CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CARLOS MENDOZA
As I suspected, the basement was also emptied of furniture, and I wondered what happened to our furniture. I wouldn’t mind getting it back because, even though it wasn’t worth anything, there was sentimental value to it for me. The only piece of furniture in the whole house worth its weight in gold was my wife’s old desk. I would have paid handsomely to have retained that piece. I made a mental note to ask my daughters if they knew anything about it. Not only was the wood handcrafted, the desk had many secret compartments that Alelina used to hide important documents in.
The washer and dryer that I had purchased from a secondhand store when we first moved to Georgia was still there. I breathed a sigh of relief. If someone had disposed of them as well, I don’t know what I would have done.
I probably would have dug up my brother, the son of a bitch, and shot him again. I laughed but I was dead serious. I pushed a button, hidden from view, which lifted the appliances off the floor and slid them away from the wall. I entered the combination that would unlock the door to the secret room hidden beneath the appliances. I held my breath as I walked down the stairs. I hadn’t been in the room in years, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was fairly certain it hadn’t been detected but I was still nervous.
Secrets of our past and the hopes of our future were in this room. The books lining the walls would be a gift to my daughters. In them were firsthand accounts of what we were forced to do to ensure their safety. Perhaps if they read the journals, they would find it in their hearts to forgive us for the deep deception we perpetrated.
I turned away from the books. I didn’t come for them. I came to make sure the money we hoarded was still safe. This money was going to be the means of our escape from the grips of the Cali Cartel, but unfortunately we waited too long. Another tear slid down my cheek. I thought I’d left all my tears upstairs in the bedroom but I was wrong.
Greed kept us in the game, and I knew that I would pay for that sin for the rest of my life. My brother Monte sucked me into his world and used the threat of my family’s safety to keep me in it.
I pushed back the wall of books and stared at the stacks of money. I had no idea how much was there, but I was sure it was more than we could spend in a lifetime. The realization should have comforted me but it only made me cry harder.
“Why didn’t we get out sooner?” Weeping again, I fell to my knees.
“I’m so sorry, Alelina ... so sorry. I really did love you ... I thought I knew what I was doing.” The walls of our makeshift safe seemed to shake as my wails shook the rafters of the seven-by-eight-foot room that I was in. I stayed on the floor until I was ready to lift my head without sorrow.
“Verónica, did your sister come home yet?” I said into the phone.
“Uh ... yeah. I got her.”
I could tell that she was still uncomfortable speaking with me. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah, she’s fine.”
She wasn’t offering any additional information, which really bothered me. Something was wrong, but it was obvious she wasn’t going to tell me about it.
“Great. Listen, I really need to show both of you something. Can you come over to our old house?”
She hesitated before she responded. She let out a loud sigh. “Padre, I’m not sure I—”
“Will you come over?” I tried not to sound overly eager. They had been through so much, and I didn’t know how much more they could take.
“Now?”
I could feel her irritation even through the phone line. They had every right to resent me. I couldn’t blame either of them if they decided to completely cut me out of their lives. “I’d really appreciate it. But if you think Victória is not up to it, we can do it later.” I tried to prepare myself for the rejection I was sure was coming.
“I’ll have to ask her, hold on.”
I held my breath as she muted the phone. “God, please.” I prayed like I had never prayed before. It felt like an eternity before she came back on the line, even though it was only a few seconds.
“We’re on our way.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Okay, I will see you when you get here. Thanks.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
VICTÓRIA MENDOZA
“What is this about?” I had so many other things that I could have been doing, so I didn’t feel like participating in this little outing with my dad.
Verónica said, “Your guess is good as mine. He didn’t offer any explanation when he asked us to come.” She held my adorable nephew in a baby carrier.
We were standing outside of our old home, but I didn’t feel anything. I’d already said my good-byes, so I wasn’t feeling this reunion at all.
I turned up my nose. “This is some bullshit. You may have accepted him into your life, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about him.”
