by Unknown
The room is stark under the bulb. He pulls the door shut behind him.
He returns to the doorway of Angel’s room, steps inside. With the crib and changing table, it’s crowded, but Angel has made it her own, cleared out Valerie’s old books and Garfield figurines. She doesn’t have a lot of belongings, his daughter. Her schoolbooks are in the shelf, looking like they haven’t been touched since Angel left Smart Starts! The room is even tidier since his mother died, pajamas folded at the foot of the bed, Connor’s diapers stacked neatly on the changing table.
His mother’s bottle of Shalimar stands on Angel’s cream-painted dresser. He takes off the blue top, sniffs, and tears spark in his eyes.
Angel has left him. Taken the baby and gone home to Marissa when he needs her the most, just as he always knew she would. And with the fear, that old anger comes up, familiar and almost comfortable. The little bitch, he thinks. Not just her, but Brianna, too, and Valerie, and Marissa. And especially his mother. Bitch, he thinks savagely, the word satisfying and horrible in his head. His vision blurs, the back of his throat thickens.
Rage like a flash flood, a wall of water as solid and sinewy as muscle sweeping down an arroyo, lifting him. He can ride its current until it gives out, leaving him tossed up, exhausted, on its banks. With relief, he sinks into the swirling, dirty force of it, lets it fill his lungs.
He sits on the couch, his bag crinkling against his thigh. One after another, the seals of the metal tops crack. His body loosens. This is how he’ll get through the next hours, the next years, drifting in that whirling, obliterating tide, the loop of curses slowing in his head.
The TV is on, the jingles and murmurs and swelling dramatic music on the edges of his awareness. His eyes are barely open. He should just go to sleep. He’s adrift on the drunkenness, but each time his eyes shut completely, the world rocks and spins around him.
Neither the rage nor the anesthesia is quite obliterating, though. Amadeo is still here, unable to snuff out that last glimmer of himself. He keeps jolting to awareness, thinking he needs to check on his mother, but then remembers that she’s dead, deep in the churchyard’s cold, dry dirt.
Still, something nags at him, something he forgot.
Lizette’s house in the dark has an abandoned aspect to it. Next door, the front windows are blazing, shades up, Christmas lights illuminating the mounds of junk in the yard. A man passes before the window, head angled over a bowl of something. At Lizette’s, the tomato plants are dead stalks. Angel steps almost soundlessly up the walk, and knocks on the door between the security bars, a timid little tap she can barely hear over her heart’s sloshing. She knocks again, bolder.
What if Lizette is gone, already moved in with her cousin’s friend? What if Selena answers the door? Or someone else entirely? Maybe they’ve both moved, and the house is now occupied by lurking, threatening men waiting for a teenage girl to present herself at their threshold.
Angel checks her phone again. Ryan still hasn’t texted, the dick, and neither has Lizette. He’s teaching her a lesson, she gets that, but still, nightmare scenarios present themselves: Ryan leaving Connor at Blake’s Lotaburger, Ryan dropping Connor at the police station or on the cold steps of the church.
Finally, approaching footsteps, then a long pause. Angel can feel herself being watched from behind the dark windows. She swallows.
Lizette opens the door, regards Angel through the security screen, then unlocks that, too. “Hey,” she says, her tone flat and unsurprised, as if they’d planned this, then turns into the dark of the house without saying anything, leaving Angel to shut the door against the night. Lizette is in sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. At the end of the hall, the light is on in her room. In the unlit living room, the couch is gone, and the table, too. As Angel follows Lizette through the house, she steps around piles on the floor—papers and clothing, cardboard moving boxes, a wadded blanket. Mercedes’s crib has been moved out here, and Angel sees a dark hump inside.
In Lizette’s room, the quilted L is still on the wall, but the place looks pillaged. Full black garbage bags are everywhere. One already has holes in it where hangers poke through.
“Wow,” Angel says lamely. “You’re almost packed.”
“Yeah,” says Lizette, looking around. In the light, Lizette’s skin is clay-like, her beautiful eyes heavy. Messy strands have loosened from her ponytail, which looks unwashed.
“Oh, Lizette.” Angel steps toward her.
