How could I forget more mothers from "Damsel in the Red Dress":
Tia Bella: She's Alicia and Andrew's father's little sister, who raised Andrew since he was 10 years old alongside his father. She still considers him her son, and he even has her listed in his phone as "mother."
Tia Maria: While she is technically Alicia's aunt, she's also the mother of Alicia's older cousin Natividad. Maria is a very hardworking and loving mother, but she wasn't home very much because she worked two jobs. For that reason she couldn't pay either Natividad or Alicia very much attention, and she raised Alicia since she was 14 until she was 18. Mostly she gave Alicia hand-me-downs, because she spent so much money trying to pamper her ungrateful daughter, but she did put in a lot of effort to cheer her up in lots of little ways, like Alicia mentioned in this chapter:
For all, she scrimped and saved on herself and me for the sake of Natividad-
She always tried to make the odds and ends we had as comfortable as she could-
I remember how she went digging through her closet once for old half crayons Natividad hadnât used since she was nine for me to use for my âdoodles.â She always gave me the used envelopes and advertisements she got in the mail for my arts and crafts projects - embarrassed herself by asking permission to take old scrap paper from the people she cleaned house for explaining meekly that her niece was âan artist.â
I know she never believed anything would come from it the way Mrs. Moon did, but she still wanted me to be happy-
Maybe mostly because she was scared-
Scared of the way Iâd sit for hours at a time doing nothing at all - like a cinnamon-colored ghost in the corners-
She realized-
-That if she didnât ask if I was hungry, or give me permission to get food from the pantries I wasnât going to eat anything -
