Anna Sussman (2:56)

After seven years in prison, four and a half in the main prison, and more than two years at the firehouse, Amica's day did come.

Amica Mota (3:04)

What I envisioned the whole. I'm probably going to cry on this one. What I envisioned the whole time I was in prison, how I would reconcile with my kids. I envisioned myself, like, giving him a lot of love to make up for all these years that I'd been gone.

Anna Sussman (3:23)

She was shaking as she walked from the fire station to the parole van.

Amica Mota (3:28)

Lord. I mean, definitely, like, that kind of endorphin rush. Like, definitely butterflies in my stomach, you know, palms sweating. Kind of just those visceral feelings of, like, you could feel the nerves, the anxiety, the excitement. I mean, every. You always expect, like, the worst to happen. Like, you don't want to go in thinking everything's going to be smooth because. What do you mean?

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (3:58)

What's the worst?

Amica Mota (3:59)

I don't know. That no one will be there for you or that they'll send, you know, they'll be like, just kidding. Head back in. Like, you know, you just never really know.

Anna Sussman (4:15)

In the holding area, Amico was given her release clothes sent to her by a. It was sweatpants and a sweatshirt from a skate shop in Ukiah that said freedom on the back. She tried to put on a pair of heels, but it didn't work, so she went with flip flops. The plan was for her family to wait in the parking lot.

Amica Mota (4:33)

And then my kids were in the parking lot waiting for me with my papa. And so I told them, listen for the fire trucks and the sirens, and when they go off, that'll be. It'll mean the van is coming. And so it was kind of a beautiful thing because I could see it from the pearl van. My kids could see it from the parking lot. The three fire trucks lined up. I saw the girls lined up in front of the fire trucks, people sitting up on the fire trucks, people clowning behind the wheel, laying on the horns, sirens blazing. It was so surreal, you know, it was just kind of one of those things that you been imagining for years and years that that'll be you one day, and then it's actually you. And it's almost the same as when you walk in the gates. It just feels like a dream. And, you know, you can't even imagine what's next.

Anna Sussman (5:34)

From Wondry and Snap studios at kqed.

Amica Mota (5:37)

Anna.

Anna Sussman (5:37)

I'm Anna Sussman, and this is Fire Escape, the story of a woman whose world burned down and then she learned to fight fire from behind bars. This is episode six Worthy. It was finally the day of her release. The day she had imagined for all these years. The day she could begin to be the person on the outside she planned to be. Starting with Milo, Soleil and Blossom.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (6:12)

And it seemed like it'd just be forever, but it was, like, really happening. You know, I saw her. I hugged her like there was no guards watching. There was no, we weren't gonna leave at 2. Or, you know, like, it was just, like, super exciting.

Amica Mota (6:29)

Oh. The whole ride, my kids were like, look at this and look at that. And look. I had no idea what they're talking about. It was like phone stuff or pictures on Instagram. Like, none of that. I didn't. I didn't know about any of this. Just, like, looking out the window and. And just having my kids kind of, like, curled up on me and just holding on. That was sweet.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (6:57)

And then when she was inside, we talked a lot about what we were gonna do when she got out. And it wasn't all, like, big things.

Amica Mota (7:08)

It was just

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (7:10)

like, our plans, like, mom and daughter thing. Painting our nails together, going on trips together, watching movies, showing our music, listening to music together.

Anna Sussman (7:25)

When they got home to Amica's papa's house, she put her one bag of belongings down on the patio where she'd be sleeping. She called her mom, and she made plans for her boyfriend Jose to call her from prison collect when he could. And then they all sat down on her dad's couch, and she put in a DVD with pictures of her work at the firehouse.

Amica Mota (7:45)

We're on papa's big red couch, and we're all cuddled together. That was probably one of the first moments. And we all just. You know, I had a girl on each side.

Anna Sussman (7:57)

There were pictures of Amica doing vehicle extractions, climbing ladders and hosing down burning buildings.

