Carmen Morales is a twenty-nine-year-old transwoman who works for an insurance broker in Orange County while attending law school at night. Her grandmother – “Abuela” – summons her back to the Kern County community of Buttonwillow when her padre, who’d kicked her out, has a stroke that leaves him in a coma.

After eleven years in which she only had sporadic contact with the one cousin who knew she was trans (Kelsey), Carmen is suddenly surrounded by them. Old wounds, never addressed, are torn open. But, at the same time, former relationships, cut off without warning, are given an opportunity for healing and rebirth.

Carmen is appointed as temporary conservator for padre, but as a result of the application process she discovers that her mother, who had disappeared twenty years earlier, is living in Denver under a new name, and with a new husband. At the end of Chapter 24, Carmen receives a long email from her mother, explaining why she had abandoned the family.

For a refresher on Carmen’s family tree, see this post.

Chapter 25: Progress and Peril

Katie stirred her morning coffee, looking thoughtful. “So, will you send the email to your brother?”

“I’ll send it to him, but . . . I want to be with him when he reads it.” I nodded “yes” as Lourdes pantomimed a question about whether I wanted some orange juice.

She poured me a glass then sat, smiling gently. “You’ve gotten very protective of Ximo.”

“Which is weird, right?” I agreed. “I haven’t seen him in over a decade, I haven’t wanted to see him, and now that I have, I know he could snap me in two like a dead branch.”

“Yeah, but he’s a dude,” Katie argued. “You know how fragile they are!”

“I hadn’t heard that,” I said dryly.

She snorted.

Lourdes asked the harder question. “Will you try to get in touch with her again?”

It took a moment to even start to formulate an answer, I was so conflicted. “I don’t know. I feel like I should say something in return. It meant a lot to me, hearing what she had to say. But I’m not sure what to write back, if anything. I re-read her email a couple of times just to be sure, but I think she was just writing to apologize, not to re-establish some kind of relationship.”

“But what do you want?” she pressed.

“I don’t even know that. I’m kind of past mothering, you know? Sister Catalina was all the mother I think I’ll ever need – the kind of person I’d always wanted for a mother. It almost feels . . . I don’t know . . . disloyal, to have another mother.”

Lourdes looked sceptical. “Based on everything you’ve told us about Sister Catalina, I can’t imagine she would see it that way.”

“No, probably not.” I smiled sadly. “But it still makes me uncomfortable. And I can’t imagine having that kind of relationship with ‘Mrs. Doody.’”

“Yeah,” Katie observed. “But you also couldn’t imagine having any kind of relationship with your brother – until you did. And now you’re ready to defend him against the whole big, bad world!”

“And speaking of brothers,” Lourdes added. “What about your other one? The one she took with her?”

“Domingo. She says he’s a musician. Plays violin. Hard to connect that with the baby I remember!” I had a mental image of a sturdy toddler on the stage of a concert hall, holding a violin and bow that were as tall as he was, and my lips quirked into a smile that didn’t last long. “He wouldn’t remember me or Ximo at all.”

“She gave him a funny name, didn’t she?” Katie checked her phone.

“What’s strange about Dominic?” I asked.

“Okay, right. Not a funny name . . . but she spelled it funny, didn’t she? With a ‘ck.’” She found the email she was looking for and nodded sharply. “Yeah. Dominick Parkette. Gimme a sec.”

After a couple minutes of typing, she started to laugh. “The violin? Man, I was thinking like chamber music or something. The kid’s in a freaking rock band – ‘Rivenrock.’”

“Seriously?”

“Have a look.” She passed her phone over. The google search showed pictures of a band playing to a decent-sized crowd. There were also Tic Tocs, and YouTube listings, and Facebook and Instagram.

He looked a lot like Ximo. Paler, leaner, with dreadlocks that went down past his shoulders. “¡Dios mío! This says he plays guitar, bass, keyboard and violin – a ‘classically-trained musician from the famed Branford Conservatory!’”

I clicked on one of the YouTube clips that headlined a violin/electric guitar duet. A striking woman with intense blue eyes and dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail stepped out of a misty background, picking a repeating rhythm on an electric guitar. After five or six measures, the violinist stepped out as well, dressed all in black with a long black duster. He tucked the instrument to his chin and began a slow, haunting melody as he circled around the woman, his eyes never leaving hers, his movements catlike and mesmerizing.

