She picks up the plate I have dried. She moves smoothly to the stove, where there are leftover tortillas and cold beans. She takes her time. Tortilla. A spoonful of beans. A sprinkle of queso. Folding the burrito. Placing it back in the oven. Finding the salsa, delivering it to the table.
“Beer,” the man says.
My mother crosses to the tiny fridge, removes one of the beers tucked in the back.
She appears very composed, except for her hands, constantly crumpling her bright red skirt.
“Sit with me,” the man says after she removes the burrito from the oven.
“I must finish the dishes—”
“Sit with me.”
My mother sits. She shoots me a quick glance. There is something in her eyes, something she’s trying to tell me. Standing on my stool, I don’t understand. I don’t know where to go, what to do. We must take care, she said. But I don’t know how to take care of her now.
I just want this Bad Man to go away, and for my mother to be alone with me in the kitchen again.
The man eats his burrito. Bite by bite. He drinks his beer. He doesn’t speak, and the silence makes my tummy hurt.
As the last forkful is scooped up, delivered to the Bad Man’s mouth, my mother exhales slightly. Her shoulders slump. She has made some kind of decision, but I don’t know what.
The man glances in my direction.
“She’s very pretty.”
“She’s a baby,” my mother states coldly. She stands up. “We’ll go outside.”
The man raises a brow. “Feisty, aren’t you?”
“You want to talk? We go outside.”
“I don’t know. I like your kitchen. It’s very cozy in here. Maybe you should clear this table. We could show your daughter what you’re really good at.”
My mother stares at the man. Suddenly, she marches around the table, straight toward him. He flinches, caught off guard, and I’m proud of my mamita for making the Bad Man recoil. She hits his shoulder with her body as she passes, hard, pointedly. Then she grabs the back door and flings it open. Before the man can react, she’s outside.
At last he stands up. He pauses, stares at me a long while. I don’t like the look in his eyes.
“What’s your name, girl?”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I am still shaking too hard.
My mother calls from outside.
He gives me a final glance, then moves for the doorway. “Stupid girl,” he mutters.
I’m holding the dish towel. Alone now in the kitchen, I stare at it, wish I had something to dry. Wish the night would go backward and I could be sitting at the table, grating cheese and listening to my mother hum.
Then, more noises. The man, his voice angry and booming.
My mother. No, she says, over and over. Defiant, then stubborn, then pleading. A crack, a smack. I flinch. I know those sounds. He hit her. She speaks again, but her voice is so low I can barely hear it. I just recognize the tone. Broken. The Bad Man has hurt her, and my mamita is broken.
The angry voices stop. Everything stops. The silence scares me worse.
We are a pack. We have only each other. We must take care.
I carefully step down from the stool. I walk to the open doorway. I head outside.
My mother is on her knees. The man stands before her. He is holding something. A gun. He’s pointing a gun at my mother’s head.
I don’t think. I bolt. I race to my mother, a blur of little arms and little legs. I fly like the wind, I want to believe. I hurtle myself into her arms.
As my mother screams, “No! Get away! Run, chiquita, run!”
She throws me from her, even as I try to clutch her arms. She tosses me behind her. “Run,” she yells again. “Run!”
I see the tears pouring down her cheeks. I see the terror in her eyes.
I don’t run. I can’t.
I hold out my arms for my mother. We are two. We must take care—
The Bad Man pulls the trigger.
Later, I will dream of this, night after night. Later, this one moment will be all I have left. The last time I spoke. The last time I listened to my mother’s hum. The last time I held out my arms for the person who loved me.
Now, the bullet tears through my mother’s throat. A spray of red. Her hand, belatedly coming up.
Then the bullet continues on, slamming into my temple. I fly back. I land on red dirt. Dazed, hurt, confused.
The Bad Man walks over to me. He reaches down, feels my neck.
“Huh,” he says.
Then, right before I pass out, the Bad Man lifts me up. I don’t fight him. A sheet of blood coats my eyes. I stare through it at my mother’s fallen form. And I feel the burn of the bullet that has gone from her to me. That has brought the last of my mamita into me.
Our pack of two is no more.
CHAPTER 1
WATER.”
“Check.”
“Granola bars.”
“Check.”
“Apples. PB and J sandwiches.”
“Check, check.” Janet paused, looked up from the day packs opened on the B&B’s quilted bed. “How much water?”
“I’m going to say two bottles apiece,” Chuck replied. He was lacing up his hiking boots, banging his heel against the hardwood floor to ensure a tight fit.
“It’s really hot out,” Janet hedged. They’d fled Hotlanta for the weekend, heading north into the mountains only to discover the humidity was marginally better here than in the city they’d left behind. Just what they needed: a heat wave in Appalachia.
Chuck considered the matter. “Better throw in three bottles apiece. We definitely want to stay hydrated.”
“Sure,” Janet said, trying to keep from sounding sarcastic. As if they knew what they were doing. As if Chuck’s hiking boots hadn’t just come from a sporting goods superstore, while both backpacks had been dug out of the dusty bowels of his parents’ garage. Janet hadn’t even bothered with real boots, sticking with her tennis shoes. Chuck had already warned her about rolling an ankle on the trails. Seriously, she’d just wanted a romantic weekend at a B&B. She and Chuck had been dating nearly a year: short enough that they were still making the effort, long enough that a getaway weekend sounded fun.
But hiking? That was Chuck’s idea of a good time. Personally, she would’ve gone with room service and sex, but given the way her boyfriend was now clomping around their quaint room with blatant hiking boot satisfaction, that wasn’t happening. Maybe at the end of the day. Assuming either of them could still move.