Chapter 4: Pick One, Rodrigo

By Friday I had worked four mornings behind the bakery counter with Camila asleep in a sling against my chest.

The owner paid me cash at the end of every shift, and she never asked a question.

On Thursday night I sat on my friend's couch and cut up a pile of white cards.

I wrote on each one in block letters until my hand cramped.

Then I slid them into ten brown pastry-box envelopes and sealed every flap with a drop of red candle wax from the dollar store.

Friday was the day Rodrigo's lawyer had given me to come home.

At six forty in the morning, with the line out the door, my husband walked into the bakery.

He wore a blue suit and he held a black envelope in one hand.

The line went quiet, because half of them had seen his face in a video.

Somebody near the window had already lifted a phone.

"Alma," Rodrigo said, and lowered his voice into the soft one he used for waiters. "This is enough. Come home."

"We're in a bakery," I said. "Do you want a concha?"

He set the black envelope on the glass case between us.

"Five thousand dollars. No game. Come home today and it's yours, with an apology from my mother."

The owner stopped wiping her counter at the far end.

"Rodrigo," I said, "do you remember the one rule of your game?"

He frowned.

"You pick," I said.

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