“¡Órale!,” I breathed.

“Kinda slow for my taste,” Katie said. “But, yeah, I’d say the kid knows what to do with catgut.”

“Looks like one of us came out okay, anyhow.” I handed the phone back to Katie. “Makes me think maybe Momma was right, after all.”

“You wouldn’t want to meet him?” Lourdes asked.

“Hi, I’m a sister you never heard of because our whole pinche family’s a colossal train wreck?” I shook my head. “He’s doing well. Why crap on that?”

~o~O~o~

My first appointment Friday morning was with the Social Security Office in Bakersfield, and I made it with only two minutes to spare. I’d dressed to face down bureaucrats and bastards – a cream-colored A-line midi skirt and a sleeveless white v-necked blouse under a tailored olive-green blazer.

But the prep work I had done in advance, and all of the online forms I had filled out, made the actual meeting surprisingly painless. Based on the information I provided, they assured me that padre would almost certainly be entitled to SSDI benefit payments.

The downside, however, was that they wouldn’t commence for six months. God bless America.

My next stop was Flanders and Soto. Ximo had left his affidavit with the paralegal who had witnessed his signature, and that was the last item we needed for the new conservatorship application. There was a parking lot behind the building, a portion of which was shaded by solar panels. Unfortunately all the shaded spots were taken so I had to leave my Kia in the sun to bake. It was already so hot that I left my jacket in the car.

Andar Kasparian met me at the front desk, carrying a file folder. “Good morning, Carmen. I’ve got the original affidavit, and three copies. Do you want to do your filing first?”

“If it’s not too much trouble? I’ll feel a lot better once it’s off my desk and onto Judge Petrey’s.”

“I know the feeling,” he laughed. “Why don’t I drive you over, and we can get lunch afterward.”

“Sounds like a plan – I’d offer to drive, but my car was already an oven when I parked.”

We went out the back and I was unsurprised to find that his car was in the shade. In fact, it was using the space as designed, since he was driving a Mustang EV which he unplugged before getting in.

We made small talk while he drove over to the not-so-nice part of town where the building that houses the probate court is located. He dropped me by the door and waited (with the AC on!) while I went inside and got my filing docketed. When I returned, he drove back a few blocks and parked outside a restaurant advertising both Greek and Mexican cuisine.

“An interesting combo,” I commented.

“I wasn’t sure what you might like.” He smiled. “I think the Mexican’s good, but I can say with a bit more confidence that the Greek dishes are great.”

“I assumed you were Armenian,” I said as we entered. “Does your family have a Greek connection as well?”

“Better to say that a lot of Armenians have Greek connections.” We took a table and he held out my chair until I sat, then took the seat opposite. “Armenians come from areas that were occupied by a lot of different empires at one point or another. The Ottomans and the Russians, obviously. But also the Persians and the Mongols. Go further back, and much of the area, especially around the southern and eastern Black Sea, was ruled by the Byzantine Greeks.” He shrugged. “Wherever the Greeks went, some of their culture seemed to rub off.”

Once we had ordered, he leaned forward and said, “So . . . after we talked on the phone, I had a look at that healthcare law.”

“Wait,” I scolded. “You weren’t supposed to do legal work for me!”

He grinned. “Professional curiosity. Anyhow . . . the statutory text is clear as mud, but I’m pretty sure there’s no private right of action against the employer for failing to get or keep all the right paperwork.”

I nodded. “That was my impression, too. I dug up the regulations and I think they’re clearer. Kern Cotton might have to pay a fine, but that would go to the state, not to padre. That said . . . I think I’ve got a plan.”

He grinned. “A cunning plan, I trust?”

“Oh, I hope so. Actually, I think so. I want to file a workers’ comp claim for padre. That could get him two-thirds of his normal wages for two years. By the time he’s tapped out of that, he should have his SSDI payments. It’s not a lot, but every little bit helps.”

He looked skeptical. “Do you have any evidence that his stroke was work-related?”

“Nooooo,” I said slowly. “But I think the doctor would say that his injury from the stroke was work-related. Apparently there are drugs that are really effective if they’re administered within an hour or two of the stroke. But padre was lying out in the field, directly in the sun, for a long time before anyone found him.”

“Ah . . . hmmm.” He thought for a moment. “Interesting argument.”

