51. Antonio
51
ANTONIO
I keep slipping through the haze.
Everything’s blurry and fragmented, and I can’t hold on to anything.
At first, the memories are about loss. Being abandoned, people leaving me.
But then something shifts, and the memories change. They get better. These, I want to hold on to and never let go.
Lucia, laughing as she tells me she’s going to steal my painting. Lucia gasping in pleasure as I spanked her. Lucia, cooking dinner and asking me to taste the sauce for salt. Fighting me for the TV remote. Holding my hand in front of her colleagues at the museum. Her fingers tangled in mine, her mouth crashing onto mine when I confessed I loved her.
Her voice, clear as a bell, when she said, “I love you too.”
I was lost, but Lucia found me.
I was abandoned, but she chose me.
“Hang on. What’s going on here?” a woman says. “His vitals are picking up. Blood pressure stabilizing. . . I don’t know what just happened, but thank God it did. Let’s get him into surgery now. ”