Keep Her Safe(7)

I remember the day he showed up, limping from an infected cut on his hind paw, a chunk of his ear freshly torn out, long since missing his left eye. I had one hell of a time holding him down to clean and wrap that foot of his. That was three years ago, and he keeps coming back.

Like many of the people who find their way to the Hollow.

I stroll along the laneway, ignoring him. It’s two in the afternoon and Sleepy Hollow Trailer Park is practically a ghost town, as usual. Most everyone’s either sleeping off their midnight shift or out working a long day for shitty pay, so they can come back to this.

I pass the Cortezes’. There are six people living in that trailer. It has a sheet of plywood covering a window because Mr. Cortez smashed it with his fist in a fit of rage last month and he doesn’t have the money to replace it yet. Management won’t say anything. Five hundred a month in rent doesn’t buy you much around here, besides a roof that leaks during monsoon season. The park runs out of water at least three times a week, and the smell of sewage lingers in the air more days than not.

It looks like nobody’s home there, and I say a quick prayer of thanks for that because if the Cortezes are home, then no one’s getting any sleep. I was up at five for my shift at QuikTrip and I’m desperate for a nap before I have to bust my ass serving tables at Aunt Chilada’s tonight.

Next to the Cortez family is the Sims trailer, where Kendrick Sims, his sister, her boyfriend, and their seven-year-old son live. While his sister and boyfriend work honest jobs, Kendrick has been in and out of prison more times than I can count. Currently he spends his days hanging around their yard, shaking a lot of hands, and disappearing around corners. Everyone knows he’s dealing drugs.

He lingers by the chain-link fence now, leering at me. But he won’t come sniffing around here. He tried eight years ago, when he waylaid me along the lane one night and started telling me how I should date him because he’s black and my daddy must have been black for me to look the way I do, and that he would teach me all that I need to know about my heritage. He was nineteen.

I was twelve.

No one has ever accused me of having a dull tongue. As scared shitless as I was, I let him have it before running home and digging out my mom’s switchblade from beneath her mattress. I carry it in my purse to this day.

Next to the Simses is the Alves family. Vilma Alves waves from her spot in the crimson velvet armchair that sits outside her front door. It’s her throne; no one dares touch it. Her son brought it home years ago, a treasure from the curbside. It’s remained in that exact place, rain or shine. Mostly shine in Tucson.

“iBuenas tardes!” she calls out in her reedy voice.

“Hola.” I offer her a smile as I always do, because she’s ninety years old and she’s dropped off homemade enchiladas and mole at our door on many occasions, when she knew things were especially rough for me.

She scowls at Cyclops, shooing him away with a wave of her hand and a hiss of, “iRabia!”

I peer down at the scrappy mutt—part terrier, part Chihuahua, all parts annoying—and smirk. “He’s not foaming at the mouth yet.”

She shrugs reluctantly. I’m not sure which is worse—my Spanish or her English. We always muddle past the language barrier, though.

“Hasta luego.” With a lazy wave, I make to move on.

“Un hombre visitó a tu mamá.”

While my Spanish might be terrible, I know what that means. Or, more importantly, I know what it means when a man visits my mother while I’m at work.

My stomach tightens. “How long ago? Time?” I tap my watchless wrist.

“A las diez.”

Ten. Four hours ago.

I gaze out over the rectangular box ahead, the two-bedroom 1960s mobile unit that served as a childhood home to my mother and was left to Mom when my gran passed a few years back. I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m long past buying my mother’s empty promises and then screaming at her with anger and fear every time she breaks them. That was the teenaged, hopeful version of me.

The stupid one.

Nodding solemnly at Vilma for her warning, I offer a soft “gracias.” I struggle between rushing and prolonging these last twenty steps to my front door, knowing that one of these days I’m going to open it and find a corpse waiting inside. I haven’t figured out if this twisted knot in my gut is because I’m dreading or have already accepted that outcome.

Probably both.

Cyclops’s ear-piercing bark distracts me momentarily. He knows it’s his last chance and he’s peering up at me with that one soulful eye.

“Rich foods aren’t good for you.” I toss another carrot his way. He gobbles it up and then scampers off under the Alves trailer after Mrs. Hubbard’s tabby cat.

“You’re welcome,” I grumble, stealing a carrot for myself, though my appetite has all but disappeared. I stare at our mangled front door for a moment, mentally itemizing all of its various cuts and bruises—a size-twelve boot dent where Mr. Cortez tried to kick it in because he was drunk and thought his wife had changed the locks on him; a notch in the frame where thieves tried to pry it open; the streaks of black spray paint where neighborhood punks redecorated.

Holding my breath, I climb the concrete steps and slide my key into the lock.

I open the door.

A cloud of cigarette smoke overwhelms me, making me cringe in disgust. Yet, I try to focus on my relief.