The Book of Broken Hearts (8 page)

“That’s awesome, Papi,” I said.

Zoe buried her face in her notes, scribbling and scrawling, deep in thought, and Papi shuffled back into the living room. Gunfire broke the silence once again.

I slid open the
GARBAGE ONLY—NO DISHES OR CLOTHING
trash compactor. A glossy, magazine-size pamphlet glared at me from beneath this morning’s coffee grounds—I must’ve been too worried about Papi to notice it before. There was a white-haired couple on the front, hands clasped over the woman’s knee. Behind them, a woman not much older than Lourdes smiled awkwardly, her hand on the man’s shoulder.

I pulled out the brochure and shook off the coffee mess. Bright purple letters marched along the bottom of the page as if they had nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of.

Transitions: Talking to Your Family About Long-Term Care Options.

“Why do you think the Queen is so bitchy, anyway?” Zoe asked. “Crappy childhood?”

“Probably,” I said, but I was barely listening.

Transitions, as it turned out, was a care facility in Willow Brush, the town where Mom had been working those extra
shifts, about an hour and a half north of us. It had a medical staff, a rec room, a ballroom, swimming lessons, yoga, a salon, and most important—since it was spelled out in all caps—A SPECIAL WING FOR ALZHEIMER’S PATIENTS! And if the shiny photos could be believed, these special patients were happy, well fed, and extremely compliant.

And as old and weathered as fossils.

Zoe rambled on about the Queen’s tortured backstory, and I flipped through every wrinkled page, reading about the challenges of caring for this “special population,” patients who wandered aimlessly at night, forgetting where they were. These Transitions people were super equipped to “manage” them. They locked the doors and windows, padded sharp corners, corralled them into “safe zones.”

My teeth clenched. I imagined cattle and horses locked behind an electric fence, eating out of a shared trough, counting down the hours till the slaughter.

At the end, I found the note. Beige card stock, folded in half, tucked inside the back cover.

Handwritten. As if she knew us.

Dear Rita,

I’m so glad we had the chance to talk. I’ve enclosed the brochure and application packet you requested. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or
would like any additional information on the Transitions facility or staff.

You, Ted, and your daughters are in my thoughts during this difficult time. Know that I’m here when you need me.

Sincerely,

Janice McMullen

Ted?
No one called him Ted. He was Papi or Bear or at the very least Teddy. And who was this Janice person? What right did she have to put us in her thoughts? She didn’t know
anything
about us. Because if she did, her letter would’ve apologized for bothering us with this useless brochure. Papi wasn’t some crusty curmudgeon who needed his food pureed, and the only ballroom dancing he’d ever done was tango with Mom, moves they showed off only at weddings after a few too many glasses of Malbec.

Guilt seeped into my stomach.

The last thing I’d wanted to do was tell Mom about Papi’s pharmacy meltdown the other day, but we’d made a deal after the diagnosis. Freak-outs, prolonged disorientation, severe mood swings—all documentable evidence. The doctors said that keeping an accurate report could help them track the progression of his illness and modify his treatment plan accordingly, but I thought it was busywork, something to keep us distracted from the fact that there
was
no treatment. It was like drawing a treasure map upside down, dashes and
arrows and
X
s that led straight into the sea no matter which way you turned it.

I’d kept my promise, told Mom and Mari about the Grant’s episode that very night, and now I realized they’d be looking for this stuff—the random outbursts. Getting dressed for a job he no longer held. Too tired to help Emilio with the Harley. It wasn’t about treatment anymore. It was ammo; every wrong turn or confused expression another excuse to stash him away.

I tore up the note and dropped the pieces into the trash. Then I went after the brochure, shredding it page by page until the old people turned to ash and the poisonous words became individual letters, neutral and harmless.

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?” I’d almost forgotten Zoe was there. “Sorry. The Queen . . . yeah. She probably had a bad childhood.”

