Tug (Irreparable 3)

I wake in the morning to a shock. Something is wrong. I hear voices in the house. One is Veronica, the others two male voices I don’t recognize, speaking in Spanish. What I hear sends me darting from the bed and searching for pants to put on. I feel legless as the men on the other side of my door continue to talk. Thank God Javier isn’t here. I struggle to shove my legs into my sweatpants and open the door.

I make eye contact with Veronica, and her horrified expression confirms that my life has just changed drastically.

“No!” I scream, my voice catching in my throat.

“Oh, God, Maria. I didn’t know you were home. I would have woken you.”

“Papa!” I run to his room just as the EMT covers him with a sheet.

“Maria!” Tug calls from the front room, but I can’t go to him. I lean against the wall and sink slowly to the floor. My papa is dead. He went all alone in the middle of the night. After I left Tug’s, I went to Tori’s to pick up Javier. He wanted to stay with Drew, so I drove around for hours, thinking about my future and came home after Papa went to bed. I didn’t even bother to check on him when I got home. I was too upset. Was he in pain? Could I have saved him?

“Oh, thank God, baby.” Tug storms into the room and kneels in front of me. His hand curls around the back of my neck. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the EMTs leaving the room. “I saw the ambulance and police and thought …”

“He’s gone. My papa is gone. I couldn’t save him.”

“No. No.” He holds my face firmly in his hands. “You took care of him. He knew you loved him.”

My hands reach up and wrap around Tug’s wrists. I want him to let go of my face, but he won’t budge. I can’t look him in the eyes.

“He wants to be buried next to abuelita, but I can’t go back there. I don’t know what to do.” He lowers his hands, and I drop my chin, putting my head on his chest.

For a few minutes he lets me cry, and then says, “Hey. Look at me. I will make it happen.” I lift my head. “We’ll hire security for the funeral. He deserves a resting place next to his wife. It will be okay.”

He’s so perfect and sweet and kind … and so wrong, so very wrong. I touch his cheek, shaking my head.

“No, it won’t. It will never be okay. Eduardo’s men will shoot your security, and he will take Javier to get what he wants.”

He grabs my hands and yanks them to his chest, his gaze so sincere I don’t want to look.

“I promise you, I will never let that happen.”

More than anything, I want to believe him. I want to think this wonderful, protective guy is stronger and more powerful than the man I left behind, but I know differently. I’ve seen Eduardo’s rage firsthand, and Tug doesn’t stand a chance against him. I force a tiny smile and thank him. My body feels weak. I’m tired from always being strong, from taking care of everyone else. Right now I want someone to take care of me. I want to let Tug take care of me, and handle things in my life that seem impossible.

He takes my hands and pulls me up.

“Go get dressed. I will deal with this, and then I’ll take you someplace where we can talk.”

I nod, words too difficult to get out, and return to my room, where I lie on the bed, absorbing the tremors rolling through my body.

My sweet papa is gone.

We go to Tori’s to pick up Javier and then drive to the Center. Once Javier is distracted by the other kids, I pull Maria into a quiet room. She sits in a chair and stares absently at the wall. The tracks of dried tears etched on her cheeks crush me. She lost her grandfather and probably isn’t ready for me to push her, but I have to know what I’m up against. What secret would make her turn her back on us to protect it?

“Tell me the truth so I can help you.”

Her lip curls slightly. “Tell you the truth, like how I thought getting involved with a gang banger at fifteen made me cool?”

I grab her face and force her to look at me. “Yes. I love you, and I want to hear all of it.”

She pushes my hands away and sighs, drawing her legs up to her ches

t. “Papa owned a farm in a little town south of San Jose. I never knew my dad. My mother and I lived with my grandparents and helped out on the farm. We didn’t have a lot of money, but I was loved. When I was eleven, my grandmother died. When I was twelve, my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and the day I turned thirteen, she died. Papa and I couldn’t manage the farm on our own, and the bank seized it. We moved to a community in Oakland where an old friend of Papa’s owned an apartment he could afford on Social Security. Needless to say, Tijuana is nice in comparison.”

She stops and takes a breath. The next part of the story is what I need to hear, and I wait patiently for her to continue.

“At fourteen, I met a boy, a stupid older boy who made me feel beautiful. I craved attention, and he gave it to me. I didn’t care about what he did for the cartels, or that he was a gang-banging, low-life. I wanted to be with him and cling to the happiness I hadn’t felt in so long because it helped me to breathe. I felt reborn. It had been one week, and I was in love. Eduardo was not. I said I wasn’t ready, and he said he didn’t give a fuck. I tried to leave, and he stopped me. I lay down and took it. He opened the door and told me to get out. That was it. My first time. I didn’t bother to cry, because when he fucked me, I understood the harsh realities of life for the poor and the weak. I changed that day, believed I was some hard-core gangster, as if our time together were an initiation into hood life. A life I was naïve enough to believe I wanted.”

She stops and heaves a breath. Her eyes are red and swollen but without tears. I pace the floor, angry and wanting to murder this Eduardo. My feelings for her haven’t changed, but I’m pissed at the people around her who made her believe this was all she was worth. I know she has more to say and I only hope I can handle it.