“And I know you’re thinking, ‘which might or might not work.’ I agree, for what it’s worth. But if the employer didn’t fight it . . . ?”

He cocked his head . . . then grinned. Followed it up with an appreciative chuckle. “I like it. A cunning plan, indeed! You’re going out to see them today?”

“Yeah. I scheduled a meeting with the owner for 2:30. He didn’t want to, but I emailed copies of my conservatorship order and I guess he decided it made sense to talk to me.”

“Excellent. No time like the present. It sounds like you’ve been very productive in your first week.”

I nodded. “I wanted to make sure that Judge Petrey knew I wasn’t wasting any time.”

Our food arrived. Interestingly, he’d ordered fish tacos and I’d chosen a Greek salad. I realized after a couple bites that it was extremely good, but also difficult to eat with any kind of grace. I smiled ruefully as I tried to discreetly get the pit of a Kalamata olive out of my mouth and back on my plate. “Sorry!”

“No hay bronca,” he said, his eyes twinkling as he delivered the line with an accent no Chicano would find objectionable. “A real Greek – an authentic, honest-to-Zeus Hellene – would not stoop to using pitted olives. An abomination!”

“Really? Why?”

“No idea.” He smiled broadly. “But trust me, it’s true.”

“I’ll take your word for it!” I didn’t feel too self-conscious after that. After all, fish tacos are also next to impossible to eat gracefully, so maybe we were even.

We had a good lunch. Since he already knew more about me than anyone who wasn’t either family or a roommate, I steered the conversation away from my life. I learned a bit about the practice of law in Bakersfield, or at least, that part of the practice that relates to probate and family law. Although he was enjoying his work, he wasn’t one of those people who’d always dreamed of being a lawyer.

“But I’ll tell you – spend two years actually being a social worker, and just about any other job starts to look appealing. Even law school looks appealing!”

“You must have felt like you were making a difference, though?” I pressed.

“‘Hoped’ is more like it. It’s brutal work. I’m convinced that in one respect social workers are like God – they can only help those who help themselves.”

“Come on. You saved a couple, didn’t you?” Naturally, I was thinking of Kelsey.

“The best I can say is, ‘I think so.’ Problem is, I’m not sure they stayed saved. And given how transient the poor population is, I’ll probably never know.”

I had to pass on dessert, since I needed to make sure I was on time for my meeting out at Kern Cotton. He dropped me off by my car. Just as I was about to get out, he touched my arm. “Good luck, Carmen! Let me know if your cunning plan works!”

“Thanks. Will do.” I smiled and pivoted my way out of the bucket seat. His car was much quieter than mine!

~o~O~o~

Mr. Cavallaro did not appear to have moved from behind his desk in the weeks since I had been in to see him. But he did get up and leaned over its paper-festooned surface to shake my hand. “Ms. Morales.”

“Please, call me Carmen. Thank you for making time to see me.” I smoothed my skirt and sat across from him. Despite the heat, my olive green jacket was back on, giving me a veneer of professionalism.

“Of course. How’s your father doing?”

“Not much change, I’m afraid. I’m convinced that he’s actually conscious at least some of the time, but even if he is he can’t even control something as simple as the ability to blink.”

“I’m so sorry. Juan is a good worker, and we miss him.” He hesitated, then added, “But you didn’t come out here to give me an update.”

“No, sir. There were just a couple things I’m trying to pin down. As his conservator, I’ve been trying to get on top of all of his assets. So the first thing I need to find out is whether his entire paycheck was going to the checking account I’ve tracked down at BofA. And the second is whether he’s a participant in any sort of retirement plan, pension plan, or 401(k).”

“I can answer the second one first. We don’t have any sort of pension or 401(k) plan, I’m afraid. I can find out the answer to the first question if you give me just a moment.” He turned his chair to face a computer table, and pulled up what I immediately recognized as a popular bookkeeping software program.

After going through a couple of screens, he seemed to find what he was looking for. “Looks like a direct deposit into a single account with Bank of America, and the last three digits of the account are 692. Does that sound right?”

I double-checked that number against the online account and confirmed it. “Okay, then. Two mysteries solved.”

“Good,” he responded, looking relieved. “I’m sorry I didn’t have better news for you.”