Amica Mota (8:05)

And they were blowing. It was just like, my mom's a gangster. Oh, my God. My mom, you know, that's how my girls were like, whoa. You know, it was kind of unbelievable.

Anna Sussman (8:14)

They were proud of you.

Amica Mota (8:15)

Yeah, they were really proud. And my papa was, too. My mom was. I mean, it was. It was. It was pretty amazing. I just felt like I was getting to share my life with them and bringing it home to them about what I really did.

Anna Sussman (8:33)

The first day together, on the couch, being proud, being hopeful, that was the easiest day.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (8:40)

It was like this goal. It was like when she got out, everything would be perfect. It was like this. It was just this thing that we were waiting on. Once you got out, everything would be perfect. Life would be perfect. But it wasn't like that at all. It wasn't like that at all.

Amica Mota (8:58)

I mean, coming home and having two teenage girls in the house who loved me and were hurt by me and that had placed me on a pedestal for all the years I was gone. Coming home to those girls and to the reality of like, we had different visions actually, but I didn't what had

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (9:26)

happened when she came home, I didn't expect that.

Anna Sussman (9:33)

Amica's son Milo was in his 20s and already out of the house. She had two daughters. Her older daughter, Serlay, was turning 18 and there was a lot of pain in that mother daughter relationship. And her youngest, Blossom, was 13.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (9:48)

I mean, 13 is like where you're first, like you're just starting to be a teenager. I think the first like crazy thing that happened was when she first got home. I just remember like the first this one night, it was a school night too. I went out with my friend. I didn't come home until like 6 in the morning.

Anna Sussman (10:09)

When Blossom came home, Amika knew exactly what she had been doing.

Amica Mota (10:15)

I mean, I knew she was using because I could tell in her eyes. I could see it in her eyes. I knew, I knew she was off. I knew she wasn't fully there. That scared the shit out of me. I just didn't know what to do. I didn't, I didn't know what to do. Like, as a mom at that point, she was like all I had left. And the idea of me losing her to some fucking drugs or some bullshit was so terrifying. I was so sad and afraid for my daughter and it came across as just anger, you know, And I think

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (11:03)

that just set her off. And it got, yeah, after that, got violent. And then

Amica Mota (11:11)

I picked her up by her jaw and I picked her up kind of by her neck and her jaw and I, you know, put her head up against the wall. And I don't even remember what it was I said, but that touch alone was not a touch she had ever felt from me. And it was extreme. It scared her, it scared me. It scared all of us. I have never put hands on my kids like that. You know what I mean?

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (11:38)

So it was just so shocking to me that that happened. And it was, it was disappointing.

Amica Mota (11:53)

I wasn't able to love my kids the same way when I got home. Um, I wasn't able to be the kind of mom that they wanted. Um, I wasn't able to be like a soft and gentle loving mom. I had a different shell on me at that point. And it wasn't. Even though I was always felt like I was a touchy feely person. I was like my, you know, I wasn't anymore. And like, you know, there's times like my kids would like, want to cuddle with me and it was like too much. I didn't. I just. It freaked me out a little bit. Like, I just. I don't even have a words or a process to put to that. But I knew that I wasn't accessible in the way that they had wanted me to be or that I had wanted to be. When I got home, this is what I keep thinking. Like, it was interrupted. My bond with my kids was so interrupted that it's changed forever. You know what I mean? There is no going back to what was before. And I spent most of my prison life thinking I could go back in ways or I could make up. And it's taken me as long out as I was inside to realize that that's not the case. Like, I can't go back. I can't fix. I can only move forward.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (13:27)

I think because I was so young when she went away, like, I was used to not having a mom. I knew she was my mom, but it was also like, no, she was kind of a stranger, you know, and it's like weird saying that, but it is like she was a stranger and.

Amica Mota (13:54)

I don't know.

Anna Sussman (14:04)

This is Fire Escape. The story continues right after this short break. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Snap Judgment. This is Fire Escape, the story of a woman whose world burned down and then she learned to fight fire from behind bars.

