The Book of Broken Hearts (31 page)

I smiled, remembering the photo from Emilio’s room.

“He was waitin’ for me to graduate,” Emilio said. “We were gonna do the bike trip together right after. When he died, everyone wanted me to stop riding—everyone but Ma. She said that’s not what Danny would want. She wouldn’t let me sell the bike. Every time I put it out front with a sign, she dragged it back to the garage. I’m happy about it now, but you know . . . some people in my family don’t talk to us because of it.” He tightened his arm around me, his breath heavy in my hair.

“I made a promise at his funeral,” he said. “I don’t know if he heard me or what. But I promised him I’d still do the trip, see all the stuff we talked about. I told him I’d go as soon as I finished school and saved up the money. I had to take time off, you know, work out my shit. I finished high school online.
Picked up the gig at Duchess. I was finally gonna hit the road this summer, see everything.”

Emilio shivered, and I took his hand in mine, pressed it to my lips. It was more than he’d ever said about his family. His life. I didn’t want him to stop.

“You woulda loved him,” Emilio said. “He was crazy. He always said that about me, but he was
loco
too. Always laughing at something, always making some crazy ass trouble or—”

“Wait. Hold on.” I looked over at Pancake. He’d abandoned his bone and had crouched to the ground in a low growl, hackles raised from neck to tail. I’d only ever seen him like that once—we’d come up on a coyote in the woods, spooked it from behind.

“Pancake?” I took a step toward him, but he bolted out of the barn, shooting across the yard and into the house through his doggy door. A heartbeat later, he cannonballed back out the same way, barking and howling, zooming toward me as if I were a rabbit.

In the second it took for me to reach the barn doors, a horrible screech pierced the air, a deadly electronic vulture.

“Papi!” I shot toward the house, Pancake at my heels, Emilio close behind.

Smoke curled through the kitchen screen door, and we bolted through it without touching the handle, knocking it off the top hinge. The kitchen was gray with smoke and ash. Emilio coughed and shoved past me into the living room. I
heard him thump up the stairs toward the bedrooms, calling for Papi.

Seconds later something popped and sizzled, and I followed the sounds to the stove. Heat rolled across my shoulders, my face, and in an instant I was on my knees, blindly groping around under the cupboard for the fire extinguisher.

We were out of immediate danger, Papi and I safe in the living room, Emilio on the phone with the fire department, but my legs still shook with leftover adrenaline. Papi stroked my hair as I hugged him, my face buried in his shirt.

“Didn’t you hear the smoke detector?” I mumbled against his chest. The dreadful chirp still rang in my ears even though Emilio had disabled it.

“I thought . . . I don’t know. The TV?” Papi pulled out of my embrace and looked at me with hazy, disoriented eyes. “I thought maybe you were watching. I put on my music.” He pointed to the headphones around his neck, those big eighties kind with a jack the size of a screwdriver. We didn’t even own anything they could plug into.

“We were outside,” I said. “I thought you were sleeping.”

He narrowed his eyes at the headphone jack, scratched his head like he was trying to piece together the mystery. “I was going to cook something, I think. But I don’t . . . I guess I got hungry? I’m sorry,
querida
. I can’t remember.”

He shrugged like it was no big deal, just another funny story about him putting on mismatched socks or digging up
the lawn or forgetting that he didn’t have to drive to work anymore.

“They’re on their way.” Emilio slipped the cell back into his pocket. “I’ll wait outside, flag them down.”

Papi didn’t remember anything else, and I didn’t want to upset him, so we sat on the couch in silence. Six minutes later two trucks were in the driveway, sirens blaring, yellow-suited men stomping into the kitchen.

“Do you know how it started?” Fireman Jeff asked. I knew it was Fireman Jeff and not Bob or Larry or Ferdinand because I was at the honorary dinner the night Jeff finished his volunteer training and got his station assignment.

Jeff was Zoe’s brother.

I’d hoped against the odds he wouldn’t be on duty today, but of course he was, and now he looked at me with the same sadness and pity in his eyes that Zoe’d had after the BHS picnic.

“I was outside,” I said. “I think my father turned the stove on and forgot about it. Something must’ve caught. Papi, do you remember anything else?”

Two firemen stomped past us to check the second floor. With every pound of their boots, every knock on the wall, Papi flinched.

“Mr. Hernandez?” Jeff’s voice was soft but commanding, and still Papi didn’t look up.

“It’s okay. Tell them what you remember,” I said. “They have to make sure everything’s safe.”

He returned his attention to the headphones, tugged on the cord, inspected the jack. Emilio had secured Pancake outside to keep him from spazzing out and Jeff was still looming over us and his red hair reminded me of Zoe and Papi wouldn’t speak and everything smelled like campfire and from some deep, awful place inside, darkness seeped into my blood, welled up in a flood of tears and hatred.

For the disease.

For the summer.

For the future.

For him.

