4. Gael
GAEL
Alejandro
New York City
Gael Rosario is different from what I imagined.
I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe someone whose presence commanded the attention of everyone in the room or a man with an aura as disarming as his daughter’s.
The man who enters the hospital waiting room does so in the shadow of his niece.
He neither cowers nor hides behind Karina, keeping his spine erect and his chin level, but it’s clear he’s following her lead and not the other way around.
“Thank you for calling.” Karina pulls me in for a hug and I’m surprised by how she greets me. “Thank God there wasn’t any traffic on the Midtown.”
“At this time of night, I doubted there would be.” I glance at the man behind her, unsure of how to address him. “Is this—”
“Yes, sorry,” she turns and reaches for her uncle’s hand. “Tio, Alejandro fue quien llamó, es el novio de Dahlia.”
Standing side by side, Karina could easily be mistaken for his daughter.
Dahlia never thought so but their familial resemblance is nothing short of striking.
Their slim, pointed noses are identical as well as the shape of their mouths.
But Gael’s eyes…my God, it sends a shiver down my spine thinking of how Dahlia’s are the same shade of glowing amber.
A color so intense it sometimes resembles fire.
Gael is tall—almost eye level with me—with a deep brown complexion and hair like spilled ink.
Soft waves brush his temples where a few strand of silver give away his age.
But other than that, time has been generous to him.
He doesn’t look quite as old as he should be for having a daughter Dahlia’s age.
Dressed simply in dark jeans, a black coat, and work boots, there’s no mistaking his blue-collar background.
He keeps twisting his gloves and his varnish-stained fingertips remind me so much of Dahlia’s hands when she works.
He looks up at me with a modesty I hadn’t expected. “Hi…I’m…Dahlia’s father.”
I extend my hand and he shakes it hesitantly. “I wish we were meeting under different circumstances. Thank you for coming.”
He presses his lips together in a way I’ve seen Dahlia do a thousand times. “Thank you…for call…”
The hesitancy with which he speaks reminds me he isn’t fluent in English.
Karina’s distracted by something happening behind me. She touches her uncle’s arm and says, “Alyssa está aquí, voy a hablar con ella. Espérame aquí.”
If he’s uncomfortable being left alone with me, he doesn’t let on. He stands with his shoulders pushed back but a forlorn expression that weighs down his gentle features.
“Senor Rosario.” I follow Karina’s lead and abandon English all together, switching to Spanish instead. “There isn’t much time to explain so I’ll get to the point. Dahlia was shot and lost a lot of blood. The doctors stabilized her for now but they need to operate immediately.”
Seemingly relieved he doesn’t have to translate our entire conversation, he ceases the wringing of his gloves but his white-knuckle grip on them never loosens. “How did it happen?”
I shake my head. “I’ll explain everything later. Right now, she’s incapacitated and unable to consent to surgery herself so she needs a health proxy to sign off on it.”
His eyes widen slightly but it’s the most emotion he’ll allow himself to express. “I…I don’t think Dahlia would want me to make decisions like this for her. It should be someone else.”
“You’re her father.”
“And you probably know her better than I do,” he replies. “It should be you who decides.”
“Legally, I can’t. We aren’t married. It has to be you.”
His chest rises and falls with each shallow, unsteady breath. The wringing of his gloves resumes and he paces in place. After a beat he shakes his head. “No…I can’t. It has to be someone else.”
“Senor Rosario, you don’t understand—”
“No,” he interjects, firmly yet still gentle, his voice never rising above a whisper. “You don’t understand. I promise my daughter wouldn’t want me to make this decision for her. She’ll be furious—”
“She’ll be dead.”
He stops in his tracks and stares at me for a long time, all the while I’m counting down the seconds as they tick by. “How long have you and Dahlia been together?”
I don’t exactly have the time—or the patience—to explain that at the moment his daughter and I aren’t technically together so I lie. “Three years this spring.”
“And in all that time has she ever mentioned me?” he asks.
“No. Not willingly at least.”
“It was for a reason. Please. Have Karina do it instead; she has my blessing.”
“Dahlia and Karina haven’t spoken in a year and believe me when I tell you, Dahlia would rather bleed out on an operating table than let Karina get anywhere near her.
Listen,” My jaw clenches as the last of my patience dissolves.
