Re-corrected the last chapter. Thanks to LiveFreeDieWell. :) You're a lifesaver.

Dawn wouldn't stop crying. For long periods of time, she seemed to just cry and scream like she was in total discomfort. She would flail her arms around around and clench her fist really tight. Plus she was really gassy. It was gross but true. However the true suffers in this tragic tale is not my little girl. It has to be myself and my old man Tig. We should have called our mothers because more than likely they would know what to do, however we are too stubborn.

Mama was raised in a huge family. She was the middle child out of twelve and Charlotte raised half of her cousins and had an adopted baby brother at thirteen which she mostly raised. Not to mention they both had kids of their own. Sure it had been a few years but I know baby problems don't change that much. Despite this Tig and I were determined to make it on our own. Boy, was that a mistake. We had no idea what was wrong with her. When she was asleep we got maybe an hour or two of sleep of our own and then she woke up there was nothing but crying in the house. Not just from Dawn but from me as well. I felt like such a horrible mother. I couldn't even figure out what was wrong with my kid.

The other half of my crying was out of frustration. I could barely hold her anymore because I just wanted to shake the hell out of her. However even though I was mostly the one taking care of the Crying Princess, Tig was also getting the brunt of it as well. I even saw him tear up a few times when his sleep was disturbed. After nearly a week of taking this bullshit, I gave up and put her in her crib and let her cry.

After I made eggs, and pancakes for Tig's breakfast, I sat at the dining room table and suddenly a small salty tear crept down my cheek and then out came the many tears that followed from that loner tear. Soon I was balling my eyes out in my hands. Nothing in this entire world made me cry hard enough than my daughter. I wished she would just stop crying or at least tell me what's wrong. Of course I know this is impossible, but it would have been nice. After several minutes of emotional distress, the doorbell rang. I took in a few breaths to calm my nerves then said in a hidden shaky voice. "It's open." Even though I did try to cover up the problem I don't think I did a good job.

Anna Mae walked in, her heels clicking on the floor getting louder as she reached me. She had a bag of the baby food she got for us, and placed it on the floor. "Hey boo." She looked into my eyes and saw the tears that had been falling down my face. She wrapped her arms around me and kissed my moist cheek. "Sssh." She said. "It will get better my Rican teddy bear."

"We're horrible parents aren't we?" I said, in a shaky breath. Anna Mae shook her head. "No, no, no. Dawn is probably just cranky. It will get better. You both are great parents." She thought for a second and then said. "Well maybe you are a good parent."

"We're a wreck. I have barely slept in a week." I said, wiping my nose on my sweatshirt sleeve. "And Tig is delirious."

"Yeah I heard." Anna Mae said. "He fell asleep in church yesterday."

"He did?" I asked looking up at her.

Anna Mae nodded. "Apparently his eyes were open so Clay and the others didn't know right away. When Clay hit him on the arm Tig nearly jumped out of his chair. He's catching some Z's in some of the cars with the comfy back seats I heard too. "

I shook my head. He's been saying some really ridiculous stuff anyway. Like that he was the King of France and that SAMCRO was part of the Communist dynasty. If I hadn't been so tired and irritable I would've cared that he hasn't brushed his hair in nearly a week or left the house without a shirt on. However my exhaustion drained my care. Goddamn, I was a bad old lady and mother.

"Maybe we should call both of your moms." Anna Mae said stroking through my hair. I rather if she didn't because I hadn't cleaned my hair and nearly a week and it was starting to get greasy, but I don't think Anna Mae cared. I shook my head so hard that the room started to spin but I didn't care. "No. Tig and I can make it on our own. We're fine don't you worry about us."

Just as I said that Tig walked downstairs. He looked more like he had been through a war than a hour of sleep. His hair was tangled and wilder than usual, and his eyes had dark circles under them which looked even darker because of the red in his eyes. His shirt was half buttoned and he was wearing one boot. However what really stood out was the fact that he wasn't wearing any pants. "No time to eat." he said. "I got to go school."

