What's Mine and Yours(27)

“I’ve been here my whole life.”

“What do they care?”

“I’ll make my own way.”

“So valiant.” Amado laughed. “Optimistic. I’ve never looked at the world and thought, It will all work out.”

Robbie said nothing. He wasn’t afraid. What could Amado do to him that he hadn’t already learned to survive?

“Well, hermano, I won’t count it against you if you wind up eating your words. You come see me if you need a job. Or if you need anything else.” Amado pointed at the empty shot glass, asked if he wanted another.

Robbie stood. “I better be heading home. My wife is waiting for me.”

“That’s fine.” Amado smiled at him. “I’ll be seeing you, hermano.”



By afternoon, the girls were restless, sun-scorched. They had sand in their bottoms, they were hungry and cranky, but they couldn’t go home. Not when they’d come so far, and the sky was bright and unending. A day at the beach was a prize, no matter how miserable they all became.

Lacey May and Hank bought Margarita a kite to appease her. She twirled beneath it, whenever it caught on the wind, putting on a little show, whether anyone was watching or not. Noelle was in the water, leaping over the waves, talking to a gang of slightly older boys, who seemed about fourteen. Only Diane had stayed close. She was piling sand into a bucket, digging out a moat. Hank needed to send her away. Lacey May was chugging beers, and if he didn’t muster his nerve, she’d be drunk before long.

“Aren’t you hot, chickadee? You’re just sitting there, roasting. Why don’t you go and play with Jenkins under the pier? Get some shade?”

Diane, obedient by nature, sprang up and ran off with the dog. Hank turned to Lacey and grabbed her hand. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. I want to know if you could make a little more room in your heart for me.”

Lacey drained her beer and reached for another. “You’re already in my heart, Hank.” She kept her eyes on the sea. The crash of waves along the shore. A faraway bark.

“What I mean is,” Hank said, rummaging in the backpack beneath his chair. “Goddamn it.”

He heard Diane scream, and when he turned to the pier, he saw her and Jenkins, a large, rust-colored dog circling them both. Diane was stuck between them, Jenkins tangling her legs in his leash as he tried to dart away. The rust-colored dog growled, lurched. Soon Hank was running down the beach, Lacey May close behind.

Hank shoved the dog, thumping its chest with one hand. He used the other to push Diane, and she tripped backward onto the sand. He managed to unclip Jenkins, who ran off, away from the snapping maw of the red dog. He kicked the dog once in the face, and again, then Lacey May was there, scooping Diane into her arms. Both of them stared wide-eyed at Hank.

A man in aviators ambled over, not nearly fast enough. He grabbed the red dog by the collar, knocked him on the nose. Hank started in on him.

“You son of a bitch. What’s wrong with you bringing a dog like that to a family place like this? He could have killed my daughter.”

Lacey May turned at the word.

The man started to mutter excuses, and Hank shook his fist in the man’s face. “Control your goddamn dog, man, or I’m calling the police.”

Diane whispered in Lacey May’s ear. “Uncle Hank saved me, Mama.”

Lacey May kissed her and carried her away, squeezed her belly to check for wounds, but she was thinking of Hank, how he’d thrown himself between her daughter and the dog. The way a real father would. She had never seen him so angry, so strong. He had noticed the trouble before she had. She had been busy watching Noelle and those boys. She had been daydreaming about the way she and Robbie had been young together, while a dog tried to eat her baby.

The other girls were with them now, and Jenkins weaseled his head between Lacey May’s ankles. Noelle shivered and shouted, “Dee, are you okay?” and Margarita, stunned and speechless, held her crumpled kite to her chest.

When Hank joined them, he slung an arm around Lacey May, another around Diane, who was red-faced, trying hard not to cry.

“Let’s go have some sodas and calm down,” Lacey May said, and the girls went ahead with Jenkins, their slim bodies pressed together. They were rarely harmonious, the girls, but in moments like these, they had a way of falling together, like a single organism.

As they climbed up the dunes, Hank leaned into Lacey May, pressed a lip to her ear. “I hope that wasn’t a sign. A bad omen or something. I was fixing to ask you to marry me. I’d reconsider, but I love you too goddamn much.”

A shiver ran down Lacey’s neck. Perhaps the residue of fear, and something else. She turned to face him. Hank’s eyes were a cloudy blue, his skin lined and leathery. He sealed his lips together to hide his teeth, his expression pleading and pitiable. He was harmless in the end. The way he looked at her, he could have been one of her children.

Hank kissed her, and she could feel his hands quivering around her shoulders.

“If you say no, Lacey, we can keep going on the way we’ve been,” he said. “I won’t cast you out. But I hope to God you’ll say yes, and let me make you my wife.”



It was dark when they pulled up, the headlights sweeping over the living room, where Robbie had set the table with everything he’d made: rice and beans, plantains, and carne mechada. At the last minute, he’d dashed out for an ice cream cake—Diane’s favorite—strawberry with a cookie crust. It had started to melt, but he couldn’t bear to put it away. He wanted them to see it when they walked in, to clap and to climb on top of him. He knew he’d win the girls back eventually. He was their father; it was in their DNA to choose him. Lacey would be harder, but he was ready to fight. Sometimes you had to work against the universe, the fucked-up order of things, your body, your own brain, to keep the things that were yours.