Without preamble or small talk, they’re in each other’s arms. It’s not what Angel has been longing for all these weeks: slow and close and gentle. Lizette is rough with her—the biting kisses make Angel catch her breath—and in response Angel is rough with Lizette. It all takes place under the blazing overhead light.
After, they doze, until, from the crumple of Angel’s jeans, her phone blares. We are fam-i-ly! Angel detangles herself and lunges for the phone, but misses her dad’s call.
“Hang on.” She pulls her shirt on, slips out the door to the bathroom. She’s about to call back when the texts come through, one, two, three, four. Where RU? Ur boy Ryan dropped C off. Where RU?????? WHERE U AT DAMMIT???????
Thank you, God, thank you, thank you. Angel leans against the cold mirror on the back of the door. Watch him tonight, k? Home in the morning.
Clearly Lizette’s brother was in charge of the cleaning, because the bathroom is wrecked: the toilet paper roll empty, toothpaste and cosmetics smeared in the sink, the trash can smelly and overflowing. A dry, browned maxi pad is stuck to the tile. Pinching the edges, Angel peels it off and balances it atop the trash. She tries to scrub out the sink, but there’s no hot water, and she gives up.
Angel steps back down the dark hall. She moves quietly, so as not to wake Mercedes in her crib, or Selena, if she’s home. Lizette rouses. “There you are,” she says, blinking under the light. She scoots to make room for Angel, lifts the sheet to welcome her.
Angel shudders against Lizette. “I’m cold.” She pushes her face into Lizette’s smooth shoulder.
Lizette pulls her closer. “Mmm,” she says, and just this sound is so affectionate that Angel is comforted.
Angel touches the clean skin beside a new red cut on Lizette’s arm. It’s ragged and ugly. “When did you do this?” she asks faintly. “Why?”
Lizette shakes Angel off. “None of your business.”
Again, Angel imagines a scenario in which Lizette and Mercedes come to live with them. She might be able to convince her dad, she really thinks she could. They have an extra room now. With this thought, a hot pain spreads in her. In their house, Lizette will be locked down, safe. They can help each other with child care, with GED prep. They don’t need Smart Starts! Together they can move forward.
“But why are you hurting yourself?” Lizette is receding, and Angel is suddenly furious. “Why haven’t you called me back? Why have you been ignoring me?”
Lizette flops onto her back, yanks the sheet over her breasts. “Leave it, Angel.”
Angel stares into the light until she sees black daubs. She doesn’t think she can speak, but she forces herself. “My grandmother died, and I know you know, because I texted. You haven’t even said anything.”
A long silence, through which Angel hears only her own heartbeat. She turns her head to study Lizette’s profile. Tears leak from the corner of her eye.
“Do you, like, feel bad about this?” Angel gestures at the space between them. “About us?”
“Us.” Lizette gives a scraped, mirthless laugh. “Not everything is about you, Angel. You can be so fucking selfish.”
“You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?” Angel doesn’t know why she didn’t see this before, but of course it’s true.
“It’s none of your damn business.”
“Listen. Lizette. Why don’t you and Mercedes move in with my dad and me? You can.” Angel can convince her dad. She’ll do what it takes. If Lizette moves in, she pledges, Angel won’t kiss her ever again, won’t try
anything. She’ll be satisfied. She won’t even think a sexual thought, if only Lizette can be near her and safe. Even as she thinks it, she knows she’s lying to herself.
Lizette sits up, exhales loudly. “I’m not ever gonna be your girlfriend.”
Angel ignores the pain in her chest. “That’s okay. You can still stay with us.”
“I’m not bringing that gay shit into my baby’s life. That could fuck a kid up.”
“No,” says Angel. She tries to remember the arguments she’s heard. “Babies just need to see loving relationships. Like, people respecting each other.”
“Is that what you think this is? A loving relationship? You think I respect you? We’re hooking up, Angel. That’s all this is.” Lizette holds her gaze, but something in her mouth twitches.
“I don’t believe you.”
Lizette raises an insolent eyebrow.
“I love you,” Angel says. Her voice is hushed and she wonders if she said it or just thought it.
Lizette’s laugh is a short rasp. “No you don’t.”
