Indranie uses the soft, low voice she’s used with me and Gabi so many times before. She has used it to encourage and explain, to convince and reassure. “Rey, it’s very complicated technology, cutting edge.”
Rey interrupts her. “That’s not what I’m talking about. You told me we were the lab rats.”
A spasm of pain crosses Mr. Warner’s face. “Reyanne, please don’t talk about it that way.”
But Rey continues. “You told me Dr. Deng would give us a way to take the grief away. A medical device to make me feel a little less like dying.” Mr. Warner covers his eyes with his hand, squeezing his fingers into his eyes.
“Marisol and me, we were supposed to get over our grief. This was supposed to help both of us.”
“It’s not that simple,” Indranie says.
The more upset Rey gets, the more I wish she would hold my hand, as if that could still help her feel better.
“It’s exactly that simple. Except you didn’t tell me that Marisol was acting like some kind of grief keeper. Like she was a dump where I could safely throw all my privileged-ass pain.”
Mr. Warner looks away. Indranie’s lips go pale and tight.
“Don’t you see, Dad? We used her.”
“That’s not fair,” he says, anguished.
“She wasn’t used.” I don’t know how Indranie keeps her voice so calm. Her face is a smooth mask, totally different from the broken one she showed me yesterday when I left her sobbing in her car. “Everything was explained to Marisol.” Indranie darts a look at me.
Somehow, I find my voice. “I was told everything. I just never imagined how terrible it would be.” I’d be angrier if I didn’t understand Indranie so well. I did a terrible thing to protect Gabi. Indranie and I aren’t so different.
“Well, I wasn’t told anything!” Rey’s anger rises with every word. “Did you think I’d be okay with this? That because she’s an immigrant, I wouldn’t care? As long as I got rid of my grief, I’d be okay with ruining another girl’s life?” She looks from her father’s face to Indranie’s.
“When my parents first came to this country,” Indranie says patiently, “they took any job they could. Sometimes two or more. They did whatever they had to do.” Again, I find myself understanding Indranie more than I want to.
“Do not fucking compare this with cleaning bathrooms and being a nanny. This could have killed Marisol.”
Indranie’s calm finally snaps; her mask disappears, revealing a face full of anguish.
“You might have died without this treatment, Reyanne. Your father, me, we couldn’t have—” Her words choke as she struggles to regain her composure. Mr. Warner puts his arm around her.
“The experiment is over,” he says finally. When Indranie tries to speak, he cuts her off with a gentle hand on her arm. “We can’t.”
Indranie lowers her head, and I think she is crying. “What if we try with someone else? Someone older?”
Rey’s face is horrified. “Absolutely not!”
“What if something happens to you?” Indranie says, her voice breaking. “What if you try to kill yourself again?”
“I don’t feel like dying,” Rey says. “I know my life isn’t over.”
“Indranie, she’s getting better,” Mr. Warner says. “You can see that.”
She turns her anger on him. “How can we know? What if we can’t stop her next time?”
“Okay, so we can’t know!” Rey throws up her hands. “No one can know. Maybe one day I will feel so bad that dying seems like the only sane thing to do. Even if that happens”—she takes a deep breath, and I feel like I’m taking one with her—“I won’t make someone take my burden for me. That’s no way to save anyone.”
We leave Indranie and Mr. Warner to argue and go to my room. Rey stands by the door, trying to listen in on their muffled conversation.
“She must love you very much to do this for you,” I say.
Rey sits next to me on Gabi’s bed, propping a giant banana up behind her as a pillow. “We made fun of her at first, me and Riley. She was always so serious, always worried something bad would happen. Then it did and I think she lost her mind. It’s the only explanation I can think of, why she would be okay with what we did to you.”
Rey’s anger for me, on my behalf, lights me up.
“It broke her heart when Riley died. It broke all of us. But it’s Dad she can’t stand to watch suffer. I don’t forgive her, though. Not a fucking iota.”
