The Secret Sister by M. DeLuca (leveled readers txt) 📗

Birdie was in her element. All the girls wanted to play with the chatty, smiling new girl. Not with me, the silent, brooding sister standing on the sidelines, waiting to pounce at the first hint of trouble.

Our newfound happiness and contentment lasted all of six months until Rosa’s estranged husband, Perez, came back.

The tiny, neat apartment wasn’t big enough for his husky, square-shouldered frame. He swept in like a great thundercloud, blocking the sunlight that streamed through the kitchen windows and making the walls tremble. Muscular arms loaded with packages, he stomped across the floor to shower Rosa with chocolates, cookies, underwear, perfume. Gifts for the wife he’d missed so much. Then he took one look at us, scowled and carried on as if we were invisible. Birdie was crushed. She batted her eyelashes, tilted her head and even did a couple of twirls, believing her cuteness was enough to win him over. Enough to guarantee her an instant father. But Perez wasn’t buying any of it. He didn’t even watch when she recited a poem we learned at school, and then performed the silly dance that went along with it.

My hands curled and uncurled into fists at my sides. I even told her she looked stupid but she didn’t listen and shook my hand away. That’s when Perez’s large fist crashed down on the kitchen table, sending Rosa’s frog salt and pepper shakers tumbling to the floor. Birdie froze and dove down to rescue them, but Rosa’s chirpiness vanished, replaced by white-faced panic as she grabbed Birdie’s arm and chivvied us off to the bedroom. I had to drag Birdie there, her heels skidding along the floor, the salt shaker clutched in her hand.

Once the door shut, Birdie started to gulp in air as if she was going to cry. There’s a monster inside that man, she said. I slipped my hand into hers and together we crept close to the door. Our ears pinned to the wall, we heard him tell Rosa stories about his stint in the North Dakota oil patch. About the fortune he’d made then lost. The poker, whisky and cocaine that devoured his money. Now all he had left was his dear, sweet Rosa and maybe she didn’t even want him, now she has two foster kids. Little brats who weren’t even Latina. What does she take him for?

Before she could even answer that question, he burst into loud sobs, calling himself a loser, and a worthless bum with no right to live. The sobs escalated until the loud, scraping noise of chair legs dragging across the floor was followed by the screech of the kitchen drawer being yanked open. I peeked through a crack in the door. He’d taken out a kitchen knife and he was jabbing at his chest yelling Madre de dios me destruya. Rosa was plastered against the wall, her hands clamped over her ears. Birdie and I sucked in our breath as he lunged forward, grabbed Rosa’s hand and forced the knife handle into it, screaming, I’m a worthless piece of shit. Cut my throat. Stab me through the heart.

She screamed and wailed no no te amo te amo as she tried to yank the knife back.

Birdie was frozen to the spot, pee dribbling down her leg. I had to get her out of there even though I was scared for Rosa. Then someone started banging on the front door. Grasping the knife again, Perez threw Rosa against the wall, charged towards the door and threw it open. On the other side Vinnie stood, muscular arms bulging from a baggy wife beater shirt, his red hair sticking up at all angles and his whole body shaking. He reached up with one meaty hand and clamped hold of Perez’s arm. They faced off like battling rams. Rosa pulled herself to her feet and staggered over to them. She grabbed at Perez’s arm trying to pull him back from the door, but he swatted her like a bug with one heavy blow, and sent her crashing against the kitchen table.

That was my signal. I grabbed Birdie’s hand and we ran. We tore out of the apartment without even putting on our shoes and slid down the stairs. I called emergency from a nearby convenience store and we ended up at the cop station, eating licorice sticks and Krispy Kreme donuts. We started in on a whole box. A dozen sugar dipped. Birdie threw up in the garbage can, then sat back and stuffed more into her mouth, scared someone would take them away. We swung our shoeless feet against the chair legs and waited to see who’d come to get us. Three hours later the emergency social worker, a pale, spindly thing in a beige trench coat and plaid scarf, woke us up. She drove us back to the group home, barely exchanging a word. After that we never saw Rosa again or learned what happened to her or Perez or Vinnie.

I snapped back to reality and realized it was raining, so I started back to the car. Rosa’s was not the nightmare place with the flowered wallpaper. Her walls were painted pure white. I knew that because I remembered bright red blood spattered across the white expanse, like a string of tiny flowers sprayed in a diagonal line.

I decided to go back and check out the riverside apartment from the previous evening. As I drove, I wondered if Carla might have been picked up from the same spot I met Dane. The place where the Ken doll guy prowled back and forth in his glossy SUV with the tinted windows. But it was noon now and the nighttime’s menace was gone, replaced by the lively bustle of office workers sitting on benches or sprawled on the riverbank eating lunch and enjoying the rush and sparkle of the water.

A couple of blocks further north was the in-between place where you might get mugged walking home from the theater or meet