Page 24 of Justice for Radar

I told him and he burst out laughing and I do mean he laughed until he almost cried.

“Serves him right,” he said.

“I’m still a little mind blown that you allow him to be in her room alone like that.” Some of my old midwestern accent twanged with the sentence and I tried not to cringe outwardly as much as I was inwardly.

“She’s gonna do it anyway,” he said with a shrug. “All kids do. I’d rather she does it where I can intervene on her behalf if she needs me to, you know?”

I nodded slowly after thinking about it a minute.

“How very progressive of you,” I said soberly and where I had come from it absolutely was.

He eyed me a second and said, “Isn’t it just?”

“My dad would have screamed at me for even bringing up such an idea,” I said. “Not that I would, because my dad was terrifying when he screamed and I couldn’t wait to get out from under it.”

“I never understood that,” he said. “Screaming at your kids for their natural inclinations just seems counterproductive in the long run and seems like it would make for an unhappy maladjusted teenager.”

“That’s the thing,” I said and intentionally put on my midwestern twang for the next bit. “The Bible says it’s unnatural so…”

“Ahhhh, raised by a pair of those fools, that’s right.” he said. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels and nodding in understanding.

I nodded, too.

“Believe me, they were thrilled to get rid of me.”

“That’s unfortunate,” he said, pulling one hand free to hold open the garage door into the house for me to go through. He caught my eye as I went to move past him and said, “I think you’re wonderful.”

I replayed the exchange the rest of the day and when I went to bed that night it was with those words echoing in the chambers of my heart.

* * *

“What the fuck?Who the fuck are you!?” the screeching demand for answers came right on the heels of the blinding overhead light flaring to life. My sleep was shattered, and I sat up, shielding my eyes from the glare of the light just as another screamed demand for an answer hit my eardrums. “Answer me, bitch! Who the fuck are you and why are you in my bed?”

“I’m sorry,” I stammered. I was trying to untangle myself from the blankets, the young woman I didn’t know still yelling at me although the roar of blood in my ears was drowning out her words.

“Mariposa!” the thickly accented, masculine snarl put a stop to everything.

Radar stood behind what was presumably his eldest daughter in the bedroom doorway, his arms crossed and a dour look on his face.

“Who the fuck is she?” Mariposa demanded, gesturing in my direction.

Radar ignored his daughter and spoke to me gently. “Justice, come on, honey. Let me get you situated.”

“Papá!” Mariposa grated in irritation, and he stopped, his hand coming up and pointing right in her face, muscles tense and coiled in anger. I froze where I stood.

“No!” he barked, and he proceeded to rail at her in a rapid-fire Spanish that was so accented with the Cuban flavor of dialect I couldn’t even begin to follow in my dazed and still half-asleep state if I wanted to.

He finished in English, barking out, “Now I raised you better than that!”

She came back at him with more of the speedy, heavily accented Cuban as I picked up my laptop and cords stacking my drawing tablet on top.

“This is still my fucking house, girl! Don’t you forget it!” he snapped, and his countenance gentled as he turned to me.

“Come on, Justice.” He glared daggers at his daughter. “I’ll deal with you later.”

I stepped around her suitcase grimly, my nerves rattling, jangling the alarm in my skull as I flash backed to my own childhood and teenage years when my mom used to wake me up the same way in the middle of the night screaming about a chore that I’d left unfinished. The urge to clean was a strong one suddenly as panic gripped me. The two events different but smashing together nonetheless in my skull.

“Come on, no, this way,” Radar chided and took me gently by the elbow. I jumped as he steered me down the hall away from the living room and toward his room. I let him, unsure what was happening.

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