Page 236 of Ricardo

Someone is bringing clothes. Victoria told me that.

I remember it and do not remember it at the same time.

When I finish, she takes the toothbrush from me, tosses it into the trash, and wets another paper towel.

“Your face,” she says.

“I thought you already got it.”

“I did.”

“Then why—”

“Because I need something to do.”

That makes me look at her.

Her face is pale. Her eyes are too bright. And for the first time, I realize what this must be doing to her too.

Dante is family.

He is hers too.

And she is standing in a hospital bathroom cleaning blood from my skin because I am falling apart and she refuses to let me fall alone.

My throat tightens. “Victoria.”

She shakes her head once.

“Let me.”

So I do.

She wipes beneath my eyes, careful around the raw skin where tears have dried and started again too many times. Then she steps back and looks me over, not the dress, not the blood, but me.

“Better,” she says.

I almost laugh.

It comes out broken.

“No.”

“Enough better to go back out there.”

I nod.

The waiting room is much the same when we return.

Dante is still in surgery.

Ricardo stands the moment he sees me. He has taken off his tuxedo jacket, and his tie is gone now. His white shirt is marked where I grabbed him earlier with hands still covered in his son’s blood.

The sight nearly knocks the air out of me again.

He crosses to me without hesitation.

His hands come to my arms, then stop as if he is afraid to touch too hard.