There was the time I won 500 dollars at a sitting with nothing but shit in my hands ‘cause everyone else folded when I upped the ante. Fooled them all.

Curiosity. That’s what made her such a good card player all them years back. Everybody said it was her poker face, coupled with a well-placed evil eye here and there. But it wasn’t. It was pure and simple that she always wondered what the next hand would be.

STELLA BY HELEN SILVERSTEIN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 08

I just booted my kids out of the house. “Beat it,” I said.

All my children care about is my money, which they figure I have stashed somewhere in my mattress or in the wall. I will never tell. I vowed that to Sweet Jesus. Nope, I said to them, I will never tell.

They said, “Where you got your money at, Mama? Come on, Mama Stella, we got to make plans, you know, for the funeral.” Imagine that, and me still lying here alive. As if that money would be used for my funeral. Ha. They squander anything they get their hands on.

Then I said, “By the way, I am donating my body to science. My ‘plans’ are already made.”

Nobody said nothing. So I said again: “I am donating my body to science…