Milton Ramos
Milton rolled off Marilys, sat up, grabbed a washcloth and attended to himself, averting his eyes as she rose from the towel-draped couch and walked to the bathroom in order to do her thing.
Widow and widower, both on the north side of forty with three kids between them, over the last year they had become occasional humps of convenience, a casual pressure-relieving arrangement without the mess of a real relationship. Sometimes she wasn’t in the mood and sometimes he wasn’t, but nobody ever got their noses out of joint about it one way or the other. Besides, he was never much for kissing.
As he heard the shower begin to run behind the bathroom door, he lay back down and thought of Carmen’s boys in the school parking lot today, bright-eyed and wild as chimpanzees, seemingly happy in their world and, as an added bonus, respectful to adults. Nice kids most likely, but when he was sizing up any child he came across for the first time there was only one question on the assessment test and one question only: were they the type who would get off on taunting Sofia?
All he had known this morning was that he wanted Carmen to feel things, to experience things, give her a taste of what it feels like to have the most precious people in your life snatched away from you, to feel without any warning the ground buckle and split beneath your feet. But now that he had set things in motion, he realized that today was nothing, an unnerving incident that would be forgotten in a week or two. What was required here was evidence of a pattern, of an intelligent presence, an unseen wolf lurking just outside the perimeter of her life until . . . Until what?
He had no idea how or when it should end. But he did know this: if his campaign went on long enough, he would eventually get caught and that would be the end of him. And the end of them.
He would lose her.
So let it go.
Can’t.
You will lose her.
And then an exhilaratingly anarchic notion:
She’ll go to better people.
He had a half-a-half-sister in Pennsylvania who was pretty decent, and a childless cousin in Staten Island, Anita, who he liked and liked him in return. Better that Sofia go to her, but what the hell was he thinking . . .
Marilys came back into the den, squat and stone-faced, her torso un-indented from shoulder to hip. When the two of them stood side by side they looked like matching salt and pepper shakers.
As she slipped into her jeans, he dug four hundred dollars out of his heaped pants and passed it along to her in a tight roll. He knew four hundred was shit pay for the days and hours she put in, but she needed to be off the books, and that was all he could afford if he couldn’t deduct her come April 15.
“The toilet’s backed up on the top floor, you need to call a plumber.”
“All right,” shrugging into his own pants. “So what did she eat today?”
“Carrots, like you said,” stooping to pick up his discarded washcloth.
“Oh yeah? What else.”
“A turkey burger without the bread.”
“Uh-huh. What else.”
Marilys peeled the bath towel from the couch and replaced the pillows.
“What else.”
“She was crying for a treat.”
“What’s a treat.”
“A couple of Mint Milanos.”
“What did I tell you about that?”
“Let me ask you,” she said, “what did you eat today?”
And there was Marilys, who knew Sofia better than anyone, maybe even himself. But she was an employee with a family and problems of her own. Sofia was just her job.
Nothing you did so far was even illegal.
Milton watched Marilys stuff her pay in her purse, then get down on her knees to retrieve her sneakers from under the coffee table.
Housekeeper, stand-in mother, semi-girlfriend. If he went then she went away, and Sofia would be up for grabs.
Nothing you did so far was even illegal.