Chapter 29
Alma
“Why does every single one of these fairy lords have massive dicks?” Efren asks. He’s mid-passage in the book he’s reading to me.
My eyes flutter open. This has become our new norm since returning from Los Angeles.
We’re up early on the weekdays for our nine to five jobs, and on the weekends we lurk in the shadows with our debauchery.
Mine on the stage and his in the streets.
We rarely speak of what he does, but I know if I asked he would tell me.
There aren’t many secrets we have to keep from each other at this point.
On the nights I work late at La Cuevita, Efren is always waiting to take me home.
There are often blood stains on him or this tense feeling he carries, but I haven’t seen him as beat up as he was when he went missing for several days.
After he brings me home, he feeds me, bathes me, puts me in one of his oversized T-shirts, and reads to me until I fall asleep.
No one has cared for me the way he does. Not since Missy passed away.
Sometimes, depending on the day we’ve had, we skip everything and turn straight to sex.
Our bodies have this magnetic pull toward one another.
Both of us use sex as an outlet to release pent-up stress.
I’ve learned to be more aggressive, not just because he likes it, but I do too.
I’ve even got to work early so I could speak with La Madrina about her role as a dominatrix and how I can execute that in my relationship with Efren.
There’s something about the control and power that fuels me to my highest level.
I brought it up to Dr. Verduzco in our last session, and she said she wasn’t surprised.
My whole life, I’ve never had control over much, from Missy’s constant moving, my own mind hiding memories from me, and then having no trace of where I came from—I’ve been living in survival mode.
The dominant persona that takes over during sex is a reclaiming of everything that’s overtaken my power.
Every moment spent with Efren is healing me.
The way he looks at me, the way he adores me, sees me fully exposed, and still wants more.
I could never be with someone else or give as much as I have with him.
With Efren, there’s no worry that he’ll abandon me or that I’m not enough.
I just wish I’d seen it before. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to go through what I did with Esteban.
“Efren,” I interrupt him, and he looks down to where my head rests in his lap.
“Yes, Kitten?”
“What are we going to do about those videos?”
Efren shuts the book and places it on the nightstand. “What do you want to do with them?”
There’s a sense of guilt that I’d been lucky enough to escape Esteban’s plans while others hadn’t. I don’t know how to feel about the situation, but every time my mind wanders into feeling remorse for taking his life, I remember he’d taken more.
“Kitten? Are you okay?” Efren asks, again pulling me out of another spiral.
“I don’t know. I just keep thinking about the videos, wondering what to do with them. If the women didn’t remember, would knowing cause more damage than never knowing? Esteban’s already dead. Would they still get justice?” I contemplate out loud.
“I’ll do whatever you want to do,” Efren responds.
“Maybe we could submit them anonymously?”
Efren nods in agreement, but my mind keeps racing. How can I give these women justice when the majority of them didn’t know what happened. Also, Esteban was dead. Could this put heat on his family? Efren has already been deported once; I don’t want to lose him right now when I need him the most.
“What do you think Bud will think?” I ask sheepishly.
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks.”
“You’re still angry at him?” I remember the quiet trip back to Houston after Efren had spoken to Bud. He seemed off. “What happened?”
He sighs, and I can feel his body tense under me. Searching his eyes, I plead with him to trust me. I want to be there for him the way he’s been there for me.
“I was angry with him. For a long time, I think it was because I blamed him for my mother’s death.”
“What?” I’m surprised. “What do you mean your mother’s death? Like your birth mom?
“Oh God—is Bud like Esteban?” I whisper.
“No. Not at all. He just lied to me.” Efren sets down the book then pulls me onto his lap.
“I found out recently that my mother died trying to cross the border. She thought she could find my father and give me a better life.” Efren pauses, staring at nothing, and his eyes darken before he speaks again.
“Only, she never made it across. She was beaten, raped, and left to die. Bud found her and took her to a nearby hospital in Tamaulipas. She used the last of her strength to give me life.”
The air leaves my lungs. His words settle in the space between us, heavy and unmovable. I want to say I’m sorry, but the words feel too small.
“How did you find out?” I run my fingers through his hair and over his face. I want the darkness gone and his eyes to come back to me.
“Bud and Angela fabricated a story about a clean adoption process and a happy young couple who just didn’t have the resources to take care of me. I believed them, so I didn’t ask questions. But then, when I was arrested, I realized they didn’t have any real documents.”
“Like me?”