And for one flash of a moment, for one fraction of a heartbeat, I looked at my father and wished the unspeakable
what if
.

What if I’d just closed my eyes.

What if I’d just ignored the smoke alarm.

What if I’d just let him go.

“What is
wrong
with you!” I shouted, blinded by a rush of horrible guilt and grief. I didn’t care that Jeff was still watching, that all those strangers were in our house, trampling our carpets, looking through the peephole on our lives. “You can’t use the stove! You can’t do that, okay?” I tapped his forehead with my finger. “It’s broken in here. Don’t you get that?”

Papi looked from the charred kitchen to the dangling screen door to my soot-smudged hands. He gasped as if he’d just realized the extent of the damage, how close he’d come to
burning down the entire house. To killing himself. To disappearing forever.

“I’m sorry,
querida
. . . . I didn’t . . .” He buried his head in his hands, and my heart shriveled inside, all the air escaping my lungs.

I’d lost my temper about the yard, the stupid treasure, Arch Stanton. I’d stashed him in the house to get him out of my way.

And then I’d wished him dead.

It was only a flicker, a barely formed thought, but it had been there, the evidence of it black and sooty behind my eyes. Now my throat burned with shame, my whole body trembled with sadness and fear.

I reached for Papi’s hand. Even though I hadn’t voiced the awful thought, I needed him to know that I didn’t mean it. That I loved him. I needed to know that he loved me too.

That he’d remember me always.

“Papi?” I whispered.

The firemen continued to clomp and bang and shout all around us, upstairs and down. My hand curled up on his knee, and Papi closed his eyes, exhausted, his face colored with shame.

I sat on the banks of the Animas trying desperately to do what Emilio had sent me to do: compose myself.

What a stupid saying.
Compose myself.
Like I could whip out a palette of paints and a brush, cover up all the mistakes.

She looks so real!

It felt wrong to dip my toes in the water while Emilio was home with Papi. It felt wrong to breathe the sweet summer air, knowing they were inhaling the acrid leftover haze.

But Emilio told me to try, and I couldn’t handle the burden of another screw-up today, so here I was. Composing.

The water bubbled around my toes. I let myself get lost in the coolness, wondering if I could slip in, float down the river, come up on the banks of someone else’s life.

All my fantasies ended with Emilio holding out his hand from the safety of shore.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Papi, blank and confused, looking to me like I had the answers, like I knew what had caused the fire, like I’d lit the match myself just to watch it burn. And Emilio, charging up the stairs to find him. Calling the fire department. Staying in the middle of ground zero even now, making sure Papi was okay while the firemen finished up and we waited for Mom to drive home.

That was the thing about Emilio. He didn’t come with a Before Alzheimer’s and an After Alzheimer’s version. He’d seen Papi at his worst from the start, yet his eyes hadn’t judged. His conversation hadn’t become guarded and full of sympathy, awkward and uncomfortable with the unsaid stuff. He took things as they came, every day. No matter what surprises Papi had up his flannel sleeve. No matter how Mari treated him. No matter how many times I screwed up, apologized, screwed up again.

Until Emilio, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have a true friend. Someone I trusted completely, without reservation. He’d come into my life only because of the motorcycle, and I’d unearthed Valentina only because I thought she might keep the demon at bay.

I remembered something the doctor had said when we first got the diagnosis.

Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease, but you never know who or what it may bring into your life.

With a sickening thud of my heart, I wondered now if I’d
always connect the two: Emilio Vargas and this illness, this horrible nightmare. The boy who gave my heart life and the evil faceless thing that stole my father.

El Demonio.

That was the name I’d write on my page in the black book, the old yellowed paper waiting patiently for the broken hearts I’d soon collect.

Emilio watched me through bleary eyes on the front stoop. “At least let me stay until your mom gets here.”

“We’re fine,” I said. “You already . . . You did a lot.”

I couldn’t look at him without seeing the smoke billow out from the kitchen door, Emilio charging in after my father. The things I’d said to Papi . . . the things inside my head . . . a thousand times more reprehensible than letting my sisters boss me around or waiting for old friends to call.

Emilio had seen the absolute worst of me, and no amount of composure or fresh air would clear it out.

“I’m not leaving,” he said.

“Thanks for . . .” It was an unfinished whisper, and I didn’t meet his eyes. I couldn’t. I shut the front door against his protests and turned back to Papi with an insincere smile.

“Still hungry? We could go get tacos or . . . ice cream maybe? Mom won’t be here for a while yet.” I sat next to Papi on the couch and rested my hand on his knee again, silently pleading that he’d say yes. That he’d make a joke about his failed cooking skills and I’d grab the keys and we’d zoom
into Old Town, scarf down some sundaes, make a meal out of our dessert.

Share a few laughs about what a close call this was.
Phew!

Because if he could laugh about this, if he could see the silver lining, I knew we’d be okay. That this would pass. That we could look back on the memory like a shared secret, our joint oversight, our near miss.