I think she has bad dreams, Rico does. For a while she talked about some ticket she couldn’t seem to find, and then she got into mumbling about someone named Zan.
Girls are weird.
At least this one loves her brother as much as I do.
Fever breaks breaks Sunday evening.
Stays broken Monday morning, but Jax’s lymph nodes are so swollen, it hurts him to open his mouth.
Señora Alvarez is out of the country, and Mama has to go to work.
Guess who’s staying home?
There’s a part of me that wants to call Zan. As soon as we got home from Florida, I did look up that PO address and find that post office on a map, but—well, it’s thirty miles away. And even if I could get to it, I wouldn’t know what to do next.
Which means I need him again.
Also haven’t talked to him in four days—a fact that might be clouding my judgment? Because…I miss him.
I don’t know how people live like this.
I call Jess instead. Ask her to swing by and get my schedule so she can collect all my missed work for me.
Tuesday morning, the kid can open his mouth a little wider, but he’s still struggling to swallow and can barely move. Mama leaves for work, and I head to the kitchen to blend up a smoothie for him.
The phone rings.
I shut the blender off and grab the cordless. “Hello?”
“Chuck!” the person exclaims.
“Sorry. Wrong number.”
“It’s a Shakespearean term of endearment, Danger. Which you’d know if you weren’t skipping out on school for the third day in a row.”
It genuinely startles me when my knees give out, but once I’m on the floor, all the longing and fear and frustration and panic I’ve been trying to keep locked down for Mama and Jaxy’s sake surges up to my eyeballs and pours out over my face. Like buckets and buckets of tears that shift from fury to joy to the deepest relief I’ve ever felt.
“Danger? You there?”
Pull it together, Rico! “Yeah. I’m here. What’s up?”
“Well, hello to you too.”
I smile. Put my head in my hand. “Hi, Zan.”
“Mornin’, sunshine.”
“How are you?”
“A lot better than you from what I hear,” he says.
Do I kill Jess or thank her? I guess I didn’t tell her not to tell him anything. (Was that subconsciously deliberate?) “Probably.”
“Can’t talk long. Just wanted to tell you my sis-in-law’s coming by to see my little buddy, so don’t freak when a gorgeous Latina pops up at your front door in about an hour.”
Can’t even bring myself to ask any questions. “Okay.”
“Also: I got a home address for our little old lady.”
Whoa. “You did?” How the hell—
“I can neither confirm nor deny whether my methods were legal, but bottom line, mission accomplished. We’ll talk more about it later.”
Okay. So this is a nice surprise. “Sounds good, Macklin.”
“Ani khoshev sheh ani ohev otach, Geveret Sakanah.”
“What?”
“Ah, nothin’ important. Just practicing a new language.”
“And which language would tha—?”
“Bell’s ringing. Talk later.”
He hangs up.
* * *
—
At 8:28 a.m., there’s a knock on the door.
Gorgeous Latina was an understatement.
“You must be Rico,” the woman says with a smile befitting a whitening toothpaste commercial.
I shake the hand she extends, but I don’t really have anything to say. Just looking at her makes me feel extremely insecure about my own…appearance. Massive, uncombed hair, ratty Malcolm X T-shirt, and holey sweatpants. Chipped toenail polish too.
“I’m Anna-Maria,” she says. “Alejandro sent me—”
“Alejandro?”
“Sorry, sorry.” She shakes her head. “Alexander. Zan.”
“Ah. Yes.” Alejandro?
“He didn’t say a whole lot when he called, but he mentioned your baby brother?”
That’s when I notice the lettering on her black bag: ANNA-MARIA G. ROJAS-MACKLIN, MD.
Zan sent a doctor?
I don’t even…Why is everything spinning?
“Are you all right?” Anna-Maria puts a hand on my shoulder. She smells imMACKulate. (I mean, why not give the Macklins their own adjective?)
“Yes, sorry,” I say. “Come in.” And I step aside so she can imbue our little domicile with magic just by entering.
When Jax—who’s stretched out on the couch reading Superfudge—sees Anna-Maria, he literally drops the book.
Me too, kiddo.
“You must be Jaxon.” Anna-Maria extends a hand as she approaches. “I’m Dr. Rojas-Macklin.”
Jax just stares. I’m sure we look like starved orphans who have never known kindness.
“I can take your coat,” I say, suddenly embarrassed. The place is a wreck, and it being the size of a shoe box makes the wreckedness that much more evident.
She smiles and hands it to me. PRADA, the tag says. Likely more valuable than Mama’s actual truck.
I deposit it in the coat closet—my trench winds up on the floor since we don’t have an extra hanger—and when I come back she’s looking down at Jax. “Do you mind if I sit, young man?”
He shakes his head and pulls his knees up to his chest to make room.
“I’ve heard a lot of great things about you, Jaxon. My little brother—you know Zan, yes?”
He nods again.
“Well, Zan is one of your greatest admirers.”
Jax grins all smugly and looks at me. I give him the you-better-not-say-anything-inappropriate glare, and he turns back to Anna-Maria.
She continues, “I hear you’re not feeling too well?” and he shakes his head no. “You mind if I check a few things? Maybe we can find the cause and get you on the road to feeling better?”
“Okay,” Jax rasps.