Please, Enola.

The room was bathed in the soft glow of early morning light, filtering through the
butter colored curtains that danced following the rhythm of the breeze. It was one of those
energetic mornings that make you breathe deeply and absorb the immense pleasure of being
crushed by the air currents. Enola was given to leave my window open on days like these, the
windows of the entire apartment, in fact. She knew how much I enjoyed that feeling. She
considered that there is no better way of feeling alive than the contact of nature and as we live
in the 7th floor of the Moonrock apartment in the middle of Baltimore, Maryland EE.UU,
apart of the infinite types of Bromeliaceae, Orchids, African violets and other plants I could
not even name, to open the windows was her way of keeping nature indoors. It also helps to
control anxiety ‘Feel your body, your skin. Touch it, stroke it forcely ‘till you get some
warmth and repeat that you are here at this moment inhaling this pure air that fills up your
veins with the most clean oxygen. This is what is happening right now and what you need to
be worried about is to harness all this power and get the benefit of it. Anxiety is an excess of
the future and the action of overthinking the past. And you know what? The future is not with
you and the past is unchangeable, you can do nothing. Feel, live and fight with what you have
now.’ She used to recite smoothly to calm my panic when I was overwhelmed. She was a
good aunt, always taking care of me and remembering I am worthy and she is proud of me.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee mingled with the subtle scent of something being baked
and fruit. Enola was making breakfast. I heard some mantras she used to play while drinking
her green tea and she sang some words of the song between whistles. Every day, I tried to
enter the kitchen on cue with the ring of the baker warning the preparation was about time to
be served. I was at University, however, this stupid game we had since I was a child seemed
as vivid and exciting as the first time. But this morning I did not appear. there was no sign of
my presence. I heard Enola saying ‘you failed again dreamy boy. I’ll need to reduce the size
of your slice’ but I didn't answer. I was petrified.
I have woken up and started the morning routine as every day. I'd put on my shirt and
pants to go to school and I’d splashed four times my perfume around my neck. All that was
left to do was to put my socks and shoes on. I always did that lastly to see which shoe would
combine my outfit and this time I decided towards the beige sneakers with gray laces. I
couldn’t find a pair of socks that match. I was about to ask Enola for one but, instead, the
worst idea I ever had came to my mind. I thought about the ring of the kitchen and winning
the stupid game so I went to Enola's room with no asking. Her room was as fresh as sea brise
and as perfumed as the largest flower field. The perfectly accommodated bed gave the feeling
of extreme relaxation. As soon as I entered, I took a deep breath. Then I went directly to the
light brown wardrobe, I opened it humming and stopped when an envelope fell down
zigzagging through the air until touching the brown wooden floor. I looked at it and
recollected it. I have never imagined how fast anxiety can encroach upon your body. My
breathing turned hard to complete and it felt as if it was out of time and no amount of air
could fill my lungs. The sender was my mother and the date was two weeks ago.

1
 No sooner had I handled the envelope that I noticed it was empty. My entire body
suddenly started to wet and shake. I could feel the anxiety burning through my veins running
along every corner of my existence as if it had nothing else to do but ruin me and tear me to
pieces until I disappear. What was going on? My mother was still alive? What is her life and
why is there no place for me in it? The doubt began to weigh on me, I felt it in my bones as if
they were separating from my flesh and becoming independent. My mind set out among all
the chaos, to look for that letter. I began to take all of Enola's belongings out of their place, I
opened every door and drawer, disassembled the bed and pulled all the curtains looking for
that piece of paper. At that moment, I started the disorder in Enola's room, a disorder that,
like a hurricane, would spread in our lives and take away our peace and stability, never to
return them again. Enola stopped calling me but I didn't notice, I wasn't aware of my
surroundings. I think in the anxiety attack I may have made some noises that made her
wonder what I could be doing. When I finally saw the letter, in a box behind Enola's closet, I
felt the certainty of knowing that my mother was still alive. I'm not sure I wanted to know but
there it was, a letter written by my mother who had died of a terminal illness when I was
born. And it was recent. I began to scream and cry, not knowing what to do with my
extremities. I felt as if they didn't belong to me, as I didn't control them, I wanted to hit them
while my scalp was bothering me and my chest was hurting. Enola came into the room. She
knew what was happening and for the first time, that wise 59 years old woman didn't know
what to say. I looked at her with swollen eyes and a face full of anguish and
incomprehension. I asked her to let me read the letter alone, it was the only thing she could
do for me after ruining me like that. This person was my mother, the one who was supposed
to take care of me, the one who was supposed to love me, the one I loved the most even
without knowing the look in her eyes. Enola could not utter any words, her choked crying did
not allow her to. She just left the room and I began to get to know my mother.

