Page 5 of Keepsake

As I drove through the familiar streets, the same words chanted over and over in my thoughts.

Sofia is dead.

Sofia is dead.

Sofia is fucking dead.

It was when I stepped on the brake, the red light blaring in front of me and the asshole behind blaring his horn without mercy, that the curses flew off my lips in the most amazing symphony.

Sofia is dead, my fucking baby sister is dead.

I strangled the wheel. I couldn’t think about what life would be like now. I had a business to run and apparently a life to live. How the hell was I supposed to live my life when she was dead and buried underground?

I couldn’t think of what to do to soothe the ache, so I simply made a to-do list. They said to focus on one day after the other, one step at a time. I occupied my mind with busy-work and overlapping tasks because when I closed my eyes…

I saw my sister.

She had brown eyes and a bold attitude. I taught her how to curse when she was just a small child and Mamá chased me around the house when she caught her baby girl saying puta. I changed Sofia’s diapers and made her laugh with raspberries on her soft belly.

And now every time I thought of her, I didn’t see that smiling kid anymore. I saw the dead woman in a casket.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, held on to the wheel, and kept driving. I couldn’t think of how things would be from now on. I already couldn’t deal with staying in Mamá’s house, so I booked a hotel telling her it was best if she gave a bed to one of her sisters.

But the truth was I couldn’t sleep there beside Sofia’s bedroom. I could barely breathe when I was in our childhood home.

I parked the truck in front of the house and inhaled through my nose. I was crumbling, and I wasn’t allowed to.

After a moment too long standing by the front door, I barged in the house determined to accomplish my mission.

You could barely tell we had fifty people over for a funeral just yesterday. The house was spotless, mostly because I made my mother hire cleaners. She protested, but I tried my best to make her understand that after a funeral you want to fall apart, not clean.

The kids were in front of the TV. Dash at the left-hand side on his phone and knees apart while Vienna had baby Lachlan between her legs. Pointing at the screen, she tried to explain the plot to the baby.

“Good morning, everyone.” I tried to inject any kind of cheeriness in my tone.

Dash looked over his phone. “Tío.” He dipped his chin, but a second later, I lost his attention. Vienna smiled, holding Lach’s hand as she made the toddler wave at me.

My smile was constricted. I wanted to scream every time I looked at these children. I knew it was unfair. They needed love more than anything right now, but I simply couldn’t. I looked at them and I wanted to fight. I wanted to make the world as bloody as my goddamn knuckles.

Mamá and Papá were sitting at the table in the kitchen. Papá read a newspaper and commented on the news while Mamá bobbed her head mindlessly.

The rage ran freely through my blood and squeezed my throat. I wanted to shout my sister’s name. Why weren’t they overwhelmed with grief?

The second the thought came to my mind, I felt guilty. My parents were suffering, the kids were suffering. My feelings were raw and foreign and I just wanted the world to cry with me.

“Alvaro.” Mamá smiled my way.

I swallowed all that down and sat on the chair across from them. Not sure how to start with this, I decided on being direct. “You have to listen to Logan.”

“Don’t you dare,” came out so quickly I reeled back. Mamá had that locked and loaded on the tip of her tongue.

“Mamá…” I started shaking my head.

“No, Alvaro,” she spat. “Those children don’t need to stay with someone who doesn’t even know them. They need their family.”

I kept my voice down not to be overheard. “Logan said she wanted to take her time with them. Let them get to know her.”

“She’s a stranger.”

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