"Honey." I said, my head turning as he walked towards the front door. "You have to go to work."

"I know that!" Tig snapped. "Isn't that what I just said. Jesus!" He slowly made his way towards the door. Poor thing hadn't gotten a decent nights sleep in a week. He was slowly dragging himself to shit. Anna Mae frowned and said. "Um, Tig? Aren't you forgetting something." she said noticing his missing pants.

"Oh." Tig said turning around and walking back towards us. he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Sorry mom. Bye." I barely looked at what he did. Normally I would be shocked but I was too emotional. The last thing I cared about was what was going on around me.

"Okay." Anna Mae said, unwrapping her arms from around my shoulders and walking to the nearest phone she could find. "That's it. I'm calling your parents. How can you take care of a kid when you're half way crazy?."

Tig wandered around the room, taking a interest in anything that looked well interesting. He would look at the pictures hanging on the wall then move on to stare at something really shiny in the dish washer. I shook my head at him, but I was too tired to steer him in the other direction. "Tig?" I asked. He wandered around some more before looking back up at me. "Hmm?"

"Do you want breakfast?" I asked pointing to his plate at the table. He looked at it and frowned. "Is that breakfast?" he asked. I nodded. He wandered over to it and stared at it with a half crazy smile on his face, and he started to laugh. "Look Apples!" he said. "It's so bright. Like sunshine in a pan."

"It's a plate darling." I said rubbing my red weary eyes.

"Whatever!" Tig snapped slamming his fist on the oven. Tig was one who needed eight hours of sleep at least. If he didn't he would become a different person. Quick tempered and everything. Everything seemed to settle down for a bit, then all hell broke loose. Dawn started to cry, but this time it was more like a scream. Tig slammed his head down on the table. "Oh god." he muttered.

I started to tear up again. Anna Mae shook her head and finally had enough of watching Tig and I slowly unravel. "Who has the most experience?" Anna Mae asked, when she pointed to me. "Probably yours. She had two."

"Get her to shut up!" Tig screamed. I wasn't sure if he was yelling about Dawn or yelling about Anna Mae. Either way I think Dawn was lucky she was Tig's daughter because if she wasn't he probably would've broken her neck. As for myself, I had about enough. I got up from my seat and walked up the stairs to Dawn's room. I was face to face with the dreaded purple room, where I heard nothing but screams coming from past the threshold. I touched the gold knob of her door and closed it until I couldn't hear anything but a blurred scream of my daughter. It hurt my heart to ignore my baby, but what was I to do? As I walked away from my kids bedroom, I heard Tig doing something awful in the kitchen. He was probably banging pots together to keep the sound of Dawn crying to keep disturbing his thoughts. I think bordering when you're bordering on the line of madness even the stupidest things seem to make sense.

Writers always preach about the disembodiment of society and it's morals in desperate times. These times usually occur during a natural disaster, a crisis, or an apocalypse. Well, with the lack of sleep from Tig, I think he was starting to become as mad as a hatter. I'll be honest Squeaky Fromme has a better grip on reality. Tig was cornering Anna Mae, looking just as crazy as he did when he fought Darby. The only thing is this wasn't for a good reason.

"Who are you calling?!" Tig exclaimed at her as he backed her into the wall. Anna Mae was so scared that she was trembling. Anna Mae was only two or three inches taller than me, and Tig still looked like a giant compared to her. Plus she knew exactly what he could do to a girl like her. "I-I-was-."

"You were what?!" Tig said his hands clenching and unclenching.

"Tig!" I said, taking his attention away from a frightened Anna Mae. His eyes were not as fierce anymore. In fact he seemed more calm than anything. Maybe perhaps a little too goofy.

"Yes?" he said, with a smile. I wasn't sure if it was a delirious smile or if it was truly sincere and to be frank I wasn't sure what he really was. I was having my own delusional issues at that point and time.

