A week later I was sitting down with Tia Grace and Miguel. I knew there would be shouting so I chose somewhere private – but not so private that either of them felt obligated to start a fight. In the end I found us a quiet restaurant off the 5 and got there an hour early to ease Tia Grace into the meeting. She came in her work clothes, blazer and dress skirt, and I made her order some food even though she wasn’t hungry. Tia Grace was the rogue factor, and I needed to make sure she would remain as calm and content as possible so that she would agree to be there when Miguel went to talk with his mom. I told her as much and, glancing towards the door, she laughed gruffly.
“I hope you’re as good at working people as you think you are, Carlos. Anyways, I’m the one waiting to be impressed – I hope you told Miguel to make a good impression.” I had – and to my pleasant surprise he walked in very smartly attired, presumably donning one of the outfits he used to court his ex-sponsor. He was clean shaven and confident – shoulders back, efficient and controlled gait, not to mention he wasn’t coughing anymore. Well, to be more accurate he was suppressing the urge to cough somehow, but I didn’t care how so long as he looked the part. He strode over to us and sat down across from his adoptive sister.
“Grace,” he greeted politely.
“Miguel,” she responded, putting down her fork and pushing her plate away. She stared at him, and he stared back, and nothing happened until I became uncomfortable and intervened on my own behalf.
“Miguel… Why don’t we start with what we talked about. I think it would be best if we understood both sides of the story and then moved forward from there.” Miguel looked at me, and a hint of nervousness glimmered in the turquoise marbles of his eyes before he turned back to Tia Grace and started to talk. He talked of his mother, of his art, and finally, of his fear, revealing the depths to which his insecurities commanded his life. He admitted to depression and anxiety and regret, and to the illness that likely would take his life soon anyways. He pleaded towards her humanity, and to their relationship as siblings, and to the shared pain of being raised impoverished and in destitution. He wanted only to spend his last days with his family. Grace listened politely and actively, affirming her understanding and compassion. I saw her face change over time from a polite distrust to an empathetic acceptance – finally she had made some sort of common ground with a brother she could never see eye to eye with. So when Miguel had finished, brought to tears by his own recollection, Tia Grace pulled a gun out of the folds of her coat and pointed it at him.
In a blind panic I jumped across the table and tackled her to the floor, food scattering everywhere. Refried beans and rice and a half eaten enchilada compressed between me and my aunt as we fell, and I became aware of a door slamming shut somewhere off in the distance. Once we hit the ground the gun flew out from Tia Grace’s grasp and slid across the ground towards a terrified waiter who jumped away as if from a bomb.
“You crazy, lunatic motherfucker!” I screamed at Tia Grace, who was clutching her head at its point of impact into the cheap tiling that was now covered in a surprisingly thick enchilada sauce that must have followed us down off the table. “You goddamn fucking hypocrite!”
It wasn’t until I coughed blood onto her face that I realized that the door slamming was a gun shot and the viscous condiment pooling ever more rapidly across the floor was in fact my own. Tia Grace opened her eyes and cursed and then saw my wound and screamed. That’s when the pain hit me, and I clutched at my ribs and rolled myself off her onto my back. In between coughing fits I saw Miguel desperately calling someone on the phone, and then more pain when somebody pressed their coat onto my wound, making me scream and cry in response. I was rolled onto my side, and began to feel light headed from the blood loss. Minutes of agony passed, accentuated by fire in my chest every time I coughed, before the sweet relief of unconsciousness dragged me under and I slept.
***
I woke up in a hospital bed with bandages swirled around my chest and needles in my arms, my mother asleep on a recliner in the corner of the room, although I could barely make her out in the dark. I could feel the catheter inside of me. It still hurt very much to breathe, but the morphine I saw overhead did manage to help, somewhat. I heard rustling in the corner opposite of my mom, and then a toilet flush and running sink. More rustling, a flick of a light switch, and then annoyed mumbling as someone groped around at the door trying to find the knob. Eventually it opened, and Abuelita shuffled out of the wall and over towards a seat at the side of my hospital bed I hadn’t noticed. She gently reached her slightly wet hand to mine and stroked the back of it with her thumb, sighing.
“Oh, Carlos,” She whispered morosely, “What did I tell you?”
I didn’t say anything back.
The Scenic Climax 