PART 1: The Silence at the Pool
The party fell completely silent.
Twenty guests stared at my brother.
“We had a memorial,” the woman said. Her name was Lupe Medina. She’d lived across the street from my parents for thirty years. “At St. Timothy’s. You cried. You said he went peacefully in his sleep.”
Another neighbor stepped forward, a big man wearing a Diamondbacks cap.
“I gave you two hundred bucks for the flowers,” he said slowly. “You said Marisol couldn’t afford to fly home.”
Ray’s face turned red.
“It’s complicated. He wanted it that way. He didn’t want people visiting.”
“I never wanted anything,” my father whispered from the lounge chair.
Every head turned. His voice was weak, but it carried clearly.
“Ray told me Marisol was dead,” he said. “Car accident in Denver. He showed me a newspaper. He said I had nobody left.”
He looked up at me, his eyes wet.
“I cried for you every night, mija.”
I couldn’t breathe.
