Furia(69)

I scrambled back to my feet. My dad was older, but he was still an athlete. He grabbed me by my ponytail and slammed me back down. I couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t touch me!” I yelled.

Pablo was crying, and my mom stood helpless, saying, “Don’t hit her, Andrés. The neighbors are outside.”

“What do I care about the neighbors?” He took off his belt, stretching it with a slapping sound.

“You’re not going to hit me,” I said, putting my hand up, still on the floor.

He moved so fast. I tasted blood. My ears were ringing. Pablo and my dad were suddenly wrestling.

“You won’t touch her anymore,” Pablo yelled, but his voice was small and hoarse.

My father ignored him. He reached down to grab my phone. It must have fallen out of my pocket.

My nose was runny, and I wiped it with the sleeve of my Adidas jacket. The blood seeped quickly into the blue fibers.

Now the one laughing was my father. “ ‘Back to Turín after beating Bar?a in the Champions, Furia! Next time, we’ll be here together.’ ” He looked at me. Then he looked at my mom. “See? You’re sewing your fingers to stumps, and the little lady here has this expensive phone, an Adidas jacket, the promise of travel . . . What else is he paying you to play the little whore?”

Of course he didn’t want an answer. He drew his hand back and smashed the phone against the floor.

“Stop it!” my mom said, finding her voice perhaps for the first time. “Andrés, stop now.”

“So now I’m the bad guy? Years and years of sacrificing for this family. And for what? You’re mixing with the wrong crowd, Camila. That girls’ school and all that reading have fried your brain. And playing fútbol has turned you into a marimacho. What? Did you think I’d never find out about your little hobby? My eye is always on you. I know everything.”

I didn’t want to be afraid, but my blood chilled anyway. Then he turned to my brother. “And you? You are a failure. I give you six months in Mexico before they find out you have less talent than your sister. Your mother is dead weight. If it weren’t for all of you, my life would have been so much better.”

“So leave already, Andrés,” my mom said. She helped me up, and when she looked at my swollen face, her eyes welled with tears. “Leave.”

He stepped back.

It was now or never. I wasn’t going to let him off easy. Not after holding us hostage and blaming us for his failures. Not after destroying Pablo’s confidence, staining my mom’s love.

“You can hit us, and yell, and try to run from the consequences, but your time to pay is here, Papá,” I said, shaking.

For the first time, he seemed at a loss for words. And then he smiled.

“If you think you’re going to blackmail me . . .” He rubbed his hands as if they hurt. “Your mom knows about her, and the others before. Your mother and I have a little agreement, don’t we, Isabel?”

Mamá started crying, but she didn’t crumple like he wanted her to.

I heard voices outside, but I couldn’t stop now.

“Mami,” I said, afraid that the moment was gone, her courage spent. But she surprised me.

“Go,” she yelled at him. “You won’t hurt us anymore.”

He lunged at her, but Pablo and I both stepped in front of her.

In a corner of my mind, I thought, This is how people die. All the news in the papers about domestic violence, crimes of passion—they all must have started like this.

But whatever the consequences, my mom, Pablo, and I were breaking the cycle today.

Somehow, my father had three scratches on his face. He was pale and didn’t seem so big anymore. “You really want this, Isabel? If I leave now, I will never come back. You’ll be all alone when your children leave you, too.”

Someone knocked on the door. “Police,” a woman’s voice rang out.

My father looked around like a cockroach trying to scurry back into the darkness when the lights come on.

“It’s open,” Pablo bellowed.

My father didn’t have the chance to attempt an escape or to take us down with him.

The police came in.

Pablo, my mom, and I raised our hands in surrender. But the officers went straight for my dad. A dark-skinned woman in a blue uniform came to my side. “You’re safe now, corazón,” she said in a soft voice. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Neighbors gathered by our door. One or two talked with the police.

Leaning on my mom’s shoulder, I finally cried.





30





What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: what a lie. I didn’t feel stronger repeating the fight over and over for the police. Hours later, I felt sick and drained.

Any strength I could spare, I summoned for going to El Buen Pastor the next day. Karen gasped when she saw my swollen cheek, but she didn’t ask how I’d been hurt. Instead, she handed me one of her poetry books.

“Maestra, since you like kids’ books, I found this book of Mistral’s poems for children. Maybe you’ll like it, too.”

She left before I could thank her. That night, I read the poems aloud, and the sound of my own voice lulled me to sleep.