The town she lived in, Elmwood Park, had started out many years ago as a sort of suburb of Paterson, like South Paterson and West Paterson. In fact, the town used to be called East Paterson until they changed the name to remove all associations with the inner city. Still, it was a little safer for a single woman living on her own. Also, her apartment complex was nice and welcoming. And she never felt happier to see the red-and-white brick, colonial-style apartment units than she was today. She pulled into her parking spot, thinking about what she could quickly make for dinner. Her phone was ringing as she walked through the door, and she rushed to answer it. It better not be a telemarketer, she thought as she made the dash across the living room/dining room to the phone hanging on the back wall of her galley kitchen. “Hey, Sammie. It’s your mother.” Veronica Dash’s soft voice wafted through the phone lines, and Samantha tried to discern what kind of mood she was in. Was it her sober and depressed mother on the line, her two-glasses-of-gin shy of passing out and depressed mother or her angry, bitter, lashing-out and drunk mother?
