January 1st 1942

"And?" Mama asked when the door slammed behind Sammy. The little ones weren't swarming around him, so she must have told them something about leaving him alone, which he appreciated.

"No luck?" Mama asked again when Sammy was quiet. He dropped on the nearest couch.

He'd taken to the habit of sneaking into Hazel's old apartment day after day to see if there was anything to see. He climbed up the wall in the back using some very thin footholds in the form of a bad brick job, and the gutter. He got to the window, looked inside, squinted, saw nothing, and then went back down. He hadn't missed the ritual for a day. Not Christmas, not New Year's, he wouldn't miss it if the apocalypse happened right there and then. He'd push the falling sky right off his head and climb that goddamned gutter.

Mama walked into the living room and sat next to him.

"Sammy, mijo, we've known for a long time that her mother wasn't… well, wasn't completely… not a very good…"

"Stop," he said. His voice was scrappy and choked, like metal grinding against metal.

"Oh, Sammy…" Mama said. "I know that you're scared and I know that you want to know where Hazel is and how you can talk to her and help her out."

"You think she needs help?" Sammy asked.

"You do," Mama said. "No other reason you'd be sleeping as badly as you are. Anywho mijo, you can't. She's a friend who moved away. You can't keep going back to her house like that."

"But you can keep looking for Dad whenever we're out in public?" He snapped.

Mama froze. "Sammy Michael-"

"Sorry Mama," Sammy said getting up and storming out, back upstairs to the room he shared with Steve. "I just thought that maybe you'd understand out of all people."

Dearest Anza,

The best kind of advice is the one that you completely refuse to listen to at first. The kind you discard and yell at and totally hate when you hear it for the first time. The kind that makes you hate the person who said it- the one who dared bring the idea into the light.

But Anza, I tell you, it's the best advice because it's the one you desperately need to start your life again and live normally once more. I didn't know that when my mother told me that at age fifteen, and I didn't want to even think about accepting her advice at age fifteen. And I guess, in a way, I never really did because Hazel was never really the friend who moved away for me. She was always Hazel who moved away, and that I think you understand because you must've felt that way when you lost your bebito's father.

Now you also know why I was so mad when I heard that Leo wasn't going to have a father around. You told me that he'd come around when Leo needed him and that this was arranged and agreed with between the two of you- and I believed every word you told me on the matter, Anza. I really did. But I hate people who walk out of things, no matter what that thing is- family, work, promise... And I've dealt with one of every kind.

Now you understand why I wanted to be a good bisabuelo, why I was so protective of you when you told the family Leo was coming. You might also understand why I was mad at myself every time I got hospitalised.

Sammy