“You have to eat something, Kitten.”
Don Cheetos lifts his head from where he’s cuddled up beside her. He knows as well as I do that it’s useless, but I won’t stop offering, even if she only nibbles on the toast and abandons the eggs and bacon like the days before.
The small storage space we found hidden underground on Curtis’s property had been turned into a studio apartment. Time had made the wood wither, and there was a stale smell. There was a box in the corner filled with letters, similar to the one Ricky had given Alma. Every envelope was addressed to Curtis, with no return address.
Inside the box were two newborn hospital bracelets. One had for sure belonged to Missy’s child, the one who’d been stillborn, and the other had to have been Alma’s. She hasn’t let go of it since we found it. Even now, as she lies in bed, the same bracelet passes between her fingers. Time has turned the plastic brittle, and the white has turned to a light yellow.Most of the writing has faded, except for the faint, bold letters of a date and a room number.
September 13th, 2001.
Room number 1210
I can see how desperately she wants it to make sense, and I want to make it make sense too. There’s a faint letterRand a last name I’m positive says Alvarez, but every search I’ve done comes out empty. No R. Alvarez had reported a missing baby from Houston Methodist Hospital. No reported scandals or articles circulated the internet.
Something’s off.Toooff. Curtis Anderson didn’t have the kind of reach to cover up something like this. He had money, but not the kind that could pay for multiple hits from the private investigators Alma had hired or to tamper with her Ancestry DNA submissions.
“You gotta eat something,mija.” The statement comes out as a plea.
I set the tray on top of her end table and take a seat next to her on the edge of the bed. Cupping her face in my palm, I lightly brush my thumb over her flushed cheek. Tears still cling to her long lashes. Licking my lips, I hold off on the impulsive thought to kiss her and steady my voice before speaking.
“Talk to me, Alma. Tell me what I can do to help you.”
She doesn’t say anything. Her eyes stay fixated on the bracelet. The silence stretches between us. I move to leave and give her space before I feel the tug of my shirt. Falling into the pull, I find myself on the bed next to her. Her breathing stutters, and her big brown eyes pin me in place.
I should pull back—a better man would. But I’m not built for mercy. I’m built for her. To be everything she needs in thismoment. Alma leans in, her forehead pressing to my chest and her arms reaching out to draw me into her.
Every promise she’d made to push me away in her grieving is fractured in her embrace. And me? I’m ruined. One small mercy, one fragile reach for comfort, and I want to burn the whole world down for her. I lift her into my lap and cradle her in my arms.
The world falls silent as I hold her. She releases the emotions that have been swelling up inside her. Seeing her like this makes me wish I had some kind of superpower that could transport us out of here. Find a place where we could be whoever the hell we decide we want to be without the current fucking labels.
Undocumented.
Orphaned.
Stolen.
Fuck all those things. We never asked to come into this world, and we sure as hell didn’t ask for the lives we received.
“You’re mine, Efren. I don’t care who brought us into this world. All that matters is that we found each other.”
Her words from the other night burn inside me. She was right, our only purpose was to find each other. Nothing else matters. The silence falls around us as we cling tighter to each other. I listen to the beating of her heart, in sync with mine. We stay like that until Alma pulls back slightly.
“Did you bring the box of letters back?” she asks.
“I did. Do you want to read them?” I ask, but Alma shakes her head.
“I doubt Missy would put anything in there to incriminate herself. She was smart.”
“That she was.” I agree, not to appease her but because I’ve read every single one.
Each letter offers insight into the lives they lived and intoAlma’s childhood. A childhood Missy documented with postcards, Polaroid pictures, and stories of why she was abandoning another town. Her excuses ranged from schools needing documentation to someone asking too many questions. She was paranoid, and it showed in every letter. Alma brings the bracelet back up in front of her and examines the brittle plastic.
“It’s strange,” she says quietly. “I can’t hate Missy for what she did. For stealing me when I know it was rooted in her own grief. But there’s someone out there, a woman who was robbed of her own child. Can you imagine? I grew in her womb. She had ideas and plans to love and care for me, and it all vanished in the blink of an eye.”
“What Missy did to you and what she meant to you don’t cancel each other out,” I whisper. “They just live in the same place. That’s what makes it hurt. You can hate her and still ache for her. Your heart’s a battlefield, and both sides look like love.”
I pause, fingers tracing her wrist as her pulse flutters beneath my thumb.
“I get it,” I add quietly. “I felt the same way with Bud. I want to hate him for lying to me, but I can’t help loving him for wanting to protect me.”