Amica Mota (14:34)

In some ways, I feel like I over promised my kids when I was in the inside. Like when I was trying to get right for them or I was trying to redeem myself, I over promised. I really did because, like, I had no, no idea how hard it would be out here.

Anna Sussman (14:57)

Did she ever ask you how you process your accident?

Amica Mota (15:03)

I mean, she. She didn't ask me a whole lot. She's, you know, but she would say things like, it's hard for me to believe that that is part of you. Right. She's like a girl of few words. She watches a lot more than she asks questions. And she was definitely paying close attention to me over those years.

Anna Sussman (15:34)

About a year and a half after Emika was released from prison, she was still living at her papa's house when she got a phone call from her mom, Joni.

Amica Mota (15:44)

She was like, are you. Where are you? Sit down. Like, you need to be by yourself and be Somewhere. Okay. Right now. And that was when she told me that she had pancreatic cancer and that it had spread. So they found, you know, a lesion on her liver. And so, yeah, we knew it was spreading.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (16:14)

I think we had found out that she was sick. And then what I can really remember is when she came to visit us. She came over to my papa's house, and she was the cutest little thing ever. She had purple dress on and her purple hat in a little suitcase.

Amica Mota (16:38)

We knew pancreatic cancer is, you know, she was diagnosed at a really late stage. She told me that she was going to die and that she probably had about six months left to live.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (17:00)

She had told us that, yeah, she didn't want to do chemo. I think the doctor estimated like, six or seven months.

Amica Mota (17:09)

And so my mom was, like, really excited because she thought, you know, I have the option to choose to die if I want. But I also remember she was really terrified about that because of my criminal history, and she knew I would be with her and be tending to her. And so I know my mom went into this mode, too, of trying to protect me. I mean, she started kind of, like, getting everything. All her T's crossed and I's dotted and making sure she had legal paperwork and that neighbors knew what her plan was. And, yeah, she was afraid that I could be held responsible for some in some way. If she chose to die on her own.

Anna Sussman (17:51)

It was a real risk for Amica to put herself at. At the scene of someone's death. But she told herself, all those years in prison, the kind of person she wanted to be when she got out, the kind of mom she wanted to be. She wanted to be there for people and to show her daughter how to take care of others. So Amika took Blossom, and they moved into Joni's apartment in downtown Oakland.

Amica Mota (18:15)

She was getting sick fast. I made the decision to go and live with my mom, knowing she was dying. And Blossom, from the beginning, was, like, 100% on board. And we just were with her. Like, we, you know, would just. What we did was we set her bed up in the living room. It was like a studio apartment. The other thing I really. That was really stood out to me at that time was how vulnerable my mom became, because my mom is not like that. My mom is like this. She's fierce, she's loud, She's. You cannot shut my mom up in a room. But

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (19:05)

she.

Amica Mota (19:07)

She needed us in a way that she's never needed us.

Anna Sussman (19:13)

Amica would call her mom's friends on the phone and then lay the phone down next to her. They called the women who helped her start Good Vibrations. They called the photographers she had collaborated with for down there press. But there was one important person they couldn't call. They had to wait for him to call them.

Amica Mota (19:31)

Jose called from prison, and he was able to spend some time talking to my mom. And she'd known about him for years. But the last conversation that they had was my mom giving him her blessing. Even when he sat inside prison. My mom believed that we were making the right decision and that he would take care of me. The other thing that my mom had on her finger when she died was a little ring that he had sent her from inside the county jail that had my name on it. And she wore that on her wedding finger, this little ring made from jail that Jose sent to her. And it was like her most prized possession at the end. It was hard. I mean, it was like, hard and beautiful because I had never seen this side of my mom, too. All of us had blocked off this tenderness, you know, Myself, my mom, in many ways, you know, Blossom had that too. It's like once I was gone, you know, I. I remember my friend that was taking care of her, just, you know, she would write me and be like, she doesn't want to hug anybody. She doesn't want people to touch her. She only wants her mom. I think she. I think she was reminded about a part of me that wasn't front and center most of the time, right? Which was the ability to be soft and nurturing and loving.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (21:17)

And I think I saw for the first time the nurturing, the true nurturing side of my mom. Just seeing how good she is at taking care of people and, like, making that space for spirits to pass through.

