An American Family: Living on the Verge

For the next few days, Francis and Luis also remain doubtful. Only after a week passes with no further police visits do they decide to accept Pedroza’s gesture as what it was stated to be: an act of kindness.

The night before Christmas, when the family and extended family — meaning teams of in-laws — exchange their own gifts, a tentative sense of hopefulness begins to permeate the household. Luis and Francis did most of their shopping the day after Thanksgiving, arriving at the Crenshaw Plaza Mall at 6 a.m. to pick up ultra-bargain loss leaders from the newly opened, three-story Wal-Mart. After that, Francis made several more trips to the swap meet to round out their gift list. “This is the first time that Luis has been out for Christmas in almost 10 years,” says Francis. By “out” she means out of prison. “So he wanted to get something for everybody.”

Luis has even agreed to pull some money out of savings to take the family to a hotel for a couple of nights over the New Year’s Eve weekend, at which time, he says, they should all set new goals and make new resolutions. “I already know most of mine,” he says, ticking them off quickly. “I want to get off parole, which should happen in July. Then in a year I want us to move out of East L.A. to somewhere safer. After that, we’re going to save to buy an apartment building. Those are the big goals. That and staying, you know . . . free.”

The slings and arrows of normal life sometimes daunt the strongest of us. Yet for a family still as close to the edge as the Aguilars, routine problems tend to metastasize quickly, despite best intentions.

All goes well as Francis, Luis and the kids arrive at their hotel for their three-day getaway late on the night of December 30. When she beds everyone down, Francis notices Elijah, who’s not quite 2, seems overly tired. At 4 the next morning, she wakes up to find him spiking a high fever that neither Motrin nor the cool baths she administers over the next hour seem to lower. Eventually mother and child doze, Elijah curled up on her chest, marsupial-like.

But at 5:30 a.m., Elijah jerks awake in a febrile seizure, his limbs twitching violently, his eyes rolled back into his skull. Francis screams at Luis to call 911, her alarm jacked up exponentially by the fact that the family still may or may not have health coverage. “We were supposed to be covered a month ago,” she says, “so I’m off Medi-Cal. But Luis’ company has never sent us the insurance cards.”

After a two-hour emergency-room visit, Elijah is temporarily improved. The family drives home on New Year’s Day, losing a paid night at the hotel.

Over the next 48 hours, Francis controls Elijah’s fever with cold baths and larger doses of Motrin, as the ER doctor had instructed.

Then late Saturday night, the child starts wheezing. There is talk of taking him to the emergency room. Fearful of more bills, Luis and Francis decide against it. “I mean, we’ll find a way to pay whatever we need to pay,” she says. “But it’ll wipe us out to nothing.

Below nothing.”

At 5 a.m. Sunday, Elijah’s breathing is truly labored, but Francis still thinks she can ride it out herself. “I’ll take him to my doctor Monday. He’ll run it through my old Medi-Cal,” she says. By 7 a.m., Elijah is panting in little, shallow breaths and Luis panics. “We’re taking him,” he says. It is a fortunate call. At L.A. County–USC Medical Center, Elijah is diagnosed with a well-entrenched case of pneumonia. “I think all of those baths made him sick,” says Luis miserably. “They brought his fever down, but he got too cold.”

The rest of the week passes in a blur of wires, tubes and antibiotics as Luis and Francis take turns keeping watch at their little boy’s bedside. “Otherwise the nurses just have to tie him down if he cries,” Francis says. “Nobody’s going to strap my baby down.” An enormous former homeboy with a street name of “Griz” takes some of the pressure off by staying at home with the older kids. Then early Monday, Luis returns to work, meaning most of the hospital duty now falls to Francis, who rocks Elijah when he screams and screams, unable to be comforted. After he falls asleep, she eyes the nearby oxygen-saturation monitor, rubbing her baby’s chest to stimulate his breathing whenever the digital readout falls below 90 percent.

Each night after work, Luis showers off the construction grime, then goes to the hospital to relieve Francis. He looks dead on his feet as he holds his small, flailing son against his shoulder with one hand and scoots the IV pole down the hospital’s wide, linoleum hallways with the other — trudging up and down, up and down — until finally the boy quiets.

On Sunday, Elijah is well enough to come home. But by this time both parents are so wrung out by stress and exhaustion that they snipe at each other continuously — about money, about the often-present coterie of ex-homeboys who Francis feels will draw danger to the household.