38. Greater Losses
38
GREATER LOSSES
Alejandro
The Past
Barcelona, Spain
I hear the sound of gunshots in the back of my mind.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Bodies collapsing behind a halo of smoke. My grandfather calling out for me but his voice gets lost to the hum of chaos ringing in my ears.
There was no remorse. Only relief and the desire to do it again.
I thought killing Sandro would be different. That I would once again feel like the twelve-year-old boy in Peru who held the fate of many lives in the palm of his hands but fired his weapon regardless, without remorse or regret.
Instead, all I feel is numb.
Blood covers my arms and seeps into the crevices of my scarred palms. When I stretch and extend my fingers, the dried blood cracks and reveals the wet pools underneath.
No one’s spoken since we left the warehouse and I prefer it that way. I have nothing to say and long for the safety and solitude of my bedroom where I’ll finally be able to collapse. One by one I’ll be able to flip the switches back on in my mind and process each emotion as it hits me. First, I’ll start with grief. Then anger and confusion. Finally, I’ll topple between melancholy and acceptance and hope the lesser two emotions will help ease me back into a more human state.
I never want to be or feel this numb again. Such an aversion to human pain could become addictive and I’d be doing a disservice to myself and those around me if I descended into a state of mind of which there’s no return.
Dimitrio turns onto our street and parks the car out front. As soon as the doors are unlocked, I race through the motions of getting inside.
Right foot, left foot, keys, handle, foyer, stairs, apartment door. Drop keys, hang up coat, walk down the gallery hall, up another flight, turn, door, office, sit.
Breathe.
Count to ten.
Breathe again.
Don’t stop breathing.
All the muscles in my body ache. They scream and cry in protest of every movement no matter how slight. My eyes burn and the lids are heavy with the weight of several sleepless nights. Months’ worth of them. There’s still so much to do and take care of but consciousness slips away from me. I almost let the dark carry me away when a knock on my office door jolts me awake.
Diego stands at the threshold but doesn’t enter. “Is it done?”
I part my lips to speak but only manage a nod. It takes me several tries to string together a sentence. “Bring Dahlia…please.”
She was upset with me earlier, I think. Whatever it was, I’m sure I deserved it. She can yell at me until she’s blue in the face if it’ll make her feel better but I need her here, if only for a moment. It’s the only way I’ll be able to recenter myself.
“She’s not here.”
“Of course she isn’t…” I exhale. “Call her then and tell her to come home. Or have one of the men pick her up.”
Diego hesitates before finally stepping inside. He closes the door behind him. “She isn’t in Barcelona.”
It doesn’t click right away. “Who the hell let her drive out of the city? Where is she?”
He checks the time on his watch and says, “I imagine just landing in JFK. But it’s more likely she’s already with Lyss at her old apartment. We haven’t spoken since I dropped her off at the airport twelve hours ago.”
At first, the words don’t permeate. My brother and I stare at one another from across the room, each of us expecting something from the other. A reaction, a response, anything to break the silence. The wheels in my head turn at a glacial pace as memories from the last twenty-four hours flood the forefront of my mind. I try to sort through them myself but they’re a blur. Regina, Sandro, Dahlia.
I don’t want to wait until tomorrow, I want to talk now.
So either talk to me or I won’t be here in the morning.
Realization thunders through me. I stand and Diego holds his breath, awaiting my reaction.
I storm past him on my way out; take the stairs two at a time, sprint down the hall, and almost knock over a side table in the process. I barge through the bedroom doors, hoping they’ll send me back in time to the moment she left.
Our room is empty.
The lights are off and the curtains are drawn. Colorful pillows sit neatly arranged against the headboard and the sheets are pressed and smooth. No one’s slept in them. Some of the drawers and racks in the walk-in closet have been emptied and the bathroom hasn’t been used in hours. I can tell because the scent of her soap has already faded to a faint whisper in the air.
This can’t be real. A nightmare, maybe. Hell, most probably.
I head back to our room and instinct has me calling her name. It’s like even met with the reality of her absence I can’t help but default to her presence. She’s gone but she isn’t really; in a few minutes, someone will wake me up and this will all disappear.