“Will it end now? Or will they find someone else to experiment on?” I ask.
“Jesus, I hope not. I hope they find some moral courage,” she says, closing her eyes.
I take a long time to say the next thing, because I don’t know how to say it, and I don’t want to get a wrong answer. But it’s at the top of my mind.
“Rey? Does this change anything?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, now that the experiment is over, I won’t feel things about you—I won’t know things about you.”
“We’ll do it like normals. We’ll talk and fight it out and just do it. Like we would have before this Frankenshit took over.”
“But without this frank or shit, we wouldn’t have met,” I say.
She leans close to me, urgent. “I don’t know nearly enough about you. I don’t know your favorite color, or what you like to eat, or even if you think coffee is a sacred beverage.” She closes her eyes. “What if Indranie can’t get you a green card? What if they send you back?”
It’s the answer I wanted. I wanted her to care. “Kiss me.” There’s only a few centimeters between us.
“I can’t. I’m too mad.” She blinks back tears.
“I know, but maybe you won’t be so mad after you kiss me.”
It’s sweet, every kiss sweeter than the last, but Rey cannot stay still. She pulls back.
“You should be able to stay,” she whispers against my shoulder. “You paid for the right to stay in blood and guts.” I’ve seen her cry so much in the short time I’ve known her. But now she is crying for me. I feel happier, lighter than I have ever felt. It is ridiculous to feel so frightened and happy at once.
“No llores,” I say, hugging her close. “Indranie says I have a good chance now. And as long as Gabi can stay, it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, it matters to me. And you don’t really mean that.”
“Of course I don’t.” I sigh, and she settles against my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what I paid, or how much I suffered. I’m an illegal.”
Rey lifts her head away from me. “You know that’s not a thing, right? You can’t use it like a noun, like an illegal is a thing.” She spits out the bad taste the word leaves in her mouth.
“I heard it used that way. At the detention center. I thought it was right.” I shrug.
“You aren’t an illegal. You are a person. A girl.” She lifts my hair off my shoulder and gathers it in her hand. “You have a right to live and love. And to not be afraid.”
“I don’t,” I say. “No one has that right.”
She sits up. “I’m going to talk to my dad. I can’t stand this.”
I grab her hand, pulling her back to me. “Wait, Rey. Don’t get worried before we know what’s going to happen.”
She curls into a ball, facing me. I hold her hands.
She’s crying and it hurts to see it. “Today was the first day I didn’t feel totally numb. Even when the fucking evil cuff was making me feel better, I wasn’t myself, not the best part of myself. When we were at Belle Isle, I felt as good as I did when Riley was alive. How can you make me feel better just by being here? No cuff, nothing but you.” She traces her fingertips along the inside of my wrist and down my palm.
I shiver. “It’s not me,” I say quietly. “It’s us.”
There’s a knock at the door.
Rey and I scramble to sit up. Indranie opens the door. It is clear from her eyes that she has been crying. I watch her gather her calm around her like a coat.
Rey’s body stiffens.
“Your father and I have agreed. I called Dr. Deng. We’ve suspended the experiment.”
“You agreed? You can’t fucking agree. You aren’t anything to me,” Rey spits.
I flinch at how hard the words are. If Indranie is upset by them, she doesn’t show it.
“That’s fair enough.” Indranie nods. “But I want you to know, whether you believe it or not, I did this because I thought I could help.” She looks at me, and I wish I wasn’t here to watch. It’s too private a thing.
Indranie moves to sit on the bed, but Rey doesn’t make room for her. I stand up instead. “Rey,” she says, “I saw you and your dad hurting. Riley’s death was like the death of this family. I didn’t want you to suffer. When the opportunity for testing came up, we jumped at it.”
“I know Dad did this too—if that’s what’s worrying you. He’s just as much to blame as you are.”