“It’s not about accepting him into my life. He’s still our father; you can’t change that. You haven’t spent any time with him. He’s really not that bad.” She pushed a pacifier in LM’s mouth.
My sister was always the gullible one, but this time I thought she went too far. We went through hell, and I wasn’t the forgive-and-forget type of person. Since I didn’t really know who the fuck my parents were, I didn’t know who I got that shit from. So if she was willing to forgive our father for the sins he committed against us, fuck them both. “Whatever.” I wasn’t up to debating with her at the moment. I wanted to get back to my apartment to see if I could learn something that would help me to find that lying-ass Tilo. If someone wronged me, I was all about payback being a motherfucker. As far as I was concerned, Tilo won round one, but I intended to take home the prize and hang that bitch out to dry.
“Do you want to leave?” Verónica asked as I paced back and forth in the driveway.
Part of me wanted to leave, but the other part wanted to know why he wanted us to come. If he was going to provide any answers, I was willing to stay. “Naw, we’re here now. Let’s see what that motherfucker wants.”
“Victória, he’s still our padre,” Verónica said with a hitch in her voice as she smiled at LM.
“Well, the jury is still out on that as far as I’m concerned. Being a father is more than donating sperm, and that’s all he ever did for me.” I opened the door and led the way into the house. If I was going to do this, I wanted to get it over with so I could get back to my business back at the house. “Hello?” I yelled. I refused to call this man Padre until he showed me he was worthy of the title. I tapped my foot as I impatiently waited for his response.
“Padre, it’s Verónica and Victória,” my sister yelled.
We walked into the empty living room. This was the first time that I’d been in the house since the night I was shot and Ramón was killed. A flashback of the night he died almost brought me to my knees. “Victória, are you all right?” Verónica gripped my arm, but it felt like she was a million miles away.
“Yeah.” I snatched my arm away from Verónica. “He needs to hurry the fuck up. I can’t be in this house too long. Too many memories.” I had no idea I would feel this way. I wanted to get out of there so I could grieve again in private. I looked toward the stairs expecting our mother to come down them, but that wasn’t going to happen. “Where the fuck is he? Call him, I don’t have all day,” I barked at my sister like she was to blame for my feelings. She wasn’t in the house the night of Ramon’s murder, so she couldn’t possibly be feeling the same emotions I was feeling.
Verónica whipped out her phone. “Padre, where are you? We are here.” She nodded her head and closed her phone. “He’s coming.”
I heard footsteps but they didn’t appear to be coming down the stairs. I looked around in confusion. “Where the fuck was he?”
“Victória, your mouth is filthy,” Padre announced as he slowly came into view.
I wanted to tell him to kiss my entire ass but I held the words inside.
“We’re here, now tell us why,” Verónica said.
I would have phrased it differently, but he got the message. I wanted to know what was so important that he brought me back to the scene of so much heartache without regard to our feelings.
“Victória, I know this is hard for you, and I sincerely apologize, but I need you to see this.”
My father sounded humble. A part of me hoped that I could feel love for him again.
“What is it? I need to get back home to rest.” I was lying my ass off; I just wanted to get out of there.
“Of course, I understand and I thank you both for coming. Will you follow me?” He was being so formal, I was scared to follow as he turned and walked out the same doorway that he had come from.
I looked at Verónica and she looked as scared as I felt. I thought my nephew even picked up on it.
Verónica said, “Give him a chance, Victória. He’s trying.”
I wanted to smack her up against her foolish head. I didn’t want to blame her for all the bullshit that had taken place, but she was knee-deep in the shit and I resented her for it. If she hadn’t gotten involved with Moses, our lives might have turned out much differently. I knew I was being irrational but I could not help myself.
“Please,” Verónica begged.
I could not ignore the begging in my sister’s voice. I would indulge her; but if I smelled bullshit, I was out—even if it meant turning my back on the only family I had left. “I just want you to know, I ain’t feeling this.”
LM started to get fidgety.