“I am asking you, begging you, to please just sign the God damned papers. If you don’t want to be the one to make any serious decisions then fine, don’t.
I will. I’ll tell you what to do, what to say, and where to sign because legally you’re the only one who can.
So you’re going to do it whether you want to or not because I will not allow her to die tonight. Do you understand me?”
Gael Rosario’s eyes narrow slightly as he takes me in with renewed curiosity. Just when I think I’ll have to use brute force to get his signature on a piece of paper he says, “Where do I sign?”
* * *
Karina looks different.
I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Her hair is the longest I’ve ever seen it; thick, long, heavy strands cascade over her petite shoulders and down her back where the ends reach the middle of her spine.
A simple headband keeps the front pieces out of her face but every once in a while I catch her absently touching above her brow, as if instinctively pushing an errant strand away.
It’s incredible how much a hairstyle can transform a person’s appearance; I hardly recognize her.
And it’s not just the hair either. Karina has always had an eclectic, explorative way of dressing.
When I conjure up an image of her in my mind she’s in long, bohemian skirts and modest, boxy t-shirts that shouldn’t match but somehow do.
She’s in ballet slippers or espadrilles with wedges.
Even disorganized in her baggy, frilly dresses and tote bags that were half her size, she seemed more herself than she does now—in a baby pink tweed skirt suit and heels that can’t be comfortable for a former dancer.
I swear I keep wondering if it’s really her.
“I was visiting my grandparents,” Karina explains as I set our cups of tea on the cafeteria table. “I wasn’t in the mood to drive home so late and decided to stay over. We were getting ready for bed when I got your call.”
I sit across from her at the small, round table. “How long has your uncle been in town?”
“A few days. He usually stays with my grandparents when he visits,” she explains. “Actually…he was hoping to bump into Dahlia.”
“That’s rather bold of him, don’t you think?”
She presses her lips together in the way I’ve seen Gael and Dahlia do and I wonder if it’s habit they both picked up from him. “Please don’t judge him too harshly.”
“Difficult not to do when he abandoned his teenage daughter.”
Karina’s hand stills as she stirs her tea. “What are you talking about?”
“Dahlia said that after she turned 18, he packed his things and walked out on her.”
Her lips part and she takes a sharp, heightened breath that makes her spine straighten. A crease forms between her brows and after several false starts, she finally finds her voice. “Sometimes I really wonder if there’s something wrong with her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dahlia is an unreliable narrator for her own life.” Karina yanks the spoon out of her teacup and tosses it on the napkin beside her. “It borders on lying.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tio left but he didn’t walk out on her.
Not in the way you think. They got into an argument before he was supposed to leave on a work trip.
A jobsite in Texas needed him for a few weeks and Dahlia was upset he was going to miss seeing her off to college.
” She waves a hand. “It’s a lot to explain.
The point is, Tio left and when he came back, Dahlia completely shut him out of her life.
She was furious with him. I think she expected…
I don’t know. More than what he gave. Maybe an apology down on his hands and knees.
Too much time had passed and by the time they both realized it, I guess they felt it was too late to make amends. ”
“That’s not how Dahlia tells the story.”
“Well, that’s the way it happened. She gave him an ultimatum: either stay or leave and don’t come back. One morning she woke up and he wasn’t there. She took that as him making his choice.”
“Because he did,” I counter. “What kind of a father abandons his child?”
“One that has bills to pay. How do you think Dahlia was able to afford her apartment all those years?” She says.
“Rent control.”
“Rent control hasn’t made rent on an apartment in New York City that cheap since the ’80s. My uncle was paying the rest of it. Not to mention all the other bills Dahlia thought were included in her rent.”
I can’t believe what she’s telling me. “Does Dahlia know this?”
“No.”
“Then why do you?”
At that, Karina tilts her head at me with an expression I find all too familiar. “You’re the eldest in your family, right Alex? You tell me.”
It’s the curse of the eldest child, eldest grandchild. We always know too much even without wanting to.
Silence befalls the table and I’ve taken to pouring too many sugar packets into my tea.
“I know my uncle is flawed. Our entire family is.”
I look up to meet her gaze.
“She has every right to feel the way she does. When Dahlia loves, it’s with every fiber of her being; loyally, unconditionally, and with blind devotion. But she can be so unfair. Not to mention cruel.”
“Are you speaking from experience?” I ask.