“Your father got the funding for the clinical trials. He approved the budgets. But he didn’t know how it worked. He didn’t . . . want to know the details. I tried—”
Rey’s expression stops Indranie’s next words.
“I’m sorry I lied to you, Rey. I hope someday you’ll trust me again. I only wanted the best for you.”
“Those are probably the most useless words ever uttered. Does anyone believe them anymore? And don’t you think it’s Marisol you should apologize to? She’s the one you made suffer.”
Indranie turns to me, her eyes filled with so much emotion that I’m not surprised she doesn’t speak. She took us, not knowing if she could protect us. She didn’t know if I would even survive the experiment, but she did it anyway.
“I am so sorry, Marisol.”
I should hate her, but I only pity her. I won’t tell Rey that Indranie lied to me about asylum. I don’t want any more bad things between them. There have been too many lies already.
“It’s over now. There’s nothing more to say.”
Instead of looking relieved, Indranie looks more upset. “There’s every chance your asylum request could be approved. You’ve got a solid case for fear of torture and death in El Salvador. It’s not easy, but there’s a lot we can do to get you and your sister the legal right to stay. Certainly, while your case is being reviewed.”
“They can stay?” Rey’s words echo in my ears.
“Yes, for now. And hopefully for the future. Nothing is certain. There’s so much upheaval in the system. But I think we have a good case. I’m sorry I—” Her expression is full of sorrow but not regret. If she had to do it all again, I think she would. “I didn’t want Rey to suffer. I’d do anything for her,” she says.
“I understand,” I say. Because if I could go back in time, I am sure I would do everything again. Even being with Liliana. Even pulling the trigger of the gun.
Chapter 31
Dad and Indranie have gone out to another meeting,” Rey says, pocketing her cell phone. We stand at the kitchen’s glass door, holding hands and watching the sky change color for the last time today. I think of what Mamá would say if she were here. Cuidado los mosquitos, probably. Then she’d take something for the pain in her cadera and shut the door to the bedroom. I will have to think about my mother next. About how to keep her safe. And if she will be disappointed in me when she finds out I’m gay. Maybe she already suspects. I push the thought away. I’m not ready to end the day with Mamá and all she expects of me.
“How did Indranie sound when she went out? Is she okay?” I ask.
Rey lifts an eyebrow in question. “Why do you care?”
I shrug. “She was good to us.”
“She practically kidnapped you and Gabi just so she could lab-rat you almost to death,” Rey says, exasperated.
I don’t know how to explain things to Rey without admitting my own guilt. I’m not so different from Indranie, and what I did was so much worse. “She wanted to keep you safe. She didn’t want your father to suffer. Everyone has reasons for what they do.”
Rey looks at me closely. Maybe she doesn’t believe that I forgive Indranie.
“Indranie’s always so calm. I think it’s a Jedi mind trick,” Rey says.
I poke her in the arm.
“Ow!”
“I’m going to do that every time you say words I don’t understand. That way, you can know that you need to explain, and I don’t have to say it.”
She rubs her arm. “I’m going to have to find some sort of armored shirt.”
We watch a bird, blue with a long white tail, hop along the back of a wooden bench.
“When does Gabi get home?” Rey asks.
“She’s staying over. It’s her friend’s birthday party.”
“The boy-girl one?”
“She told you about that?” I didn’t know Gabi talked to Rey. But I guess there are many things I’ve missed while wearing the cuff.
“She told me you were overprotective. I told her I’m still not old enough for girl-boy parties.”
I laugh. “Well, I already said yes to the killing abuelitas thing, so I can’t be that protective.”
“The what?”
I point my finger at her. “Ha! Something you don’t understand! How do you like the feeling?” I say with triumph.
She kisses me so fast I barely realize it’s begun before it’s over.
“I like the feeling pretty good,” she says.
My face flushes. “Pretty well,” I correct her.
She looks horrified. “You’re one of those grammar nutters, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m not a nut-er. I just want to speak properly.”
