Latisha's Children

Joy Perez woke at 3 a.m., chilled to the bone. The furnace had died, and the January air quickly seeped through the flimsy walls of her trailer. She piled more blankets on her sleeping son and grandchildren then turned on the oven and opened its door. It was going to be another long, hard day.

Even dressed in her habitual attire of black jeans and white Nike sneakers, Joy is a commanding woman. She has high cheekbones, a blond ponytail and large emotions, including a talent for lively metaphor and a quickness to believe that the outside world is conspiring against her.

She has a girlish side as well. When amused, she throws back her head with laughter and slaps her thigh. But in those early months after her daughter's murder, there was little cause for laughter. Grit got her through.

By noon, the repairman had not yet come. Two-year-old Nylah was whining; Joy plunked her into her highchair with crayons. Donte, 3, had taken juice without permission; Joy banished him to the back bedroom. Then she turned to make a snack for 5-year-old Marcus, who was just home from kindergarten.

In the two months since her daughter's death, Joy had gone from doting grandma to diaper-changer and rule-maker. She was determined to keep the children together and help them heal. When a relative offered to take the two youngest, Joy was deeply offended: "The kids are not cookies to hand out. ... They're staying together if I have to slop floors with my tongue."

But their energy and needs strained her patience and resources. Her rheumatoid arthritis had flared, causing severe pain in her joints. So had her Crohn's disease, an incurable inflammation of the bowel.

"It's so hard to go from grandma to this, to being the disciplinarian," said Joy as she listened to Donte wail. "But if they're going to live with me, they're going to need some rules. If Donte were crying about Mommy or he was lonely, then of course I'd cuddle him. But he's just angry."

"I don't want to stay in here!" Donte sobbed.

Exasperated, Joy walked down the hall, cracked the door and said, "As long as you're screaming, you have to stay in here!" Then she mumbled, "God, I feel like a bitch."

She had other troubles, too. That morning, she had received a discouraging phone call from her real estate agent, Debbie Wallace. Joy hoped to move to a larger house; the cramped trailer was making everyone crazy, and she didn't want her biracial grandchildren subjected to the name-calling her son Sterling endured in the largely white trailer park: "Burnt toast," "curly fries."

Wallace was looking hard for something nice that Joy could afford. But on the phone, the agent reported that Joy could not get a mortgage until she received permanent custody of the children. Since quitting her house-cleaning jobs, Joy's only income had been the Social Security death benefits she received for her grandchildren and disability payments paid for her youngest son and oldest grandson.

Her total monthly income was just under $2,000, including $100 in food stamps. With the help of a state-subsidized program for first-time homebuyers, her income would be enough to buy a house. But Joy's custody hearing was not scheduled for another month.

"They just take the spirit out of me," Joy said after the call. "I'm hoping and hoping and hoping so bad, and then there is some hitch. Some trick. Something unexpected."

The furnace repairman arrived at last, and on his heels came two early childhood education specialists to screen Nylah, to see if she needed special help. Three more people packed into the cramped, chilly trailer. Nylah was smart but easily distracted, the specialists told her grandmother after a few tests. Joy had a graver worry: Nylah was banging her head against her highchair and car seat.

"I guess the next question is what kind of a plan should we have," said the specialist from the school district. She had to shout to be heard over the television, furnace and washing machine, which shook the entire trailer while spinning the fourth load of the day. As for the head-banging: "We could get you some experts to deal with that."

"Has the furnace always been this loud?" yelled the repairman.

"Yeah," Joy yelled back.

"Well, it shouldn't be," he said. "Now, the parts are covered in the warranty. But the labor isn't."

Joy shrugged. She didn't know where the money for repairs would come from, just as she didn't know how the $409 January utility bill would get paid.

"Sometimes they do that because of some sensory deprivation," the child specialist continued. "Sometimes it can be because of emotional problems. And the treatment would be different depending on why she is doing it." Joy made no decision; it was too much to take in.

The furnace repairman finished replacing the motor and left, followed by the two women. It was suddenly quiet.

"I'm just about out of my mind today," Joy said.