“That’s alright. It’s about what I expected, but I have to chase down every lead.” Time to take away your relief. “I also wanted to talk with you about a workers’ comp claim.”

He sat back in his chair looking puzzled. “Workers’ Comp? Why? He had a stroke, not a work-related injury.”

“When he got to the hospital, he was immediately put on a TPA IV drip. They do it to clear clots and get the blood flowing again. The problem is, the effectiveness of the drug goes down if it’s not administered relatively close in time to the stroke, and it wasn’t. His continuing coma is likely related to how long he was out in the field.”

“Oh my God!” He was clearly upset at the thought, and surprised as well. “But, Carmen . . . people here are often out in the fields without anyone close by. It’s not unusual at all. We really . . . I mean. We couldn’t have prevented it. I’m sure we couldn’t have!”

His genuine concern actually made me feel a lot better. “I understand, Mr. Cavallaro,” I said warmly. “Really. I’m not suggesting it was your fault, or Kern Cotton’s. Just that the injury is, in significant part, work related. I want to file a comp claim on his behalf, and I’m hoping that you don’t oppose it. Getting that income flowing – and especially, getting it flowing soon – will make a real difference.”

“Well . . . I mean, I will have to talk it over with the lawyers we use for personnel issues.” He looked uncomfortable. “We’ve really been trying to get our claims rates down; the premiums are killing us.”

I nodded. “I understand. But . . . you know, I was hoping that you and I could just work this out without having to spend a lot of money on lawyers. Padre and I don’t have a lot of assets.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” he assured me. “But I do need to run it by someone.”

I thought, yeah, no. What I said was, “If you have to, you have to. But if you’re talking to your lawyers, you should probably ask them to look at your failure to collect annual proof of health insurance from my father. It is a potential liability for you.”

He became very still, then his eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”

“No,” I said firmly. “I’ll even tell you what your lawyers will say about that. They’ll say you made a paperwork mistake, and the state can ding you for it. But padre made his own choices and you aren’t liable for them.”

He gave me a puzzled look. “Well . . . okay. Then, why . . . ?”

“Because I just want us to agree – you and me, right here – about the right thing to do. Padre was incredibly stupid, letting his insurance lapse. But he couldn’t have gotten away with it without your paperwork mistake. All I’m asking is that you agree not to fight a reasonable comp claim that he might win anyway. That won’t solve the problem of his unpaid medical bills, but it might allow him to stay in his house for a while. Might.”

He remained motionless, weighing my words. Then he sighed. “That makes sense. But I’ll want something in writing, some sort of release of claims, that says this is final, all right? That you won’t come after me for something else, once the comp claim is approved.”

“Of course.” I’d been expecting that, so I didn’t hesitate.

He looked at me for a long moment more, then shook his head. “No. Screw it. A hand shake was good enough for my father . . . when he trusted someone.”

I rose and extended my hand. “Agreed.”

He got up slowly, took my hand in both of his, and gave it a firm pump. “Agreed. Good luck, Carmen. I hope he gets better.”

~o~O~o~

I paid padre a short visit after finishing with Kern Cotton. He seemed unchanged. I talked with him about my visit to the Social Security Office, and my talk with Mr. Cavallaro. But for some reason I felt squeamish describing my lunch, and I couldn’t bring myself to discuss the email from my mother. From the wife whom he had never forgotten.

At least while I was there, his eyes remained closed.

I didn’t stay too long, because I’d arranged to meet up with Ximo at 5:30, after he was out of work. I bit the bullet and returned to padre’s house, rather than asking him to meet me somewhere else. Can’t avoid it forever.

I also decided it was time I stopped acting like a stranger, so I poked my head in the front door and shouted out a hello.

“Hey Carmen.” Ximo’s voice came from down the hall. Before I’d moved, he came out of my old room carrying a dark blue recycling bin overflowing with papers. “Let me dump this and I’ll be right there.”

“You’re dismantling Mount Trashmore?” I tried to keep the disbelief from my voice.

“Couldn’t let you have all the fun,” he grunted. “Get the door, will you?”

I opened the door that led from the kitchen to the garage, and he went out and dumped his container into the larger bin that we would take out to the dump.

I decided that the man needed a beer, so I went to the fridge and got him one. I was tempted to get one for myself, but decided to hold off.

“Gracias,” he said, taking the can from me.

“How’s it going in there?” I nodded down the hall.

