Free This Side of Providence by Rachel M. Harper

think that’s why Mami’s so hard on her. She must look at Luz and think no matter how far she goes, she’s never gonna really get away from him.
    I still call her a baby but Trini is three already and she’s the happiest little kid you ever seen. She laughs all the time, like she’s always telling herself jokes, and she’s got these great dimples when she smiles. She’s too old for a crib, but when we moved her into Luz’s bed when she was two she kept climbing back in during the night, even though we were using it as a laundry hamper. Eventually we gave up and put her back in the crib. Her hair is so light it’s almost blond in the summer and she has a voice just like a bird. She’s half Puerto Rican and half question mark because her father don’t know where he comes from. Scottie calls himself a mutt, which is what the nuns at the orphanage used to call him and his sister after their parents died in a house fire. He says he don’t look like anything but I think he looks like everything. If he changed his accent he could convince you he was from a dozen different countries. He says that’s a pain in the ass but to me it seems like fun. Almost like wearing a mask on Halloween—you could be anybody.
    When Lucho gets home I turn off the TV and pretend to be reading a book. She walks by me without saying anything and heads to the kitchen. From the doorway I watch her unloada bag of groceries straight into the fridge: a six-pack of beer, three types of milk—regular, chocolate, and coffee—juice boxes, peanut butter, eggs, frozen waffles, cheese, and mayonnaise. Then she puts a few cans of beans, two boxes of cold cereal, a bunch of bananas, and some crackers in the cupboard. She tosses a bag of white bread onto the table and walks out of the room, leaving a trail of aftershave behind her.
    What I like about Lucho is that she don’t yell; the downside is she sometimes don’t talk for days. That kind of silence scares me more than yelling does. Her other problem? She disappears. Just leaves for work in the morning and we don’t hear from her for the rest of the weekend. But she always comes back, that’s the important thing. She used to do the same thing when Mami was here, something about her needing to breathe different air. At least that’s what Mami told me the first time she left.
    She also told me Lucho’s not just her friend. She’s her girlfriend, just like Krystal and me. The men on the corner say it’s wrong because somebody has to be the man, but all you gotta do is look at Mami to see that she’s happier with Lucho than when Scottie was living with us. When Lucho first started coming over I used to walk into the living room and find them sitting on the couch just looking at each other. The TV was off and they weren’t even talking. Mami would smile at me and then go back to looking at Lucho. Luz told me she read in a book that when people are in love they don’t have to talk, they just sit and stare at each other and it makes them feel better. I guess I never been in love ’cause I don’t ever feel better just by staring at a girl.
    I’m sitting at the kitchen table cutting coupons out of a flyer from Star Market when Lucho walks back into the kitchen. She’s out of her jumpsuit from work and has on the white tank top and jeans she usually wears. Her hair is cut short and combed straight back so if you didn’t notice the sports bra that flattens her chest you might guess she was a man. Sometimes I think she wants people to think that. She sits down in a chair across from me and peels a banana, giving me half.
    â€œYou seen your sisters?”
    â€œThey’re still next door, I think.” I stare at the tattoo of two masks on her arm: one happy, one sad. When I asked her about it once she said, “My two faces—never know which one you’re gonna get.”
    â€œAin’t