"Call my mom now." I said to Anna Mae. "Charlotte is almost an hour away and by then we could be dead." I said, turning on my heel and walking back upstairs to the bathroom to get some pills. It wasn't what I wanted to do but hell, a delusional Tig was not what the world needed. I searched through the cabinets and found the strongest sleeping pill I could find. That my friend was Ambien.

I used to take some so I could fall asleep before I was pregnant with Dawn. I had to stop because I would wake up on the floor with Tig by my side reading the twenty page letter I wrote to him the previous. All of it was pure nonsense. To this day I still couldn't remember writing it. Don't know why I still had it, I only hoped it wasn't that bad yet. It probably wasn't the best for him, but desperate times called for desperate measures. I took three pills which would knock him out for sure and gripped them tightly in my hand. As I stepped down from the last stair I looked around the corner for him. He was wandering around, staring at the picture. "Oh, Tig. Come here darling and take these." I said, giving him the pills.

"What's this?" he asked, looking at them.

"They're good pills. Kinda like...blue velvet. Or whatever." I said thinking of the first thing that came to mind. I had one piece of knowledge about Tig and that was his appetite for drugs. Everything from hardcore drugs to weed. I knew he had done just about everything and the curiosity of trying a drug that maybe he had or hadn't done was too much to bear. He quickly snatched them from me and washed it down with already open beer that was left on the corner. "Good boy." I said, smiling patting his cheeks like the good boy he was, as Anna Mae made the call to my mom. "Now go eat your breakfast." He sluggishly walked over to the plate I had made for him, picked it up and sat on the couch. "How is it?" I asked as he started to dig in.

"Good." he said, turning on the television, and turned it up even louder to drown out the sound of Dawn screaming at the top of her little lungs. Which was quite an accomplishment for one so small. We were watching a female lioness take down an antelope as it was frolicking through the grass. Poor thing. Just watching her suck the life out of that poor creature made me realize how much nature really sucks. "Aha!" Tig chuckled and pointed as he watched. "That's the way to do it. Aim for the goddamn throat!"

"Are you speaking from your vast knowledge or experience?" I asked, picking up the nail file I lost only a few months ago that was trapped under the couch.

"A bit of both." he said not taking his eyes off of the television. He stopped eating, closed one eye and then opened them back again. He put his plate down on the floor and leaned back watching the TV the lioness take her meal back to the other pack of other lions. The lions with blood all over their mouths and fur tore apart the poor antelope meal. Almost as soon as they ate it the vultures would eat the remains that the other lions didn't get to yet.

"That's you." I said pointing to a small vulture with a big head on the screen and laughing deliriously as I filed away at my nails. Tig shook his head and closed one eye and then opened it back again. "Nope, it's you." he said.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you're short." We both laughed. Every joke that he made at me was almost always about my height. Short old ladies get no goddamn respect. I didn't mind, everyone else think I'm cute.

Dawn's crying seemed to calm for a bit so maybe we could get some peace. I knew if I or Tig went into her room to try and comfort her one or both of us would probably have the urge to shake her out of it or hurt her. We both loved her dearly and would gladly die for her but we were at our wits end. As I watched the lioness I only imagined what the other old ladies would say if they found out I left my daughter in the room to cry. I figured if I stayed there and lost my mind and accidentally killed her there would be an uproar. If I left her alone like a sane woman there would be an uproar. I'm damned if I do, and I'm damned if I don't. This is the life. Tig picked up his plate again and started eating as he watched a frog hop around searching for food on the screen. "I used to have a frog, when I was younger." Tig said, in a calm tone and painfully slow.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yep." he said, nodding his head so much I thought it was going to fall off his neck. "It's name was Sir Hopper."

I chuckled a bit, and wiped a eye lash from my red eyes. Then suddenly his plate dropped to the floor and he fell on the arm of the couch, face first. He was already snoring just as he hit the arm. I put his legs up on the couch and wrapped a blanket around him. I kissed his forehead and whispered into his ear. "Sorry it was for your own good." While Tig slept off his insanity I told Anna Mae to call Clay and tell him that Tig can't make it in because if he doesn't get any sleep he'll run the risk of having a new nickname added onto his old one. I could see it being Tig The Homicidal Maniac. Or Tig the Mad Biker. I really do like the first one.

