My brother was going to be the father of a girl. I was going to be an aunt.
I hugged him again. “Congratulations, Pali. I’m so happy for you.”
It wasn’t a lie, but there were so many things unsaid that my words sounded false anyway. How were we going to protect her? How did he feel watching the world destroy us?
“Let’s celebrate with some mates.” I headed to the stove. From the corner of my eye, I saw a suspicious puddle in the middle of the floor. “Nico,” I sighed, and my dog, knowing exactly what I meant, whined pitifully.
Pablo just laughed as I cleaned up the mess.
After the initial burst of emotion, an awkwardness fell over us. I hated the feeling, like a wet fog that pressed me down, but I didn’t know how to talk through it. The only words that came to my tongue were accusatory or mocking. Why had he left Mamá? Why hadn’t she been invited to the ultrasound? Was that why she’d been so depressed? How could he not tell me about the baby when he first found out? And why did he have to wear the same cologne as Diego’s? But nothing good would come if I started interrogating him.
Pablo might not have been an active liar, but he knew to stay quiet when he didn’t have the advantage. Lying by omission was lying, too.
Since talking about either of our lives felt off-limits, I turned to the one subject that always united us: our father.
“And where is he?” I asked.
“I don’t know where he is now, but we had a meeting with the boss at the club. Papá’s trying to change the contract for the loan.” Pablo’s tone of voice suggested he’d more than made peace with our father.
“Loan?”
Pablo rolled his eyes at me, and the urge to smack him was so strong I clutched my hands together. “I have an opportunity to go to Mexico next year. On loan, but still.”
All my diplomatic good intentions vanished. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His lips parted a couple of times, but no words came out. He finally crossed his arms and said, “Look who’s talking.” The venom in his voice found its mark.
My pulse quickened. “What do you mean?” I asked, walking over to where he sat. I wasn’t afraid of him.
He shoved his phone in my face. It took my eyes a second to adjust and read the words. It was a headline in La Capital.
league champions eva maría competing in first sudamericano tournament to take place in rosario.
I scanned the article. It was mostly about Coach Alicia “la Fiera” Aimar. How she had been part of a team of women’s soccer pioneers who’d played in the U.S. in the early nineties. It also mentioned me, but not by name, only as Pablo Hassan’s sister and Diego Ferrari’s latest love interest.
“I can’t believe they named only you and Diego in an article about a team of girls. The patriarchy! It burns,” I said, laughing to dispel the toxic cloud around us.
But when I looked up, I saw that Pablo was livid.
“You think you’re so much better than me, playing for the love of the game and all that? What do you know about playing fútbol? Love can only take you so far. All my life, I’ve busted my balls with one purpose only: saving our family, Camila.” Somewhere in the back of my mind, a part of me registered that Mamá had stopped singing.
“I didn’t ask you to save me.”
My words only made him angrier. “I gave my whole life for this family.”
“Playing fútbol, Pablo,” I reminded him. “It’s not like you’re enslaved.”
“I never had a choice. Why couldn’t you just leave with Diego when you had the chance? You could’ve managed his career. No matter how much you try, you’ll never make it. You’ll never make the kind of money we need—”
“You think this is all about the money? You think I’m going to be like your little Marisol? What does she know about anything? What does she say about Mexico, Stallion?” I taunted him. “I thought she wanted to go to Italy . . .”
His lip curled in a vicious sneer. “She’ll go where I go; she’s expecting my child.”
“She’s not even eighteen years old! What does she know?”
“And what do you know? It’s easy to claim girlfriend status from far away. If you cared about Diego, shouldn’t you be with him? But maybe he’s just playing with you, like I said he would.”
He hadn’t yelled at me since we were little kids, but when he did now, his voice thundered like our father’s. I recoiled from him.
But I wasn’t backing down. We were both our father’s children. We carried the curse of hot tempers and quick, lashing tongues. “You have no right to say anything about Diego and me.”
He laughed, and the cruelty in his voice slashed at me. “Negrita, you really think he’s in love with you? ¡Vamos, por favor! He scored in Barcelona today. Why would he come back to you when he could have anyone?”
I slapped him. The sound reverberated around the kitchen, mixing with Nico’s frantic barking.
Pablo inhaled sharply. His face drained of blood.
The palm of my hand stung.
I’d never hit Pablo before. And in spite of what we’d both grown up with, he’d never lifted a finger against me.
An apology was blooming on my lips. Pablo’s face was already softening, forgiving me before I spoke.
“What’s happening here?” Mamá asked, stepping into the kitchen, a towel wrapped around her head.
Before either of us could answer, the front door slammed open.
My father walked into the apartment like he was bringing in a Sudestada storm on his shoulders.
Pablo’s face transformed, and something in me withered seeing my brother, the father-to-be, cower.
“Camila,” my father asked. “Where were you just now?”
My mom’s eyes found mine. In hers, there was a silent plea for me to find a good excuse.
But I was tired of running. We were all buried underneath mountains of blame, shame, guilt, and lies.
