Sabrina & Corina: Stories

A young woman named Nicole, who goes by Cole, narrates this story. She tells us: “When my nephew Tomi was a baby, I stole the thousand dollars his mother, Natalie, kept in her closet” (140). Cole immediately spent the money on alcohol and clothes. Although Cole was never proven to be the thief, Natalie suspected her of being the guilty party ever since the incident. Cole’s brother, Manny, insisted on Cole’s innocence.

Six years after this, Cole “stole a ‘94 Honda Civic and drove head-on into an elderly couple’s picture window at four in the morning” (140). Cole was then sent to La Vista Correctional Facility, located in Pueblo, Colorado. During her time there, her family rarely called her and did not visit her.

Cole has been released early on the condition that she finds employment and housing for herself. She had been planning on relocating into a halfway house when Manny called her to tell her that she could come live with him and Tomi. When Cole asked Manny if Natalie would be angry with this arrangement, Manny told her that Cole had moved out and abandoned the family. Manny also told Cole that he was taking her in because they were family, but warned her not to “fuck up this time” (141).

Cole reflects, “When he was twenty-one and I was fifteen, Manny inherited our family home after our father died of a heart attack, while shampooing his hair. Our mother was already long dead. When I was very little she swallowed an entire bottle of painkillers” (141). Gentrification in the area reminds Cole of tornadoes, as it “[demolishes] one block while casually leaving another intact. [Her] block, Vallejo Street, [has become] unrecognizable” (142).

When Manny arrives to pick up Cole from La Vista, he immediately comments on her weight loss: “Yeah, prison don’t have any Bud Light,” Cole replies (140). In the car, Cole asks about how Mammy is doing: “I don’t know. Sad. […] He’s failing a class called Read and Relax. You tell me how a person fails to read and relax,” Manny answers (142).

When Manny and Cole arrive at the house, Cole notices that a glass high-rise building has been constructed to replace a nearby empty warehouse. Manny complains that the new building blocks his view of the stadium, and has heightened property taxes: “But we were here first. I’ll be damned before I move to the suburbs,” he says (143).

Inside, Cole finds Manny absorbed in a violent video game. He must be goaded by his father to give Cole a proper greeting. Manny then shows Cole where she’ll be staying—the same window-free basement that she was living in prior to her incarceration. Manny also tells her that there aren’t any pillows in the house, because Natalie took them all when she left. He hasn’t replaced them on the principle that Natalie was wrong for taking them. Cole settles into a nap.

When Cole awakens, she goes upstairs to engage her nephew in conversation. She then invites Manny to turn down the volume on his game, Call of Duty, and read a book. After sipping on Sunny Delight and grabbing some Gushers from the kitchen, Manny tells his aunt that she shouldn’t be napping in the afternoon—because “Only bums do that” (145).

The following morning, Cole speaks with her parole officer on the phone. The officer tells her that she must begin to make job contacts immediately. Cole intimates that the enrichment classes she took while incarcerated gave her some pleasure and piqued some interests for her future. She writes, “I also loved biographies, especially about women inventors, like Bette Graham who came up with white-out. I thought maybe I could do something like that—come up with my own inventions, but after I got out, I knew no one would have enough faith in me” (145).

Cole goes into a tea shop to inquire about any open positions. When the manager asks if she has any experience with tea and Cole answers, “Oh yes […] I can steep the shit out of a tea bag” (146), she is summarily told that there are no open positions.

Cole then returns to the house and begins talking to Tomi once more: “You used to be a fat goth cokehead,” he tells her (146). Cole replies:

Let’s get something straight, Tomás Manuel Morales. One, I was not goth. I just liked purple lip liner. Two, I wasn’t that fat. And three, I wasn’t a cokehead. If I was, I would have been skinny. Everybody knows that (146).

On Saturday, Cole and Manny have another conversation. Cole brings up her concern that Tomi is playing video games too much. Manny tells her that Tomi has been going through a lot recently, and that video games are a helpful outlet or relief: “Let the boy be,” he says (147). Cole asks if Natalie ever comes to see Tomi, and Manny says that she does not: “Honestly, I never liked Natalie. She’s a selfish bitch” Cole confesses (147): “Don’t call my son’s mother a bitch,” Manny replies (147).

On another day, Cole convinces Manny to join her on a trip to the bookstore. While there, Tomi asks Cole which room was hers when she lived in the house. He refers to a room in the house that is no longer used, because it is the room where Cole’s father collapsed while taking a shower and where her mother went to sleep—never to awaken: “No one stayed in that room anymore. There were too many ghosts,” Cole says (149). She tells Tomi that her room was his.