Zoe crinkled her nose. “We were talking about costumes and makeup.”

I looked at the torn bits of paper in my hands. Then back to Zoe. Back to the paper. Everything went blurry.

If Janice thought for one second we’d let Papi turn to dust at that place . . .

“Jude? What are you doing? What is that?”

I mirrored Zoe’s concerned gaze. She’d stopped staring at her script long enough to notice things weren’t right on my side of the world.

“Mom must’ve brought it home from one of their appointments,” I said softly. I told her about the letter. What it meant.

She didn’t say anything at first, and I dumped the rest of the brochure into the compactor and flipped the switch,
DO NOT TOUCH
, until everything turned to gray pulp.

Transition
that,
Janice.

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Zoe shuffled her papers and wrapped her fingers around the edges, fanned the corners against her thumb. “They probably give it to everyone who’s . . . the patients and spouses and stuff.”

I blinked against the images.
Crisp white sheets. Metal beds. No sharp edges . . .

“Don’t think about it,” Zoe said. “If your mom actually needed it, she wouldn’t have thrown it away. Right?”

The pasta was bubbling over in the pan, water hissing on the burner. Some of the noodles had stuck to the bottom, and I stirred and scraped, suddenly desperate to loosen them.

“She’s taking him to an appointment tomorrow,” I said once I’d freed the noodles. “Maybe it has something to do with—”

“Stop. Know what you need? A day off,” Zoe said brightly. “You’re driving yourself nuts. Come to rehearsal tomorrow. We’re doing a full run-through with the scripts. You can watch—you’ll love it.” Zoe smiled as if I were already convinced, as if her plans for the so-called normal teenage summer would fix everything.

We’re painting the roses red. . . . We’re painting the roses red. . . .

I promised her I’d be there, and before I could confirm the time, the huge grandfather
CLOCK NOT PHONE BOOTH
in the
hallway chimed one, a single gong that flash-froze the words on my tongue, and in its echo a line from Janice’s note resurfaced, hammering my brain with sudden, glaring obviousness.

I’ve enclosed the brochure and application packet you requested. . . .

It wasn’t just the glossy brochure—there was more. An application packet.

And Mom had
requested
it.

“Ready for the report?”

I jumped and turned to find Emilio peering through the kitchen screen door.

“I got the front end disassembled,” he said. “Inside’s in good shape. Nothing we can’t clean up.”

I heard the words, knew Emilio was talking about the bike. But my brain was stuck in first gear, unable to shift from the images in the brochure, the letter from the woman who thought she knew our family.

“Jude?” Emilio’s tone changed, his voice tighter. “Are you—”

“So, I’m Zoe.” My best friend batted her eyes at Emilio until recognition dawned on her face. “Wait, you’re—”

“Emilio.” He opened the door then, crossed the kitchen to where I stood at the sink. Again, I saw it all happen—Emilio’s sneakers on the tile floor, Zoe fidgeting at the table, noodles tumbling in hot water that splashed and sizzled on the stove—but it was like watching from outside the window, and suddenly Emilio was next to me, his soft gray T-shirt brushing my arm as he leaned to turn off the burner.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

I stared dumbly at his hand on the counter, focusing on a streak of oil across his index finger.

“Maybe you should sit down, Jude.” He put his hand on my arm, and I finally snapped out of it and turned back to the pot on the stove. The water had gone calm and milky.

“Lunch,” I said. “I was making . . . What were you saying about the bike?”

I felt his eyes on my back, but when I lifted the pot and shifted to drain the water, he stepped out of the way and continued.

“I was saying the guts are in pretty good shape, but we’re missing some flange nuts.”

“Flange nuts.”

“They hold in the bolts,” Emilio said. “
El jefe
might have some extras in the barn somewhere.”

“I’m about to call him for lunch. You hungry? I made a lot.” I tossed the pasta with a jar of sauce in a giant ceramic bowl, and Emilio smiled, big and goofy. I directed him to the bathroom to wash up,
ANTIBACTERIAL SOAP: TWO PUMPS ONLY!

