The Greedy Heart

“Frankie!” I call out to my 10-year-old brother, “Come on your breakfast is going to get cold!” I hear the door to his room slam shut and hear him scatter into our little kitchen. He pulls out a chair to sit at the little side table where his breakfast was waiting for him. “Morning, sleepy head.” I greeted, as I check on his outfit for the day, making sure his uniform was clean and he had combed his hair. “Morning,” he mumbles to me chewing on the egg sandwich I just made for him. Gobbling it up quickly, he chugs down some orange juice and gets up to make sure his school bag is ready. I finish making his brown bag lunch, filled it with some chips, a ham sandwich, a juice box and some fruity snacks and hand it to him. “I’m picking up a work gig today from 10:00am to 6:00pm today, ok? So, I should get a break around the time you get home, I’ll call you and check on you around that time. So please come home as soon as you get off that bus. I’ll have some food waiting for you in the microwave when you get home to snack on. When I get off, I’ll pick us up some burgers or something? That sound ok to you?” I ask him. “Yeah, sounds good Jessie. Do you have to work tonight too?” He asks, stuffing his lunch into his school bag. I let out a sad sigh and said, “Unfortunately, yes. But I don’t have to be in until 10:30 and I get off at 2, so it’s not so bad.” He looked at me sadly. “I wish you didn’t have to work so much Jessie; I wish I was old enough to help you.” He said sadly. Hearing him say that, made me tear up a bit! I kneel down to his height and look him in the eye and say, “It’s okay sweetie, you help me enough by helping me with our little place and doing good in school. Ok? Maybe when your older we can team up and work together somewhere?” I tell him trying to cheer him up a bit. His eyes perk up and he says, “I’m going to study really hard sis! That way I can open a business and make lots of money and you won’t have to worry about anything!” With that, he gives me a kiss on the cheek and says, “Love ya sis! Have a good day at work!” I give him a quick hug and remind him, “Don’t forget, don’t talk to strangers and head home right after you get off the bus! Don’t make me worry! Love you too little booger! Now go before you miss your school bus!” I watch him run out the door, out to the end of the street, and I watch him from our little apartment above my friend’s garage. Finally, the bus comes, and I begin to put everything away. My name is Jessie and that was my little brother Frankie. We live together above a little apartment with two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a little kitchenette with just enough room for a mini fridge, a microwave, an electric two stove burner, and a toaster oven. We don’t have much as far as furniture goes as we just moved here not too long ago, from a faraway city, with just a couple of bags between us. I’ve moved us as far as I could to this big city Atlanta, Georgia from Pasadena, California. It took me a few weeks to get us moved from our home, where our parents had raised us. My parents, I sigh, thinking of them. They had died in a mysterious car accident on their way to a Christmas Eve party that my father’s agency was throwing, my brother and I was supposed to go too, but something came up with Frankie and we bowed out. Hoping to just stay home and play games, until they came back, not really wanting to attend an all-adult party, it would’ve just been boring for us. We soon laid our parents to rest, and we spent our New Years running. After gathering everything from the safe, which included our altered identities, pertinent paperwork, some file folder, and cash that father had left for us. All in case something tragic were to happen to him and mom. Somehow, my father was able to obtain new social security cards, identifications, adoption papers for Frankie, and even had made legitimate birth certificates for the both of us. I’m not sure where he got everything but working as a top agent in a large security firm for the government, I’m sure he had his ways. We packed what we could and took off disappearing in the middle of the night, hopping on the greyhound to the farthest city we could go to until we arrived and moved again. We had no other family that we knew of to run too. As a family, we had made a promise to our father that if anything happened to him, and if we had any inkling that something was suspicious, we were instructed to take our new identities and run. Considering that we were all supposed to have been in that car, we would have all died. Except for that last minute decision to stay home and the fact that no one could tell me the cause of the accident was suspicious enough for me. Plus, after finding out that my dad’s partner was still missing added more fuel to it, so after discussing with Frankie of my plans, we decided to go. My father only trusted his partner who had been missing for months, after his disappearance my dad trusted no one at his agency and he was one of their top agents, he never did tell us anything about any of his work, but only recently did he begin to become suspicious that he was being targeted. So, as a precaution he had warned us all that there was a possibility that something bad might happen. We didn’t know what, but we were at least somewhat prepared for it. My father was even more prepared, having had new identities made for us. I made sure that the ones made for my mother was burned and turned to ashes before leaving. For years, I trained with my father in all aspects of fighting, defense, skilled with a knife, and I knew my guns too. I could clean and load my .38 special in a matter of seconds. My brother was supposed to begin his training this summer with my father if things didn’t happen the way they did, as at 10 was when I had begun mine. Unfortunately, I will be the one tasked with that as well as raising him. I begin to tear up once again thinking of my father and the days we spent training, “Be prepared for anything Jessie, keep all your senses open and believe in your instincts at all times,” he would always say to me. We traveled for a bit, until we ended up here, tired of running and just tired of living in dirty motels and out of our suitcases. We decided to settle down, and what better place to hide then in a big city? I found this place to rent which was perfect for me and Frankie on Craigslist, that an old woman was renting out. I met her a few months ago and chatted with her for a while, and she conceded to renting the place out to us. We became friends and whenever needed she would watch Frankie for me. I’m not sure if she ever suspected anything but she didn’t pry, which I am thankful for. Shortly after moving in, I was able to obtain a mailing address and soon enrolled Frankie into the nearby school with the paperwork I had showing my kinship adoption of Frankie, since I was over 18. After settling in, I was able to land a cocktail waitress job at a nearby club in the evenings. I found an app on my new phone where I could pick up random gigs, working at different warehouses throughout the day if I chose too, while Frankie was at school. I paid our rent two months in advance with the cash I had and then I opened a bank account with the rest of the funds we had left, putting most of it in a savings account for Frankie for college when he got older. Opened a safe deposit box to put in some file that my father had asked to keep for safe keeping (which I never opened by the way), our new pertinent paperwork, identifications, birth certificates, passports, etc. Then I opened a separate safe deposit box to put our real identities in, with our original paperwork, along with my parents’ death certificate and our one family photo taken our last Thanksgiving we had together, which my father also left for us. I knew that it was risky to be carrying all these identities with us, but I couldn’t just leave the old ones behind. I doubt that we would ever use them ever again, but in the back of my mind I wanted to keep it just in case. And now here I am, raising my 10-year-old brother, working in the evenings as a cocktail waitress and picking up gigs from some app whenever I could. Frankie has been attending school regularly these past few months and his grades have been improving, since we’ve been on a somewhat normal schedule. I ask Frankie all the time how he’s doing with everything and all I get is a shrug and a firm, “I’m fine.” Considering, all that we’ve been through with our parent’s death, new identities, and new location, I was really surprised how well he was taking everything in. Maybe in the future, I can land an actual real job that would allow me to have insurance and I can get Frankie some therapy or something just in case. Granted, he won’t be able to say much as to what happened and who we truly are, but I’ll just have to really think about that when the time comes.