“Dear Enola.
It 's Karen.

It’s been a long time, I know. I hope you are alright. As in most of the time in my life,
I'm in trouble right now. But this time i'm not sure i will be able to escape that’s why i'm
writing this letter for you to read whenever you need to remember me and for you to know
more about my life. You deserve it.
This is my story, Enola.
I was always at the back. At the back of the students’ formation to honor the US flag
while singing the anthem although my place was the third row because of my size. But in that
position, Mr. Frederik would stare at me touching from time to time his pants zip fly as a
perturbing smile arise from one lateral of his dry and disgusting mouth; at the back of the
line we had to perform to receive the daily food at the school kitchen which always was taken
from my hands anyway by John and his stupid friend “you’re too thin to eat this gluten” they
said as they snatched violently the only slice of bread i had for the whole morning. I was
always at the back of the cold, negligent classroom because by the time Mr. Frederik

2
developed his misogynist and discriminating lessons, I was out of at least physical danger.
From the moment I stepped into those echoing hallways, my heart sank. It was like entering a
dead end, and I was the unwitting prey. The taunts started softly, as a distant herd of furious
horses gathering force as they approximate. I kept my head down with my thin, straight,
blond hair slowly falling down the sides of it forming waves as it finished unraveling from the
root to the tips. My wooden brown eyes locked on the scuffed tiles beneath my feet covered by
the coldest worn white canvas sneakers with frayed laces. I thought if I didn’t make eye
contact, they'd forget I exist. But it was wishful thinking. They trapped me, always.
On the way home, I remained at a corner of the school till Mr. Frederik started to turn
off the lights. Then I sneaked to the front to get out of the school by the time they were not
there. Sometimes Mr. Frederik looked for me all around the school and I had to hide. He
repeated between wheezing as if it was a kind of song “I saw in class how you provoked this
man, you showed your neck, you left your hair long, little wild girl. I’ll give you what you
need… I’ll show you what I have… i know you like how i squeeze your flat ass and how i use
my thing.” he laughed “this is the prize you have to pay for having junkie parents''. The
anguish and anger invaded me at first, then it became a nightmare that I had to live daily and
I only felt the adrenaline and the fear of hiding from my stalker. I closed my eyes tightly and
hugged myself with all my might, holding my breath, clutching the back of the sleeves of that
faded dark jacket that served as a coat and cover for the cigarette burns that I had on my
pale, skinny arms, wanting that the moment of tension would pass.
My every-day experience at school was terrifying. After getting free from the
professor, I could finally go home. Six squares of the most frightening sensations I ever lived
through. The lights of the streets casted elongated figures that made me feel the paranoiac
sensation of being persecuted. My limp legs didn't seem to work as they should, the faster I
wanted them to walk, the denser the air in which they had to move became.
When I arrived at my house another ordeal began that I remember as a psychological
horror movie that bothers you to see but you have it engraved in your mind from beginning to
end. It was a corner surrounded by a wall of a meter fully cracked and invaded by mold.
Since you arrived at the corner Rosehill St. 67 you could already see the house over the green
wall, a small and very deteriorated construction of a dark color impregnated with the same
mold as the wall that protects it. The house emanated a rotting smell that you were able to
sense from the previous block. I crossed the division of the wall that only had the visors of
some ancient gate left until Trevor sold it for drugs, opened the worn and chipped red door
that we had in front unlocking it with the rusted round handle and exerting pressure on the
central part of the door while lifting it just so that it ends up opening with a loud noise until
stability was restored. With this noise I could not go unnoticed with Georgia and Trevor who
were lying half dying with some injection nailed in the inside of the elbow. In the round and
unstable table of the kitchen a few steps from them, some cold and bland dish he used to
prepare and some stray dog sleeping on the cloth lying on the floor. They were unaware of
him, had no sense of smell and cared nothing about the house. In the end it was a house
taken. I’d come along and Trevor would come up in his sporty shorts of a fabric so fine and
used that it would fall off his hips leaving parts of his body that I don’t want to look back at,

