Birthdays of a Princess Read Online Free PDF

hadn’t been on their priority list. And this
with a baby at home (second reason) which wasn’t even her home (third reason)
but belonged to my aunt. Get the drift?
    In that first year and for many years to come, Gracie was much more than
an aunt to me. She fed me, bathed me, sung me lullabies and took me for
stroller outings along the ocean front, next to the highway, where the noise of
the cars racing by gets lost in the seagulls’ fierce battle-cries over the
surf’s decaying spoils, and the smell of the salty breeze overpowers the stench
of the car fumes. You see, Galveston is considered a sea-side town, while in
reality it is a freeway-side town. All the houses and shops are on the northern
side; south of the four lane concrete snake lies only the beach and a few forlorn,
dated tourist attractions.
    Lovely walks she took with me, along this chopped off piece of a
struggling make-believe ocean-beauty, stopping whenever she met somebody she
knew. Who would expect the handy little bags of white stuff underneath my
pillow to be anything but baby powder?
    How do I know this? I’m making an educated guess here, having had
enough opportunities to notice her illegal activities later on in life.
    Above and beyond her struggles to provide for me and Mom, I know Gracie
did love me. I picture myself neatly tucked into the pink stroller with a pink
foldable roof framed with pink ruffles to keep me protected from sun and wind
and seagull-shit, with naked legs paddling in the fresh air, Gracie’s torso
darkening my vision ever so often when she bent down to go tickle, tickle,
my mija— she always called me mija, which means something like ‘sweetie’ in
Spanish—her generous bosom dangling in front of my pink happy face. Pink was
her thing. She loved that color and she loved me. I was her pink baby, and she
couldn’t have been happier than in that first year when my mom was so
miserable.
    On my first birthday she dressed me in my best pink attire and took
me to a photographer. Gracie didn’t mind spending money on me. She always had
enough money for the three of us to get by and for the up-keep of our drab but
homely single-story structure in third row north of the all domineering
oceanfront-freeway. In those days neither I nor my mom cared where the money
came from—although Mom might have snapped out of her depression faster if she
would have taken on the responsibility of providing for her infant.
    When Gracie came home with me from the photo session, she was still
so excited that she forgot how catatonic my mom usually was when it came to her
daughter.
    “Look, look,” she waved the picture in front of her, “look at her!
She’s an angel!”
    The photographer had done me up with fluffy wings made of plastic
feathers sprinkled with silver glitter. I’ve seen this picture often. He had
captured an expression in my puffy baby face that was a mere fluke for sure,
but made me look almost grown-up. There was purity and goodness—adorable,
unspoiled beauty.
    My mom stared at this picture, and I don’t know what crossed her
mind but I like to imagine something snapped. Is this child really mine? Even better: That child is Mike’s gift to me from heaven. Or better
still: I love this little angel of mine.
    Gracie gushed on.
    “He didn’t take any money. Imagine, the photographer refused to get
paid. He gave me money instead. Here, fifty dollars he gave me. All I had to do
was sign a form that he could use the picture for his front window display. My
mija is so beautiful, he said, people should see her. He wants to take more
pictures. And he’ll pay for those too. I should come back, he said. Next week I’ll
go—”
    “No!” my mom said.
    Gracie stared at her, dumbfounded.
    “You can’t just take her. She’s my daughter!”
    “You could’ve fooled me.”
    “Anyway, I don’t believe people pay so much money for baby
pictures.”
    “Then come with me and find out for yourself.”
    And so the path of fate was