Amadeo has always considered his mother a professional, because she sits in a climate-controlled office all day and has a gaggle of work friends—“the girls”—but when he hears her praise Monica—her intelligence, her capability—he wonders if maybe she had other ambitions than being an administrative assistant. She loves her job, though, loves dressing up for work, loves the endless, breathless days of the legislative session.
Amadeo stretches in bed, remembering being a child, the comfort of being awake in the early morning, the sky outside still mysterious and dark, television news murmuring indistinctly from his mother’s bedroom. He would listen to her click around the kitchen in her work heels. Warm light spilled from her bedroom into the hall, fragrant steam from the shower. Amadeo would wait for her kiss, knowing that even as he reached his arms around her neck, he’d shrink from her coffee breath and the abrasive scent of her perfume.
Then she would pull away （heels muffled on the carpet, snapping free and sharp when she reached the linoleum）。 At the front door, there was always a pause, and a bright note of hope would ring in Amadeo’s chest, but no, she was only buttoning herself into her long coat. The jingle of keys and the sound of the lock turning, and then the car would start up, the headlights briefly brightening the edges of his bedroom curtains, and Amadeo would follow the sound of the car until he couldn’t any longer. Alone, with two hours before his own alarm would sound in the blue light of the house （Valerie already up and buttering his toast）， Amadeo would snuggle down into the blankets, trying to find that coziness, but it was gone, had left with his mother and was now speeding south toward Santa Fe.
These memories sting because that little boy was superior to the Amadeo now. That little boy thought he was going places.
Neither his mother nor Angel has mentioned the DWI. Still, when Amadeo thinks of it, he breaks into a full-body sweat, shame leaking out of him like effluent. And anger, too, because how hard would it have been for the cop to have been looking the other way? And how fucking stupid of Amadeo to have been speeding. He should have just pressed the fucking cruise control—it’s not even like he was weaving or anything. He got comparatively lucky: a six-month license suspension, community service, DWI school, at which they berate you for six straight hours and force you to watch gruesome movies about people killed by drunks. Amadeo doesn’t much relish the prospect of sitting in a classroom again at the community center with the other lowlifes.
He owes Tíve for bail and his mother for the fee to get his truck released from the impound lot, plus the fine and the cost of DWI school—the whole thing is outrageously expensive, and it strikes Amadeo as pretty shitty that the State of New Mexico thinks it can make money off people’s honest mistakes.
Nonetheless, this morning, after he hears his mother back down the dark driveway, he springs up—before his alarm, before Angel has stirred—and starts the coffee. He can’t help feeling hopeful, because he hasn’t had a drink in over a week, and because today’s the day his windshield repair kit will arrive.
Angel pinches the underside of her chin as she thinks. It’s Journaling Time, and Brianna has told them to make a list of things they each need to make their own and their babies’ lives better. The first few are easy.
1. GED OR high school diploma AND college degree
2. A godmother
3. A support system
4. A car
5. A driver’s license
6. A house
7. A job
Here Angel is stumped. If she got a job, who would take care of the baby? So she adds:
8. Free babysitter. A good one.
But there is no such thing, not really, not unless your mom or grandma doesn’t work. Even Angel knows that. Briefly she considers her father, then dismisses the thought.
Christy and Trinity are whispering. They are best friends and knew each other from before Smart Starts! “We got pregnant, like, the same month,” they’re always telling people, which is either a crazy fluke or an organizational feat. Both possibilities depress Angel.