“I know. But please indulge him.”
We followed my father through the kitchen and into the basement. I kept my eyes averted from the living room. I didn’t want to be where my brother had died. The urge to run out of the house crying was overwhelming.
“Where are we going?” I demanded as I stopped midway down the stairs. If this was some dog-and-pony shit, I’d have rather he tell us about it before I walked down the stairs. For all I knew, it could be another trap we were walking into blindly.
Verónica said, “Victória, please, this won’t take long.” She tried to calm LM.
How the hell does she know how long this shit is going to take?
I let loose a loud sigh as I counted backward. Verónica grabbed my hand and practically dragged me down the rest of the stairs. She was working her way up the list of people that I wanted to tell to kiss my ass. As far as I was concerned, he had years to make this shit right and he chose to do nothing. He allowed his brother to walk into our lives and destroy them. I wasn’t about to forgive him for it anytime soon. “Why do we have to do this? We’ve been in the basement before. He’s not showing us anything that we haven’t seen before,” I mumbled.
“Chill, Victória,” Verónica hissed.
I stopped short. I didn’t like the way that she was siding with him instead of me. Did I miss something? Last I checked he was the one who had abandoned us. Padre stopped at the bottom of the steps, causing us to bump into him. This just irritated me even more.
“Dumb fucker,” I mumbled as Verónica jabbed me in my stomach.
She was lucky I wasn’t feeling all that strong or we would have been fighting all over the basement.
“Ouch, bitch,” I said, ready to let her have it, wishing she weren’t holding my nephew.
“Victória ... enough.”
My father didn’t have to raise his voice to let me know he was serious. It was a tone I wasn’t familiar with but it brought tears to my eyes. I felt like I’d been transported in time and I was a little girl again. I was going to play his little game—one last time—and I was done. Padre led us to where the washer and dryer normally sat but they were pushed off to the side.
“What’s going on here?” I asked as I peeked down twelve steps to what appeared to be a subbasement. I turned to my sister. “Did you know this room was here?”
“No, I didn’t. Padre, what is this?” Verónica asked. Her voice was gentler and less accusatory than mine. She was working hard to keep the peace.
“I can show you better than I can tell you,” my father replied.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
VERÓNICA RAMSEY
My cell phone scared the shit out of me when it rang. I whipped it out of my holder and placed it up to my ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, baby, where are you?” Moses asked.
“I’m over at my old house. My father wanted us to meet him here. He wanted to show us something.”
“Oh really, what?”
“Don’t know yet. What’s up?” I could feel all eyes on me as I tried to get off the phone with my husband.
“I was just checking to see what time you would be home. I’ve got some running around to do.” Moses was getting bored.
“Padre says it won’t take long, so I’ll be there as soon as we’re done.”
“Oh, one more thing, my mother and father are coming to visit.”
My heart skipped a beat but I tried to sound calm. “Oh, really? What’s the occasion?”
He said, “It’s no occasion. It’s just time they met their daughter-in-law.”
He had a point, it was time, but I could not help but to wonder why now? We’d been married for months and I hadn’t heard boo from them.
“Wow, when are they getting here?” I was in panic mode. There were so many things I wanted to do before I met my in-laws. I needed to get my hair and nails done; the house could have used a thorough cleaning.
“They will be here at four.”
If he said anything else after that, I didn’t hear it because my mind was working overtime.
“Let me get off the phone, I have a lot to do. I’ll see you at the house.” I closed the phone. “Victória, we have to get going, I have to get home.”
“What’s wrong?” She looked alarmed.
“I need to get home. My in-laws are coming and I’ve got to prepare.”
“Wow, did you know they were coming?”
“No, Moses just sprung it on me.”
Victória cringed. “Ouch. I’ve never met in-laws before, but I think I would prefer advance notice.”
“Tell me about it. Padre, what’s this shit about!” With one phone call I’d forgotten about being the peacemaker. My ass needed to get home with a quickness.