Growing up in the Bronx on Jerome Avenue by Fordham Road, Alicia was the type of Puerto Rican girl who believed that life is what you make of it. She was raised by her mother Mariposa who had been abandoned by Alicia’s father when she was just a baby.She had never seen him, not even so much as a picture. Her mother had destroyed them all. She slowly realized the only person she could count on was herself. Her mother worked at Caridad restaurant in the Bronx as a waitress from 9-5 every single day. It gave Alicia the liberty to have no rules to follow and to be on the street doing as she pleased.
The Bronx, a hard place to adjust for some because of all it’s diversity and crowded neighborhoods, Alicia knew how to roam its streets well and was nicknamed “Street” by her friends. However, Alicia was in her fourth year of high school and loving it. She had come to the conclusion that she wasn’t going to end up like her mother with a low wage job and a husband who she needed the most. After school she would go to the Girls & Boys Club for swimming and basketball sessions and even tutoring for her homework. For the most part she kept out of trouble.
In her short life so far she was learning that there were nobody except herself to depend on to get educated and move forward. Eventually as with most young girls, hormones took over and she fell in love for the very first time with an older man whom she had met several times while trekking up to her Cousin Mimi’s apartment in East Harlem on 116th Street and Lexington Avenue. His name was Tony and he was a good looking cat from Ponce, Puerto Rico. He had a really thick accent that at times you couldn’t hardly understand him, but Alicia loved the fact that he was very “young minded” despite the nineteen year age difference between them. She also decided she did not care about the age difference; he gave her love that she did get from her mother who was always too busy with this or with that.
Being an only child she could love just herself for a long time and now having someone else to love and give her attention made her feel stronger, but very weak in the knees whenever he was near her. They grew to care deeply for each other and in return it gave Alicia the companionship she had been seeking. Eventually Alicia did lose her virginity to him and of course kept it a secret from her mother. Her mother, though absent, was still very strict about allowing Alicia to date. Her mother did not want her to date. Her mother did not want her daughter to get her heart broken in a million pieces as it had happened to her so many years ago when Alicia was born.
Alicia eventually finished High School with full honors and was accepted to all colleges she had applied to, including NYU. Her mother on the other hand thought it was ridiculous to spend money on a degree and not benefit from it for many years. Though Alicia had done well in school, she had not qualified for enough scholarship money and hated it even more that she was now being belittled by her mother about wanting to attend college. Again, she was starting to feel she was on her own. Tony had always wanted to do something great with his life, but his past was filled with terrible, dark things and now Alicia was his chance to make something right. But then, in that first year of Alicia attending college she got pregnant. She could not dorm at NYU because it was simply too expensive and she still lived with her mother. She realized she could not hide this from her mother much longer and decided it was time to introduce him to her, for better, or for worse.
Before she could do this however, she came home on day only to find Tony already was in her apartment talking to her mother. To say she was shocked, confused, and beyond angry were all understatements of whelming proportions. Her plan had been shattered and she was going to find out how and why he had arrived at her apartment. Alicia’s mother was just coming out of the bathroom and her daughter staring dumbly at Tony, and she was still unable to speak yet.
Her mother walked towards her gently, with a mix of anger and concern in her eyes, but Alicia could see the anger was not intended for her this time. “Mi’ja, I need to explain to you who this man is.” She then looked back at Tony, and then Alicia again.
“Ali, how do I explain all this…?” her mother swallowed and fought back tears. Alicia then listened as her mother began to tell her terrible things about this man who Alicia had fallen in love with, the dark things.
Still confused and gasping for breath she said “Mom, I don’t get it, I don’t understand, how can you speak about him that way, have you met him before?”
“I do know him Ali; he is the type that will walk out of your life!”
“No, no you don’t, he’s been there to show me the type of life you, or father never knew, but he has shown me. Just stop…just shut up…”
Her mother stared back at her incredulously, the words coming next from her lips coming in a distant tremble:
“Ali, this man is your father!”
Tony staggered back, his hand clutching his chest for air as the words came from Mariposa’s lips… his daughter, his daughter, Alicia was his daughter… how-the baby-god, the baby…
Her mother stared as both of them deeply confused herself, and then a dark cloud of realization moved across her face and her heart began to pound. Alicia stared back, heartbroken and disgusted…
My life will never be the same, she thought; how will she ever explain this to anyone?
She bolted from the apartment as quickly as possible and ran and ran and ran, ran till she couldn’t run anymore, racing with the moon all the way up Fordham and Jerome, till she was a tiny figure in the distance, as the letter O.