On the vanity, I spot a neatly folded piece of paper kept in place by a brass key. I pick it up and sink into Dahlia’s chair to read it.
Alejandro,
I left because I wanted to. Please don’t come after me this time.
-Dahlia
C all. Voicemail. Hang up. Redial.
Call. Voicemail. Hang up. Redial.
Call. Voicemail. Hang up. Re?—
A knock on the door. A sliver of light from the hall. Footsteps. My sister sits in the seat across from my desk.
“You’ve been in here for hours,” she whispers.
Call. Voicemail. Hang up. Redial.
She swallows and moves to the edge of the seat, keeping her voice gentle. “You still have blood on your hands. Please, let me?—”
“Give me your phone.”
She blinks. “Why?—”
I extend my hand. Lettie realizes it isn’t worth the fight so she reaches into her robe pocket and extends it to me.
I search for Dahlia’s contact.
Call. Voice?—
“Hello?”
Answer .
“Where are you? Don’t hang up.”
I hear her sigh through the phone.
“I don’t want to talk to you. In case the hundred unanswered phone calls hadn’t made it clear.”
“Are you at Alyssa’s? Marcia’s?” I finish what’s left of my drink and set the empty glass down. “I’m coming to get you.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No. Yes. Numb, I think. My head feels like it’s ticking.”
A pause. And then a whispered, “Please don’t call me again.”
She hangs up. Lettie reaches across the desk and snatches the phone before I have a chance to redial. “What’s the matter with you?”
“ You and my traitor brother are what’s the matter with me. Driving her to the airport…” I reach for the decanter and pour myself another glass but there’s barely enough left to fill the cup halfway. “Now she’s there…and I’m here…”
“If Dahlia left it’s because you pushed her to it. Don’t blame Diego and me for your own negligence?—”
My left hand thrashes out, sending the now empty decanter and the contents of my desk to the floor. Glass shatters and a loud bang causes her to startle, sending my sister back several paces.
“Tell Diego to go get her. Or he’s never stepping foot in this house again.”
“Tell him yourself,” she snaps though there’s a quiver in her voice.
“I told you to do it.”
With pursed lips she storms out of the room and slams the door shut behind her. I sit back, finish the last of the amber colored liquid in my glass, and then let it topple to the floor where it breaks into a dozen tiny pieces.
I remain in the dark where a million different sounds echo like a symphony in my mind.
The ticking of the clock in Dahlia’s hospital room.
The crackle and burn of the votive candles in the Basilica with Regina.
Sandro’s screams echoing across an empty warehouse.
My mother’s wailing when they put my father’s casket in the ground.
All these sounds blend together and lull me into deep, dreamless sleep.
Dahlia
C entral Park felt like a safe middle ground for a meeting. Now I’m beginning to think this was a mistake.
I shouldn’t have come at all.
Diego and I sit in the cold for hours. He tells me everything: how the fire really started, what happened in the aftermath, and as the truth unfolds before me, fear and dread settle into my bones.
What if I made a mistake?
There’s no exonerating Alejandro from his actions and the way he made me feel. However, I can’t help but wonder if the roles were reversed, how close I’d come to my breaking point and if such a realization merits mercy on my part. I almost wish Diego hadn’t told me because now I know Alejandro and I weren’t the problem. There was no break in the foundation of our relationship, no hidden betrayal, or lack of compatibility. It was one person bearing an impossible weight out of fear and obligation and he was eventually crushed beneath it.
I wish I didn’t know.
I was prepared to move on. Make my peace with our breakup and allow time to do its healing. Weeks, months, maybe even a year would pass before it happened but it would eventually. Like every heartbreak before, I’d dust myself off, put myself together again, and be grateful for the time we had together rather than resent the year I wasted.
How can I do that now when I know the truth?
Regina mailed a photo of Karina to my house and it was enough for me to spiral out of control. I dove headfirst into enemy territory without a thought for my safety or the consequences. Sandro almost killed me. He set fire to Alejandro’s father’s lounge and we both got trapped inside. When I came out my injuries were minimal and I dismissed the whole thing as a freak accident. Alejandro didn’t.
