How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water

by Angie Cruz

The policía do not take care of our children. We have to take care of them.

Adonis came out blanquito, with good hair, and you can’t tell me that didn’t help his grades in school.

I noticed from my window that when he was a boy, Lulú would hold the back of his neck, tight, like she was driving him. A mother knows when the pineapple is sour.

When you need each other to survive, you forgive. That’s the way it is.

To be a mother is to suffer. You try and try with the children and they step on shit anyway.

This is why men don’t change. When the women try to teach a man a lesson, here come the mothers and the sisters to save them.

I’m a different mother. With Fernando I tried to find him. I never gave up. Never. It’s the mother’s job to try with the children. My mother never tried. And with the time, she never changed. I changed.