4. Levi
LEVI
Bracing myself for my mother’s disinclined reaction, I burst through our front door. She’s well aware that he’s a notorious drug lord, black market arms dealer, identity broker, and the patron saint of refugees—a pseudonym chosen for him, not by him.
The soft scratch of the record player’s needle circling the locked groove at the end of a song fills the apartment. Logic tells me my mother is passed out from drinking all night in her futile attempt to self-medicate, but somehow—in the depths of me—I know this is different.
I can feel it.
Like somehow my future self is warning my present self.
Stomach churning with icy dread, fear poisons my rapidly waning joy as I come to a halt in front of my mother’s bedroom door.
A sealed envelope is taped to it right at my eye level, and without even opening it, it tells me that whatever is on the other side of this door is something I’ll never recover from. I try the doorknob anyway—it’s locked.
I attempt to knock, my voice cracking as my eyes begin to burn.
“Mom...”
Silence.
Squeezing my eyes shut, my body begins to tremble.
Please, please, please, please, no.
My voice cracks as I shout, willing her to be okay. For her to just be sleeping off her hangover.
“Mom!”
My heart pounds so loudly it echoes in my ears as I finally open the envelope.
My Precious Baby Boy,
That line alone nearly kills me, and I stare at it, terrified to go any further.
A choked sob breaks free as I force my eyes to see beyond my water-blurred vision to read her letter.
You and I both know that I died the same night as your father, and I’m so sorry that I don’t have the strength to be what you need me to be.
You’re too young for that kind of responsibility. To financially, mentally, and emotionally support someone who is beyond recovery.
And I will not allow you to, especially if it means you following in your father’s footsteps. You know how he felt about that.
Your father died protecting us. Do not waste it as I have.
You are destined for so much more than either of us, tesoro.
I love you more than life itself.
- Mom
P.S.
Don’t go in my closet.
And I never thought I’d say such a thing, but... call the police.
No.
Push-kicking the flimsy door, the lock buckles beneath the force and the door swings open. My eyes frantically scan her empty bedroom, willing her to be there, asleep in bed.
Alive.
That she wrote this letter in an impulsive, drunken stupor and didn’t follow through.
Instead, my eyes catch on the sliver of light leaking onto the bedroom carpet from beneath her closet door.
Rushing to the closet, I yank it open.
What I find on the other side is an image that will haunt me for the rest of my life, no matter how I try to bury it.