Page 3 of Knot Yours

Shannon ends the call, and I reach back to rub Piper’s head. “Well, girl. It looks like our weekend plans just changed.”

I turn the car around and head to the other side of town where this duplex is located.

For the first time in years, both units are empty. The left side was rented three weeks ago, but the tenant won’t move in for another two. I steer into the empty drive used by Mertz and let Piper out of the back.

She follows me to walk the perimeter, jumping over the short fence instead of waiting for me to open the gate. The exterior is in great shape. The place could use some landscaping, so I add that to my mental list.

I open the front door to the recently vacated unit with my spare key and finally step inside. The place is clean, just not professionally clean. Beginning in the kitchen, I tick off things that need to be fixed or replaced. All the carpet needs to come out, the whole place needs painting, the kitchen needs a facelift, and about half a dozen other things need to be addressed.

I have a game plan mapped out and walk toward the front door, pausing when my phone rings. Twice in one day. “What’s up, Shannon?”

“You won’t believe this. I just got a call from someone asking to rent Mr. Mertz’s unit sight unseen. They offered to pay the full year upfront. Do you want to put off doing the upgrades?”

Not that I was looking forward to weeks of evening and weekend repairs, but I’m not so quick to accept the offer as Shannon. The timing is too perfect. I don’t like it.

“No. They can wait or find someplace else.”

I hang up with her stuttering. “But. But.”

Marisol Borrero

Eyes like my mother’s stare at me from the mirror as I brush my long, dark hair. I miss you, mom. The occasion isn’t as momentous without her and my brother here. Still, I’ve earned it, so I adjust the doctoral tam on my head and step out of my bedroom to join my father.

Cirilo Borrero made the trip to Richmond to celebrate with me and now sits on my sofa reading a magazine. As I step down the hall, I have to pause. If I squint my eyes, I can see my brother sitting there. He and my father looked more alike the older Cordero became.

I miss him, too.

My father rises from his seat, placing his coffee cup on the side table. His tall frame unfolds from the cushions, stretching to six one. “Ah. Mi Tesoro. I can’t believe it. My mija is all grown up.”

I groan, tempted to reach and muss his hair like I would have done to Cordero. “Apá. I’m almost thirty years old. I grew up a long time ago.”

“Nonsense. You will always be my bebita,” he insists with a smile. “Ready to go, Doctor?”

We leave my apartment, escorted by my father’s head of security, Ruiz. He’s about an inch shorter than my father but probably weighs fifty pounds more, all muscle. Ruiz has the same dark hair and tan skin as most islanders and is like another father to me. He’s worked for my apá since before I was born.

The three of us head downstairs to join the additional security waiting by the limousine parked beyond my building’s front awning. My father and I load into the limo with Ruiz behind the wheel. The rest follow behind in a black SUV. Our destination is the commencement ceremony at Virginia Commonwealth University.

The drive to campus takes just a few minutes, not time enough for more than idle chit-chat. The limo soon arrives at the convention center hosting the ceremony, and the group separates, me lining up with the rest of my graduating class while my father heads off to sit in the crowd of families and friends.

The ceremony begins, and I march out in the processional, taking my seat with all the other grads. I tune out the award presentations and carefully planned speeches about dreams and having our whole lives ahead of us. A third of my life has already been spent, and I traded in my dreams for something more practical. Dancing just didn’t make sense anymore when people were dying needlessly.

I hadn’t even considered participating in the ceremony until my father announced he was coming. In a way, I’m glad. I skipped out on my undergrad and medical school graduations. At the time, I didn’t feel much like participating without my mother and brother to celebrate with me.

It’s been a lonely twelve-year journey to get here. Today, at twenty-nine, I’m graduating with a Ph.D. in pharmacological science after starting as a dance major at another school.

That’s what I was going to be—a dancer. I attended the best pointe school in my home of Puerto Rico, and after high school, I was accepted to Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at USC.

And then my brother died.

Cordero never got the chance to be what he wanted. Illness stole his strength and later his dreams, and eventually, his life. No cure, my parents were told. No doctor in the world could save my brother. I didn’t want to believe them. I researched my heart out, but the internet proved as useless as my pointe shoes.

My dream of dancing died with Cordero. How could I chase a future in the spotlight when people like my brother would have given anything just to live?

After Cordero’s funeral, I transferred schools, leaving the beaches of sunny California for the lush, green East Coast. I couldn’t save my brother, but standing at his coffin with my amá, I promised her and Cordero that I would save others.

And then I lost her, too.

It wasn’t an illness or tragic accident that took my mother before her time. A young hombrecito killed her, wishing to make a name for himself in a rival family.

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