“I’ve made a dent, but no more than that. It’ll take a while. I found that pinche will, though.”

I shrugged. “It is what it is. Hey – Do you mind if we sit outside? Last time I was here, the old cigarette smoke gave me a headache.”

“Really?” He looked surprised, but immediately moved toward the slider. “I don’t smell anything.”

“I didn’t either – back when I lived here. I guarantee you, though, if you move away and come back, it’ll hit you like a jackhammer.” I checked myself and added, “Unless you smoke, of course.”

He shook his head. “Vaped a bit, when I first started working. But man, it costs. I don’t have that kinda scrilla.”

We went outside. The poured concrete “patio” was in full sun, but we took a couple of the chairs and moved them next to the fence so we could sit in some shade.

He took a long drink and made an appreciative noise. “Needed that. Thanks.”

“Da nada.”

“So, you got the thing filed?”

I nodded. “Yep. I expect you’ll hear from an investigator next week some time.”

“So, ummm . . . .” He gave me a look that was part calculating, part . . . embarrassed?

“What?”

“I was just wondering whether you set me up last night.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I didn’t manage a better response than, “Huh?”

“That girl you sent me to, to witness my signature. Sherilynn. I mean . . . ¡Guau!”

I couldn’t help but laugh, but when I got myself back under control I said, “No, I had no idea. Honest. And I don’t think Kasparian was trying to do any matchmaking either. She just happened to be available.”

“You mean, ‘available,’ available?”

“No, goof! Available to witness your signature after work hours!”

“Oh!” He sounded crestfallen.

“Of course, I don’t know her from Eve, so as far as I know, she might be ‘available available,’” I teased.

“You think so?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t get her number?”

He shook his head.

I smiled. “You’ll think of something.”

“You’re a big help,” he grumped.

We were quiet for a moment, and I thought to myself, alright, Carmen. Stop stalling.

“Ximo . . . Momma sent me a letter. An email.”

His breath caught. “She did . . . ? But, just for you?”

I put my hand on his wrist. “It’s to both of us. She didn’t know whether I’d told you that I found her, and she wasn’t sure you’d want to know. But I’ve got it, and you should read it.”

“Momma.” He shook his head in disbelief.

I pulled out my phone, opened the app, and pulled up her email. “Here you go.”

His movements were reluctant. Conflicted. But he took the phone from me, sighed, and started to read.

He had become a handsome man, I decided. It’s hard to see your little brother that way, but I’d had enough distance that my view was maybe more objective than most sibling’s. Once I was able to get past the mistake of a mustache and the bad haircut, what stood out was his strong face, powerful shoulders and muscular build. Still, as he sat there reading our mother’s letter – words written by the person we didn’t think we’d ever hear from again – his face softened, and I could once more see a little of the boy he’d been, all those years ago.

“Padre, I don’t understand.” I was still in denial. “You said she was just away on a trip. You said she’d be back this week!”

He shook his head. “I thought so. But she isn’t.”

“No! That’s not right. It’s not!” The panic in my voice undercut my brave words.

Little Ximo was weeping silently, his face a mask of disbelief.

“Boys. That’s enough.” He was trying to be patient; I could tell. “The world isn’t fair, sometimes. Life isn’t fair.”

“No.” Ximo started quiet, but I knew from experience that he didn’t stay that way long. “No! No!!! No!!!!” By the fourth iteration, he lunged forward and started hammering against padre’s thigh.

I froze, terrified of padre’s often explosive temper.

“Stop,” he said, looking down at his furious son.

Ximo continued to pound him. “No!!! No!!!”

Padre’s voice rose. Threatened. “Ximo!”

“No, no, no, no, no!!!!!”

Padre knelt, bringing his face within range of Ximo’s flailing fists. But he grabbed the five-year-old and effortlessly pulled him to his chest, holding him so tightly that his arms had little room to swing. “Ximo . . . you need to stop now.” His voice was firm, but surprisingly gentle.

Ximo stopped flailing – he didn’t really have much choice – but he kept howling, the sound muffled as his face pressed into padre’s chest.

“Listen to me. Both of you.” Padre fixed me with a fierce glare. “You were babies, and now you have to grow up. You will have to learn to take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. All the crying in the world isn’t going to change any of that. ¿Comprende?”