Tomi talks to Cole about his mother: “She’s with her new boyfriend, Ronald. She tried to take me over there, but I hated it. He smells like a ferret and he’s really into Frisbee golf,” he says (150). He also finds a book that catches his eye. It’s the first book of a series called Azteca Moonrise: “The cover image [is] of an exceptionally suntanned warrior descending a volcano as the thrust the bloody heart of a sacrificial victim in the air” (151). Tomi finds the books to be “badass” (151). During the next few days, Cole spends some time sitting and reading Azteca Moonrise with Tomi. She notices that Tomi is a troublingly slow reader. She goes online to research reading strategies including visualization and annotation. After a few weeks of practicing these strategies with Tomi, she sees him make some improvement.

One day, Manny comes home with a bottle of liquor and two shot glasses. Cole reminds him that, as a condition of her release, her probation officer, Charlie Mae, can stop by at any time to see if she is abiding by the conditions of her release, including the rule that no alcohol or contraband is allowed in her residence. He eventually convinces Cole to join him. He wants to reminisce about the past. As they talk about old memories, Cole tells him that she is worried about Tomi: “I think he has a problem. A reading problem,” she says (153): “He’s eleven and doesn’t like to read. It’s normal,” Manny replies (153). Cole corrects him, reminding him that Tomi is actually ten. Cole also asks her brother why he did not visit her while she was incarcerated: “I didn’t want to see you in a place like that,” he answers (153).

When Tomi and Cole finish reading the first book of Azteca Moonrise, Tomi asks Cole to bring him back to the bookstore to get the second book in the series. As Cole does not have the money to spend on the second book, she and Tomi ride the bus to the library. On the way there, they pass a house that Tomi says in the one in which his mother now lives: “The house [has] a three-car garage and a basketball hoop beneath an American flag,” and Cole expresses her doubt that that is indeed where Natalie is now living (154). However, when they see Natalie’s car pull into the driveway, it can’t be denied.

While in the library, Tomi slips away from Cole when she goes to inquire about the second book of the Azteca Moonrise. Cole panics and runs around the library, trying to find him and yelling out his name. She then intuits that he has gone to Natalie’s home.

Cole goes to the house that Tomi pointed out during the bus ride to the library. A “middle-aged white woman […] in hiking clothes” answers the door (158). Natalie and her boyfriend actually live in the back, in the woman’s guesthouse. Although she lets Cole in, she does so with a scornful attitude.

When Cole goes into the backyard, she finds Manny already there, arguing with Natalie. In Cole’s words, Natalie’s boyfriend silently watches the conflict “like some shitty owl” (158). Cole also notices that Natalie has dyed her hair a caramel-blond color and has lost weight: “You let some ex-con watch Tomi,” Natalie says to Manny (159). She then addresses Cole directly, saying “You’re a worthless piece of shit Nicole. Do not take my son anywhere again” (159). Cole begins to laugh, and sarcastically asks, “Where would I take him? To visit you? […] You left here to live with your ugly-ass boyfriend who smells like a ferret?” (159).

Natalie then punches Cole in the mouth: “You hit her,” Tomi shouts (159). Cole looks over at the boy and sees “how sad and small he [is]” (159). She then wonders what on earth the adults are actually doing, while taking stock of the chaos of the situation. Natalie then threatens to call the police if Cole retaliates, but Manny quickly collects Tomi and announces that they are leaving. In Manny’s pickup truck, Cole reflects on Natalie: “I knew she was embarrassed by herself, and had been her whole life. She’d always feel like that brown girl from the Northside with a baby at seventeen, living in her husband’s decrepit house. I thought of something my father used to say in Spanish, You cannot straighten the trunk of a crooked tree,” Cole says (160).

Back at home, in conversation with Manny, Cole tries to explain how the situation at Natalie’s house happened. She breaks down in tears, asserting that she feels that there is something fundamentally wrong with her—that she always brings harm to her family. Manny kindly tells her that there is nothing wrong with her, and that he is going to help her find a job. He also apologizes for never visiting her in prison. He also tells her that she is doing a much better job with her life now.

Cole retreats into the basement to continue crying. Tomi soon joins her. They sit in silence for a while, and then Tomi puts something on the bed. It’s a pillow: “You’ve had them the whole time?” Cole asks (162). Tomi, on his way back upstairs, pauses: “Why? […] Do you need another one?” he asks (162).