They Called for Help. They’d Always Regret It.
Photographs by Arlene Mejorado and Carlos ChavarríaWhen Antonietta Zuñiga woke up to smoke pouring through her bedroom window, everything she had learned about how to care for her grandson completely left her mind. It was November 2019, in the Los Angeles County city of Pico Rivera. Antonietta’s grandson, Carlos Zuñiga Jr., is schizophrenic; she had the number for ACCESS, L.A. County’s mental-health hotline, taped to her fridge for moments precisely like these.