It was what Momma had been trying to tell me, the morning she left. I nodded miserably. “Sí, padre.”

Ximo pulled his face far enough away from padre’s chest so that he could look him in the eyes when he answered.

“NO!!!!!”

The days had passed into years, and the years into decades. The pain in Ximo’s face as he read Kate’s letter – I insisted on thinking of her as ‘Kate’ – was just an echo of what it had been, that awful day. But it was still real. "¡Joder! She was in love with Uncle Fernando?"

I shook my head. “I know, right? Her description of him doesn’t sound anything like the guy I remember.”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice thoughtful. Equivocal. “He wasn’t like padre, or the other tio’s. Didn’t act like them, or dress like them. He didn’t, like, ‘have a job.’ He was always doing some sort of deal or other, you know what I mean?”

“I guess?” I could see what he was saying, but honestly I’d always thought Kelsey’s papí was kind of slick.

He continued to read. “This stuff about Kels’ mom – I mean, I think I knew they were friends or something. But I had no idea . . . .” His voice tapered off. “Hold on . . . she ran away before I was born?”

“Yeah – I heard that from Uncle Augui.”

He shook his head. “She just hopped into a semi, with some guy she never met, and rode away? That’s frickin’ bananas!”

“Loco, right?” I chuckled. “Except I did the same thing, eleven years ago.”

“¡No manches!”

“Truckers are mostly good guys, you know.” I didn’t sound convincing, even to myself, though I believed what I said was true. Statistically. But my own experience?

I shivered. Gets lonely, truckin’.

He read some more, then looked up. “‘He was not my husband, and I was not his wife?’ So, maybe she and Uncle Fernando didn’t . . . you know.”

I shrugged, uncomfortably. “Maybe. I’m not sure how to read that line. And, I kind of doubt she’d tell us, even if they had.”

“Jesus, I’m good with that!” He went back to reading.

“Domingo . . . playing the violin?” He shook his head, bemused.

“He’s in a rock band, if you can believe it.”

He gave a snort. “A violin – in a rock band?”

“Don’t look at me! But actually, it looks like he’s that guy in the band who plays just about everything.”

“Huh.” He went back to the email. When he came to the end, he audibly exhaled, shut off the phone, and closed his eyes.

I gave him some space and time to digest it. After a few minutes, I said, “You okay, ’mano?”

“Beats me.” His eyes stayed shut. “I used to wonder, you know? What I would say, if I ever saw her again. And I’d dream that she’d come back, and there’d be some explanation that would make sense of it all. Make it all right.”

“Like she’d gone off on a secret mission to save us from an invasion of brain-eating zombies?”

He smiled briefly. “Right. You know, something big and important.”

“‘I could not love thee dear, so much, loved I not England more?’”

He opened his eyes and gave me a look of pure incomprehension. “What?”

“Sorry. Something I read.”

“You are so weird!” He closed his eyes again. “But yeah, you’ve got the idea. Something that makes what we went through seem, I don’t know. Worthwhile, or something.”

“I’m guessing you aren’t getting that vibe here.”

He shrugged. “It was a stupid fantasy anyway.”

I reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. “Makes you feel any better, I had the same one.”

“What do you think about her story?”

“I’m where you are, I think. Unsure. She still left us without a word, you know? But . . . .”

He opened his eyes again and shot me an inquiring look. “But . . . ?”

“But I’m glad I got her side of the story. Maybe it’s easier for me to connect to it. I didn’t fit in well here even before anyone knew I was trans, so I can get how alone she would feel. And, losing Kelsey’s mom, when that was the only thing that was keeping her sane. I’m that kind of close to my roommates, and I can’t imagine losing one of them.”

“I guess. Maybe.” He took a drink from his almost-forgotten beer. “Tell you what, though. I feel really bad for padre, which is something I frickin’ never thought I’d say.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, look. He loved her, right? Even she says so, in the letter. She gets pregnant, he immediately does the right thing. He quits school, and he gets a job so he can support her and the ba–” He caught himself. “And you. What does she do? She runs away, and leaves you with him. Then he takes her back, and he marries her. Has more chavos. And after all that, she runs away again and finds some other guy to marry.” He shook his head. “No wonder he was so fucked up.”

I sighed in agreement. “And now, the only way I know he’s conscious, is that hearing about Momma still makes him weep.”

