by Leylah Attar
I had once attended a spirituality workshop that taught me to be witness to the moment, to not analyze or reason or think about the when or the why or the how. It was really an excuse to hang out with a bunch of girls, get Ayurvedic massages and bitch over green juice. My friends had long since drifted, but that’s the way it goes when you bond over the latest trends and hippest places. Things shift and change. And after MaMaLu and Esteban, I’d pretty much closed myself off. It had been just me and my father for the longest time. Nick was a possibility, and the fact that he got along with my dad was one of the reasons he’d lasted longer than most of the guys I dated. I liked my men to get along. I pictured the two of them beating Damian up and it made me happy. I liked witnessing the happy much more than I liked acknowledging my reaction to Damian. I was starting to associate him with food and bathroom breaks and relief from the pain of being bound up.
Breakfast was some kind of sloppy goo. I had a feeling it started off as oatmeal, but got beefed up with protein powder or egg white or something equally distasteful. He could have thrown in liver and onions and I’d still have finished. My arms felt like they were going to drop out of their sockets from being tied up all night, but I’d earned a metal spoon. And there was an apple. And water.
I looked up to find Damian watching me. There was an odd shadow in his eyes, but he blinked it away. When I was done, he let me use the bathroom. He’d put out a toothbrush for me, and a comb. Things were starting to look up.
I didn’t bother with my hair. I tried to avoid looking at it altogether. Damian watched me the whole time. I followed him back to the room like a good girl, and let him lock me up. I even smiled as he shut the door on me.
Then I fell back on the bed and let out a deep breath. The uncertainty was killing me. I’d braced myself for another painful encounter, another round of humiliation and degradation before I earned my privileges. I’d held the possibility, all tight and tense, in my shoulders and neck. But Damian had done the unpredictable, and that was far worse than a patterned system of abuse, because now I was in a state of constant alert, fearing what would come and fearing when it didn’t.
How do we kill him, Esteban? I closed my eyes and remembered the two of us, plotting in my room. I’d been an earnest eight year old, four years younger than him, but an equal instigator in all our adventures.
He gave my question considerable thought before responding. I liked the way he twirled his hair when he was deep in thought. His hair was long and dark, and when he let it go, it left a little curl. MaMaLu was always after him to cut it and the times she succeeded, he came home with nowhere to hide his face.
“I don’t think we have to kill him,” he said. “Just teach him a good lesson.”
Gideon Benedict St. John (pronounced Sin Gin), formally nicknamed Gidiot by Esteban and me, was the bane of my existence. He was ten, but bigger than the two of us combined, and when he pinched me, he left big, blue bruises on my thighs.
“Esteban?” I fake-smiled in the mirror. “Would you make a tooth for me?”
He was stretched out on my bed, folding and unfolding a sheet of paper, trying to figure out how to turn it into a giraffe.
“You want a paper tooth to hide the gap between your teeth?” he asked.
I nodded and went back to examining it in the mirror.
“He’s just going to find another way to tease you, güerita.” Esteban called me güerita. Blondie. “And how are you going to make it stick?”
“Make it out of cardboard and I’ll tape it in the back.” I opened my mouth and pointed to the spot I’d picked out.
We both jumped when the door opened and MaMaLu walked in.
“Esteban! You’re supposed to be in school.”
“Going!” he yelped, when she smacked him.
MaMaLu hit Esteban a lot, but she hit him like she was swatting a fly, out of irritation and frustration. Esteban got swatted a lot because Esteban misbehaved a lot. He propped a half-finished giraffe up on the sill, scrambled out the window, and shimmied down the tree. MaMaLu slid the glass pane down and watched as he high-tailed it across the garden.
“How many times have I told you not to let him in? If Señor Sedgewick finds out—”
“He won’t,” I said.
“That’s not the point, cielito lindo.” She picked up the brush and started combing my hair. “You and Esteban . . .” She shook her head. “The two of you are going to get me in trouble one day.”
“Can you do my hair like yours?” I asked.