3
his thin, hairy naked torso exposing his dry, dark skin, his haggard face with an
intensification of black tones around his very light green eyes. He came to me and took the
plate of food from the table to near it towards me. In his moments of lucidity, he took care of
me within his possibilities, defending me from Georgia who always tried to abuse me by
forcing me to work more than my body could bear. Trevor was good but he was always very
stoned and that made him not recognize me and that he plotted with his partner to make me
live the worst of my experiences.
My job was to be Georgia and Trevor’s mule, that is their body packer. I transported
drugs in my body. On the weekends, Georgia would give me a vaseline pot and some drug
capsules covered out of polyethylene paper that she made herself. Some dirty capsules
impregnated with the cigarette aroma of their wrinkled hands. She locked me in the bathroom
and wouldn’t let me out until I put the drug capsules in my body to be delivered. I still
remember the day when she explained to me how to do it, she took a capsule with the yolk of
two of her fingers with bitten nails and told me to pay much attention because I should do
that for the rest of my life. I was nine years old. She put the capsule in my vagina after
passing it through the vaseline, even with the lube, I blood. Then she took another one and
asked me to swallow it. My throat ached as if the capsule was wrapped in thick sandpaper,
my crying closed my trachea even more and I began to despair because my breathing was
getting shorter, I felt like I was in a bucket and the sounds were ringing in my brain, I heard
Georgia’s voice like echoes. She insulted me for being unable to swallow the wrap. at one
point she entered her fingers and pushed the piece. I don’t know how I did it but I swallowed
it and started drinking water from the sink with an unmatched despair. "little stupid girl" I
listened. "You’ll poop in the morning, silly bastard" Georgia said and locked the door of that
bathroom. It was the first time and she had to make sure it was done right.
Everything was torture in that house. My only quiet moment was when they were
stoned and passed out. I tidied up my corner of the room the three of us slept in. Georgia and
Trevor had a two-seater bed but were always in the dirty living-dining room chair. In the
room I had a thin mattress in one of the corners in front of the bed. When they were
unconscious I washed my deteriorated sheets and ordered my space to feel a little more
human. This happened quite often and could be so for days, which gave me freedom to steal
some money and go out to buy more nutritious food. They consumed the food that I bought. I
don't know if they didn’t realize there was always something in the boxes that we had as a
cupboard or if they let it pass because I did them a favor doing the shopping that they never
took into account.
The day that invades my thoughts ‘till the present started at school, running away
from Mr. Frederick. I could get out of the institution and hide behind a broken piece of wall
waiting for all the danger to disappear. After some minutes I came out and started to walk
rapidly through the scary path to home. But scarcely I did half of a square when I heard
"Hey, you!". It was John, the ringleader, surrounded by a posse of followers like obedient
minions. My heart rose; I could feel the color draining from my face and there started a fight
with my unquiet stomach, trying not to feel ill. I still remember what followed as it is
happening right now. They knew about Georgia and Trevor. They knew about the business

4
and they wanted me to give them what I had. “You want to die, do you?” they said. Between
derisive laughter of cruelty, and making approval gestures at each other they threatened to
kill me if I didn't give it to them. I wish I could do it. I assure you I wish I could but the threat
would be a fact if I went home with no money and no drugs. And, Enola, I promise I thought
about giving it to them and running out, escaping the city and never coming back but I was
petrified. The hits and cuts I received in the attacks made me think that they would follow me
any place I’d go.
This would be one more of the many attacks I received at school. The boys would
corner me, beat me and insult me until I blurted out some of what I had if that happened to be
the occasion. When I didn't have drugs on me they would punch me even harder, shouting
their insults as if I was to blame for all the rage they were holding. I felt their saliva splash
my face, the fury made them sweat, gave them an intense red color to their faces and made
them salivate even more. They spat on my face and neck as if that saliva also belonged to me
and they were repulsed by swallowing it. As if I deserved all that mistreatment.
I could do nothing but cover myself as much as I could and squeeze my face once
again to make that moment pass. Tears were falling but I didn't feel that I was crying, I wasn't
aware of my emotions, I was just blocked in that endless waiting, protected by my weak arms
and trying to foresee where the next stroke would be. Just when I thought it couldn't get any
worse, that I would finally be released, I heard him. A voice that I would recognize anywhere
because of the disgust it generated in me. I can’t even write his name again. It wasn't enough
to torment me at school, harass me in the hallways and chase me out the door. He interrupted
and the boys agreed, it was all a plan he had made to trap me. I fought with everything I
had, with every muscle in my body but I couldn't get away from his thick hands and his
disgusting face. he took me and while he was doing it the boys laughed at my complaints. he
led me to his single cab truck, the kind with only one seat lengthwise and the box closed with
a dome. he put me in that dome, got in behind me, closed the door behind me and warned me
that if I tried anything he would kill me and no one would ever look for me because my
parents had sold me as a payment for some drugs that they owed him. I believed him.
what I lived there was a torture. I still remember the smell of humidity inside the truck
mixed with the rust of the iron on the floor. The iron smell of my dried blood and my skin
stained with their fluids as my soul also stained and filthy, that's how I felt. So dirty and
impure that I stopped being a 17 year old adolescent to be a disposable specimen. I
remember that I took a bath at a gas station, went home and cried silently all night.
Months passed and one morning, when my parents were stoned, I was able to escape.
During that time I gathered all my courage and stole money whenever I could until I decided
to get out of that house. I walked all day through the city to the train station and took the
farthest train out of the suburbs of Kensington, Philadelphia to Wilmington. I hardly had
money for the ticket and I wanted to save some coins for the arrival so the only thing that I
ate was a slice of bread that a lady gave me on the train. It was summer so it wouldn’t be
necessary to look for a room to sleep in. I could do it in any bank. I remember that I was
thinking about how my life would be from now on and the fear burst my mind. I cried again in
silence and my stomach started to hurt. it was a pain I had never experienced before, it felt as

