills. Nestled among the trees was a beautiful little Catholic church surrounded by some small rectangular buildings that Patti guessed were the sisters' sleeping quarters. She parked behind some trees and quietly got out; Carlos didn't even stir. She tiptoed toward the church. There seemed to be no one at all around and Patti wondered if they had run out of people to be nuns and had closed up shop. It was so silent that it startled her when the organ sounded and the sisters in the chapel began to sing. She stood for a moment and listened to them sing a Christmas hymn and thought they sounded like the heavenly choir must have when Jesus was born. It was beautiful and peaceful and joyful. "Angels we have heard on high..." It was their Christmas mass.

When Patti returned to the car, Linda was playing happily with the little stuffed dog that Patti had bought her at a truck stop. Her man was snoring, obviously sound asleep. Patti opened the back door and released the belts that fastened the infant seat to the car. She lifted the seat and the child out onto the trunk. Then she reached inside and grabbed 'her' Nikon camera from the floor of the car and put the strap around her neck. Photography was the one thing that she shared with her father and for years she had never gone anywhere without a camera. Carlos had managed to steal this one for her. She also removed a baby blanket and Linda's diaper bag. She unzipped the Minnie Mouse bag and took out rubber-banded bundles of cash. There were stacks of tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds, nearly sixty-five thousand dollars. She counted out $10,000 in one hundred dollar bill stacks and separated them from the rest of the cash. This could help care for Linda and other children too. It's her money, really.

"You deserve more than this, my love, but you understand that this is the best thing, don't you? Carlos and me, we're no good for you. But I know that I could love you. I wish we could be a family. I'm just afraid of what kind of life you'd have with us. No good, honey, no good. But someone will love you, and take care of you and everything will be wonderful for you real soon. Real soon, Sweetie." Patti whispered. She took some baby wipes from the bag and wiped down the car seat, the bag and even the money in the small stack.

Inside the bag was a picture of poor, beautiful Margarita. She had given it to Patti a few months before. Patti wrote on it, "Por mi hijita Linda, con amor, Mami. I will be with you always." Then she took the cross pendant with the daisy from around her own neck and wrapped the chain around the photo, cleaning it off as best she could. She closed up the bag and put the strap over her other shoulder. With two wipes in her hands, she lifted the car seat from the trunk and crept behind the trees toward the church. She looked in all directions and saw no one. The nuns were chanting the Lord's Prayer and Patti recited along from childhood memory.

"I'm trying to deliver you from evil, my little love," Patti said. She laid the child, still in the seat, with the diaper bag, just inside the vestibule near the Holy Water. She pulled out her Nikon camera, turned on the flash and quickly and yet skillfully snapped a couple of photos. "These are to remember you by. Adios, mi Linda." At the instant that Patti took the photos, Linda raised her little arms, begging to be picked up, to be held, pleading to be loved. The image was locked in the camera and locked in Patti's mind. Chubby little hands held her face as she kissed the child's forehead in farewell.

She couldn't stop the tears as she crouched low and crept silently away. She had almost reached the car when she heard the nuns begin to sing, "Away in a Manger." The child, too, began to cry.

When Patti stopped for gas just inside South Carolina, Carlos finally awoke from his long winter's nap. There would be hell to pay. "She's my blood! I decide what happens to her. I'm the man," he'd holler. He would be furious. --Not for leaving the child so much as leaving the money and his easy ticket to so much more.