Chapter 2
Daydreams carry me through the rest of my volunteer shift.
Add bounce to my step as I walk to the bus stop.
Keep my grin in place the entire forty-five-minute ride home.
I don’t need music when I can lose myself in dreams of a night with Kai.
Dancing and laughing and maybe more. A night like the ones on the telenovelas Joel and I used to watch after dinner every night.
The type of night I didn’t think was possible outside of a screen.
But my dream shatters when I see our garage.
MONSTER, painted in the color of the devil himself. Paint drips down from each letter, staining our driveway like a pool of blood. There’s a halfhearted swipe through the M. Either Mami or my younger brother, Mikey, must’ve seen it and tried cleaning it off before giving up and heading inside.
It’s not the first time something like this has happened, or even the worst. The first few weeks after Papi was arrested, it was constant.
Words painted on every surface of our house.
Sometimes the car. LIAR, DEVIL, MURDERER.
Notes slipped beneath the front door, calling us even worse.
Rotten fruit and bricks lobbed at our windows as we told ourselves to be grateful they never aimed for our heads.
It didn’t matter that their real target—Papi—wasn’t home and would never be coming back.
We were still the faces on the news, holding back tears as we stood alone on his side of the courtroom.
We had his last name. Me and Mikey had his face—his deep brown eyes and thick, boxy brows. That was enough.
Before I even get into the house, I know things won’t be pretty.
They haven’t been for months. From the dishes piled in the sink to the smell of rot leaking from the fridge.
But I’m still startled by the sound of Mami in the kitchen chopping furiously, pulling apart a rotisserie chicken like it’s to blame for vandalizing the garage.
“Set the table,” she orders after I close the front door behind me, not even looking up from the cutting board.
I know better than to protest or take too long.
Quickly, I toss my bag beneath the desk in my room and carefully place the chair in front of it.
The chances that Mami would go through my bag and find the rumpled dress are low—especially when she’s this upset—but it wouldn’t be the first time she’s gone through my stuff.
None of us have ever done anything worth hiding, even before Papi was arrested.
But that’s never stopped her suspicions from running wild—accusing us of running off to be with friends she told us to avoid, or hanging out after school with people she’s deemed “the wrong crowd.” Worrying about things we’ve never actually done matters less now that she has bills and rent to worry about.
With my bag safely hidden, I roll up the sleeves of the sweater and jeans I changed into after my shift and grab plates and cutlery from the kitchen cabinets.
It feels silly to still set the table when there’s only three of us.
Half the time Mikey doesn’t even finish his meals.
He’d rather push his food around, making faces out of mashed potatoes and peas, than eat, but I can’t blame him.
These days I barely have any appetite either.
Papi always insisted on “proper” dinners together at the table.
Before his parents passed, it was something they’d insisted on too—something he carried with him through several foster homes and, finally, with us.
He called it a sacred part of the day. A chance to unwind with family, to appreciate each other and the food Mami spent that afternoon preparing.
Now it’s usually cold McDonald’s fries and silence.
We still leave Papi’s and Joel’s seats free.
Set plates down in front of their chairs like they’ll be coming through the door any minute.
That’s another thing we’re not willing to let go of yet. Coming together as a family. Pretending we’re not broken.
Mami calls out to Mikey, and he trudges into the room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
A year’s gone by since Papi’s trial and Mikey hasn’t gotten a solid night of sleep since.
He hasn’t been able to shake the nightmares that started right after Papi’s arrest. I dealt with them then, too.
It was so soon after we lost Joel, and too much for our minds and hearts to handle.
Back-to-back tragedies, but the world only cares about one.
We’d do more about Mikey—the lack of sleep and appetite, the slip in his grades, the notes he’s bringing home from his teachers about fights and failed tests—if there was more we could do.
Mami’s job bagging groceries barely covers the rent as it is.
There’s no room in the budget for tutors or doctor’s visits.
With the amount of detentions he’s been landing for picking fights with kids who can’t keep their thoughts to themselves, we’re bound to face the consequences of ignoring Mikey’s problems soon enough.
For now, though, that’s another thing we’re pretending hasn’t changed.
Starting your first year of high school is already tough.
It was on me, and that was before Papi’s reputation followed us wherever we went.
But I was lucky—I had Joel. Two shy kids who could spend their lunches dreaming of the people we could become someday, far away from home.
We were each other’s only friend, but just knowing there was someone in my corner made the maze of hallways and people less intimidating.
I wish I could be that for Mikey—the beacon of hope in a complicated world of cliques and gossip and endless pressure.
I hoped by the time he started at Millcreek High the student body would’ve moved on to the latest piece of gossip, but in a town this small you don’t easily forget a crime this huge.
We don’t have to do or say anything for people to want to take us down.
Sticking together means drawing attention.
Drawing attention means welcoming trouble.
We’re better off on our own—another way this town has torn our family apart.
For now, all Mikey can do is learn to ignore the monsters that visit him in his dreams—the way I did.
The stack of bills is back on the dining table.
I make sure to swipe them before setting the table, tucking them into a drawer in the living room for now.
We can’t keep ignoring the bright red warnings and past due notices, but keeping the lights on and food in the fridge is more important right now than paying back the lawyers with the too-wide smiles.
We let ourselves fall for the confidence in their voices once—when we trusted that they could bring Papi home—but we know better now than to believe anything they say. Including their deadlines.
We sit down and pick at our food wordlessly.
I’m used to the sound of knives and forks against plates, quiet grunts and sighs as we eat before cleaning up and heading to bed for another sleepless night.