MaMaLu had thick, dark hair, which she braided and folded into a bun. I wanted to crawl into the ‘U’ it made on her nape because it looked like a little hammock.
“That’s old lady hair,” she replied, but she sectioned off two side braids and combined them in the back, leaving the rest of my pale, blond hair loose.
“So beautiful,” she said. She removed a small, red flower from her hair and tucked it into mine.
“Gidiot says I’m a witch because witches have gaps between their teeth.”
“It’s Gideon,” she chided. “And when God made you, he left that space so your true love could slip his heart through it when he finds you.”
MaMaLu was full of stories; there was a tale behind everything.
“Then how did Esteban’s dad give you his heart? You don’t have a gap between your teeth.”
Esteban’s father had been a great fisherman. He died at sea when MaMaLu was pregnant, but she told us all about his adventures—about magic and monsters and mermaids in the sea.
“Well then, I probably never had his heart.” She smiled and poked me in the nose. “Run along now. Miss Edmonds is already here.”
“Is Gidiot there yet?”
MaMaLu refused to dignify that with a response.
I grabbed my school bag and went downstairs. Everyone was already gathered around the dining table. The only space left was next to Gidiot, because no one wanted to sit next to him.
“Good. We’re all here. Ready to begin?” asked Miss Edmonds.
Gidiot stomped on my foot under the table. I winced as I opened my textbook.
“Everything all right, Skye?” asked Miss Edmonds.
I nodded and gave her a small smile. I wasn’t a tattletale, but I knew I was in for another long afternoon.
Three times a week, Miss Edmonds came in from the city to Casa Paloma. My mother had inherited Casa Paloma as a wedding gift from her father. It was a lavish, Spanish-inspired estate on the outskirts of a fishing village called Paza del Mar. There was a small school in Paza del Mar where the locals sent their kids, but the expatriates preferred private tutoring for their children, and so we met in our house, which was the largest by far.
We were learning about soil erosion and landslides and earthquakes when Gidiot pulled my braid so hard, the little red flower MaMaLu had adorned it with fell to the floor. I blinked a few times, refusing to cry, and focused on the diagrams in my book. I wished Gidiot would fall down one of the fault lines, and into the molten core of the earth.
“Ow!” Gidiot howled, rubbing his leg.
“What’s the matter?” Miss Edmonds asked.
“I think something bit me.”
Miss Edmonds nodded and we continued. Bugs were common. No big deal.
“Ow!” Gideon jumped. “Swear there’s something under the table.”
Miss Edmonds took a quick look. “Anyone else feel something?”
We shook our heads.
My eyes darted to the big, antique hutch behind Miss Edmonds. On the bottom were two paneled doors with lattice inserts. The crisscross pattern was purely decorative, but as Esteban and I had discovered one afternoon, they made perfect peep holes if you were hiding in there.
I smiled, knowing Esteban had backtracked in from the garden. He hated school so he hid in the hutch on the days Miss Edmonds was there. That way, he had something to tell MaMaLu when she asked him what he was learning in class.
Esteban poked his fingers through the wood and
mini-waved at me. He held out a straw, or maybe it was one of his paper creations. The next minute, Gidiot was hopping around the table on one foot, massaging his calf.
“Ow, ow, ow, ow!”
“Gideon!” Miss Edmonds was not amused. “You’re distracting everyone. Wait outside until the rest of us are done with today’s session.”
I picked up an orange seed from the floor as Gidiot left. There were a few more under the table. Esteban had been shooting orange seeds at him through the straw. I could see little red marks on Gidiot’s legs as he left the room. Esteban gave me the thumbs up from his hiding place.
I laughed at the thought of his crooked thumb sticking out of that old wooden cabinet. I was still laughing when I heard the lock turn on the door.
Damian was back. And this time there was no tray.
“It’s time you earned your keep,” he said.
I nodded and followed him out.