I wouldn’t hide anymore. I’d let him deal with the surprise or disappointment. I was done carrying this load.
“Where were you?” he asked again, his face close to mine, spittle flying from his angry mouth.
He was so much taller than me, but I wouldn’t shrink.
“I was at a march for the missing girl.”
“Why do you waste your time protesting instead of doing something productive? I better not find out you’re part of that green-handkerchief group of abortionists.”
“Abortionists?” My mom looked at me like I’d killed a baby on national TV. “Camila, we’ve raised you better than that. Why are you involved with those people at all?”
“Listen,” I said. “First of all, the march wasn’t about abortion or anything related to it. We carried the Ni Una Menos signs, and yes, some people wore green handkerchiefs, but it was about the girl, Eda. She was my friend’s sister.”
“There have always been rapes and killings.” My father wouldn’t stop. “The media makes everything seem worse than it is. If she hadn’t been running around with the wrong crowd—”
“Wrong crowd? She was walking to school.”
“Her sister had a baby in second year, though,” my mom added. “Isn’t it Marisa’s sister we’re talking about?”
I wanted to cry and scream and pull my hair, but they would never understand.
Instead, I took my chance. I threw up my hands in exasperation and tried to head to my room. My father grabbed me by the arm, pressing it so hard that I cried out in pain. I wasn’t going to be tossed around like a rag doll. I twisted out of his grasp. He reached for me again but lost his balance and fell, knocking me down with him.
My mom and Pablo were screaming in the background, but I couldn’t understand what anyone was saying. Nico ran around us in a panic.
The old ghosts came back, wailing that this was all my fault.
But
the guardian angels Miriam had seen around me came, too. They screamed at me to rise up.
I scrambled back to my feet. My dad was older, but he was still an athlete. He grabbed me by my ponytail and slammed me back down. I couldn’t breathe.
“Don’t touch me!” I yelled.
Pablo was crying, and my mom stood helpless, saying, “Don’t hit her, Andrés. The neighbors are outside.”
“What do I care about the neighbors?” He took off his belt, stretching it with a slapping sound.
“You’re not going to hit me,” I said, putting my hand up, still on the floor.
He moved so fast. I tasted blood. My ears were ringing. Pablo and my dad were suddenly wrestling.
“You won’t touch her anymore,” Pablo yelled, but his voice was small and hoarse.
My father ignored him. He reached down to grab my phone. It must have fallen out of my pocket.
My nose was runny, and I wiped it with the sleeve of my Adidas jacket. The blood seeped quickly into the blue fibers.
Now the one laughing was my father. “ ‘Back to Turín after beating Barça in the Champions, Furia! Next time, we’ll be here together.’ ” He looked at me. Then he looked at my mom. “See? You’re sewing your fingers to stumps, and the little lady here has this expensive phone, an Adidas jacket, the promise of travel . . . What else is he paying you to play the little whore?”
Of course he didn’t want an answer. He drew his hand back and smashed the phone against the floor.
“Stop it!” my mom said, finding her voice perhaps for the first time. “Andrés, stop now.”
“So now I’m the bad guy? Years and years of sacrificing for this family. And for what? You’re mixing with the wrong crowd, Camila. That girls’ school and all that reading have fried your brain. And playing fútbol has turned you into a marimacho. What? Did you think I’d never find out about your little hobby? My eye is always on you. I know everything.”
I didn’t want to be afraid, but my blood chilled anyway. Then he turned to my brother. “And you? You are a failure. I give you six months in Mexico before they find out you have less talent than your sister. Your mother is dead weight. If it weren’t for all of you, my life would have been so much better.”
“So leave already, Andrés,” my mom said. She helped me up, and when she looked at my swollen face, her eyes welled with tears. “Leave.”
He stepped back.
It was now or never. I wasn’t going to let him off easy. Not after holding us hostage and blaming us for his failures. Not after destroying Pablo’s confidence, staining my mom’s love.
“You can hit us, and yell, and try to run from the consequences, but your time to pay is here, Papá,” I said, shaking.
For the first time, he seemed at a loss for words. And then he smiled.
“If you think you’re going to blackmail me . . .” He rubbed his hands as if they hurt. “Your mom knows about her, and the others before. Your mother and I have a little agreement, don’t we, Isabel?”
Mamá started crying, but she didn’t crumple like he wanted her to.
I heard voices outside, but I couldn’t stop now.
“Mami,” I said, afraid that the moment was gone, her courage spent. But she surprised me.
“Go,” she yelled at him. “You won’t hurt us anymore.”
He lunged at her, but Pablo and I both stepped in front of her.
In a corner of my mind, I thought, This is how people die. All the news in the papers about domestic violence, crimes of passion—they all must have started like this.
But whatever the consequences, my mom, Pablo, and I were breaking the cycle today.
Somehow, my father had three scratches on his face. He was pale and didn’t seem so big anymore. “You really want this, Isabel? If I leave now, I will never come back. You’ll be all alone when your children leave you, too.”
Someone knocked on the door. “Police,” a woman’s voice rang out.