Amica Mota (21:41)

So we were figuring it out together. And, yeah, Blossom was a natural, just like right there. We just kind of, you know, kept her cozy and warm, and then we just knew it was coming. We just got in bed with her, and Blossom and I just kind of took turns cuddling with her and, you know, keeping a cool rag on her face and things like that.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (22:10)

I remember hearing her take her last breath. Me and my mom, we just sat there for a long time. I think actually, I did think when she passed, she actually did kind of have like a half smile on her face, like a. Like a soft smile. You know,

Amica Mota (22:38)

We got some music going, Kopa Burning, and. And then we decorated her body. We. We had some henna, and so we painted on her and we covered her with these flowers from her garden.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (22:55)

We laid the flowers all around her and just sat with her.

Amica Mota (23:06)

We felt proud that my mom got to die the way she wanted to die in her home and that she didn't suffer too much at the end.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (23:18)

I think when she died, it was just a really. It's. You can't put it into words. It's the same feeling that you have at a birth.

Amica Mota (23:34)

You know, birth and death are so similar. So it didn't feel scary, it didn't feel strange. It just felt normal.

Anna Sussman (23:48)

The story continues right after this break. Welcome back. I'm anna sussman and you're listening to fire escape from snap studios at kqed. A little while after Joni passed away, a few months later, Jose was released from prison. He was working the fields in Central California, picking strawberries for not much pay.

Amica Mota (24:33)

Well, what I saw was that he actually, like, he also started like studying for his ged. He got his license. So those were like indicators like, okay, well, he seems pretty serious, right? But it became more and more clear how serious he was.

Anna Sussman (24:54)

And then he and Amica and Blossom were able to move into Joni's apartment together. It was in an intentional community where folks ate meals together, gardened together, generally took care of each other.

Amica Mota (25:08)

And that was also life changing for him as well because for the first time ever he'd been, he was in a community where there was resources and support and like, he had never experienced any of those things in the past.

Anna Sussman (25:19)

Because it was an intentional community.

Amica Mota (25:21)

What do you mean? No, because I was so tapped into, I'd say the kind of reentry community and people that had got out and made it. He had never seen anybody that had made it before. Like, that's actually pretty normal. Is like to not have people in your community that have come back and done well for themselves, right. Or survived it.

Anna Sussman (25:42)

Like they lived together for more than a year just trying to slowly and quietly build a life together.

Amica Mota (25:53)

I knew I had the feeling I was pregnant.

Anna Sussman (25:56)

How did you feel?

Amica Mota (26:00)

A mix of everything. I knew there was going to be people that judged me or didn't want, you know, that didn't think this was the right decision and all of that. And I still felt like, sweet baby, I was so excited.

Anna Sussman (26:20)

She told Blossom first and then they took Jose out for a birthday dinner at a buffet place and handed him a little box all wrapped up a pregnancy test.

Amica Mota (26:33)

We both, he had never been in his kids lives the way he wanted to be because of incarceration, right. And addiction. And so for him, it was a Kind of a dream to, like, have a new. A chance to do it again. And for me, too, More so on choosing to bring another child in. Right. Especially with wounded children that we had let down and hurt. And I'm sure it was really hard for them to see us. Starting over. Everybody was like, really? This is where you want to put your energy instead of us? We have our own insecurities about becoming parents this late in the game. And after having, like, you know, left and abandoned our children in many ways, you know, the truth is that we went from a death in our home when my mama died at home, to a year and a half later, our daughter Jose and I were married, and we were giving birth to our first baby girl together in the same spot that my mom had passed in a year and a half earlier, in this

Anna Sussman (28:08)

small loft that her mother had painted lavender, the same loft her mother had passed away in, in a blow up birthing tub surrounded by women she had known for decades. And Jose and Blossom Amica began to birth her 4 4th child.

