Surviving Santiago (26 page)
Read Surviving Santiago Online
Authors: Lyn Miller-Lachmann
He reaches one hand toward me. All the times he held me in his arms and all the times he said he loved me draw me back to the sofa. As I come closer, I make out words. “He won't be able to quit. They never do. It just gets worse.”
This isn't about Papá.
“What happened, Frankie?”
“After the hospital. I went back home like I told you I would.”
“To check on your father.”
“Four in the morning, the bars were closed. I heard him cursing outside. I went out to tell him to shut upâthese little shacks, you can hear everything. He was two doors away, and all around him were cops.” Frankie takes my hand. “I couldn't let them see me, so I couldn't stop them.”
“Did they beat him?”
Frankie shakes his head. “No, but they were laughing and calling him names. Lush. Garbage. Cockroach. Then they started pushing him from one cop to the other, spinning him around until he fell down and couldn't get up.” He closes his eyes. “And all I could do was hide and watch. After they left, I carried him inside and put him to bed.” Frankie squeezes my fingers until they hurt. “You know what he said to me?”
The way Frankie asks the question, I know his father didn't thank him. “What?” I ask.
“âYou're just like me, boy. A coward.'”
I
sprint through the darkness toward the traffic circle, my hood pulled low over my eyes to keep out the fine rain. After passing the last of the three banks, I slow to a walk. My side throbs, and the wind rips through my damp clothes. By the time I get to the shopping plaza, storekeepers are lowering their metal gates for the night. I might as well give up and beg TÃa Ileana for mercy so I have a place to sleep tonight.
I check every one of my pockets for coins to call my aunt. There's nothing. Not even a lint ball.
Then I do what I saw so many kids my age doing when I lived here years ago.
I hold out my trembling hand, palm up. “Excuse me, sir?” I call out to a man who's already walked past me. He doesn't turn around.
I grasp my wrist to steady it. To keep from dropping any coins that someone might give me. “Excuse me, sir . . .”
Another man looks away as he passes me.
A woman approaches. She wears a calf-length wool coat with horizontal stripes and spiked heels that click on
the pavement. “M-ma'am? Ch-ch-change so I can eat?”
She crosses the street.
My arms drop to my sides. A few people pass without looking at me.
I pull my hood lower, make my voice smaller, close my eyes. “Please? Just a peso?”
A coin drops into my outstretched hand. Gripping it tightly, I dash to a pay phone. I dial slowly to avoid a wrong number.
“Hello. Who's this?” Right away, I recognize Rafael's gravelly voice.
The coin clicks inside the pay phone. I hang up.
My money is gone, and the plaza is now deserted, except for a few storekeepers sweeping up. I ask one of them for directions to the hospital. If TÃa Ileana isn't home, she must still be there, where she'd taken the sheets for Papá. The storekeeper points to a wide avenue and says, “But it's very far.”
“How far?”
“Almost three kilometers.”
I walk fast to get there with no one noticing meâa girl alone at night. Even so, cars honk and guys on motorcycles call out to me, asking my price. I consider giving them the finger but don't want to call more attention to myself. I dash the last block to the hospital.
Out of breath, I ask the receptionist. “I'm looking for my aunt. She's with my father. Marcelo Aguiâ”
All along the way, I hadn't thought about seeing him in the hospital, what he'll look like, what he'll say. He probably hates my guts for what I did to put him there.
“Your name?” The receptionist's curt tone startles me. When I tell her, she says, “You're not on the list.”
“But I'm his daughter.” Now I know. He does hate me.
She shows me a logbook. “He's only allowed one visitor at a time. And no one under eighteen.”
I drop to my knees on the dirt-streaked floor in front of the reception desk and hide my face behind my hands. Someone touches my back. The receptionist kneels next to me.
“He's going to be fine, dear,” she says, voice softening. “He's here to rest and get better.”
I want to scream, but I let her keep talking, reassuring me that Papá isn't going to die.
“Have you seen my aunt?” I finally ask.
“The tall, red-haired woman?”
I nod, sniffling.
“She left about half an hour ago.”
“May I call her to pick me up?”
The receptionist hands me the phone. This time TÃa Ileana answers. She has no idea I'd run away, and she thinks I'm here because I'm worried about Papá. I wait until we get inside her car before I tell her what happened with Rafael and Héctor.
“So they were drinking his liquor rather than pouring it
out?” I nod. She turns toward me and holds my gaze with hers. “And they made advances toward you?”