5
if my organs were tied up and didn't want to untangle themselves. My eyes closed but my
consciousness was active. Everything went black, the pain disappeared and I saw my
5-year-old self at home balancing my short legs under the high chair, waiting for the lunch
that mommy would serve. The sunlight entered by the opened door of the dinning room and
under that illumination I saw the steaming plate of pasta coming to me, being held by two
delicate hands waist-high that place the food in front of me spreading the savory smell of the
tomatoes and onions sautéed. I slowly started to rise my eyes longing to find the love in my
mother's face but when i got there, it was Georgia's gaunt face with dark circles under her
eyes smiling at me with her yellow chipped teeth, deteriorated by drugs and emitting a sound
similar to the chirping of some crazy bird. I screamed, closed my eyes and squeezed them
tightly shut with my hands in immense terror until the darkness invaded me again.
I woke up at the hospital.
I felt a rare relief to be in such a clean bed and a brightly lit room. I was alone but I
was comfortable as I had not felt for so long. I saw you come in and felt your warmth envelop
me and transmit the calm I had been waiting for. You greeted me, introduced yourself and
served me an exquisite breakfast. I ate it insatiably while you looked at me with affection. I
had not finished the last bite of that toast with honey when two tall men dressed in white
smocks below their knees and with stethoscopes around their necks entered the room holding
some kind of screens.
While they were there, I could not utter a word. They did not give me the news that I
was expecting at all. I was 17 years old and pregnant. How did it happen? What did they do
to me? What did I have to do to make it stop growing? I didn't understand what fertilization
was, I didn't know what an egg was, a uterus, or the parts of my body in charge of nurturing
another human being to grow inside of me were things I was never taught. Lucky me to have
you there, Enola. You calmed me down and supported me since that day. I knew you were
such an incredible woman and the mother I would’ve loved to have.
I had to go back to the streets and as i felt into the worst places of Wilminton, my old
job catch me again. There were people there that know Mr. Frederick and the situation of my
parents towards him that is how, unfortunately, i had to work for them as a slave. My life was
a torture again but time to time i visited you and the time I spend with you was like an escape
of all the terrific place that can be te world. You didn’t know about my life out there and I’m
sorry to hide it from you. I didn’t want you to leave me alone, I was so scared of being alone
and letting alone the little baby that was coming and I suddenly began to love deeply. My life
was held by that growing beating heart and I would do anything to save it. Thus how i
decided to give the love in my life, my entire treasure to the only person i trust, you.
I know that this information may be difficult to assimilate and that maybe I was selfish
to leave you a life under your care without even asking for it and in the way I did it to then
disappear, but I had no choice. I also know that you will try to help me but please, Enola,
understand this is not your fight. They are after me and my life was always and still is on the
line. I am terribly sorry, Enola. I know that your heart will forgive me someday and I also
know that Aiden will always be your right hand. He will stand by you and be by your side

6
with all his love in the most difficult times as I felt he did with me. You will be best friends
and fight side by side. You will be the love in each other's lives.
As regards Aiden, I keep up with the plan. Under no circumstances I want him to find
me, Enola, please, Aiden must never know about my existence nor this letter. I'm a slave of
my actions and I'm bound to my history and he is not deserving of all this suffering. His
arrival was my biggest hell and his name my most precious treasure, he is the only thing I
fight for and the home to which I will never be allowed to return.
Since this could be my last letter, it is vital for me that you understand how important
you are in my life as well. You were like a switch I could use to turn off the hurricane in the
middle of the sea of my life. Every blustery wind stopped when you embraced my heart with
your company. you probably were not that aware but your considerate, dedicated hands were
my salvation. You are even more than heaven.
Please, take care of you and Aiden. I’ll be wishing for your welfare and happiness
every second of my entire life.
Always yours,
Karen.

