BELLA HURTLED HOME LIKE a Mars-bound rocket ship. By the time she crashed through the factory gates, the sun was setting over Manny’s tomato garden.
“Papa!” she yelled when she blasted into the house. “Lulu? Tony? Connie? Luigi?”
Where was everybody?
Heart pounding, chest heaving, she barreled up to her room. Her suitcase lay splayed, clothes strewn everywhere. Her hatbox was open and emptied across the floor.
She ran to the lunch stand. The front door was busted open. Inside, the loose board was off the floor. The cigar box containing all her hard-earned cash (and Lucia’s precious mementos) was gone.
“Papa!” Bella yelled as she charged into the backyard. “Papa!” she hollered when she got to the edge of his blooming garden.
Tomato sprouts poked up from the soil. Green and reaching. Manny was kneeling in the dirt between two rows of the young plants, coaxing and pruning.
Snipping. Snipping.
“Where’s my money?! Where’s my baby?!” Bella yelled. She grabbed the back of her papa’s shirt. “What have you done? I’m his mamma!”
Manny laughed, face twitching, scar yanking. “His mamma?” He stood up, clippers in hand. “What kind of mamma can a whore like you possibly be?”
Bella lunged and Manny batted her arms away.
“You think you can fuck your way around town like a little whore without being punished? Forget about your little baby. He’s gone. It’s done. You’ll never see the little bastard again.”
“If you don’t tell me where my baby is, I’ll fuck until I make another one! I’ll fuck and fuck and fuck until I make an entire army of bastard babies!”
“You can fuck all you want, but you’ll never be able to make another baby.”
He was so close Bella could taste his stinking breath.
“What?”
“After they yanked the little bastard out of you I had you fixed. Like a dog.”
“What do you mean?”
“The doctor cut you so you can never have a child again.” Manny raised his pruning clippers. “Snip! Snip!”
The second operation.
The tray of gleaming instruments.
All those stitches.
The godless sound that erupted from Bella’s wounded belly shrank the sky and quaked the ground. If she had had her mamma’s knife in her hand, it would have been curtains for the old man. She grabbed the first sharp thing she could find, his long-handled hoe, and swung.
“Come on!” Manny viciously egged his hysterical daughter on. “You think you can hurt me?”
As Lucia’s ancient scream echoed over their heads, Bella aimed for his good cheek. She sliced the air in front of Manny’s face, but he jumped back and the clippers flew out of his hand.
“Oh, come, now!” Manny leered. “You can do better than that!”
Bella raised the hoe high, but instead of going after her papa again, she turned and went after his plants.
“What are you doing?!”
She swung and hacked at them. Dirt and tomato stems ripped into the air.
“STOP!” Manny yelled.
When he tried to go after her, she threw the hoe at him. Then she grabbed and yanked and pulled and kicked. Every fucking stem. Every fucking plant. She went after them with every mean thing her papa had ever said to anybody. She went after them with every mean thing her papa had ever done. She went after them with every hand of his that ever flew. She went after them on behalf of her mute mamma. She went after them on behalf of her missing son. She went after them with the undying strength of her broken and battered heart. She went after them with every ounce of anger she carried with her. She went after them with everything she had.
“NO! STOP! PLEASE!”
She was like a human tornado, grabbing and yanking and pulling and ripping until Manny’s fist hit the back of her head and she dropped like a rock.
“Goodnight, sweetheart!”