Amica Mota (28:37)

She's gonna slip by. She's gonna slip on by. Okay, okay.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (28:43)

I remember thinking that I wish I could take her pain away. It's like, whatever I can do to make it better for her. My mom bent over and I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. What do I do? Like, you kind of don't. Like, I did not know what to do, really. I was trying to feed my mom popsicles and smudging her down. And she was beautiful.

Amica Mota (29:15)

My husband and Blossom and myself, we all touched her head as she was coming out.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (29:21)

So, yeah, she was in the tub and we were all. We were all just watching her and saw her little head poke out.

Amica Mota (29:30)

There she goes.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (29:30)

There she goes.

Amica Mota (29:38)

But Blossom was the first one to have hands on little Gloria and lift her up to our chest.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (29:45)

I caught her. She finally came out, and I caught her and I handed her to my mom.

Amica Mota (30:08)

It was a very full circle moment on so many levels. Blossom was my baby before Gloria, right? And she was the youngest. And so it was her first experience of, like, being at a birth, catching a baby, which has always been something that I thought a kid should experience. Like, I felt like I had given her a bit of a cycle that a daughter deserves, right? To understand birth and death closely.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (30:50)

And, you know, as my mom says, like, the one that's there at the gate, they're passing through as an honor. Like, I feel like. I feel like I was really, really lucky to be the one to catch Gloria and to be the one to be there with my grandma as she passed on

Amica Mota (31:17)

what I envisioned the whole time I was in prison, about how I would reconcile with my kids. I envisioned myself being there for them all the time. I envisioned myself, like giving them a lot of love to make up for all these years that I'd been gone. And I envisioned myself setting an example of the new person I would be when I came home. I can say I can do one of those and it's set an example. It's like, how do you pass on and translate, especially when you've been removed and interrupted, you know, your relationship? And so this was all those things without speaking a word. They said to do it. The community we lived in, that was what they wanted us to do when the baby was born was they asked Boston, please come ring the bell so people could pay their respects. And that was how we got to announce to our people that she had made her way and that she was there. We had so much joy and we were celebrating Gloria and we sure did tell the world that she was here. And we had just did that.

Anna Sussman (32:44)

You know, ringing a bell is like the opposite of shame.

Amica Mota (32:50)

That is so real. That is so real. If I didn't rise up a bit out of that, the shame or the looking back and regret, I couldn't have done what I did. Like, I could not have. I couldn't have parented them in the ways that I did when I got out. If I didn't believe I was doing the right thing, if I didn't believe that I was worthy of being their mother or a new child's mother, right? Like I had to decide that I was worthy of, of living my life again.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (33:37)

Sam.

Anna Sussman (34:14)

Fire Escape is a production of Snap Studios and Wondry. We want to thank Amika Mota for sharing her story with us. We have the stories of four more incarcerated firefighters in our bonus episodes. You'll also hear from some special guests in those episodes including Anna Sale of Death, Sex and Money, Earlonne woods of Ear Hustle, New York Times best selling author Stephanie Fu and Suki Lewis. From on our Watch. Fire Escape was created, written and produced by me, Anna Sussman for SNAP Studios. Our senior story editors are Mark Ristich and Nancy Lopez. Marissa Dodge is our director of production. Original music by Renzo Gorio and Doug Stewart. Doug Stewart also created our theme song. Sound design and engineering by Miles Lassie for Wondry. Our senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Our development producer is Eliza Mills. Claire Chambers, Lauren D. And Mandy Gorenstein are our senior producers and Sarah Mathis is our managing producer. Our executive producers for SNAP Studios are Glenn Washington and Mark Ristich. Executive producers for Wondry are Marshall Louie, Morgan Jones, George Lavender and Jen Sargent. Special thanks to Adeza Egan and Catherine Steyer Martinez Pat Mesita Miller and the San Francisco Fire Department. On Team snap, the union represented producers, artists, editors and engineers are members of the national association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians Communication workers of America, AFL CIO Local 51.

Blossom (Amica's daughter) (35:48)

Sa.