The Fugitive Grandma Lives

Chapter 3 - Living and Surviving

"This is serious stuff, Johnny," Stella Valentine continued. "The Feds and the cops could be snooping around every corner. They could be reading your emails on the Internet. That's we got to keep on the low down. We can never talk about what we did. We can never use our real names outside this home. We're in survival mode."

Home was now a hot, dusty three-bedroom-apartment apartment with peeling paint and a ragged carpet on the outskirts of Palm Valley. It was the kind of weather where you worried there may not be enough water in the world to quench your thirst. Through the thin walls of the living room, Johnny could hear customers arguing at the gas station next door about who was next in line for the pump.

"But you told me we was never the surviving types, Grandma," Johnny complained. "We were the ones who want to do better than that."

"I know, Johnny," Stella said. In spite of the fact that she told him he wasn't Johnny she couldn't help but call him Johnny when they were inside the home. "It's hard keeping our heads down like this. You and me are fighters and we don't like to take no bull. But if they find out who we are we're going to prison. They'll tear this family apart and lock us up for years. They'll shut you behind bars like your life ain't worth nothing. I don't want that for you. I don't want that for your father."

"I don't want to go to prison either, Grandma. But it seems like it ain't right living under fake names, pretending to be someone else for the rest of our lives."

"I know it is hard. We had one heckuva adventure. But you can't always be the stormin' the barricades."

Right then his grandma started coughing violently. She shook so hard, she almost fell off the sofa. Johnny raced to get her a glass of water and then he held her tight.

"You OK, Grandma?"

"Yeah," she said with a gulp of water. Her face was pale, her eyes wide and glistening with tears. She patted him with trembling fingers. "I better go take my medicine."

He helped her to her feet and she waved him away, moving slowly towards the bathroom where she kept the Helixin, the cancer therapy medicine they stole from Great American's supply warehouse.

"Don't worry, Johnny. I'll be OK."

Johnny was worried. The way things were going, she was not going to be OK. And he knew the reason. She was dying because she couldn't be her true self. She was forced to live like a phony and that was no life at all.