God, he missed his mother! Her backseat driving. The way she always fussed over him. In two languages. In public. She gave him so many things he needed before he ever knew he needed them: self-confidence. A genuine respect for women. The ability to dream. A love of nature. He’d never thanked her for any of it. Their time together was too short. It was like someone had ripped a book out of his hands a hundred pages before the ending. There was so much more he still wanted to know.
Vega nosed his pickup onto a path inside the cemetery and drove past the tight columns of headstones all lined up like Marine recruits. His mother’s grave was tucked in a middle row. It was a smooth, thigh-high arch of gray granite with a cross etched into the center and a trail of ivy carved along one side.
“Oh look,” said Joy. “Somebody remembered her birthday.” There were flowers next to the gravestone already. A huge pink and white bouquet wrapped in cellophane.
Vega parked his truck on the side of the road. Joy smoothed the red velvet ribbon on the center of the grave wreath and handed it to him. A fierce wind stung their faces the moment they left the vehicle. A fire siren squealed somewhere in the distance over the steady whoosh of traffic on the Cross Bronx Expressway.
Joy slipped an arm through her father’s and together they walked to the grave.
“Somebody left her lilies,” said Joy. “How beautiful.”
Vega couldn’t tell one type of flower from another. All he knew was that they looked more inviting and cheerful than the grave wreath of pine boughs that he and Joy had bought up north.
“I wonder who they’re from.” Joy bent down and fished out a tiny note card tucked inside the cellophane. She frowned. “It’s in Spanish.” She handed it to her father.
Mi amada. Eres siempre mi ángel.
“It says, ‘My beloved. You are always my angel,’” Vega translated.
“Wow,” said Joy. “Sounds like a love note. Did Lita have a boyfriend?”
“She never mentioned one.” Vega couldn’t recall anyone coming up to him at the funeral.
“Maybe one of her friends would know.”
“Martha Torres would have—before the Alzheimer’s did her in. She was my mother’s best friend. But I’m not even sure if she’s alive anymore.”
Vega began to tuck the note in a pocket of his jacket.
“Dad! What are you doing? That’s not your note.”
“What? You think Lita can read it? I don’t know who wrote this, Joy. For all I know, it could be someone with information about my mother’s murder. I’m not about to let it just rot at her grave.” Vega handed Joy the wreath. She laid it on the grave.
“Want to say a few words?” she asked her father. “Maybe explain why you’re stealing her love note?”
Vega shot Joy a dirty look. He was tired and spent. His daughter was shivering. “We’re here. She’s in our thoughts. That’s what matters.”
When they were back in the truck, Joy checked her watch and pretended not to.
“Got a date tonight?” asked Vega.
“I can cancel.”
“You don’t have to babysit me, you know.”
“I want to spend the afternoon with you.”
“In that case, can we make one stopover before we head back north?”
“You shouldn’t eat all that fried food either.”
“I’m not talking about the cuchifritos joint. I want to go to St. Raymond’s and visit Father Delgado.”
Joy looked surprised. “I thought you weren’t religious.”
“I’m not.”
On the drive over to the church, Vega told Joy what he’d found earlier going through the paperwork on his mother’s murder investigation.
“You’re not seriously thinking the man you shot had something to do with Lita’s death, are you?”
“It can’t hurt to talk to Father Delgado about it.”
“Look, Dad, I know you want to find some way to justify what you did—”
“I don’t need to justify it. I didn’t do anything wrong—”
“Honestly? You believe that?”
He didn’t answer. The car was warming up. Joy shrugged off her jacket. It caught on the neckline of her ribbed sweater beneath, revealing for just a moment the bare bronzed skin of her left shoulder. Vega saw something he didn’t expect to see when he glanced over. Something red. Bright red.
“What’s that?”
Joy pulled the neckline up quickly. “What?”
“On your shoulder. I saw something.”
“It’s nothing.”
Vega jerked the wheel toward the curb and double-parked alongside a row of cars. Drivers honked and gestured through their windows. Vega ignored them. He was a Bronx native. He was immune to expressions of frustration.
“Show me your shoulder.”
“No, Dad. Leave me alone.”
“I’m not moving until you show me your shoulder.”
She pulled the neckline down and up quickly. “There. Satisfied?”
On her left shoulder was a red rose tattoo about the size of a shot glass rim, permanently etched into her flawless skin. The skin he used to bathe when she was a baby. The skin he rubbed sunscreen on when she was a little girl so that she wouldn’t get cancer one day. And now she’d let some stranger stick a needle into it and inject permanent dye?
“You got a tattoo? When did you do that?”
“About a month ago.”
“Does Mom know?”