Cape May

The Beginning

"Bobbeeee, take care of your sister." came the shrill voice of my mother as her words traveled through the summer wind and onto my young ears. For all of my short ten years on this earth, I, Robert Joel Maldonado was burdened with the task of being my little sister's babysitter, her protector, to always look out for her.

Her name is Monica, Monica Gabriela Maldonado, but everyone just calls her Gabby. When she was born, Monica almost died from some sort of complications. After a scary three weeks of intensive neonatal care, she started to improve and after another three weeks was allowed to be taken home. Mommy was so moved that she called her, her miracle baby, and gave her the middle name, 'Gabriela,' which means 'God gives strength' in Hebrew. And she believed God gave her miracle child the strength to live. And so, from that day on, she started calling her Gabriela, which of course, after a while just became Gabby.

Gabby was my mother's miracle child. To me, she was my pain in the ass. That's English for 'pain in the ass.' Not only did she get better, but she also developed into a tomboy, troublemaker, make her brother suffer miracle baby. By five, she knew she could do no wrong by mommy. So, when she was running around the garden, making like she was princess Leah and knocked over mommy's favorite 6-foot vase with the exotic Drangelia plant, mommy took it out on me. She let me know to no end that if I had been more vigilant with my delicate little sister, that that would not have ever happened.

And God forgive her for the whuppin she would have given me if that heavy vase had fallen on her little miracle angel.

Of course, none of this went unnoticed by our little miracle child.

I did not know back then that children cannot be treated as adults in our justice system. And lucky for her I didn't, otherwise she would have been long gone from this earth and this story would never had been told.

So, my mother's command of, 'take care of your sister,' as it floated through the summer wind reaching my ears affected me much in the same way as a hummingbird is affected by flapping it's wings one more time: it's just another flap. And as I entered the waters of Cape May, where we spent every summer since I was six, with miracle Monica in tow, I replied automatically "I got her mommy," loud enough for her to hear, but not loud enough for the entire beach to hear. After all, I did not need the entire world to know I was my sister's babysitter.

And there was another thing, which aggravated my mother to no end. Gabby and me were always fighting. Us two could never see eye to eye. And she loved telling on me just for the hell of it and getting into trouble just so I could get blamed for it.

"Mommmeeeeee, Bobby's drinking out the milk container!!

Suddenly, as if a hurricane had broken into our home, from the living room, came a force of nature. A voice permeated the air, so strong, so threatening it brought tremors to my limbs for mommy was unpredictable.

"Bobby, what have I told you about drinking from the container. Use a freaking glass. You have any idea how many germs you're putting into the milk. Germs ..." the voice got louder and louder as my mother entered the kitchen. Bobby, don't you know any better?" Why are you such a problem? My God Robert Joel, why can't you be more like your sister?"

As I stood there, as I had a thousand times before, mommy cut me to the short, making me the most terrible, horrible person on this earth, for drinking milk from the container.

All this time Gabby, Monica, miracle child or whatever the heck you want to call her, stood on the other side of the kitchen island smiling at me. It really was a good thing mommy was there because it was all I could do from reaching out and wrapping my hands around her neck and squeezing, squeezing, very hard.