“I’m okay, Dad.” I sobbed.
Neither of us could find the words to say anything else. I’d never heard my father cry before.
“Tell me where you are,” he said.
“I’m on a boat. I don’t know exactly where, but I’m being rescued. I’ll be in touch whe—” The call got cut off before I could finish.
“Hello.” I paused. “Hello?”
The battery was dead. I hugged the phone to my chest, knowing my father was still at the other end.
Stay with me.
Stay with me just a little longer.
The wind had died by the time I put the phone away. The storm was starting to pass. The dinghy had held, but the waves remained strong. Damian was still out, his body rocking with the motion of the boat.
I grabbed the first aid kit from the deckhouse. Then I went back and got Damian’s gun. I cleaned and dressed his wound, with the gun tucked firmly in my pants. I wasn’t taking any chances. The cut was deep. Damian needed stitches, but all I knew was the basics, so I covered it up with thick gauze. It didn’t take long before the blood had seeped through. I held a towel to his head, hoping the pressure would slow it down.
We were drifting on autopilot when the radar started beeping.
My rescue was almost here.
I pushed Damian’s hair away from his forehead. It was caked with blood.
Why, Estebandido?
I wanted to weep because someone I loved had died in that face, and I didn’t know when or how, and I never got to mourn him. And now they were going to take him away, the boy inside the man.
Lightning split the sky and for a second, I saw him. Esteban. His fingers were stained, his smile was wide, and he had just tasted strawberries for the first time.
What happened to you?
What happened?
I cradled his head and rocked back and forth.
And then the other boat was upon us, and a man was climbing aboard.
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be all right,” he said. “You can let go of the gun.”
I didn’t realize I’d been holding it until he pried it away.
He took the towel from my hand and inspected Damian’s wound. It was soaked in bright red.
Damian’s eyes flickered open. “Rafael,” he whispered, when he saw the man.
The blood chilled in my veins. I knew that name. I’d heard Damian talking to him on the phone.
Did you get that? Damian had said to Rafael, the man on the other end, who had been recording my screams.
“I’m here, Damian,” said the man I thought had come to rescue me. “I’m here.”
WE SAILED PAST COVE AFTER cove along the coastline, with Rafael manning Damian’s boat, and his friend, Manuel, following behind on the other one. I sat with Damian’s head on my lap, as he bled out in the night. A couple of times, he opened his eyes, but they were glazed over. Each time, a raw, primitive grief overwhelmed me because there were flashes of Esteban in those eyes. Whatever he was feeling, whatever he was thinking, Damian was lying bare before me now. I could feel his pain. Not the kind that was slowly seeping out of him, but the torment that was bottled up inside. It was rattling up against the iron cage of his heart, with no way out. Damian tossed and turned as I tried to contain him.
“Shhh. Shhh.” I don’t know when I started humming MaMaLu’s lullaby. I don’t know if it was for him or for me, but it seemed to comfort him and he stopped thrashing around.
The water was calm now, but it was cold, and we were both soaking wet. Damian was shaking. I held him closer and he shifted in my lap, burying his face in my stomach.
He thinks he’s a little boy. He thinks I’m MaMaLu.
I wanted to hold him tighter. I wanted to push him away. How could I even think of comforting Damian? How could I not?