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could you forsake me?
I have complimented so many outfits for you!”
    “Jimmy. He’ll pawn everything I got if I
don’t watch it. Drinking money.” Icy fear is in her eyes.
    I have never seen her so serious. I know
she means business.
    I don’t try to convince her otherwise. Besides,
how much can this china be worth? Enough for a forty-ouncer from the UDF down
the street?  I don’t know what I am going to do with all of it. Carefully, I
put my bag on the floor, out of fear that the dishes might break.
    I look around for crawling bugs. What
the hell am I thinking? I chuckle to myself. Her dirty dishes are in my purse, so
why not a few cockroaches on my sandals?
    “Honey, Antonio doesn’t live here.” Aunt
Grace adjusts her wig leaving a few strands of her real hair straggling. “I’m
glad to see you so eager. I was always afraid you were a little-you know.” She
tilts her hand side to side gesturing homosexual.
    Great! My Aunt Grace thinks I’m a
lesbian.
    “Who’s Antonio?” I ask warily.
    “Duh, the nice knife salesman I want to
fix you up with.” There is a sparkle in her eyes. “Good Italian family. You
will make beautiful babies.”
    “Stop right there.” I put my hand up in
the air. “Actually, I’m going to be living here for the next three months.”
    “Honey, we don’t have any room, but I
could let you bunk with…”
    “I have an apartment in Hyde Park,” I
say, interrupting any shenanigans going on in her crazy mind.
    “Huh.” She shooes a cockroach away from
her hot plate. “You better watch it, little fellow, or I might cook you up.”
    She continues to bat at the other
cockroaches that are starting to infest the pot, not noticing that her wig has
fallen off.
    My old feelings of needing to escape these
surroundings are creeping back into my soul.
    “I’m opening a store here for work and I
have three months to do it. I will be really busy, but I would like to spend
some time with you.”
    I stand up, ready to get the hell out of
there. I am not going to explain what Gucci is. In her heyday, Aunt Grace was a
wealthy sought-out woman.
    But after ninety-two years of life, with
four husbands, and one cockroach-infested building to her credit, she has
nothing. Hardly even her mind.
    “Don’t leave so soon.” Her mouth is
tight and grim.
    I stay longer than I anticipate. Much
longer.
    “Aunt Grace, you should think about
moving.” I’d love to see her get out of here.
    I peer out the window watching the sun
going down. Her neighborhood is ranked the number one most dangerous place to
live in Cincinnati. I’ve got to go and go fast.
    She gives me the look she has given all
the relatives before me. She points her crooked finger hard to the ground. “This
is my home.”
    “I’ll call you soon. Here’s my number.”
I hand her a piece of paper with my number.
    I want to follow it up with something
like, “call me if you need anything, call in case of murder, or theft.” But I decide
to let her be. I know she’ll call under any circumstance. I pick up my Prada
with two hands.
    We hug and I clink down the steps.
    I get in my car and quickly lock the doors,
then place my hands on the steering wheel and stare ahead. The lump in my
throat is getting bigger by the second. My eyes tear up and I squeeze the vinyl
wheel. All my surroundings are seeping with memories I’ve been trying to
forget.
    I remember walking up this street with
the police, the sound when they knocked on Aunt Grace’s door, and her arms wrapped
around me the way she did that day. I remember being scared, the same kind of
scared I feel right now.
    Slowly I get myself together.
    “Okay, you can do this,” I tell myself,
looking at my reflection in the mirror. I put the car in drive, and go north,
resisting the urge to drive back to Chicago.
    I do a double take in the rearview
mirror at the lit up city behind me. I’ve forgotten how pretty the Cincinnati
skyline is. So different from Chicago. Much tighter and