“I do,” says Angel, pushing herself up, and she says it with conviction now. She wants to hold Lizette down, to say it again and again until Lizette believes her, until Lizette knows she is loved and lets the love soften her. But Lizette swipes hair out of her face and turns her back to Angel.
“You’re pathetic,” says Lizette flatly. “Stupid and pathetic. Just get out.”
“But it’s the middle of the night.”
“You think I give a shit? I told you to leave.” Her full lips tremble. Angel reaches for her, but Lizette pushes her away. Now Lizette’s eyes are thick-glazed with tears.
“What’s wrong? Why are you doing this?”
The tears overflow and spill down her cheek. Very slowly and very clearly, she says, “Get the fuck out of my house.”
“Fine.” Angel stands and dresses. She’s quivering with anger and humiliation, a hot, dry pressure building behind her eyes. She grabs her jacket and purse, holding them tight to her, passes through the dark living room and the shadowed mound in the crib, fumbles with the deadbolt.
Outside, the half-moon is bright over the stucco and asphalt of the neighborhood. The house next door is dark now, but the trash and engine parts gleam like mercury. Dirty rinds of snow fill the gutters.
She can’t find her cell phone. Panic mounts in her, that she’ll have to go back inside, once again face Lizette. She crouches and digs in her purse. Baby wipes, her notebook and keys and Kleenexes, a squeeze pouch of apple-spinach baby food, her lipstick: it all spills on the driveway. Finally she finds her phone, tangled in a spare onesie.
She’s startled to discover that it’s after midnight. Her fingers shake as she dials her father. Four rings, then voicemail. She redials. Tries the landline, but it’s been disconnected, apparently a bill her father opted not to pay. “Fuck you,” she’s muttering, “pick up the fucking phone.” Her anger doesn’t mask her panic. He is home drinking, she knows. Connor’s probably choking on the stuffed rabbit her idiot father left in his crib. Which would be her fault, in the end, after abandoning her baby in a fast-food restaurant.
She can’t bear to think of Lizette, but her face rises in Angel’s mind: eyes wet, expression shuttered and impassive. Get the fuck out of my house.
At the end of the road, music blares. A lowrider pauses at a stop sign, rear bouncing. Terror slices through her. The car crosses the intersection, moves on, and the music fades.
She’s a fool to be alone on this deserted street. She needs to be somewhere more populated. She makes it as far as the next block when a truck pulls alongside her.
“Hey, baby girl.” The man at the wheel is big and pulpy-looking, his sandy hair clipped short. The heat spills from his open window, and classical music plays on the stereo. “You okay?”
Angel runs. Back down Lizette’s dark street, shoes clacking on the cold sidewalk, purse banging at her hip. She ducks along the side of the chaotic house, pressing against the stucco. Heart pounding, she peers around. The truck idles there for a long moment more, its brake lights glowing, and then they flash off and the truck drives away.
Shaking, Angel jabs at her phone and dials again. Please Daddy please pick up.
Of course he’s going to get her. His daughter is alone on the streets of Española, after midnight, with creeps and tecatos and rapists on the prowl. He almost couldn’t understand her through the tears, but managed to get the address out of her.
Amadeo splashes water on his face, runs his whole scalp under the tap. He blinks at his reflection: bleary, red-eyed, puffy. His armpits are damp with the alcohol oozing out of him. If only he hadn’t had the last drink. Or the ones before.
Ten minutes ago, he was sitting on the couch, TV going, the sensation of falling, falling, into blessed, swirling nothingness.
Connor is sleeping soundly in Angel’s room, where he’s been since Ryan brought him by around eight. Amadeo had masked his surprise that the baby was with Ryan, because a good father would keep tabs on his daughter’s plans. The kid stood on the step, holding the sleeping baby in the car seat. As Amadeo explained that, no, Angel wasn’t here, Ryan regarded him suspiciously, and kept craning over Amadeo’s shoulder, as if searching for someone more trustworthy lurking in the house.
“Oh. I thought for sure she’d gotten a ride home.” He still didn’t hand over the baby. “He’ll be okay here? Staying with you?”
