My last hope is my mother.
After the cassette ends, I tiptoe down the stairs, hoping to get to the telephone in the kitchen without Rafael or Graciela seeing me. The living room is empty, and there’s no one in the kitchen, either. But men’s voices float in from the open door to Papá’s office. I carry the phone into the living room and dial the fourteen digits of my home number. The rotary dial clicks, and holding it next to my body fails to muffle the sound. Why does my home number have so many zeroes and nines? Finally, I dial the last digit.
Strong hands grip both my shoulders and spin me around. I glimpse Rafael’s dark eyes. “What do you think you’re doing?” He lifts the phone out of my hands, but I can still hear ringing.
I gaze at the gaps between the floorboards, as if I could squeeze through and escape. “Calling my mother,” I say.
“She’s calling her mami,” Rafael shouts, followed by laughter from two rooms away. He holds the receiver toward me. Ring after ring tells me no one’s home.
A skinny man totters in. He’s no taller than I am, with dark hair and a thick black mustache. He grips the neck of a whiskey bottle—the whiskey Papá usually drinks.
“Well, well,” the small man slurs. “If it ain’t the little girl who started everything.” He takes a swig and nods at me. “Look on the bright side, pendejita. We get to drink up Nino’s stash.”
I break into a sweat at the word pendejita—little fool. “Where’s Graciela?”
“Next door. Where she normally works when she’s not looking after you.” Rafael spits out the words. “You spoiled gringa brat.” I back away from him into the kitchen. He follows me and sets the phone on the counter.
I scoot toward the sink. “Leave me alone!” The words come out an octave too high for anyone to take me seriously.
“Typical gringa. Thinks the whole world revolves around her.” The smaller man appears next to Rafael and laughs. I try to look him in the face, the way the counselors told me to do when kids pushed me around in middle school. But I can’t make myself do it, and my gaze falls to his body, where a pistol sticks out of the waistband of his jeans.
“And I hear you’re a real puta.” He staggers toward me. His hand grazes my hair. “We ought to teach you a lesson.”
My stomach lurches. My gasp sounds like a cry.
“Watch it, Héctor,” Rafael says. “That’s Nino’s daughter.”
“I was only kidding, man.” The man named Héctor taps the grip of his pistol and shakes his head. “Damn, if I had a kid like her, I’d want to blow my brains out, too.”
Rafael claps him on the back. I slide along the kitchen counter toward the door to Papá’s office and backward down the three steps. A large man with red hair and freckles sits in Papá’s desk chair. On the desk are a can of Coke and a bottle of pisco. The man belches. I push open the sliding door.
Outside, I suck in the damp, smoggy air and gag. I look for an escape, but high walls, the house, and the birds’ cage trap me.
In the silence I hear the flutter of wings. Víctor darts to the other end of the cage. He hovers over a branch before perching with his single intact foot. On the tree branch nearest the cage’s door, Pablo stares at me, his beak quivering. I unhook the latch and squeeze through the wire door. My eyes sting and then I’m crying for real. I don’t even bother to muffle the noise or wipe the tears that stream down my face.
Pablo hops onto my trembling finger. “Help me, buddy,” I say.
No answer. I repeat the words in Spanish, somehow expecting advice from the bird my father trained to make suicide threats.
“Te quiero, flaco,” Pablo squawks. A moment later, he adds, “No te me mueras.”
I love you, skinny. Don’t die on me.
My throat burns. “I love you, too.”
A ruffling of feathers overhead startles me. Víctor lands on the branch next to Pablo. He’s as close to me as he used to get to Frankie. I wipe my face with my sleeve. What did Víctor see in Frankie, that he went to him when he wouldn’t go to anyone else?
“Hey, Víctor,” I say, forcing a smile. The stump of his leg twitches. Papá said that Graciela’s husband brought him here. Was Rafael the one who abused him?
I’ve got to get away from this house.
There’s a tree next to the back wall, but the lowest branch is too high to reach unless I stand on my tiptoes. If I had a rope, I could get up there, but if they won’t let Papá have a gun or knives, what are the chances of a rope lying around the house?
Near my bedroom window is a drainpipe. If it’s close enough, I can use it to swing to the top of the wall, and maybe there’s a gate on the other side.
I decide to set Víctor free, so he won’t be left alone with Rafael. I open the cage door wide. “Go, Víctor.” I wave my hand. But the bird just sits there. I fetch a handful of birdseed from the bag under the eaves and scatter some of the seed outside the cage. He still doesn’t leave.
With a shrug, I say, “Good-bye, birds,” toss the rest of the seed inside, and close the cage door. I sneak back into the house and upstairs without the goons noticing me. I switch from my boots to my pink high-top Chucks with rubber soles to grip the metal pipe. After throwing a change of clothes into my backpack along with my hairbrush and toothbrush, I slide the window open.
A blast of cold air greets me. I reach for the drainpipe, test its sturdiness. I jump up to the pipe and hang on.
I have to close the window, or someone will notice I’ve gone. I thrust out my backpack, hook the handle of the window with the shoulder strap, and pull the window shut. Then I slide down a few feet and plant my left foot on the top of the wall.
In a crouch I sidestep along the wall, looking for a way out through the neighbors’ yard. There’s a shed in the middle next to the wall and a gate at the far end. I lie flat on the shed’s corrugated metal roof and peer below to make sure Graciela isn’t there. Then I climb down, dash across the narrow yard, and push the wrought-iron gate open.
I’m stunned to find myself in the street. Then I realize I have no money and no place to go. The only place within walking distance is the apartment where Frankie and I used to get together. Where his grandmother lives. Where his motorcycle may still be.
She won’t be back anytime soon, Frankie said last week. He said last night that he planned to go back home. He also said he planned to run away, with or without me. But can I believe anything he said? And Rafael has the keys in his pocket. How would Frankie have gotten in?
My chances of finding a safe place to go are zero, but still I trot up the street and around the block to avoid passing Papá’s house. Before long, I’m pushing through crowds at the shopping plaza, trying to remember which street leads to the apartment. It’s already getting dark. Landmarks, I tell myself. The traffic circle. The three banks. The hot dog stand with the italianos.
I count the blocks. A fine mist drifts down from the purple sky. At eight blocks I see the traffic circle. The building is in the distance, lights on in most of the apartments. The raindrops get heavier. I break into a run. Icy water pelts my face and soaks into my clothes.
Frankie’s motorcycle is not on the street in front, where he usually parks it. Stupid idea—I knew he wouldn’t be here. I turn around to go home but alongside the building spot the silver and black Suzuki behind the bushes.
Someone has propped the lobby door open, as if expecting me. Inside the elevator I shiver in my wet clothing. Why am I doing this? Frankie was supposed to kill Papá. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because he loved me? Because I loved him—even if I can’t anymore?
I knock on the door. The voice that answers is unmistakably Frankie’s. “Just a minute.”
The door opens. Frankie has wrapped a towel around his waist, as if he stepped out of the shower. His hair glistens. He sucks in his breath. “Why are you here?”
I don’t know the answer.