Page 9 of No Merciful Corruption
“Why are you in the hospital?”
“I wish I could cry. Or scream. I just want to break something and yell until a beast crawls out of me. Then at least I’ll know I’ll have exercised it all out of my body.” I lean my head against the wall. “Why don’t men cry? I want to. So badly. But every time I try something stops me.”
“Alejandro,” he says. “Why are you are in the hospital?”
There’s no simple way of explaining this so I tell him everything all at once. By the time I’m done, I can hear movement on the other end of the line and a little gasp followed by my brother’s shushing. Lettie must be in the room.
“They’ve stabilized her for now but they need to operate immediately…” I trail off. “The bullet hit too close to her kidney and shattered into fragments. She already had a blood transfusion and will likely need another.”
“Oh Alex…” Lettie cries softly.
“You know, another centimeter and it would’ve killed her. Just a centimeter…”
Diego speaks next. “When are they going to operate?”
“Someone needs to authorize it. A health proxy or closest blood relative.” Tension builds between my temples as a migraine bursts to life inside my skull. “Lyss wanted me to lie and say we were married so I could make medical decisions on Dahlia’s behalf.”
“Why didn’t you?” Lettie asks.
“Because…it felt wrong.” A beat passes before I continue. “However, if she makes it out of this alive, I don’t think she’ll ever speak to me again.”
“What?” Diego says. “Why?”
“Because, I had to get a hold of the one person she probably hates more than me or even Karina.”
“Who?”
“Her father.”
BETTER AN ORPHAN THAN FORGOTTEN
Dahlia
The Church of Saint Barbara
Brooklyn, New York
12 Years Earlier
“He should be here already.”
Mom kneels in front of me to fix the zipper on my robe. A crease forms between her soft brows. “I know, mija. He’ll be here.”
I glance outside the church doors. Throngs of people line up on the street in their Sunday best. Women in modest dresses and short heels, the men in button downs and blazers. Of course there’s the occasional Jezebel like Karen Garcia’s older sister Dina who’s wearing a mini dress from the Joyce Leslie on Myrtle Avenue and a pair of bedazzled heels from Fabco. Despite the immodesty and scandalous cleavage, I envy how glamorous she looks.
Mom dressed me up like a virgin bride for my confirmation. My only consolation is knowing that Lyss is suffering too, wearing her aunt’s hand-me-down lace monstrosity from Italy. We cast forlorn looks at one another and sigh.
A white car turns the corner on Bleecker Street onto Central Avenue and I hold my breath for a beat. Except, it isn’t Papi’s beat-up Toyota. No, that’s Lisa Camero’s family, the only people in the entire neighborhood who could be accused of being tackier than the Garcias.
Lisa’s dad is tatted up from head to toe and wearing enough Cuban links around his throat to create a dent in his thick neck. He wears at least two rings on every finger and a belt with rhinestones holds up his dark jeans but barely. The only thing saving us from a view of his back side is the oversized Ed Hardy he’s wearing.
My mom and Lyss’s mom exchange looks.
“No one has respect for the house of God anymore,” Giovana shakes her head. “Would it have killed him to wear a tie?”
My mother scoffs. “Please, look at Angie. You can see her hot pink thong in that white dress—what was she thinking?”
Lyss and I move away from our parents to watch as Lisa gets out of the car. She’s wearing white cosmic pants with a peplum shirt and giant owl necklace whose pendant is the size of her fist. White and blue feather clips are woven into her straight black hair and a floral print handbag I saw at Charlotte Russe hangs over her shoulder. Her confirmation robe hangs open and the little angel with her saint name is pinned onto the lacy strap of her shirt.