Today the silence weighs on my chest like a thousand bricks.
My breath catches at every new sound. I practically jump out of my seat whenever Mami so much as looks my way, panicking that she’ll find a way to read my thoughts.
That the question I haven’t asked yet is written all over me.
That, somehow, she knows.
“You look sick,” she says without looking up from her chicken. Mikey gives me a confused look, but I don’t need eye contact to know the statement was meant for me.
“Long day,” I say quickly, hoping she won’t notice the waver in my voice. “I think I ate something weird at lunch.”
If Mami suspects anything about me or my answer, she doesn’t let it show.
The silence settles in as we turn back to our food.
Mami never asks about our days anymore, and we never ask about hers.
Asking means opening the wounds of the outside world.
The dirty looks and whispers sent Mami’s way by customers.
The shoves and taunts Mikey fought off between classes.
All the gaps in our lives without Papi and Joel that we’re still discovering.
Our days aren’t worth dwelling on. All we can do is move forward.
The question sits on the tip of my tongue as Mami finishes the last of her food, slipping closer to the surface with each strip of chicken that disappears from her plate.
Just ask, just ask, just ask, I repeat to myself, hoping that eventually it’ll stick.
Worst-case scenario, I don’t go to the Halloween dance like I assumed I wouldn’t.
I’ll get a lecture from Mami about spending time with the “people we can’t trust” and the importance of staying close to home, and that’ll be that.
The same spiel we’ve been getting for years, even before Papi’s trial, about why we can’t go to sleepovers or birthday parties for our classmates—because the world is a dark and cruel place, now more than ever.
And the only people we can trust are each other.
Best-case scenario, Mami’s feeling generous—maybe remembers it’s my birthday—and I get to go. My gift: one night where I can pretend the past year never happened.
“There’s a—”
“Fill the bucket in the pantry with warm water when you’re done,” Mami says, cutting off my question before I can ask it. Swiftly, she takes her and Mikey’s plates and scrapes the leftovers into the trash. “We should clean the garage before morning.”
All the courage I’d worked up leaks out of me like a balloon, leaving me deflated and slumped in my seat. I’m too caught up in my disrupted plan for her request to sink in. Water. The garage. Monster.
My arms ache at the thought of scrubbing the garage clean.
Red paint doesn’t wash off without leaving a stain—they always make sure of that.
It’ll take at least an hour to wipe it down to a pink smudge.
Another to cover it back up with the white paint we bought in bulk from Home Depot.
Mikey and I exchange an exasperated look.
With cleaning and catching up on homework afterward, it’ll be close to midnight by the time we get to bed.
It doesn’t make sense to paint the garage now, when the sun is already well past set and we’ll need streetlamps and flashlights to see what we’re doing, but we’ve done this enough times to know Mami doesn’t care about the garage itself.
It’s about not letting people see what the world thinks of us.
If we work late into the night, the paint will be gone by morning and no one will remember that we were branded as monsters the night before.
It doesn’t matter that we already know what they think of us.
Or that nothing we do will change their minds.
“If we leave it up, we let them win,” Mami said once, after Mikey complained while we scrubbed the graffitied f-bomb off our front door.
There’s no world where we win, though.
Mikey and I know better than to argue. I shovel down the last of my chicken and cold peas from a can.
While Mami washes the dishes, we follow orders and fill the bucket with soap and water, lugging it out front together.
Mikey whispers my name while I’m grabbing sponges from the bathroom, gesturing for me to come to his room.
After making sure Mami is still washing dishes in the kitchen, I cross the hall to his room and carefully close the door behind me.
“Happy birthday,” he says as soon as the door clicks shut, pulling a cupcake out from behind his back. A rainbow number nine candle is sticking out of the frosting. “That’s the only candle they had,” he mumbles apologetically before setting the cupcake down on his desk.
In my panic about asking Mami if I can go to the dance, I’d completely forgotten that today wasn’t supposed to be like other days.
I’d let the monotony get to me—convince me that this wasn’t a day worth celebrating.
And who could blame my family for forgetting?
Losing a son, then a father a few months later? But Mikey didn’t forget.
I don’t ask him where he got the cupcake or the candle.
The same way I didn’t ask him what happened when he came home from school with a split lip last week.
I’ve heard enough through the grapevine to know that he’s picked up the wrong kind of habits.
Last month the manager at the convenience store down the block told me to tell Mikey he’d call the cops if he came within ten feet of the store again.
If Mami looked up long enough to see what’s happening, she’d hold him so tight he’d burst. Become even stricter that she already was—which feels impossible.
As worried as I am about the path he’s going down, I don’t have it in me to tell on him.
It would just make everything—him—worse.
Instead of dwelling on the why and how of the cupcake, I pick it up and hold it beneath my nose. We need to move fast—Mami will come looking for us any minute—so I wrench my eyes shut and think of a wish that feels worthwhile.
I could wish for things to go back to normal, but that won’t bring back Joel. Or Papi. And it’s not like life then was perfect either. We’ve always had our flaws. If we didn’t, maybe Joel would still be here. It’s too late to wish for normal now.
So, I wish for something new. As I blow out the candle, visions of Kai—his smile, his laugh, the way he looks at me—blossom behind my closed eyes.
A dream I wish to become reality. A chance to break free.
A chance to be myself. A chance to find out who I am outside the four walls of my house, outside of being the daughter of a killer.
As I blow out the candle, I let myself hold on to something foolish: hope.