MS. CRUZ WAS SCOURING the room for another cigarette. Finding them among debris on the floor, she began to pat herself down, looking for her lighter. She found it and placed a cigarette in her mouth. She hadn’t noticed the smell of gas vapors from the kitchen stove that filtered the air. She was too drunk with anger at her daughter and herself. She flicked the lighter and its flame became a fireball.

GLORIA WALKED IN A DAZE, unaware of anyone or anything on the mean streets of North Philly. The people and places she passed on the way home were a blur to her. She looked at nothing and no one. She tried to visualize aiming a gun at her mother but couldn’t. She didn’t know what she was going to do next. She just knew she had to keep Green Eyes and her mother apart.

People in the neighborhood thought that another bombing incident had occurred. The sight of fire and smoke took them back to the time when the Philadelphia city government bombed the headquarters of MOVE, an African-American organization of militants. The explosion and the fire it caused wiped out an entire city block, causing loss of life and property damage in the millions.

GREEN EYES WAS NOW all Gloria had left and life with him became a living hell. Now he beat on her. It didn’t matter to him that she was pregnant. He forgot that he was ready to kill Gloria’s mother because she had beaten the girl.

She told herself that this was God’s punishment of her. She didn’t have other friends or family to turn to. She tried to accept her fate. Green Eyes came in one day, mad because of a hustle and stomped on her stomach. She ended up in the hospital. The kick triggered her to hemorrhage. She lost the baby that day. Green Eyes picked her up from the hospital with plenty of “I’m sorry” on his tongue. He tried to hug up on her and said everything’s going to be alright. But she knew that nothing about the situation was nice. She couldn’t take the sight of him anymore. Like a thief in the night, she snuck out the house and vanished into the night … She took with her only the clothes on her back.

Life on the street was rough, but it was better than living with him. She slept on the steps of a church for a few nights until the police took notice. She had to sleep with one eye open and one eye closed. But that was better than being a human punching bag. As fate would have it, one night while roaming the Greyhound bus station in Center City, Gloria would meet someone who would change her life forever.