By the time Mama had got there, I was slowly starting to come out of my depressive state, and Dawn had started to settle down a bit. Maybe she got tired of screaming her head off, but before I knew it the doorbell rang three or four times in a fucking row. All I knew it had better been my mom and not a Son trying to figure out where the hell Tig is. Anna Mae answered the door and the four foot eleven inch tall woman zoomed right past her. "Where's my grand baby?" she asked in her thick Spanish accent. That meant she was nervous. I heard her voice and ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. I hadn't felt this way towards my Mama since the first day of grade school. Times like these makes you really appreciate your Mama. "Mama, I don't know what's wrong with her." I cried, my depression was coming back quicker and quicker. Mama kissed me on the forehead and said in Spanish. "Don't worry, baby." She patted my cheek. "Mama is going to take care of this. Tell me what's wrong with her."

Of course I responded to her back in Spanish. I rarely used this language tool. Only in desperate times. "She just won't stop crying. At night she's fine, but all day she keeps crying and crying and crying. Mama, I don't know what to do."

Mama nodded. "What you need is some rest." She held my hand firmly, her eyes reflected that maternal love that I only hoped my daughter would see in my eyes when she was old enough. She looked over my shoulder. Her eyes went from left to right. "Where's the buffoon?" she asked, with a hint of attitude. I hated when she talked about Tig. She had a slight on and off hatred with him. He was only her favorite person when he did something for her.

"He's sleeping. Believe me, he needed the sleep more than anyone. He almost flipped shit on Anna Mae."

Mama shook her head. "Well, let me see my grand baby. In the mean time you get some sleep. I don't care what it takes. I don't know how anyone can expect you to take care of a baby when you're half crazy and you look like hell."

Thanks Mom. Thanks, for telling me that I look like crap. Not that it mattered but still I wanted to have at least a little dignity left in me. I barely had the strength to drag myself to my bedroom where I collapsed on the bed. It felt so good to not have to worry about the baby. Only once in awhile was I awakened so I could breast feed Dawn. I didn't get the knowledge of what was going on with her until several hours later.

I walked down the hallway to Dawn's room where Mama was sitting in the purple rocking chair, swaying back and forth softly with Dawn held upright. Her little legs seem to move with Mama's humming. Every couple of minutes Mama would gently massage her stomach and around her ribs. When it seemed like Dawn was asleep Mama got up and placed Dawn back in her crib and kissed her goodnight. She didn't even realize I was watching her awhile, but then again maybe she did. Maybe she wanted me to learn by example.

Mama walked towards me and motioned me toward the living room where Tig was still passed out asleep. She closed Dawn's door behind her. "Cassius had colic when he was a baby. It was horrible. Thank god, your father knew doctors. I don't know how I would've gotten by." Mama headed to the living room chair and laying back in her seat. She exhaled with relief to be finally sitting down. I joined her in the chair opposite of her.

I nodded and smiled at her. "You're amazing Mama." I really meant that.

"I know." She turned to look at Tig who was snoring. "He's still out? What happened to him? He fall on his motorcycle and is in a coma?" She said that almost too gleefully.

"No mom." I said rolling my eyes and laying back in my chair. "I gave him sleeping pills."

Mama rolled her eyes and shook her head. I threw my arms up in the air. "What? He was going to make a permanent indent into Anna Mae's face I had to do something."

"Sleeping pills, though? How many?"

"Two or three." I muttered.

"Well, he's going to be out for awhile." Mama said not at all concerned about Tig's safety, but more about if he was going to be able to make that money for his family. She stretched her hair. "Might as well tell his friends that he won't be around tomorrow either. The after effects are the real killer."

I couldn't help but feel she was right.

What do you say people? More long chapters stick to short ones?