“The guy named Héctor did. Rafael told him to stop, but they were saying horrible things. Like I'm the reason Papá wants to kill himself.”
TÃa Ileana's grip tightens on the steering wheel. I can hear her teeth grind before she turns the ignition. “I'm sorry you had to hear that,
amorcita
.”
“Don't make me go back there,” I plead. “If you don't want me, take me to my grandparents. Or put me on a plane home.”
“No.” Her voice has a hard edge. “I can't give up on you and your father.”
T
Ãa Ileana drives to the neighborhood we passed when I first arrived, to the four-story apartment building where she said she used to live before she moved in with Papá. The cement balconies on each floor reflect the streetlamps. The sidewalk is wide and clean. About half the windows are lit, and when I look inside, I see the tops of bookshelves in a few living rooms or bedrooms and the flickering of televisions in most of the others. My aunt whips into a parking space in the median of a divided avenue.
She leads me to an apartment on the top floor and unlocks the door. The place smells of tomato sauce and garlic.
Berta steps into the living room and wipes her hands on her jeans. She glances at me, then at my aunt. “What's she doing here?” Berta asks, as if I'm not there.
“Some problems at home,” TÃa Ileana answers. “She's going to have to stay here for a few days.”
My aunt takes me by the arm through a hallway to a small room with a desk, a tall file cabinet, and a twin bed pushed up against the wall. I drop my backpack on the bed.
Berta stands in the doorway. “I can't have her here.”
“She has no place to go,” TÃa Ileana says.
“What about the house?”
My aunt looks at me, expecting me to tell Berta what happened, I guess. I take a deep breath. “It's full of these security guys. One of them threatened to hurt me.”
Berta doesn't ask me why. Maybe she doesn't know what I did.
“You have to be at the hospital. And I can't watch her,” Berta finally says to my aunt.
“I don't need watching,” I say.
TÃa Ileana glances at me, eyebrows raised. Then she nods at Berta and they leave the room. Afterward, I hear voices from the living room, getting louder and louderâTÃa Ileana and Berta arguing because of me.
“She got into some trouble. It's not safe for her.”
“I'm not taking time off work for her.”
“It's important to me. Her father . . .”
“You should have never moved in with him, the ungrateful pig.”
“This is my family, Berta.”
“Family? He hates us.”
“This isn't about my brother. It's about Tina.”
“I don't care. It's not safe for us with her around. . . .”
“I'm not like him, okay?” I shout above them as I step into the living room. They stop talking and stare at me. “Please let me stay. I promise I won't run away again.”
Berta and TÃa Ileana look at each other. Berta nods. My aunt hugs me.
“Thank you, Berta,” I say.
Then I remember Frankie, holed up in the apartment without his keys. And if he doesn't get out of the country before the gang leaders find out he didn't kill us, it will come down to his lifeâor Papá's.
Maybe if I return to the house and get the keys, I can help him run away. But I just promised that I wouldn't leave Berta's. I will save myself instead.
Thursday, July 13: 39 days until I go home
W
hen I wake up the next morning in Berta's guest room, I glance at my watch. Ten after twelve. Not even morning anymore.
The birds!
Yesterday before she left for the hospital, I promised TÃa Ileana that I would feed them and clean their cage for Papá. But how can I go back there now? And the keysâI don't even want to think about Frankie.
I hear rustling in the kitchen, and while I'm in the bathroom washing up TÃa Ileana calls my name. I stick my head out, mouth full of toothpaste. “Aren't you going to the hospital?” I ask.
“I'm staying here today,” she answers. I'm sure it's because I can get into a lot more trouble than Papá, who, according to what my aunt said last night, has only three tubes attached to him now.
After I shower and get dressed, she asks if I know how to cook. I wonder if she wants me to make
la comida
. Since I just woke up, it's like breakfast time for me.
“I do a little cooking,” I answer. “Mostly cut stuff up for my mother.”
“Sous chef.”
She drops a package of raw chicken onto the kitchen counter. “You've been promoted.” Her earrings, dangling feathers, swing back and forth as she hands me more ingredients. Olive oil. Salt. Black pepper. A box of spaghetti. A can of tomato sauce.
Given that TÃa Ileana hasn't done anything more than heat leftovers, it makes sense that she sticks me with the cooking. It makes even more sense because I showed up uninvited, caused a fight between her and Berta, and screwed up everyone's life. I find a black plastic cutting board labeled
CARNE
âthe block printing doesn't look anything like my aunt'sâand set to work chopping the chicken.