I’d spent all my time in the room, but now we were standing in the U-shaped space that functioned as the kitchen. It was done in mahogany and teak, and part of the countertop was cantilevered to accommodate a pair of barstools. There was a sink, a refrigerator, a two-burner cook-top stove and a microwave oven. All the drawers were locked down, but there was a chopping board, some potatoes and a big-ass butcher knife on the counter.
“I need those peeled and cubed,” said Damian.
And he was going to let me use the knife? He had balls.
“Sure.” I was already thinking of which way to slice them.
I started rinsing the potatoes, but had to grip the sink for a second. My head still hurt and my legs felt weak. My eyes were still closed when Damian grabbed my left hand, forced it palm-down on the cutting board and WHAM!
He severed the tip of my pinky finger off, sliced the top third—nail, bone and all—clean off, as if it were a carrot he was chopping for a salad. The pain set in a few seconds later, after the blood started spewing all over the counter.
I screamed from the agony of it, from the horror of seeing the top of my finger sitting there, dull and lifeless, like some plastic Halloween prop. I closed my eyes and screamed louder when Damian applied pressure to stop the bleeding. I backed into something—something solid and firm—and slid down until I was on the floor.
I tried to pull my finger away, but Damian held on to it. He was keeping it elevated, wrapping it up, doing God knows what, and all I could do was scream and scream and scream, because everything he did made it ten times worse. I screamed until the sobs set in, until I was rolled up in a tight ball, until the tears stopped and all I could manage were soft, soundless whimpers.
When I opened my eyes, Damian was holding a phone over me.
“Did you get that?” he said to the person on the other side. “Good.” He walked to the other side of the counter. “Send the recording to Warren Sedgewick. Tell him that’s what she sounded like when I hacked her body to pieces.”
He picked up my dead finger, put it in a zip-lock bag and threw it into the freezer. “And tell him to expect a souvenir in the mail. It’s the only part of her he’ll have because the rest is scattered all over the place.”
I could hear the faint sound of the other person on the line.
“I know I’ve done it before.” Damian sounded agitated. “This was different. I froze, damn it! She started praying right before I pulled the trigger. She fucking prayed.” He slammed his fist down. The knife clanged loudly on the counter.
“I messed up, Rafael,” he continued. “I wanted him in the morgue, identifying his daughter’s dead body on her birthday. I know. I’ll figure something out.” He paused and raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t give a fuck about that. He can hire every Goddamned bounty hunter in the world. I just want him to feel it. I want him to suffer. As far as Warren Sedgewick is concerned, his daughter is dead.” He turned and fixed his eyes on me. “And who knows? In twenty-one days, she just might be.”
He hung up and wiped the blood off the blade. Then he poured a glass of orange juice, propped me up, and held it to my lips.
I sipped it slowly, because my teeth were chattering. I was hot and cold and sweaty and dizzy, and there was still blood dripping off the counter and splattering onto the floor.
“Why don’t you just kill me?” I asked when I finished the juice. This was not some random kidnapping. This was a murder-turned-into-abduction. This was a screwed-up moment of weakness. This was a personal, targeted attack against my father. “What happens in twenty-one days?”
Damian didn’t respond. He finished cleaning up the bloody mess in the kitchen before examining my finger. Some pink was showing through the bandage and it throbbed like hell, but he seemed satisfied.
He left me on the floor, propped up against the cabinet and started cutting the potatoes. “Cold cuts and potato salad for lunch?”
DAMIAN SENSED SOMETHING HAD BROKEN inside of me, or maybe he felt a vague sense of remorse over what he had done. Whatever the reason, he no longer tied me up at night, although he still locked the door and kept the key on him while we slept. When I woke up, the door was always open. He left me something to eat on the same counter where he’d chopped off my finger, and although the knife was nowhere in sight, the threat of it was lodged deep in my brain.
I was free to go about the boat as I pleased, but I spent my time curled up on the settee across from the kitchen. Damian stayed up top, at the helm station, for the most part. Two people, forced into close proximity, day in and day out, can communicate volumes without uttering a single word. He reminded me of pain and darkness and a double-gauzed finger. I must have reminded him of botched-up vengeance and the monster within, because we both steered clear of each other, except for the times when we had to eat or sleep.