My father looked around like a cockroach trying to scurry back into the darkness when the lights come on.
“It’s open,” Pablo bellowed.
My father didn’t have the chance to attempt an escape or to take us down with him.
The police came in.
Pablo, my mom, and I raised our hands in surrender. But the officers went straight for my dad. A dark-skinned woman in a blue uniform came to my side. “You’re safe now, corazón,” she said in a soft voice. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
Neighbors gathered by our door. One or two talked with the police.
Leaning on my mom’s shoulder, I finally cried.
30
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: what a lie. I didn’t feel stronger repeating the fight over and over for the police. Hours later, I felt sick and drained.
Any strength I could spare, I summoned for going to El Buen Pastor the next day. Karen gasped when she saw my swollen cheek, but she didn’t ask how I’d been hurt. Instead, she handed me one of her poetry books.
“Maestra, since you like kids’ books, I found this book of Mistral’s poems for children. Maybe you’ll like it, too.”
She left before I could thank her. That night, I read the poems aloud, and the sound of my own voice lulled me to sleep.
I didn’t feel strong the following morning, when I opened the door to see Coach Alicia and Roxana. “We heard the news this morning, and then you weren’t at practice, so we had to come,” Roxana said, and hugged me. Now that I had finally cried, I couldn’t stop. But she held me up.
“I failed my daughter,” my mom said.
Roxana looked at me, her eyes full of tears. “We all failed her.”
Coach Alicia put her hands on mine and my mom’s and declared, “You did not, Isabel. And neither did you, Roxana.”
“I failed myself,” I said.
Coach pressed my hand. “You didn’t fail anyone. If anything, it takes a strong person to fight back, Camila.”
I nodded and said all the things she expected me to say, and when Coach asked for a few minutes alone with my mom, Roxana and I went to my room. She hadn’t been here in years.
She looked at the picture of Diego, Pablo, and me eating nísperos in a tree. Pablo had brought it over yesterday before joining the team at the hotel for Central’s next game. It was my brother’s way of saying he was sorry, but I’d already forgiven him.
The cycle was breaking with me.
“I’m sorry for not telling you about Diego,” I said, sitting on my bed.
Roxana sat next to me and held my hand. “I’m sorry for acting like a jerk every time you talked about him.”
I elbowed her softly. “Why don’t you like him?”
“It’s not that I don’t like him,” Roxana said. “I was scared that he was like every other footballer, your brother included. No offense.”
I turned to look at her. “And now you don’t think that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Seems like his fame and money haven’t changed him . . . that much. He’s actually kind of adorable when he talks about you.”
“What about you and Luciano?” I asked, and now she was the one blushing. “I’ve seen how he looks at you . . .”
“He’s not bad,” she said. “But for now, we’re partners. He’s team manager, and I’m one of the captains. We’ll see what happens later.”
Nico trotted into the room and flopped on the bed, sprawling out and ignoring both of us. We laughed. Laughing felt like a miracle.
“Ready for the tournament?” Roxana asked.
“Not really,” I said.
Roxana seemed to guess what was troubling me and asked, “Does Diego know about everything that happened?”
My heart fluttered as I wondered how he’d react to what had happened with my father. “Pablo said he told him last ni
ght. My phone’s destroyed.”
She rummaged in her purse and offered me her phone. “Here. Take your time. I’ll be in the kitchen with your mom and Alicia.”
“Gracias, Ro.”
“That’s what friends are for,” she said, and closed the door softly behind her.
I didn’t trust that I wouldn’t cry, but I needed to hear Diego’s voice. I called him, and the phone rang and rang, but he never answered. After the third try, I typed a long message, telling him what had happened at home, including how my phone was broken, the reason my father was in jail, and my fears that when he got out, he’d come for my mom and me.
Standing naked in front of Diego wouldn’t have been more revealing than writing that message. For a few seconds, my finger hovered over the delete button.
He didn’t need any distractions. He’d worked hard to get where he was. But I knew he loved me. He cared about me.
I hit send and waited for a reply, but the seconds turned into minutes, and the only answer was silence.
Coach left with strict instructions for me to rest. But when Mamá said she was going to the store, I said, “I’ll come with you.” I couldn’t let her face the neighbors’ curiosity on her own. “I need to change, but I’ll be ready in a second.”
“Don’t,” she said, grabbing the shopping bag before she headed to the door. “I won’t be long. Besides, Belem, la brasilera from building thirty-two, might bring the first payment for her wedding dress. Give her this receipt and leave the money in my room.”
She left before I could insist on coming.
On a whim, I turned the TV to The Bachelor, indulging in a mindless game of love, yelling at girls making stupid decisions.
Someone knocked, and I grabbed the receipt for Belem. But before I reached the door, a dark fear sneaked into my mind. Maybe it was my father, out of jail, or that woman he’d been sneaking around with, coming to teach me a lesson. I was paralyzed until I saw Nico’s ears perking up, his whole lower body shimmying with excitement.
I peeked through the peephole, but I couldn’t see who was on the other side.
Finally, I armed myself with courage. I was la Furia, after all.
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