She’s startled to discover that it’s after midnight. Her fingers shake as she dials her father. Four rings, then voicemail. She redials. Tries the landline, but it’s been disconnected, apparently a bill her father opted not to pay. “Fuck you,” she’s muttering, “pick up the fucking phone.” Her anger doesn’t mask her panic. He is home drinking, she knows. Connor’s probably choking on the stuffed rabbit her idiot father left in his crib. Which would be her fault, in the end, after abandoning her baby in a fast-food restaurant.
She can’t bear to think of Lizette, but her face rises in Angel’s mind: eyes wet, expression shuttered and impassive. Get the fuck out of my house.
At the end of the road, music blares. A lowrider pauses at a stop sign, rear bouncing. Terror slices through her. The car crosses the intersection, moves on, and the music fades.
She’s a fool to be alone on this deserted street. She needs to be somewhere more populated. She makes it as far as the next block when a truck pulls alongside her.
“Hey, baby girl.” The man at the wheel is big and pulpy-looking, his sandy hair clipped short. The heat spills from his open window, and classical music plays on the stereo. “You okay?”
Angel runs. Back down Lizette’s dark street, shoes clacking on the cold sidewalk, purse banging at her hip. She ducks along the side of the chaotic house, pressing against the stucco. Heart pounding, she peers around. The truck idles there for a long moment more, its brake lights glowing, and then they flash off and the truck drives away.
Shaking, Angel jabs at her phone and dials again. Please Daddy please pick up.
Of course he’s going to get her. His daughter is alone on the streets of Espa?ola, after midnight, with creeps and tecatos and rapists on the prowl. He almost couldn’t understand her through the tears, but managed to get the address out of her.
Amadeo splashes water on his face, runs his whole scalp under the tap. He blinks at his reflection: bleary, red-eyed, puffy. His armpits are damp with the alcohol oozing out of him. If only he hadn’t had the last drink. Or the ones before.
Ten minutes ago, he was sitting on the couch, TV going, the sensation of falling, falling, into blessed, swirling nothingness.
Connor is sleeping soundly in Angel’s room, where he’s been since Ryan brought him by around eight. Amadeo had masked his surprise that the baby was with Ryan, because a good father would keep tabs on his daughter’s plans. The kid stood on the step, holding the sleeping baby in the car seat. As Amadeo explained that, no, Angel wasn’t here, Ryan regarded him suspiciously, and kept craning over Amadeo’s shoulder, as if searching for someone more trustworthy lurking in the house.
“Oh. I thought for sure she’d gotten a ride home.” He still didn’t hand over the baby. “He’ll be okay here? Staying with you?”
By that point in the evening, Amadeo was already too wiped and too drunk to react with anger. “I’m his grandpa. One of his primary caregivers. I stay with him all the time.” The words were only a little slurred.
Ryan shifted his weight, uncertain. “Because I could take him home to my house, I guess. To my mom.”
Amadeo tamped down his anger. Mildly, he said, “You fucking joking me?”
Ryan seemed to make a decision. “Okay,” he said, handing over the seat, “he’s asleep, anyway.” But his steps were reluctant as he walked back to his car.
Now Amadeo leans over the toilet and reaches down his throat. He wants to empty his stomach of any additional alcohol before it makes it to his bloodstream. He tries to remember the details from his class. An average-sized man processes one drink per hour. A quantity of corrosive vomit comes up, along with some scrambled egg and soggy tortilla bits from his dinner. “Please hurry,” Angel said on the phone, her voice thick.
“I’m coming,” he told her.