Free Panic Attack by Jason Starr

her so badly, getting her so sick and ruining her whole life.
A few times, she was about to call him on his cell, but each time she stopped herself at the last second. She knew if he was going to steal from her, he wouldn’t answer his phone when she called, and she was still hoping she was wrong, that something happened, like he didn’t have a chance to get to a phone yet to call her, and everything would turn out okay.
Then, at five in the morning, she was still in the living room, waiting for the phone to ring, when Manuela came out and said, “ Mami, what’s wrong?”
“I just been worried about your abuelo, ” Gabriela said.
“I thought you said God was gonna save him?”
“I don’t know anymore, baby,” Gabriela said. “Maybe God’s too busy today.”
Gabriela made Manuela breakfast and lunch, then kissed her good- bye. She was so glad she had such a beautiful daughter, and she knew if it wasn’t for her daughter she probably would have killed herself a long time ago.
Manuela went back to sleep, and Gabriela turned on the TV, just to keep her mind busy. She watched Cada Día on Telemundo for a while and then switched to an English news channel, hoping to find out something about the robbery. She didn’t think there’d really be anything about it on TV, she thought she was just being crazy, so she couldn’t believe it when she saw the reporter standing in front of the Blooms’ house.
It was very hard to understand what was going on. Not because her English wasn’t good enough— she didn’t speak fluent but she could usually understand most of the news on the TV— but because she didn’t believe that a house getting robbed was such a big news story, on the TV news, it just didn’t make any sense. But then she heard what the lady was saying, how one of the men who’d broken into the house had been shot and killed by Adam Bloom. Mr. Bloom himself was on TV, talking about why he used his gun. Gabriela still couldn’t believe it— she thought she had to be asleep, having a bad dream. Then she heard the reporter saying,“Police are identifying the dead man as thirty- six- year- old Carlos Sanchez of Queens.”
Sitting on the couch, she stared at the TV for a long time— maybe for seconds or minutes or hours, she had no idea. Finally she was able to think. She couldn’t understand how this could have happened. The Blooms were supposed to go away; the house was supposed to be empty. And why did Mr. Bloom shoot Carlos? She knew he had a gun— she’d seen it in his bedroom closet when she was cleaning, and sometimes he even left it out on the little table near his bed— but she couldn’t imagine that kind man killing somebody even if his house was being robbed. It just didn’t make any sense.
Then it hit her, what this really meant, and she started crying like she was at a funeral, but she wasn’t crying for Carlos. She didn’t go to church very much lately, but she still believed in Jesus Christ and that even bad people like Carlos had some good in them somewhere. But she still couldn’t feel bad that Carlos was dead, not after all the bad things he had done to her. The one she was crying for was her papi . Carlos wasn’t the only man Mr. Bloom had killed with his gun, because now her papi was going to die, too.
Gabriela was still sitting on the couch crying when Beatrice called and said, “Did you hear what happened at the Blooms’ house last night?” Beatrice said she was in Forest Hills, at work in another house, and everybody was talking about it.
“Yes, I saw it on the news,” Gabriela said.
“The guy who was killed,” Beatrice said. “They said his name is Carlos, Carlos Sanchez. It’s not your old boyfriend Carlos, is it?”
“Don’t tell anybody you know that,” Gabriela said. “Please.”
“Why?” Beatrice asked. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Gabriela said.“I just don’t want the police coming, asking me questions, when I’m so worried about Papi .”
“You okay?” Beatrice asked. “You don’t sound good. I’m worried