I didn’t ask him what my father had done. Whatever wrongdoing Damian was holding him accountable for had to be a lie or a misconception. Warren Sedgewick was the kindest, most generous soul in the world. He used his hotel connections to build dams and wells and water pumps for people in the most remote regions of the world, places that no one gave a damn about. He financed micro-loans and schools and food banks and medical aid. He rallied against injustices, treated his employees with respect and dignity, and he always, always made his daughter pancakes on Sunday.
When my father and I had first arrived in San Diego, they were Mickey Mouse pancakes with powdered sugar and loads of syrup. Then they turned into hearts and princess stuff. And even though I was all grown up, he refused to let me move out and held on to those traditions. Recently, he’d started making caricatures of my shoes and purses, big shapeless blobs of batter that he insisted I had to look at from different angles to appreciate. The condiments changed with my tastes—bananas with Nutella, fresh berries with brown sugar and cinnamon, shaved dark chocolate with orange zest. My father had the uncanny ability of tapping into my brain, pulling out all of the things I craved, and turning them into reality. I thought of lemon curd, swirled in mascarpone cheese, not because I wanted pancakes, but just so he could feel it—my topping of choice for the day—so he’d know I was alive.
Most of my bruises were healing, but my finger was still a red, raw reminder that a part of me was sealed in a plastic bag, iced over in the freezer. I peeled off my acrylic nails, biting and picking until I’d ripped into the nail bed—nine nail beds instead of ten—all cracked and ridged and covered with ugly, white flakiness. I thought it was an appropriate send-off for a fallen comrade. A nine-finger salute.
I missed the weight of my mother’s necklace on my skin. I missed my pinky nail. I missed my hair. I felt like all the bits that held me together were slowly coming unglued, falling off, piece by piece. I was disappearing, disintegrating like the rocks that get eaten by the sea.
I made my way up to the deck for the first time since Damian had dragged me there, the day he threw my locket into the water. We were on a mid-sized yacht, powerful enough for deep sea sailing, but inconspicuous enough to avoid attention. Damian h
ad it on autopilot and was sitting on a deck chair, with a line in the water. Whatever he caught would be dinner tonight.
I could feel his eyes on me as I made my way to the railing. The water parted into two foamy trails as we cut through it. I wondered how deep it went and how hard I’d fight when my lungs started filling up with it. I thought of sinking to the bottom, in one glorious piece, instead of breaking apart tortuously, one tiny piece at a time.
Forgive me, Dad.
I stole a quick look at Damian. He had gone still—deathly still—like he knew exactly what was going through my head. I knew his body stance now. He’d been the same way, all his muscles pulled in, alert and tight and tense, right before he’d had his slice of vengeance. I’d felt it then, and I could feel it now.
The bastard. He wasn’t going to let me do it. He’d be on me before I could step a foot off the boat. He owned me. He owned my fate—my life, my death. He didn’t need to say a word; it was there in his eyes. He compelled me off the edge. And I obeyed. I couldn’t stop the sobs so I cried and I cried.
I cried the same way I’d cried when Gideon Benedict St. John had broken the clasp on my necklace and left chain marks on my neck.
Esteban had found me and was ready to go kick Gidiot’s ass.
“Don’t you dare.” I made him promise. “You know what happens if you get in trouble one more time.”
“I don’t care.” He swiped the hair off his forehead. He meant business when he did that.
“Please, Esteban. MaMaLu will send you away and I’ll never see you again.”
“MaMaLu’s just bluffing.”
Esteban called his mother MaMaLu. He’d always called her MaMaLu. She was his mama, but her name was Maria Luisa, so somewhere along the way, he’d started babbling MaMaLu, and it had stuck. Now everyone called her MaMaLu, except for Victor Madera, who worked for my father. He called her by her full name and MaMaLu didn’t seem to like it. Or him.