MARKING A DAUGHTER'S LIFE

The daily challenges and quest for a house were distractions. But grief was always waiting, a vast reservoir that flooded Joy's mind in every quiet moment. First thing in the morning, last thing at night, Joy thought of her daughter. She remembered little things -- how Latisha would raid the refrigerator when she stopped by with the kids, hoping to find something delicious.

Joy had dreaded buying Latisha's gravestone, because she knew it would open the floodgates anew. When she could put it off no longer, she and Manuel drove one snowy Friday to Spielman's Mortuary on University Avenue. Joy sat tensely on the couch. Samples of polished granite -- 16 different colors -- were set out on a coffee table.

"Now the best thing to do at the beginning is just to look," said the funeral director, flipping through a three-ring binder of tombstone designs. "What do you think of these?"

"It's just too plain," Joy answered.

"What did you have in mind?"

Joy choked up, unable to speak.

"She wants a picture," Manuel said gently.

"It does get a little expensive," the man cautioned. "Two hundred to $400 more to do that."

"I don't care," said Joy, "I don't care." Since Latisha loved roses, Joy selected one for the lower right corner.

"Anything else you were imagining?"

"I want something with the kids' names on it," Joy said. "You know, like "loving mother of ...' " After a long pause, she said with conviction, "It is very important that their names are on there."

"Did you want to put something like "loving mother of ...' or just "mother of ...'?"

"Oh, LOVING mother," Joy said, almost offended. She spelled the children's names and chose a jet-black granite -- black and purple were her daughter's favorite colors. Joy clenched her fist to hold back the tears, then asked, "Is there any way we can get in there "loving daughter of ...'?"

"We can do it," the director said. "Keep in mind, though, that the more we put on, the more crowded it will be. But if that's important, we can do it."

Joy let it go. "Well, the kids are most important," she said hastily, rubbing a wad of blue tissue between her fingers. By the end, the gravestone would cost $900.

'ONE IN A MILLION' HOUSE

A week later, real estate agent Debbie Wallace called with great news: She had found a house near Lake Phalen. Even with help from a state-subsidized mortgage program, Joy could afford no more than $110,000, and Wallace had scoured the city.

"A house like this is one in a million," Wallace said. With 1,600 square feet, it was twice the size of the others in Joy's price range. There were three bedrooms, an optional fourth, a partially finished basement and a huge backyard. The sellers had already dropped the price and then agreed to lower it by several thousand dollars more after they heard about Joy's situation.

Joy was elated but frantic. The hearing that would give her permanent custody was still a couple of weeks away. "I have a headache, and I'm ready to swallow the tub with the deep breaths I'm taking," she said. The sellers agreed to let her sign a purchase agreement with a contingency clause. If someone else put in a bid, Joy would have 24 hours to prove she had custody.

Three days later, on Sunday morning, another bid came in. "I'm gonna lose it!" Joy wailed. After she hung up with Wallace, Joy called everyone she could think of. An attorney whose house she cleaned and another client whose husband was a lawyer agreed to help her try to get an emergency custody hearing on Monday. She left frantic messages for her custody attorney and tried to contact the court referee at home.

The next morning, she finally reached the children's father in prison. He said he didn't want custody, but he was working in a field and had no way to fax a statement relinquishing his rights. Joy was despondent. Then, just before the 10 a.m. deadline, Wallace called. The loan officer pulled some strings and got the loan approved. "I don't want to see that lady lose that house," he had said. "She has been through enough."

Later that day, Joy drove a friend to see the house, a modest story-and-a-half with gray shingles and an unpainted wood privacy fence shielding a large backyard covered in snow.

"They've got a back deck on there, a swimming pool, a fenced-in yard for the kids," Joy told her friend, then turned into the alley.

"Look at that garage!" exclaimed her friend.

"Brand new!" Joy agreed. She was already deciding which children would sleep in each bedroom. She imagined summer, when the boys would ride their bikes and she would raise vegetables. The $800 monthly mortgage would consume nearly half her monthly income, but she needed a decent place for the children to grow up.

"It was just God's blessing, he sent this house to us," she said. "And Debbie. That Debbie, she worked herself to the bone."

Finally, Joy pulled around to the front of the house and pointed to the small, snow-covered yard. "I'm going to bring all my bricks. And I'm going to build my garden for Tisha. That's the first thing I'll do."