Page 70 of The Kiss Principle

And nothing, still nothing but the wing-tip brown of his eyes.

“Get the fuck out of here!”

He dragged his suitcase out of the house, and I slammed the door.

17

That night turned into the next day, and somehow, I didn’t die. That was a good reminder: no matter how much it hurts, it won’t kill you. Life had taught me that a long time ago, but at some point, I’d forgotten.

I canceled my appointments that day. And the next day, too. I rotted on the couch in between bouts of robotically taking care of Igz. She was fussy, of course. I’d forgotten that babies can be in a bad mood too.

I didn’t see Mom and Cannon; they’d left at some point during the night. I got a text telling me they were going on a cruise. Good for them. Mom needed to recover from the trauma and my abusive behavior. Cannon probably needed somewhere fresh to wet his willy. Chuy rotted on the couch with me. I showed him how to change a diaper, but after that one time, I did everything myself. Igz wouldn’t settle down when Chuy held her. And Chuy, for his part, didn’t seem all that interested. I kept having to tell him to support her neck. And he kept forgetting to hold her bottle for her.

I wrote out texts to Zé:I’m sorryandCan we please talk?andI fucked up. But I deleted all of them without sending them. I thought maybe he might text me, or call, or something. Let me know where he was. That he was safe. I tried to think of something happy—a goofy picture, like the ones he used to send. Zé on the beach dressed like he was in a mariachi band. When that thought came into my mind, I had to go to the bathroom and turn on the water, and I cried like I hadn’t since I was twelve years old.

One day turned into another. And then another. We settled into something like a rhythm. I moved Igz into my room and got up with her at night. I got her ready in the morning. Chuy watched her when I had to leave for work. He got better about holding her correctly. And he didn’t drop the bottle anymore. But he watched a lot of TV, and sometimes, when I picked her up, her diaper needed changing, and I wondered how long she’d been wet.

By the end of that first, horrible week, I remembered the first days with Igz: the unrelenting demands on my time and energy, the hazy days, the broken sleep. It was like walking through a cloud. I found my memories mixing with when Mom had first brought Augustus home, when I’d realized how much he needed and how little I could do. Memories of when I’d been older. When I’d started working. Throwing newspapers before school. Picking up mismatched shifts after school wherever I could. Going home to fall asleep doing my homework. The impossible days. That’s what I’d called them, later, when I’d been far enough away from them to look back. And they were here again. I could see them stretching out ahead of me, the rest of my life a string of one impossible day after another.

But it was better, I knew, than the alternative. Because I felt like I was moving through a cloud all day. Because I didn’t think—couldn’t think, even if I’d wanted to. Because I was so tired that, against all odds, I was able to sleep. A gray, grainy sleep. But sleep. And before I could sleep too long, before I could dream, Igz would wake me, and we’d start all over again.

Somehow, it eventually became a routine. Sleep and work and a bag of tacos or DoorDashed burgers and TV and a few empty words with Chuy and then sleep again.

Igz wasn’t happy. She wasn’t sleeping well, which meant I wasn’t sleeping well. She fussed all the time. She went through a bout of colic one night when the only thing that would keepher from screaming was for me to walk her, and so I shuffled through the night singing every song I knew by Sublime. I figured it had worked all right with Augustus.

When it started, I recognized the signs. Chuy began keeping strange hours. He’d stay up late. He’d sleep in, and I’d have to wake him at ten, eleven, twelve—whenever I needed to leave for an appointment. He’d spend all day on the couch watching TV, with Igz either propped against him or in her swing.

“What’s going on?” I asked him after the first few days of this.

“Why do you always ask me that?” he said, and then Igz started crying, and he left me to deal with her.

I tried other times, and I got the same non-answers:I’m fine,I don’t know what you’re talking about, evenYou always do this, even though I had no idea what that meant.

He started going out.

The first time he came home, I was all over him. But his eyes were clear, and I couldn’t smell anything on him. I told him what would happen if I caught him using.

“I know, I know,” he said as he went down the hall to his room. What had been Zé’s room. He sounded like we were playing. Like this was a joke we always told each other. “You’ll kick me out.”

The next morning, when I finally got him out of bed (it was technically still morning at eleven-thirty), I said, “I want you to start seeing somebody.”

He rubbed his eyes as he leaned into the refrigerator. “How are we out of milk?”

“A therapist.”

He made a noise that could have meant anything.

“God damn it, Chuy, are you listening to me?”

“Sure, papi.” He kissed my cheek, and I shoved him away. He laughed and said, “Whatever you want.”

But he skipped the first appointment—left the house and went God knows where. And he didn’t even pretend to go to the second.

The mood swings. The suspicious sleepiness. I checked his arms and couldn’t find any marks. I couldn’t find anything. And he laughed and acted like we were horsing around. One afternoon, I was trying to work, and a thump broke the stillness of the house. Igz began crying. I ran out of my office and found her on the floor next to the couch, where she’d obviously rolled and fallen. Chuy’s eyes were still closed, and in a moment of disbelief, I realized that somehow, he’d slept through it.

I hit him, a flurry of blows as I bent to pick up Igz. He woke slowly, moaning, his voice thick as he said, “What the fuck?”

“What the fuck?” I checked Igz as best I could, but she seemed scared more than anything else. As I tucked her into my shoulder, she began to scream in earnest. “What the fuck? You let her fall off the fucking couch, you worthless piece of shit. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

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