Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (best romantic books to read txt) 📗

though I know I haven’t damaged them permanently, having to wait until they’re dry before I use them means that I won’t be able to have dinner ready by the time Papi and Daniel get home. For some reason, that feels like the biggest tragedy in the world.

A warm hand settles on my shoulder and I startle.

“A bit over-the-top to pull God from his busy day to damn a broken match, don’t you think?” Abuelita shushes me, her wrinkled hands smoothing the angry tears off my cheeks. “Now, what’s the matter?”

“It wasn’t just a match,” I say, holding up the soggy offender. “It was the whole box.”

“Ah,” says Abuelita, her lined face serious. “Yes, of course. Much more worthy of divine attention.”

I can’t help it. I smile.

“Well, it kind of is a big deal if I can’t get dinner cooked because I was too clumsy,” I say. “Papi will be mad if he comes home and there’s no food ready.”

For a moment Abuelita just looks at me, and I can’t read her expression. We don’t usually talk about Papi and what he does when he’s angry, but she lives in our one-room house with us. She knows what I’m not saying.

“Well then,” she says, getting up and dusting her hands on her layered skirts, “it’s a good thing there’s more than one way to light a fire.” She disappears into the house and reappears a moment later carrying Papi’s spare acetylene helmet. Running her fingers around the band, she pulls out an almost-empty cigarette lighter.

“We shouldn’t waste that,” I say automatically.

“I don’t plan to.”

Abuelita turns on the acetylene to get the gas flowing, flicks on the lighter in a surprisingly smooth movement, and lights the spigot in the middle of the reflector plate. Then she tucks the lighter back into the band and holds the lit helmet out to me.

“You want me to light a cook fire with acetylene?” I manage.

“Why not? You need a fire, don’t you?”

I shrug miserably, not wanting to take the helmet from her. Papi never lets me touch his mining stuff. When I hesitate for a moment longer, Abuelita sets the helmet gently into my hands.

“What your father doesn’t know can’t hurt us,” she says.

Fingers shaking, I hold the flame against the pile of dung. After a minute, the pile catches, the persistent breeze no match for a continuous acetylene-fueled fire. As soon as the fire is well caught, I snap the valve shut to cut off the flow of gas and hand her the helmet.

“Thank you,” I mumble, placing the pot of water on top of the flames. Abuelita returns the helmet to the house, and I add a handful of diced llama jerky, fresh carrots, and diced chuño to the pot.

The water has just boiled when a shout from the house snaps me out of my daze.

“Ana!”

I jump to my feet at the panic in Abuelita’s voice.

“Come quickly! They’re back! Daniel is sick!”

4

Daniel’s cough is raw and hacking and so intense it bends him around himself and he can’t stand up. It’s why it took the two of them so long to get home: Papi had to carry him.

Daniel’s fever is back too, raging through him, burning him alive. Being in the mine has triggered his bronchitis, worse than it was before.

I sit beside him on our pallet of blankets holding a cool, damp cloth to his forehead, trying to bring his temperature down and wiping the blood-flecked spittle off his cheeks. In between his coughing fits, I try to spoon broth into his mouth, but so far he’s vomited up anything he’s managed to get down.

In the background, Mami yells at Papi that this is why Daniel should never have gone to the mines, that he’s too fragile for that kind of work, that her baby is dying. Papi yells at Mami that she should shut the hell up, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, that she’s turning Daniel into a weakling. I’m not surprised when I hear him hit her, which is when Abuelita starts shouting at both of them to stop it.

I don’t turn around. Instead, my shoulders curve forward protectively, keeping Daniel and myself out of it.

The fight ends when Papi storms out of the house, shouting that he’ll be damned if he’s going to work alone tomorrow, the price of mineral is too high, and he’ll not have it said that his son’s a cripple.

When he’s gone, Mami comes over to me.

“I can sit with Daniel, mi hija,” she says. “Go to sleep: get some rest.”

But I shake my head.

“You need it too,” I say. I didn’t take a beating, after all. “Besides, I don’t think I could sleep even if I went to bed. Please let me stay up with him.”

Mami drops a kiss on each of our foreheads and leaves it at that.

While my mother and grandmother sleep, I sit, hour after hour, late into the night, and think about all the things I heard over my shoulder. Papi, saying he’s not going to work alone tomorrow. Mami, saying Daniel’s in no shape to walk out the front door, let alone go into the mine.

The problem is, I believe both of them.

Even after Daniel falls into a fitful fever sleep, I sit awake, staring around our tiny house, thinking. There has to be a better way, even if it’s not a good choice.

The price of mineral is high. It should make life easier. It should be a dream come true. Instead, it’s destroying my family.

Daniel’s right. Dreams are for little kids. What I need now is a plan.

I don’t go to bed until I have one.

Usually I sleep deeply and silently, but tonight when I fall asleep, a dream is waiting for me.

In it, I’m standing barefoot on the rutted rock path that leads into the mountain, and the arched entrance to the mines looms dark in front of