I pivot to face him. Without waiting for me to answer him and not even bothering to glance at Mama, my father blows another puff of cigar smoke into the air as he ambles across the kitchen and drops down onto one of the four chairs aligned with the table. Dressed in a stained off-white tank top that stretches taut over his bulging belly and a pair of dirty jeans, he reaches for the paper folded neatly in the center of the Formica top.
“Took ya long ’nough,” he snaps, opening the paper.
“Por favor, mijo.” Mama’s pleading expression is followed by that hissed whisper because she doesn’t want him to know what I’m thinking.
I don’t have the heart to tell her he already does. We’ve done this stupid song and dance before, Darrio and I.
“When’s dinner gonna be done, Camila?” Dad barks, making her jump and whirl back to face the stove.
“Almost done,mi amor,” she says quickly with a note of false brightness.
I stand there, both hands clenched into fists at my sides as I stare at the man sitting at that cheap, chipped table. I picture all manner of horrendous things that would get me not only arrested, but likely committed to an insane asylum. I imagine what it would feel like to pin this man down and slowly flay him alive—starting at his toes, dragging the sharpest blade up and down his sides until I have an entire, almost perfectly preserved skin suit.
I’m no saint, but I’ve never held this level of animosity towards anyone. I wouldn’t even consider this were it not for the years of abuse. Not towards me, no. I don’t give a fuck what this man says or does to me, but for my mama? The woman who loves him, practically worships the ground he walks on?
“What?” Darrio looks up from the paper and glares at me, his lips pursed around the cigar that hangs from his lips. He reaches up and carefully removes it, grasping it between his thick fingers. “You got somethin’ to say to me,boy?”
I used to hate it when he called me that.Boy.As if I’m lesser than because, in his eyes, I’m not yet a man. He’ll know, though, that no number of words can save him. No condescension, no hateful ridicule—nothing will save him when the devil comes calling.
“No, sir.” It steals something inside of me to form the words and speak them aloud when what I really want to do is shove my fist so far down his throat that I can grasp his balls and rip them straight up and out. Regardless, I don’t say them for him. I say them for her. For my mama, for Juliet, and for my boys.
The hands on his paper tightens as if he’d expected a different answer. The smile I give him is one lacking any amusement. His eyes narrow.
“Hmmm.” He hums in the back of his throat before slowly turning back to the paper in his hand.
Mama doesn’t have to ask me to set the table. The act is already ingrained within me. Twenty minutes later, once Mama’s soup has warmed and she’s reheated a few tamales in the oven from a batch she mass froze a few months before, the three of us sit around the table in an odd mockery of a normal family. Mama with her bruised eye. My father with his half-finished cigar hanging over the edge of a cheap ashtray. And me, feeling more distant from it all than ever before.
I spoon up some of the soup, knowing it’s going to sit like deadweight in my stomach for hours after this meal when he speaks again. My hand stops.
“When is that Donovan whore going to stop staying with Pierce and Medicci?”
Mama’s eyes widen as she looks across the table at me. My expression must not be as neutral as I’d hoped it’d be. I lower my spoon back into the bowl before me, the scent of spices and hot sauce drifting away as I do.
“Juliet is not a whore.” The words are quiet, but no less strong for their low volume. I stare back at my father and silently dare him to reject me.
He snorts and ignores the warning. “All women like that are whores, son. She’s a rich princess looking for a sugar daddy now that her family’s as destitute as the rest of us.”
My jaw begins to ache with how hard I’m grinding my teeth. My father doesn’t seem to realize—or rather, he doesn’t give a fuck if he’s pissing me off. He never has.
“Please,mi amor. That kind of language at the dinner table is?—”
Darrio slams his fist down on the tabletop, making Mama’s words cut off as she yelps and flinches away from him. “Don’t tell me what to do in my own goddamn home, woman,” he barks.
Mama crosses her chest and dips her head. “I-I’m sorry,mi amor.”
Mi amor. Mi amor. Mi amor.There’s nothing worth loving about this piece of shit. My anger seethes deep inside, rioting and demanding to be freed.
Darrio points at me. “I want the truth, boy,” he growls. “When will she be gone?”
“You’ll have to talk to Nolan about that.” I’m proud of the way my voice comes out. Even. Almost devoid of all emotion.
My father scoffs. “Why?” he demands. “Does Nolan command you?”
“You’re the one who put him in charge,” I reply.
“Which you never fought, did you?” He leans forward. “Because you’re weak.”
Mama all but disappears into the back of her chair, more tears filling her eyes. I ignore her in favor of staring back at the man that I know I will one day kill with my own two hands.
