Page 82 of Spades

I look around at the waitstaff. The women in their skimpy bikinis, the men in the short shorts, united by the pattern of the card suit of whichever section they’re assigned. All the men have visible sixpacks, the women toned abs and arms. They’re gorgeous across the board—any of them could land a gig with a modeling agency after their time at the club has finished.

I’m sure a lot of them are smart, too. They could go to college, become lawyers, engineers, doctors. One of the people here could have the cure for cancer lying within their future, and it might never come to fruition if it weren’t for Rouge bringing them over to the States.

When May comes back from her suspension, I’ll make sure to give her a good tip. In cash. Make sure it goes to her and only her.

I look around at the club. How different it looks now from this afternoon. The colored lights illuminating each section, each one carefully positioned to hide the scratches on the floor, the watermarks on the tables that I noticed when I came in this afternoon. The way it looks now, you’d never notice the small faults lying in plain sight.

It looks clean…but it isn’t clean.

And damn, I know a bloody lot about clean and unclean.

* * *

The tiles are bloody.

My blood.

I fell to my knees and started sobbing the moment Mum left the kitchen. I fell on the shards of china and glass that littered the floor in the wake of her destruction. I’m wearing shorts, and my knees were fully exposed.

And now I’m bleeding. More mess to clean up.

I just hope Mum doesn’t see.

I can’t even feel the cuts in my knees, or the minor burns on my belly from when Mum threw the boiling water on the floor. I think I’m in shock. I brush as much of the glass off as I can and get to my feet, trudging over to the cleaning closet for a broom and dustpan. I find a couple of rags in the closet, which I wrap around my knees to stop the bleeding. Then I return to the kitchen and begin sweeping.

The pieces of china are big enough to sweep into the dustpan, but the glass is harder. I’ll have to vacuum once I’ve swept up as much as I can. I’ll have to mop, too, because of the still-hot water coating the tiles.

I’m sure Mum will find something wrong with this job, too.

I jerk when the front door slams shut. “Honey, I’m home.”

Oh, no. It’s Daddy. He’ll see the mess in the kitchen and?—

I don’t know what he’ll do.

He walks in and widens his eyes. “Dios mio, what the hell happened in here?”

I bite my lip. I don’t want Mum to get in trouble. I love her, and I love Daddy. I have friends whose parents have gotten divorced, and they’re miserable. Always packing a bag to spend every other week in a different place, having their Mum and Dad compete for their love. Having to choose a side whenever they have a fight.

And Mum isn’t always like this. It’s only every so often.

“I… I broke some dishes.”

Daddy scans the kitchen floor. “Lissy, this looks like every dish in the kitchen.”

“I got mad. Mum wasn’t happy with how I cleaned the dishes. So I broke all the dishes.”

Dad squats down until he’s at my eye level, pushing my hair back. “Lissy, that’s not the truth and you know it.”

I burst into tears. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t clean the dishes right, and Mum got upset. She told me I had to do them all again, and when I told her I spent so much time cleaning them already and had to do my homework, she got this scary smile on her face and said that we’ll just have to buy new dishes. And then she broke everything.”

He wraps his arms around me for a moment and then whispers in my ear, “Let’s go talk outside,querida.”

He holds my hand as we walk into the backyard. I take care not to get my shoes muddy.

Dad takes a deep breath and sighs. “Lissy, you know that your mummy and I love each other very much. But…you should know that Mummy is sick.”

“She’s sick?” I feel an ache in my gut. We had an aunt who died of cancer a few years ago. “Is she going to die?”

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