Everything changed that night. A lifetime’s worth of animosity and bloodshed had finally caught up to him and it became about so much more than just me in a burning building. It was about his father’s murder and the collapse of his family. How at every turn, Sandro was there, waiting in the shadows to strike at him in any way he could, and going so far as destroying his sister’s life in the process. My own personal feelings aside, Alejandro loved Regina and Sandro destroyed whatever chance at happiness the two of them might’ve had. The fate they suffered at the hands of Sandro’s ambition was cruel and unjust. And to think that at some point, the life of an innocent child was in the middle of all this…
I can’t help but think of the baby’s death as merciful. God knew nothing good awaited them in this life.
Diego clears his throat and says, “That’s everything.”
“Do you promise?”
“Everything I know, at least. Alejandro didn’t give much detail on the other things he and Regina spoke about. Just the baby and how she helped get rid of Sandro.”
“And how did they? Kill him, I mean.”
His eyes are the bluest I’ve ever seen them. They practically glow in the white winter light. “Fire.”
He doesn’t elaborate nor do I need him to. Alejandro gave Sandro the fate he’d intended for me.
I know he deserved it but I’m no less disturbed by the knowledge of his demise. Such a cruel, inhumane way to die. Sandro doesn’t deserve my empathy after all the pain he’s caused and the lives he’s ruined but I still pray for forgiveness and mercy, knowing this act of violence is still on my conscience. I’ll have to carry it with me like all the other people who died because of me.
“Now you know the truth.”
“I suppose you expect me to forgive your brother now.”
Stress and worry has aged him beyond his twenty-six years. His brown skin is pale and sallow, the lines around his eyes and mouth more prominent than before.
“Dahlia… please . Come home. He’s a wreck without you. No one knows how to handle him right now.”
“Why do I have to cast my feelings aside to accommodate him? When he’s had so little consideration for mine the last few months,” I reply. “You aren’t being fair. It shouldn’t fall on me to be the bigger person. He couldn’t even bother to tell me all of this himself—he sent you to do it instead.”
Truthfully, I’m at war with myself; torn between doing what’s best for me and the urge to run to his side. Healing him isn’t my responsibility and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Too much time has passed and resentment has muddied the waters between us. Right now I’m incapable of being objective and if I was to go back for the sole purpose of being his emotional crutch, whatever love still exists between us would go up in flames. One day we might be able to find a way back to each other but not if the land is scorched.
I don’t doubt Alejandro is in pain right now but what about me and my pain ? Who will heal me ?
“No one said to accommodate him, but Jesus Christ, Dahlia…I’m asking you to be there for him. As someone who loves him would.”
I stop in my tracks and my head whips around to face him. “ And what about me ?”
He startles from where he’s seated on the park bench, shocked by my sudden spike in tone.
“Alejandro has a family to support him. A grandfather, a brother, a sister. I have no one to take care of me. How dare you…how dare you ask this of me and place such a burden on my shoulders,” I snap. “And let me make something very clear to you; for however much I may love your brother, I don’t need to sacrifice my own well-being to prove it. He did this to himself when he decided to keep such a big secret from me.”
Diego says, “It isn’t entirely his fault. I told him not to tell you.”
“So you’ve said. One blind idiot leading another one. You had no right inserting yourself into our relationship. Things would’ve gone very differently if you hadn’t.”
He jumps to his feet as if standing might aid in his defense. “I am not to blame for all of your relationship problems.”
“No but you certainly are for this one!”
No matter how irrational my anger toward Diego is, I let him feel it in full force. I need someone to blame. Need an outlet for all the emotions I can’t contain inside of me.
I don’t know what I want and I don’t know what to do. Stay here and move forward with my plans or go back and see if there’s anything in Barcelona worth salvaging. But at what cost?
Alejandro sent his brother to tell me the truth instead of coming here and facing me himself. Or maybe Diego’s just saying that; now I know I can’t trust either of them to be honest with me.
In the end, I decide to wait. Eventually the storm will pass and Alejandro will come to his senses. Hopefully by then I’ve done enough healing myself where I’m able to confront what happened between us. Despite what’s transpired, I know he loves me. He won’t let me slip through his fingertips without a fight. Time will pass and when he realizes what a mistake he’s made, he’ll drop everything and come back to me…
Won’t he?