Creative Non-fiction By Sara Mendez

That night my mom cooked spaghetti. The smell of garlic bread had wafted throughout the apartment, I could feel my stomach growling with anticipation. The steam from the pasta water and the heat from the oven were making the kitchen feel sticky and warm. It soothed the knot that was forming in my throat. 

The smell of garlic was starting to turn smoky as my brother and I sat patiently at the dining room table. The dining room and kitchen were sort of in the same room, and a hallway and wall separated the living room and kitchen. It was decently sized for an apartment. The brown porcelain tile floors and beige carpet were new, but the countertops and cabinets were just covered in fresh paint. We had moved into this apartment from the unit across the courtyard, which was now being “renovated.” 

A thin cloud of grey smoke promptly exited the oven as my mom opened the oven door. 

“The garlic breads are well done!” she announced to the household. She started fixing our plates as my brother and I skipped and ran to the back bedroom to alert our uncles that dinner was ready. 

As we started knocking on their bedroom door, someone started pounding on the front door. We could hear laughter coming from inside the bedroom, so we barged in; ignoring the commotion at the front of the apartment. 

“Dinner’s ready!” We both yelled as we entered. They were playing a Mario game on their Nintendo 64. 

Jo-jo paused the game and looked towards Lenny, “food” is all he said. 

I could faintly hear the pounding on the door again, “What’s that?” Lenny asked.

“I dunno,” Dase mumbled.

When I turned out of the bedroom to head back down the hallway, my mom was quickly heading towards me. She was balancing two cups of water in her arms and had two plates of spaghetti with garlic bread precariously hanging off the side in her hands. 

“You two are going to eat in your room, okay Bee?” She said. It wasn’t a question. 

Dase was still in the twin’s bedroom behind me, wrestling to get the Nintendo controller from Jo-jo. “Come on Dase, time to eat.” My mom said through the doorway. 

She came into my room to set down our dinners and had some water. I sat down on the floor in front of my bed, which was against the wall. The opposite wall had a small, cube-like TV on a bookshelf. My mom flipped it onto Nickelodeon, where SpongeBob SquarePants was playing. 

“Sorcha!” We could hear my grandma yelling down the hallway for my mom. She turned the volume all the way up to 60 on the TV before putting the remote away. My brother bounced into the room and plopped onto the floor beside me. He took his garlic bread and bit into the dark, “well-done” crust. Crumbs covered his T-shirt and the floor around him.  

“You two stay here, no matter what, okay? Don’t look out the windows, just enjoy your spaghetti.” I could tell something was not right, and she didn’t even wait for us to respond before she left and closed the door behind her. I listened to the sound of her flip flops fade as she walked down the hallway. We could see a white light moving in and out, illuminating the wall from behind the blinds. Occasionally we heard a rock or twig hit the window, and eventually I couldn’t contain my curiosity. The whomping from what had to have been a helicopter was too distracting. I could faintly hear deep voices talking sharply, including my grandma’s. I opened the door as quietly as I could, cracking it just wide enough for me to see the front door.

The pounding was firm and intimidating, and it wasn’t going to cease until that front door opened.  My grandma yelled down the hall for my mom to hurry up and get out there. With a smile donned on her cigarette-yellow tinted teeth, she faced the police officer on the other side of the door. 

“Hello officer,” she beamed, “how can I help you?” I could see that the helicopter was still circling our apartment outside, the spotlight gave it away.

“Yes, is Sorcha Jonasben here?” he said, raising his voice due to the noise above, not fazed by my grandma’s façade in the slightest. 

 “May I ask why you’re looking for her?” she asked. She was unbothered by the rain that was being blown into her face by the helicopter. My mother had made it to the front door by then, she was on the other side of the door where the cop couldn’t see her.

“I have a warrant for her arrest.” he said, bluntly. The rain was collecting on his buzz cut, and my grandma’s stalling might’ve been partially just to prolong the officer’s discomfort. He presented the pink warrant slip to my grandma, and insisted: “ma’am it is raining, may I come inside?”

She stood there, squinting at the warrant, trying to ‘read’ it. She clicked her tongue, and finally sighed before saying, “I’ll be right back. I need to get my glasses.”

“Ma’am!” the officer yelled, but my grandma swiftly shut the door and locked it. 

She looked at my mother with such disgust, clicked her tongue three more times, and said “Fraud charges and drug charges Sorcha?! Are you fucking kidding me!” The pounding on the door started up again, somehow louder this time. “It says you’re a flight risk!”

“What?!” my mom shrieked. “I have no idea what they’re talking about!” she insisted. 

My mom loved arts and crafts growing up, and that love followed her into adulthood where she learned how to cut and paste documents. 

The police were screaming outside, and a second voice could be heard. “Miss Jonasben my name is Detective Johnson. We have a warrant for your arrest, and I am demanding you open this door right now.”

My mom was pacing, unsure of what to do. My grandmother had a dismissive but angry look on her face as she turned to open the door. There was no getting out of this. 

                                                                   *   *   *

Pheabie Mendez loves the beautiful desert town in the South-Western United States that she grew up in. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Anthropology at the University of Arizona in 2018; and received her master’s degree in English and Creative Writing in 2023 from Southern New Hampshire University. By day she works as a banker, but at night she shares her words with the world in the hopes of helping others.