Page 65 of For The Record

It’s already midnight, but I would do anything for my sister. “Y-yes, please.”

“I’m on my way.” I shift the car into drive. Just then, the phone rings again, and my heart drops. An unknown number. It could be anyone. But I have my suspicions.

“Wait, please, Leo… Please stay on the phone with me…” Raina says, her voice sounding like full-blown sobs now. “Please don’t go… Here, you can talk to him.”

I hear shuffling noises and static. “Hello?”

“Mr. Leo Perez?” says an authoritative female voice. “This is Officer Barker with the LAPD. I’m calling about your parents, Ricardo and Helena Aguilar.”

“What about them?” I say, my hackles rising. Every nerve in my body feels like it’s on a violin that someone has tuned to the highest pitch.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Perez. Their car was T-boned on Sunset Boulevard. They’ve been airlifted to Cedars-Sinai, but they might not make it. It was a headlong collision with a drunk driver…” Officer Barker keeps talking, but I can’t take in the words.

My parents.

Dead.

#

Raina and I sit in the waiting room of Cedars-Sinai, wrapped in hospital blankets and drinking crappy coffee out of styrofoam cups. She glances over at me in my pyjamas. Waking up from her phone call… That feels like a century ago. There is only the here and now. Only the thought of our parents. In the operating room.

We’ve already met with the trauma surgeon, Dr. Situ, who informed us that our mom was more severely injured than Ricardo, but that both are in critical condition.

My mother’s rosary sits in my pocket, the strands digging into my hip like a reminder. The other day, she took it off of her car’s rearview mirror and gave it to me. I pull out the beads, trying to find the words to say. To God. To my sister. To anyone. But just like before, I can’t. Maybe if shed left them on there, God might have saved her from this. Might have spared her, spared both of them.

“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Raina says softly. Her vulnerability is… rare. Hard to witness under the veneer of teenage toughness and the facade of uncaring capriciousness.

“It’s fine. You’re more important. Family is the most important.”

I want her to know that. I need her to know that I’m going to put her above everything else, if… No. I don’t want to think about what happens if our parents don’t make it.

God, I’ve been so selfish. So consumed by work and thinking that throwing money at my family was a suitable substitute for love. Now, every memory of the time spent with them flashes before my eyes, and I have to fight back tears. I remember Raina’s birth. Holding her for the first time, scared of dropping her or not supporting her head. She cried immediately when she saw my face, and my mother had laughed, saying she had good lungs. Ricardo had looked both exhilarated and terrified at the prospect of fatherhood, but he’d taken to it like a fish to water.

I recalled the times my mother would teach me how to cook when I was young, saying I shouldn’t rely on my future wife to do these things for me. She would rap on my wrist with a wooden spoon if I tried to eat raw cookie dough or taste the sauce before it was ready. I’d give anything to feel that minor pain now. But I might never again. And it’s killing me.

I remember the two of them slow-dancing in the living room to salsa music or bossa nova or even Elvis, ignoring that the fast uptempo beat was meant for quicker movements, and just staring into each other’s eyes. So lost in love that they didn’t even notice when the CD stopped playing on our crappy old CD player. All they cared about was being with each other.

I remember when Ricardo taught me to drive, to change a tire; he was always so patient with me. He never made me feel dumb or awkward when he showed me how to knot a tie; how to reel in a fish; how to merge into oncoming traffic. My dad loved me even when I yelled at him all the worst things a child could say to their dad.You’re not myrealfather!I’d once said when he tried to stop me from going to a party. Now, when it’s far too late, I know better. Now I know he is a better father, a better man, than I’ll ever be. And I want him to be alive, so I can say that.

Suddenly, Raina squeezes my hand with her smaller one, a tear streaking down her face and smearing her black eyeliner. “I can’t do this, Leo.”

Neither can I. No one can.

I pat her shoulder. “You don’t have to do anything.”

“No… you don’t get it…” she begins crying for real. “I don’t even have my driver’s license yet… And dad was supposed to teach me this summer… And Mama said she would help me pick out a dress for prom… They can’t die, Leo. I can’t lose them.”

“Wewon’t.”

“You don’t know that!” she says. “You don’t know anything… You’re not my dad, you’re my brother. You’re supposed to have fun with me and help me prank our cousins and sneak me cookies before dinner. You’re not supposed to be my dad. I need my dad.”

Her voice spirals into a panic. I’m losing her, and we don’t even know if we’ve lost our parents. There is no perfect thing for me to say.

“I know you’re scared. But it’s going to be okay.”

“You don’t know that,” she mumbles.

“Mr. Perez, Ms. Aguilar.” Dr. Situ returns, holding a clipboard, her black hair pinned into a bun. Behind her are two doctors in dark blue scrubs, their faces solemn. “I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to say this. Both Helena and Ricardo Aguilar passed away during surgery.”

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