Chapter 31
DIEGO
Months have passed since that night in the storage unit, and the world looks different from where I'm standing.
Ma is out of the hospital. Her color is back, the hollowness gone from her cheeks, and last Tuesday she chased me out of her kitchen with a wooden spoon because I was hovering while she cooked. I've never been so happy to get out of someone's way in my life.
Justice for Cassandra's boys is finally moving.
Raul is still locked up. I visit when they'll let me, and every time I sit across from him in that room, I try to find the words for what he gave us and come up short.
He just shrugs and grins and asks if I'm taking care of his car.
I tell him yes. It's a lie. The Cadillac is parked in Ernie's driveway and I wash it myself every Sunday, which I will never admit to either of them.
Harvee and I — I finally grew a pair and asked her on a real date.
Dinner, no chains, no dripping pipes, no confessions of murder in a concrete room.
She laughed when I said that and then she said yes, and we've been solid ever since.
Building something real, piece by piece, in the particular unhurried way that people build things when they've both learned the hard way what gets lost when you rush.
I'm head over heels. Ma told me to take my time.
I nod along whenever she says it and privately think I'd marry Harvee tomorrow if she'd have me.
Ma loves her, especially the accent, the way certain words come out soft and southern when she's relaxed.
They cook together on Sundays sometimes, Ma directing from a stool she'll never admit she needs, Harvee following instructions in careful Spanish she's been practicing without telling anyone.
This life we're piecing together — it's ours. Strange and imperfect and assembled from the wreckage of some very bad decisions, but ours.
Free.
No longer captive in the crossfire.
This concludes Captive in the Crossfire. If you have a moment, please consider leaving my story a review.