“Emilio Vargas?” Zoe whispered once he was out of earshot. Her eyes were wide with shock. “The motorcycle guy is Emilio Vargas?”

“Shh!” I set the steaming bowl of pasta on the table.

“Dark hearts, every one,” she teased. Not that I needed the reminder. That was exactly how Mari had first described the Vargas boys. Back then, standing outside Celi’s door in the middle of the night, I’d felt the words like an electric shiver
up my twelve-year-old spine, and it was the same when I’d recounted the whole story to Zoe the following night. They were the right words, she’d agreed. Two devilishly handsome brothers, years apart, each destined to break a Hernandez heart. It
did
seem like something out of a book, straight from the black-and-silver cover.
In a world of smoke and flame, caught in a centuries-old battle between good and evil
. . . Maybe the Vargas boys were vampires or fallen angels, Zoe and I had wondered. That particular fantasy had lingered on the edge of our dreams for months, whispering to us in the dark hours of our backyard campouts.

But Zoe wasn’t reminiscing now.

“You hired Emilio Vargas? And you never told me?”

I set out plates and silverware, hoping she wouldn’t see the guilt in my eyes. “Guess I forgot.”

“How could you forget Emilio Vargas?”

“That’s what
I’m
sayin’.” Emilio crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway between the hall and the kitchen.

“We were talking about something else,” I said.

He flashed that killer smile. “Something else named Emilio Vargas?”

Zoe scooped her stuff off the table and shot me a wounded look. “I told Mom I’d help her in the garden today, so I’m out. Thanks for your help with the script.”

She didn’t say good-bye to Papi but stopped at the door and leaned down to scratch Pancake behind the ears. Zoe looked up at me once more, maybe giving me a chance to explain, to
ask her to stay, but I didn’t move, and she walked out the door and hopped on her bike without another word.

Logically, I knew Papi’s illness was progressive. The doctors told us he’d deteriorate, mentally and physically, until we could no longer care for him at home. They didn’t know when, just that it was coming. I felt it too. Every day, a little piece of him vanished. He could still use the bathroom and feed himself and all the other stupid stuff you never think about until you can’t do it anymore, but he might not remember that he’d watched
The Magnificent Seven
two days in a row, or that he didn’t need lined flannels in the summer. Perhaps he put on Mom’s slippers this morning because he got frustrated trying to tie his own shoes.

Or maybe he thought they were
his
slippers.

Progressive. Degenerative. Destructive.
The “ives” had been batted around like a tennis ball all year.

But to look at him now, doing his Spanish accent cowboy impersonations for Emilio and talking about those missing flange nuts and which part goes where . . . How could someone so whole and alive be shriveling up inside? My brain hurt to contemplate it, and I forced myself to stop, lest the demon sense my thoughts and try to prove its mettle.

I didn’t need more proof.

“In this world there’s two kinds of people, right, Juju?” Papi brandished his fork like a pistol. “Those with loaded forks, and those who pass the spaghetti. You pass the spaghetti.”

I rolled my eyes as I handed over the bowl, but tears gathered behind my lids.

Who will sit next to Papi at Transitions and watch the cowboy movies? Do the nurses know all the quotes? Do they know about the Italians and the spaghetti?

I slipped over to the sink and pretended to blot spaghetti sauce from my shirt as Emilio and Papi puzzled over Valentina. Papi knew he’d replaced the bolts when he first got the bike because it was the same day he’d joined Las Arañas Blancas. He recalled how the leather smelled when he first pulled on that jacket, how quickly it warmed in the Argentine sun.

I closed my eyes. Valentina was so important, held so many memories. Maybe I didn’t understand the demon illness, but I knew without a doubt that reconnecting Papi to his past was the only way to bring him back to the present, and with Mom already screening places to stash him . . .