BY MARIKA LYNCH

 Eva Barbas has barely slept in days. She weeps, with heavy sobs that start in the
 barrel of her chest and shake her frail, 75-year-old frame.

 To make matters worse, wherever she goes people say, ``Now you're a
 millionaire!''

 But she is not.

 She could be, three times over. Last week, families of some of the men killed in
 the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot-down offered to share $3 million from their
 court judgment with Barbas -- who lost her own son Pablo Morales in the tragedy.

 She is grateful for the offer, though it has brought her great anguish.

 Barbas and her daughter Nancy Morales, who came to the United States on
 humanitarian visas months after the shoot-down, said the money is better off
 directed toward charity.

 ``With millions, you can do wonders in this country,'' Nancy Morales said
 Tuesday. ``May they be wonders for charity.''

 For years, the families of the three others killed -- Carlos Costa, Armando
 Alejandre and Mario de la Peña -- have fought to make the Cuban government pay
 for sending MiGs to shoot at the planes over international waters, a monetary
 punishment for the act of terrorism. They sued, won in 1997, but were blocked
 from collecting the judgment by Treasury and State Department officials.

 Earlier this month the Clinton administration agreed to release part of the
 judgment -- $58 million in frozen assets belonging to the Cuban government.

 Friday, the Costa, Alejandre and de la Peña families announced a third of the
 money, more than $19 million, would go to create scholarships for rafters, a prize
 for human rights activists, among other charities. They hoped to share $3 million
 with Barbas, because they didn't want her son, or his wishes, to be forgotten.

 ``I don't think anybody should make any hasty decisions,'' said Maggie Khuly,
 Alejandre's sister. ``If she still wants to refuse it again, we will not be angry or
 offended or anything. If she does not accept it, then the money will go to some
 other cause in memory of Pablo.''

 Neither Khuly nor any of the other families have spoken to Morales since they
 won the judgment. The two groups don't speak to each other -- a rift caused by
 their differing views of the tragedy.

 Barbas is the only family member to maintain contact with Brothers' founder José
 Basulto. The other families don't agree with Brothers' political activities, nor
 Basulto's claim that U.S. officials were negligent.

 Barbas said the rift did not affect her decision.

 Barbas, who couldn't sue herself because her son wasn't a U.S. citizen, was
 living in Havana when Cuban MiGs shot down his plane. Pablo Morales had been
 in the United States just four years, arriving in 1992 on a raft after being saved by
 Brothers to the Rescue, he told The Herald in 1994. He flagged them down by
 waiving a statue of the Virgin Mary to the sky.

 In Miami, Morales took a job as a driver and salesman for a refrigerator repair firm,
 becoming a principal provider for his family back on the island. He volunteered as
 a spotter, scouting for rafters, on Brothers flights over the Florida Straits.

 Fearing government retribution after the shoot-down, Barbas and family applied for
 a visa to the United States. They arrived three months later, with nothing.

 That fall, Clinton authorized compensating each family with $300,000 from frozen
 Cuban assets.

 Barbas still is living off that check, her only means of support. She bought a three
 bedroom, peach house in Little Havana, where she lives simply with her daughter
 Nancy Morales, a cosmetology student, her husband Juan Carlos Pérez, a truck
 driver, and Morales' 17 year-old daughter Diancy Var. Another son, Nelson
 Morales, who is estranged from Barbas, is a maintenance worker for the city of
 Miami. With his wife out of work, Morales said he struggles to get by and pay rent
 in his Section 8 housing.

 Taking the money would make their lives in the United States a financial breeze.

 But to Barbas, the answer remains no.

 ``We have supported ourselves our whole lives,'' Barbas said.

 Said Nancy Morales: ``Mami already has what Pablito dreamed for her. Her
 house, a car to get around in, freedom, and dignity. That's what Pablito dreamed
 for Mami, and all of us.

 ``In Cuba, we aren't accustomed to suing people, or asking money from anybody.''
 Morales said.

 What Barbas wants is justice for her son.

 ``I ask God every day that he gives me life to see justice, and the truth. That's
 what I want,'' Barbas said. ``Justice and truth, and an indictment for the assassin.
 Fidel.'' She fiddles with the pin she is attaching to her black jacket. On it are the
 faces of the four slain Brothers to the Rescue volunteers, including her beloved
 Pablo.

 ``How difficult life is,'' she laments.