By that point in the evening, Amadeo was already too wiped and too drunk to react with anger. “I’m his grandpa. One of his primary caregivers. I stay with him all the time.” The words were only a little slurred.
Ryan shifted his weight, uncertain. “Because I could take him home to my house, I guess. To my mom.”
Amadeo tamped down his anger. Mildly, he said, “You fucking joking me?”
Ryan seemed to make a decision. “Okay,” he said, handing over the seat, “he’s asleep, anyway.” But his steps were reluctant as he walked back to his car.
Now Amadeo leans over the toilet and reaches down his throat. He wants to empty his stomach of any additional alcohol before it makes it to his bloodstream. He tries to remember the details from his class. An average-sized man processes one drink per hour. A quantity of corrosive vomit comes up, along with some scrambled egg and soggy tortilla bits from his dinner. “Please hurry,” Angel said on the phone, her voice thick.
“I’m coming,” he told her.
In her room, some light from the porch leaks through the blinds. He pauses a moment over the crib. The baby is on his back in his sleep suit, arms flung wide, breath nearly inaudible. Connor sleeps through the night now, and for half a second Amadeo considers leaving him.
Instead he takes up the baby, holding him with deliberate gentleness. He grabs the blanket, too, and the car seat, which Ryan left by the door. It’s freezing outside, Amadeo’s breath white and thick as he makes his way to the truck. He opens the door, sets the car seat in the back under the dome light, sets Connor, who rubs his closed eyes with his fists, in the car seat. And as he does, one hand under the baby’s bottom, he feels the firm warm weight of the diaper, which means it probably ought to have been changed an hour ago. He should bring the diaper bag.
See? He’s remembering things, thinking things through. He jogs back to the house, searches for the diaper bag with mounting anxiety—hurry, hurry, picturing Angel standing on the street, Angel approached by strange men—before he sees it by the door where Ryan left it. He rifles in the bag to check for fresh diapers, swings it over his shoulder, and at the last minute he grabs the binky off the table, congratulating himself.
On the way back to the truck, he drops the binky, feels for it, plucks it up and pops it into his mouth to clean the grit off, spits.
In the car, Connor is awake now, staring up at the dome light. He turns wide eyes on his grandfather, starts babbling, then fussing. Amadeo pushes the binky past his lips, fumbles the straps of the car seat, and snaps him in. Connor begins sucking
industriously, returning his attention to the light.
Door shut, dome light off. Behind the wheel, Amadeo rubs his face with both hands. His face is numb. Angel. Hands shaking, he starts the car, backs down the drive, straightens out.
He peers into the dark over the steering wheel. He’s fine, going fast, but not too fast. He knows these roads, has driven them his entire life. But something is wrong. He can’t see.
He blinks, furious. Why can’t he see the road? He thumps the wheel hard with his fist, and the shot of pain enflames his rage. Because why is he out in the middle of the night? Why has he been put in this position?
Angel is alone. He pictures a car slowing beside her, a shadowy man calling her close. Pictures that man grabbing her, pulling her into the car, the squeal of tires.
And then he thinks of Mike. Something happened there, of that he’s sure. And where was Amadeo then? In a burst, Amadeo accelerates, the dark piñon flying by, the road lit by the sharp-cornered moon.
All at once he realizes he hasn’t turned on his headlights. He snaps them on, and there, stock-still in the middle of the road, eyes blazing, is the coyote.
WHEN AMADEO COMES TO, there is no moment of confusion, no where-am-I-what-happened described by people on the news after accidents, no benevolent derangement of time and place. Amadeo lies with his cheek pressed into the cold asphalt, his eyes squeezed shut.
All his anger has fled, the anger that gives him focus and shape and power, leaving him with bottomless, hollow horror. Just this clarity: There is nothing left for him on this earth. Whether he lives or dies, his life has ended on this road.
He keeps his eyes shut, prolonging this moment between his old life that was filled—filled, he understands now—with light and love and family, and the new life that will begin when he sees his grandson’s motionless, bloodied body. Because he knows, even without looking, that as assiduously as he strapped Connor into his seat, snapping each little clasp with fingers thick with liquor, he hadn’t buckled the car seat itself into the truck.