“Not exactly. I had a Mexican birth certificate with a mother listed. When they deported me, I tried to look for her. Silas even helped me as much as he could, but there was no trace of her. So I questioned Bud about it, and he confessed the truth.”
“Why did he lie?”
“I didn’t understand at the time, but I do now.” He finally turns to face me, his brows pinched together and his eyes searching mine. “Bud’s sick, Alma. I spent all this time being angry at him, and now I could lose him forever.”
I want to say, no, that’s not going to happen, and to give him encouragement, but our lives are too parallel.
None of the thoughts and prayers comforted me when Missy was sick.
Not a single lie soothed me in my darkest time.
Efren won’t break in front of me, but I can see the shattering of his soul.
Telling him Bud will be okay when I don’t know would be another person lying to him, and he doesn’t deserve that.
I lean down and rest my forehead on his.
“Don’t pity me, Alma.” His whisper comes out as a plea. I lean in and graze my lips over his.
“I don’t pity you.” I harden my voice. “But I take care of you now.”
My mouth claims his, savoring the taste of him. I can feel the heat radiating from his skin, and the fire building beneath mine. My grip tightens in his hair as I force his neck back and devour him. My tongue explores every part, from his jawline to the center of his Adam’s apple.
“You’re mine, Efren. I don’t care who brought us into this world. All that matters is that we found each other.”
The silence between us isn’t empty. It’s sacred. Two people, both born from someone else’s pain, trying to make something gentler from it. It doesn’t last long, and I’m not able to attend to him the way I’ve imagined because his phone rings. We look at it vibrating on the table.
“Who’s calling you so late?” I ask after the second ring, and Efren sighs.
He stands and grabs it before a message pings, and he stills.
“It’s Ricky. They found something at Curtis’s House.”
_______
Efren drives manically through the streets.
The digital clock on my dash blinks 5:55 a.m. A blessing or a curse?
The car accelerates and the roads turn dark as we leave the highway and take the turn to Curtis Anderson’s house.
There’s a heavy feeling in my chest, an intuitive knowing that I may finally find what I’ve been looking for. Then my toxic mind floods with fear.
What if this is all just another dead end?
What if the truth about Missy—the real truth—would mean facing something I’m not ready to?
Leaning back into the seat, I stare out the window at the moon.
Missy always said we were daughters of the moon.
I’ve held onto the idea, even tattooed it on my back. Hija de la luna.
There are no explanations for the sky’s existence, and maybe there’s none for mine. I just am. Why can’t I just accept that?
“Missy, please. Give me something,” I whisper soft enough only I can hear.
I rest my head on the window and close my eyes.
When I feel the engine stop, I open my eyes to the familiar large gate opening.
Efren drives down the dark road until we see Ricky waiting outside of Curtis’s house.
Efren’s out of the car before me, moving quickly to open my door and undo my seat belt.
“What did you find?” I ask hesitantly.
Ricky’s hoodie, face, and hands are covered in dirt. In one of them, he holds a letter.
“There’s an old entrance on the side of the property.” He nods his head to the side, and I follow his line of vision. “Lurch stumbled upon an underground studio apartment. Looks like Missy might have lived there. I found this in a dresser.”
He hands me the letter. My fingers tremble as I unfold it. The handwriting is sharp, slanted, familiar in a way that makes my stomach twist.
Dear Curtis,
I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to speak with you again. You lied to me. You all lied to me and made me believe my child died.
I stop reading. The words swim, blurring.
“What is this?” I whisper.
“It was in a box Curtis had hidden. There’s more,” Ricky says. “A whole box of letters. And pictures. Curtis kept them all.”
My hand tightens around the letter, the paper trembling in my fingers. The words all make sense, and I try to block the truth out. Not this. Efren reaches for me, but I step back.
“She couldn’t have,” I cry.
Efren takes the letter, scanning it, his eyes hardening.
But I found her, Curtis. The same night that the doctor told me to check myself into a psych ward, I almost did. But then I was walking past the nursery. I heard a baby crying. She was crying out for me.”
“No,” I whisper, pleading for anyone. God, Missy, anyone to take the words burning through me away.
As soon as I picked her up, she stopped. I felt her pull on my soul the way only a mother would know. So I named her Alma.
The words hit like a slap. My breath catches. My pulse roars in my ears.
Ricky says something about bracelets, but I can’t hear him. All I hear is the faint crying of a baby. All I feel is the split ache in my chest, brokenness inside me as I mourn for two mothers.