They won’t let me go up to Papá’s room. Instead, Tía Ileana meets me in the hospital lobby. “What happened?” she asks in a weary tone as if to say, Can’t I go away for more than a few hours without some crisis?
“I found out something.” I stand on tiptoe and whisper in her ear. “The people who hurt Papá. They know where he is and they’re coming back for him. Frankie told me.”
My aunt covers her mouth with her hand. Then she turns to Berta. “Take Tina back to the apartment. I’ll call you later.”
At the apartment, I try to help Berta with supper but cut my finger slicing tomatoes and burn my hand taking a sheet of empanadas from the oven. I’m in the bathroom putting ointment on my palm when I hear the door open and Berta exclaim, “Oh, no, not him!”
I rush into the living room in time to hear slurred words: “You think I want to be here?”
Tía Ileana and Ernesto hold Papá upright, his arms draped over their shoulders. Tía Ileana carries his cane and leg brace. He has the beginning of a beard, and his face is pale with an orangeish hue, like the picture on a messed-up color TV. He wears an oversize shirt, plaid pajama pants, unlaced sneakers, and a pressure bandage on his right wrist in addition to the splint on his left. Slowly, they lower him to the sofa, stuff some pillows behind his back, and help him stretch out his legs. Behind his glasses, his eyes are nearly shut.
He waves me over. I kneel next to him. He smells of the hospital, of antiseptic and disease.
I touch his purple fingers. Though hardly swollen, they’re soft, like rotten bananas. He closes his eyes the rest of the way.
Ernesto lifts Papá’s other arm and squeezes his hand. “Good luck, Nino. And call if you need anything.”
Papá’s lips move but no sound comes out—that’s how zonked he is on whatever they gave him.
I find my aunt and Berta in the kitchen, in the middle of another argument.
“This is my home. I though our safehouse days were over,” Berta says.
“You don’t have to take care of him. He said he wanted Tina to show some responsibility.”
“He’s in no condition to decide, Ilé. Look at him.”
I step between them. “Hi, guys.”
They shut up and stare at me.
“Hey, no big deal. He’s asleep,” I say.
My aunt frowns. “It’s not as easy as you think, amorcita.”
I leave the door to my room open, waiting for Papá to wake up so I can ask him about the keys he stole and gave to Rafael. Around eleven, after Tía Ileana and Berta have gone to bed, I hear a long moan.
I flip the light switch in the living room. Papá groans and shields his eyes with his bandaged arm. “You okay?” I ask.
“What do you think?” he snaps.
“Can I get you a painkiller?”
Sweat beads on his face. “Turn out the light, damn it.” In the darkness, he says, voice low, “You can turn on a lamp if you want.”
Dim light and shadows fill the room. “How’s this?” I ask.
“Good.” Under the blanket, he shivers. “I’m going off the painkillers.”
“Why?”
He reaches under the blanket across his body, a motion that causes him to let out a strangled scream. He holds up the smiley-face key ring and two keys. “Where does he live?”
I try to grab them but Papá jerks them away. “Whose side are you on?” he says between gritted teeth.
I blow out my breath. What’s left of my old papá after all these years lies on the sofa, broken and angry. Across town, the boy I was stupid enough to love will surely be killed because of my decision.
“He wasn’t the one who beat you up,” I answer.
“But he’s in with them.” He grimaces, as if slammed by a wave of pain. “My own daughter, running around with a fascist punk.”
I was prepared for him to blame me, but steaming blood rushes to my face anyway. “You made me come here.”
“To show you my life. Your country. Not to hang around with—”
I scrape my chair back, though I know he can’t touch me. “What life? All you do is work all day and then get piss drunk. You treat Tía Ileana like crap. And here people murder each other because of stupid politics.”
For a long time he says nothing. I listen to his breathing, try to gauge his reaction. With concentrated effort, he pushes himself to a sitting position. “Are you so blind to politics that you go out with an assassin because he rides a motorcycle and says he loves you?”
I leap to my feet and glare at him. “It’s more than you ever said.” It takes all my effort to keep from shouting.
He closes his eyes and mumbles, “Shit,” like he forgot something. Like he is completely incapable of being a father—or of loving anyone—because of what they did to him.
I press on, in case he believes Frankie somehow converted me. “We never really discussed politics. Mamá and Daniel told me not to, and Frankie said he wasn’t into it. He paid attention to me and was nice. That’s all.”
“That’s all? That’s all?” Papá’s sarcasm stings me.
I flop down in the chair. “The only thing that matters to you is politics. Not us.”
He gazes at me. “Of course you matter. I did this for you, too.”
“That’s crap. You did it for your country. For your”—I search for the word he used when they let him out of prison—“compañeros. Your family came after. When there was nothing left.”
“I wanted to protect you.” He clears his throat. “So you kids could grow up without having to live in fear. The life I led all those years when you were younger . . .”
“When you acted like a real father?” How could I have believed he’d still be that person?
“When I worked underground.” His breath is shallow. “I didn’t want it to become your life.”
I think about all those years in Madison, getting teased by the other kids and not having my old papá to listen to me or help me. “I needed a father. A family that wasn’t separated.”
He nods. “I know.”
“But you didn’t do a thing about it. Except abandon your family.”