Half an hour had passed and my breath was still uncontrolled. I could feel Enola
sitting on the other side of the door waiting for my reaction. I had so many doubts but my
mouth was not able to utter words, not even my brain could form a single sentence. My
whole reality had changed in a matter of minutes, all I knew about my mother was false, she
was not dead and she had not suffered from a terminal illness. The only true thing was that
she loved me. About how she had decided to solve our lives I was so disappointed yet I could
understand her. Enola taught me that every person has their own story and no one can ever
completely know how the others experience because we all have different backgrounds that
construct particular behaviors and perspectives. And here I thought about her. She was there,
supporting me patiently behind the door of her own room, giving me the space I needed and
suffering silently. I opened the door and I could feel the warmth my mother described, the
one I felt every single day, the peace I was so thankful to have, the comfort and relief of all
my insecurities and fears. It was her. It was like heaven to me.

I sank into an endless hug in Enola’s arms and cried until silence embraced the whole
apartment.
Two days went by and the guilt of knowing that my mother existed and was living in
hell while I was attending college, sleeping t in a spacious bed and eating hot, delicious food
every day of my life was bursting my thoughts. It was one Saturday morning that I decided to
go in search of the sender of that heartbreaking letter. On weekends, Enola would get up later
than usual, I would get up with her and we would prepare breakfast together. I took advantage
of that lateness to leave the house. It hurted me immensely to run away from her but I knew
that otherwise she would not let me go. I took 3 trains to Philadelphia. I barely had an idea of
where to go, I knew the city of my mother's childhood because of the letter and that's what I
decided to be my destiny .

7
 The train entered the city of Kensington and from the moment we came into the
suburbs my eyes glued to the window did not cease to expand like an owl in the night. The
people in the street were figures swaying unsteadily like marionettes with tangled strings.
Their eyes, those once able to speak for themselves, possessed nothing more than a distant
gaze lost in the reality that surrounded them but did not belong to them.
I arrived at Kensington station and walked a few blocks until I came to an imposing
but deteriorated bridge made of concrete and iron that I could see for a distance of two
blocks. Under that bridge there was a settlement of tents. It was murky, with little light and I
could see some tires and other garbage on fire. My jacket warmed my sweat-soaked body like
never before but I decided to go over to ask for my mother. When I reached the area I felt a
tremendous chill as I saw those weak and bent figures up close yet I was still sweating
uncontrollably. I was filled with anguish when I saw the lost faces of those people who once
had families, friends, support, affection and now depended on a substance. I noticed a group
of people suddenly approaching and they spoke to me. 'Where are you going with those
preppy clothes?’ they said in a creepy voice. It seemed that my beige pants weren’t of their
liking. The group of six or seven boys closed themselves in a circle made of their bodies.
Here was my anxiety again. I was scared. They got closer and closer until they started to
touch me. At this moment I could imagine the panic of my mother when the boys abused her.
The boys pushed me and I fell off, crushing my head on the floor. They took my jacket off
and my sneakers while I fought to escape uselessly with my whole body. I couldn't scream
and they were making whining sounds, hungry for money or belongings that might help
them, I suppose, to make up for their abstinence. It was the end, those people were about to
kill me. I could only think of how stupid was to come here as if I had any chance of finding
my mother.

‘Aiden!!!’ I heard a piercing cry in the distance.

My heart stopped and a warmth seemed to revive my body from my heels to my

brain. I no longer felt the pain of those people's blows but my relief lasted only an instant.
That voice was Enola's, she had followed me here and now she was in danger of being
attacked like me. It only took two seconds for the drug addicts to recognize that someone
shouted my name and to detect the location of Enola, who was running towards me. This
scene made them very upset and caused two of these zombie figures to hold me and the
others to grab Enola before she could get to me. I screamed at the top of my lungs but it
wasn't enough. A few meters away from me, the woman who calmed my anguish and ordered
my chaos was being stabbed while looking me in the eyes. Eyes that spoke to me without
words and told me how much they loved me, eyes that forgave me and at the same time
wondered why I had escaped from them.
Enola had called the police, they were after her. Their sirens and lights scared the drug
addicts away in a matter of seconds and I was able to approach her. My life was withering
away so fast that my wounds didn't seem to matter. I was living a scene that I never imagined
and it would be an eternal agony. I screamed her name so much that my throat shrank until it

8
seemed I couldn't pass a drop of saliva. Enola gathered her breath to tell me once again what I
already knew.

‘I love you, little dreamy boy. You are enough, you can handle it'

I heard those words as if we were in our department having breakfast with no other
noises interrupting our conversation and with the usual mantras she used to play. The police
sirens went off at those words and I responded quietly in a sob almost whispering.

‘Please, Enola’