Chapter 14: Five Years of Letters

I walked out of the office and across the Cellar to the cage.

Beto's wraps lay on the bench where I had left them.

I wound them around my hands, tight, one pass at a time.

Joaquin stood at the cage door and watched me do it.

"Get in," I said.

"Dalia."

"Get in the cage."

He took off the gray coat and folded it over the bench.

He climbed through the door in his shirtsleeves with no wraps and no gloves.

Beto stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and he did not come closer.

I put my fist into Joaquin's ribs.

He grunted and did not lift his arms.

I hit him again, in the same place, and he rocked back half a step and came forward again.

"Block," I said.

"No."

"Block it!"

I hit him in the stomach, the shoulder, the side of the jaw.

His head snapped to the left and came back to center.

A thin line of blood ran from his lip.

He stood there with his hands hanging open and let me do it.

My breath was ragged.

My knuckles tore through the wraps, and the sting only made me swing harder.

"Five years," I said.

I hit him.

"You never wrote."

I hit him.

"You never called. You left for that school before dawn, and you did not even knock on my door."

My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it.

"You didn't come to Abuela's funeral. You weren't there when I was twelve, and you weren't there after, and I waited for you."

He took the next punch on the cheekbone.

"I waited," I said. "I waited in the dark for somebody to come, and it was never you."

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