“Get them home and always protect the individual first, not the surrounding institutions.” He exhaled once, slowly. “He said: come work for me. We’re based in Seattle, but you can live in New York. That was the entire conversation.”
I looked at him.
“And since then,” I said, “you’ve been careful not to let anyone depend on you longer than the job requires.”
He was quiet and stared into the distance.
I hadn’t planned to say it that directly, but I had learned across twelve days that Thiago didn’t need things softened.
“You arrive,” I continued. “You secure the space, and you get the person through intact.” He looked back at me. “And beforeanything settles, before anyone can count on you to stay past the contract date, you step back.”
The room was silent.
“Because if I stay,” he said, his voice low, “I’ll start building something.”
“And the last time you built something,” I added, “the institution took it away.”
“Yes,” Thiago said.
I reached into my jacket pocket. The gris-gris pouch settled into my palm, warm from the fabric. I placed it on the bedside table.
Then I looked at him and whispered his name, “Santiago.”
He glanced at the pouch and then met my gaze.
“Everything can be unmade,” I said. “You can demolish a building. You can alter a score and place it in a box someone trusted. The levees can fail.”
Thiago didn’t look away.
“None of those are reasons not to build in the first place.”
He exhaled and then looked up at the ceiling. When he spoke, his voice was lower than it had been all evening.
“I don’t know how to do that,” he said. “Stay.”
“I know.” I remained standing beside him. “I’ve been watching you try to figure it out for at least the last week.”
Neither of us moved.
Then he reached for me with his right hand, his fingers closing loosely around my wrist, and I sat on the edge of the bed beside him.
The physical arrangement was complicated. Thiago’s injured arm changed everything: the brace, bandaging, and the IV line trailing from the back of his right hand. I shifted my weight carefully and braced one hand at his uninjured side.
He reached up and touched my face. I kissed the side of his hand and then leaned in to kiss his lips.
He tasted of coffee and the garlic in my mother’s food.
His hand moved from my jaw down the side of my neck and rested at my collar. He stared into my eyes as he unbuttoned the top button.
I drew back enough to look at him. “Tell me where you are,” I said.
“Here,” he said. “Right now. That’s where I am.”
I kissed him again, and he unbuttoned another button, sliding his hand inside my shirt, touching my bare skin.
I reached under the edge of the thin hospital blanket. Beneath it, Thiago wore the loose cotton pants the hospital had provided. I ran my palm along the outside of his right thigh, feeling the muscle there.
Thiago’s breathing grew more rapid.