“I arranged for you to come here. So we could be part of each other’s lives again.” He shakes his head slowly. “I didn’t have to. It would have saved me a lot of pain.”
He sinks into the sofa. I clench my teeth so hard my jaw aches. But there’s so much more I have to say. I inhale, and the hospital smell almost makes me gag. “Frankie was with me on Wednesday. Not at the demonstration and not with those cops. And he wasn’t drunk, either.” Well, only a little. “So stop blaming me.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Because you tried to protect me.”
But then I think about what Tía Ileana told me, about his father dragging him into politics, and where that got him. Maybe Papá meant it when he said he didn’t want his life to become my life. Maybe he wanted me to have a different life—one with safety and the freedom to make my own choices and say what I wanted to say. Like my life in Madison with Mamá and Evan.
But where did that leave him? And how long would he wait to see me again?
I let my face drop into my hands so Papá won’t see it and think he was right all along.
I feel cloth against my wrist, then Papá’s icy fingers. When he first got out of prison, he would jerk my hand away from my face when he thought I wasn’t paying attention, but this time he just holds my wrist steady. And he doesn’t say a thing, only stares at me.
There’s so much more I can say about him not being there for me, and for blaming me when he was the one who spoke at an illegal demonstration while under the influence of a bellyful of hard liquor. But I can’t keep hurting him and then expect him to help me.
“I’m sorry, Papá. I messed up. But now you’re in trouble and Frankie’s in trouble unless I do something.”
Papá jingles the keys with his weak hand. “I got out of the hospital before he could kidnap me. What happens to your boy is his problem.”
“No!” I shout, then lower my voice to just above a whisper. “The people he’s with will keep coming after you. You’ll never be safe.”
“Is this what he told you?”
I nod. “I called him this afternoon. That’s when he warned me.”
There’s a long silence. “Okay, bring me a glass of juice. Some aspirin. And one of those empanadas.” His voice is calm. “I need to think this over.”
When I return, I place the pills on his stitched-up tongue and hold the glass to his lips so he won’t spill it because of his shaky hands. He finishes both the juice and the empanada before we speak again.
“Do you really love the boy?” he asks.
“I did. And we’re kind of still friends.” The line divided we fall runs through my mind, because this isn’t the kind of friendship I have with Max. If Frankie and I act like people who hate each other, we all get killed.
“I suspect he loves you.” Papá touches his mouth with the back of his bruised hand. “He saved my life because of you.”
I think of what Frankie said to Papá in the mountains, cruel words that nag at me. I stare into my father’s eyes. “Is that what you wanted? For him to save your life?” I want to push his hair away from his eyes, but don’t.
“I wanted the pain to end.” Papá takes a deep breath—the kind of painful breath he needs to take to avoid a lung infection—and coughs. “But, yes. I need you guys to keep me from doing things I won’t have a chance to regret.” He smiles weakly.
I smile, too. It doesn’t quite count as loving himself, but it’s a start. “I sort of said I’d help Frankie escape,” I tell Papá.
“Escape to where?” Papá bats his hair from his face. His eyes are bright. Alert.
“I don’t know. He wants to go to Miami.”
“That may be hard. The gringos don’t let just anyone in.” He holds up the keys again. “But if you tell me where the apartment is, I’ll get him out of the country. I know some people through work. People in other countries who’ve published my articles.”
“You won’t just raid the place?” How can I be sure he won’t turn Frankie over to Rafael and Héctor—who’ll surely do to Frankie what the cops did to Papá?
Papá’s voice is steady. “I need the names of all the other gang members. Will he give them to me?”
I nod. “If I promise to sleep with him.”
“Tell me that’s a joke.”
“Lots of people make promises they don’t keep,” I say.
Papá stashes the keys under the blanket and holds out his bruised hand, as if he wants me to shake it. Or slap him five, which I hesitate to do because he’s already so beat up. “All right. We’ll go together,” he says, gripping my hand. He squeezes a lot harder than I expected. His fingers are dry, as if covered in powder.
I let everything spill out. The address, the streets and buildings nearby, the fake grandmother, the phone call ordering Frankie to go to the police station and to take me with him. I don’t tell Papá what Frankie and I were doing in the apartment that day, only that I would visit to play video games. I don’t expect Papá to believe me, but he doesn’t say anything. I tell him, “Frankie said he’ll be there alone until ten thirty in the morning. And there’s a locked bedroom. He said it was his grandmother’s bedroom, but it isn’t and I don’t know what’s in there.” I imagine guns, lots of guns. Ammunition. And more cocaine and weed. Maybe even dead bodies.
“Okay. Bring me the phone,” Papá says when I’m done.
He dials a number. “Hey, Ernesto. It’s Nino. Sorry to wake you. . . . I’m surviving. . . . I need you here at eight in the morning. Call Rafa at the house and tell him you’re picking him up at seven forty-five. . . .” Oh no, not him. “Shit, yeah, you’re picking him up at seven forty-five. Don’t be late. We don’t have much time for this action, and it’s big. Real big . . . One more thing. Bring a pair of jeans, because I’m not doing this in pajama pants. Your jeans, guatón, not mine. I’ve swollen a few sizes. And a set of screwdrivers. Got all that? Repeat it. . . .”
He goes over the plan with Ernesto twice more before he hangs up.
Operation Minus World has begun.