He was quiet a few more minutes, then he asked, “Did you write back?”

“No . . . not yet, anyway. I wanted to talk with you first. I guess I’m kind of on the fence about it. Or at least, about what I might want to actually write.” I was just about to say something more when my phone went off, the ringtone blaring This Girl Is On Fire. “Innie,” I told Ximo, by way of an apology.

I swiped left. “¿Qué onda?”

I’d barely finished talking when her voice came through the speaker, fierce, urgent, and violently furious. “Carmen, they’re taking Kels to the hospital. She OD’d!! She fucking OD’d!!!”

I rocketed to my feet. “What??? No way!!!”

“I’m headed . . .” Her voice cut out. “Southwest.”

“Where are you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Innie! Can you still hear me? Where are they taking her?”

“ . . . hear you. Can you hear me? Mercy South–” The call dropped.

“Fuck!!!” I started running.

Ximo was on my heels. “I heard. I’m with you.”

“Thanks!!!”

“Get in the truck,” he ordered. “That way you can make calls if you need to.”

I did what he said. As soon as my butt hit the seat, he was backing out of the driveway.

“I’ll head straight in, but I’ll need to know where I’m going when we get into town.”

“Right.” I opened my browser and did a search. “Okay, got it. She must mean they’re taking her to Mercy Hospital Southwest. That’s good – it’s closer than where padre is. When you hit the 5, go south and get off at the first exit.”

“Got it.” He was already turning on Front Street. As soon as he finished the turn, he punched it.

My hands clenched involuntarily. “I am going to fucking kill that son of a bitch!”

He glanced my way before turning his eyes back to the road. “You’re blaming Dace? For an OD?”

“No way Kels did this to herself. No. Fucking. Way.”

“You sure?”

“She wouldn’t even fill a prescription for a pain killer! Didn’t want it in the house.”

His eyes narrowed, the muscles in his jaw tensed, and he pushed the truck faster. “You’ll have to take a number. No-one fucks with a Morales!”

“Any Morales,” I agreed, completing the familiar family rallying cry. But I thought, sourly, no one needs to fuck with us; we do it just fine without help.

Within minutes, he turned onto the interstate, but stayed in the right lane and took the first exit, which just continued state highway 58.

“Okay,” I directed. “Stay on this right into town, then turn on Calloway to cross the river. The hospital’s right there.” I tried Innie’s number again, and she answered. But I lost the signal before we’d said anything meaningful. Fuck!

Miraculously, we didn’t run across any police as we sped into town, both of us too overwhelmed, too focused on closing the distance, to speak. But as we pulled into the parking lot, Ximo said, “Are you packing?”

“No . . . they’ve still got my handgun. The Sheriffs.”

He nodded sharply. “Good.”

I got out of the car and sprinted toward the entrance, flying on adrenaline. “I wasn’t going to shoot up the hospital, ‘mano.”

He caught up with me and pushed me faster. “Wasn’t worried about that,” he grunted.

“What were you worried about?”

“I don’t want you to fucking ice him before I get my hands around his pinche throat.”

We burst in the front door and raced to the reception desk. The woman behind the plexiglass looked alarmed.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to calm both my voice and my heart rate. “We just heard that our cousin’s been brought in by ambulance. Kelsey Morales.”

“Son of a BITCH!!!” Ximo shouted.

I turned to see a familiar figure at the far end of the waiting room, speaking with someone in a lab coat. He spun around at the sound of Ximo’s shout, the speed of his reflexes almost frightening.

Ximo moved, but I managed to grab an arm before he took a second step, my heart pounding like it would burst from my chest. “NO!”

“What???” He spun on me, incredulous.

“It’s not –”

He pulled away and I grabbed him again, squeezing until I had his attention. “Don’t!”

I locked eyes with the man across the room, whose face was so like his brother’s in some ways – and in others, completely different. I was furious at the distraction, desperate to get to Kels. But a voice inside my head wailed, dreading the confrontation. I felt my vision begin to blur at the edges, and heard a roaring in my ears that drowned out the sounds of the hospital around me. I don’t need this right now!!!

Without a word, he stepped away from the guy in the lab coat and moved toward us, his eyes never leaving mine until he stood just out of arm’s reach.

Unable to contain myself, I groaned, “What are you doing here, Diego?”

— To be continued

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