Damian fucking Caballero laughed. And it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I pretended it didn’t matter, like my breath hadn’t caught, like my throat wasn’t clenched, when I dumped the rest of the peanuts in his lap and walked away.
I needed to be alone so I could hug that moment, the moment his face had cracked into a smile. He needed to be alone so he could eat those peanuts without feeling like I had prepared anything special for him.
Damian got better. He finished his food. When we ran out of soup, I moved on to refried beans and cans of chili and peaches and pears. I hit the motherload when I opened the freezer and found TV dinners I could nuke in the microwave. I was going positively gourmet, adding a pinch of paprika to the mac and cheese, and a floret of thawed out broccoli (which Damian flicked out of the way, the ungrateful bastard).
Sometimes when he was sleeping, I turned on the radio. There was no TV, so I had to rely on crackly news broadcasts. They repeated my name and description, along with Damian’s. He was considered armed and dangerous. I listened to a short plea from my father, addressed to Damian. He had a hotline and a reward set up for any leads. I had disappeared almost two weeks ago, and I could hear the strain in my father’s voice. He was coming after Damian, guns blazing, not knowing the root of the story. He had no idea that Damian was Esteban, that he was paying for the repercussions of his own actions. I wavered between anger over what he’d done, the lies he’d told, and a deeper conviction, that there was more to the story. I knew my father, just as I knew Damian. I wanted to tell my father where I was, to put an end to his obvious distress, give him a chance to explain himself, but that meant exposing Damian, and I wasn’t about to betray him, like he thought I’d betrayed him all those years ago.
I busied myself with nursing Damian back to health and not thinking about anything else. One night, I opened up a can of tuna and decided it was time I made something. I looked in the fridge and found some lemons, an overripe tomato, and a lone onion rolling around in one of the drawers. I figured I could make ceviche. It was a summertime staple at my favorite restaurant. I had ordered it countless times, and let’s face it—how hard can fish cured in lemon juice be? Granted, it was normally made with fresh, raw seafood, but I was all about innovation. I emptied the tuna into a bowl and juiced the lemons over it, being careful to keep my bandaged pinky out of the way.
Marinade. Done.
Next, tomato and onion. I tried to chop the tomato, but it was all squishy so I pulsed it in the blender with the onion, added a dash of hot sauce, and stirred the mixture into the fish.
Voila!
Feeling quite accomplished with my culinary venture, I arranged tortilla chips on the tray and placed the bowl in the center. I carried it to the bedroom and deposited it on Damian’s lap.
“I made you something,” I announced.
He eyed the lumpy concoction without touching it.
Dear God, he looked so rough and rugged with his almost-beard.
“Go ahead,” I said. “It’s ceviche.”
“Ceviche?” He examined it.
“Yes. It’s fish with—”
“I know what ceviche is.” He was definitely wary. “You first.”
“Fine.” I shrugged, scooping up a mouthful with a tortilla chip. “Mmmm,” I said. “It’s really good.”
Damian had a taste of it. We both chewed in silence. I swallowed. He spit out a lemon seed and swallowed. I went for another. He followed. Neither of us broke eye contact.
It was the most vile, putrid, goopy thing in the world. It tasted of bile and rotten tomatoes and Bart Simpson’s butt.
I spit it out, but Damian kept going, bite after foul, rancid bite, until it was all gone. When he was done, he leaned back, holding his tummy like he was trying to keep it all down.
“Wha—?” I stared at him. “Why did you finish it?”
“Because you made it,” he replied. “Don’t make it again.” He turned onto his side and went to sleep.
Damian got out of bed early the next morning. The threat of more of my cooking may have hastened his recovery. The first thing he did was to move the boat under a canopy of coconut trees. He covered the roof with palm fronds and secured them with a rope so no one could spot the boat from above.