Rey takes a cookie from the pocket of her sweatshirt.
“Where did you get the cookie from?” I ask.
She gives me a side smile. “From my pocket,” she says, taking a huge bite.
“Did Olga give it to you?” Olga is very fair—she would never give Rey a cookie without giving me one.
She shakes her head, swallowing her bite. “No. Olga’s out. She wouldn’t let me have cookies before dinner. I took it. From the cookie jar.”
“There’s a cookie jar?” The cookie is covered with stripes of chocolate. Olga tried to get me and Rey to eat when we were ill, trying everything she could think of to tempt us, so the kitchen is full of many kinds of colorful, candy-filled cookies. I just didn’t know where they were.
“You don’t know all of Olga’s secrets,” Rey teases.
I reach for the cookie, but Rey pulls it away. I reach around her, grabbing it, and she leans against me. “Say the magic word.” Her nose touches mine.
“What’s the magic word?” I ask.
“Just kidding. There’s no magic word,” she says, then kisses me again. I light up. Like the string of lights in the hall my parents rented for my quinceañera. Like the dancing and laughing and eating of that night. Like the flushed cheeks of all my cousins, my tía, my mother and father, dancing together for the last time. I light up with esperanza.
When we part, because I am out of breath or because we heard a sound somewhere in the house, Rey puts something in my hand. It’s a cookie.
“I promise to keep giving you cookies so long as you keep kissing me.”
I smile and hide my face against her chest. It is too much to show. Too much when I want more all the time.
There’s a knocking sound and we both look toward the front door. After a moment, the knocking gets louder. When no one else gets the door, Rey moves down the hallway. “Duh,” she says, turning back to me. “We’re the only ones here.”
Rey opens the door and a thin man with dark hair stands there, clutching a paper bag.
“Is this Mr. Warner’s ho
use?”
“Yeah, well, sort of,” Rey says. “I’m his daughter. Can I help you?” I stand behind Rey. The feeling of dread grows in my stomach. No, I say to myself. Nothing bad has happened.
“I’m Arun Guinto. Juliette’s dad.”
“I’m Marisol. Gabriela’s sister,” I say. Mr. Guinto shakes my hand with a smile.
“Oh, good. I wasn’t sure which building was the right one!”
“We get that a lot,” Rey says with a grin. “Do you want to come in?”
“No, thank you. I just wanted to drop this off for Juliette. She’s terrible. Always forgetting to take her EpiPen with her.” At our blank expression, Mr. Guinto looks a little annoyed. “Of course, she probably didn’t tell you that she’s allergic to cashews? I know it’s not as common as peanuts, but it’s still dangerous. And she’s not taking it seriously.” When neither Rey nor I move, Mr. Guinto steps inside the entryway.
“Maybe I will come in. I should talk to Juliette about this.” He turns to look at his car, which is still running. “I’ve got my younger daughter in the car. My wife is out of town, so I’m on kid duty. Can you call Juliette for me?”
I believe in luck. I know what it feels like when La Mala Suerte visits.
“She isn’t here,” I hear myself say.
“Excuse me?” Mr. Guinto’s face must look the way I feel. As if the ground is slowly disappearing under our feet.
“Gabi said she was going to Juliette’s birthday party tonight. At your house,” Rey says when words fail to come out of my mouth.
“There was no party. We took the girls to the movies, then dropped them off here.” The shock on Mr. Guinto’s face has evaporated, replaced by fear. “I don’t understand,” he says, though of course he does. “Where are the girls?”
* * *
“How tall is Gabi?” Rey asks me. She is on the phone with the police.
“Un metro y medio,” I say, then repeat in English, “a meter and a half.” I sit on the sofa, a pillow against my aching stomach.
“Crap. I don’t know the metric system. I’ll guess.”
Rey told Mr. Guinto it must be a misunderstanding. That she’d call him as soon as she talked to her dad.
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