Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2– Past 1 (debt)

ELENA

"Miss Marcelo." The voice on the phone was brisk. "Am I speaking with Miss Marcelo, please?"

Elena had let the call ring twice while she stared at the cracked ceiling of her studio apartment.

"Yes," she said. "Please go on."

"Okay, good,I called because your mother's vitals dropped overnight. Dr. Chen would like you to come in today."

Elena sat up. The mattress springs groaned beneath her, a sound she'd learned to sleep through the way she'd learned to sleep through the radiator's clanking and the neighbor's fighting and the endless, grinding hum of a city that never stopped needing. "How bad has it gotten?"

"Dr. Chen will explain once you're at the hospital."

God. Her situation had gotten so bad they couldn't even give her bad news over the phone anymore.

"I'll be there by two," she said, and hung up before they could tell her that afternoon might be too late.

The apartment was freezing. November in Brooklyn, and her landlord had decided heating was a December problem. Elena glanced at the pull-out couch where Mateo slept, his small body curled around a stuffed rabbit she'd bought him three years ago for his sixth birthday.

He shifted in his sleep, murmuring something she couldn't catch. She stood up, her feet aching from yesterday's double shift at the diner. She made coffee with the last of the grounds, watching the dark liquid drip into a mug that had once belonged to her father.

Eight months dead. Forty-seven thousand dollars in gambling debts to men who didn't accept installment plans. Her mother’s kidney’s failing. And Mateo, still asking when Daddy was coming home.

The coffee burned her tongue. She didn't care.

The hospital wanted ten thousand dollars by next Friday to continue dialysis. She counted what she had left: three hundred twelve dollars in checking, eighty-nine in cash. The math was simple. She needed a miracle in seven days, and she is in need of miracles.

Mateo woke as she was getting dressed, pulling on the same black slacks she'd worn three days this week, the blouse with the coffee stain hidden beneath a cardigan that had gone threadbare at the elbows.

"You're going out?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

"To see Mom." She knelt to fix his disheveled hair, dark and wild like their father's had been. "Mrs. Patterson will check on you after school. You have your keys?"

He nodded, serious in the way only nine-year-olds could be serious, "Elena?"

"Yes, baby."

"Is Mom going to die?"

The question caught her off guard. Not because she hadn't thought it, but because she hadn't expected him to say it out loud. To make it real.

"No, baby." She cupped his face in her hands, feeling the softness of his cheeks, the bones beneath that were still growing, still becoming. "Big sister won't allow that. I'll do everything in my power to see that Mom makes it out of there alive. Now I want you to stop worrying about adult issues and go brush your teeth. There's cereal in the cabinet. Eat something before school."

He shuffled away, clutching his rabbit, and Elena watched him go with a pain in her chest that had nothing to do with the cold.

She stepped into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind her. The hospital was a forty-minute subway ride, and every minute counted.

* * *

Dr. Chen met her in the hallway outside her mother's room. She was young, beautiful in the way of women who slept through the night, maybe early thirties, with kind eyes that made Elena envied her.

"Miss Marcelo. Your mother's creatinine levels are increasing. We're managing with medication for now, but without dialysis, "

"I know." Elena cut her off, then softened it. "I know, and I'm working on the payment. I just need more time."

"I hope you can make arrangements. Her kidneys are failing at a faster rate than we projected." Dr. Chen's voice was gentle, which only made the words cut deeper. "The hospital's charity care program,"

"Has a six-month waiting list. We're on it."

"There's also,"

"Please." Elena held up her hands. She couldn't bear another option that wasn't really an option, "I know the options. Just keep her comfortable. I'll get the money by Friday."

Dr. Chen looked at her for a long moment. Elena wondered what she saw. A girl too young for this weight? A daughter doing everything in her power to keep her family intact?

"I'll do what I can," the doctor finally said. "But Miss Marcelo, Friday. Not a day later."

Elena nodded. She didn't trust herself to speak.

Her mother was awake when she entered Room 307, looking smaller than Elena remembered from even last week, looking so frail and smaller than she used to be.

The dialysis machine beeped steadily beside her, a mechanical heartbeat more reliable than her own.

"Elena." Her mother's voice was thin, frayed at the edges, nothing like the voice that had sung lullabies, that had shouted across playgrounds, "You didn't have to come in today. I'm fine."

"You're not fine, Mama." Elena took her hand, feeling the bones beneath her skin, the veins that stood out. "But you're going to be. I'll find a way to get the money for treatment."

"What kind of way?" Her mother's eyes sharpened, the only part of her that hadn't dimmed. "Any money you gather, use it for yourself and Mateo. I'm not worth,"

"Don't." Elena's voice cracked, just slightly, just enough to betray her. "Don't say that. You're worth everything."

Her mother squeezed her hand. Weak, but present. "You're too young for this. All of this. Your father,"

"Isn't here." Elena kept her voice level, "And I am. That's what matters."

They sat in silence. The machine beeped. Outside, an ambulance siren rose and fell, distant, constant, the soundtrack of this part of the city.

"Mateo?" her mother asked.

"Good. Growing. Smart." Elena paused. "He asked if you were going to die."

Her mother's breath caught, a small hitch in the rhythm of the machines. "What did you tell him?"

"That I wouldn't let you."

Tears fell down her mother's eyes, and Elena wiped them away with her thumb, the way her mother had done for her, once.

"Be careful, mija," her mother whispered, her voice dropping to something almost too low to hear. "The world is full of men who see a desperate girl."

"I know how to handle men like that," Elena said.

She wasn't sure if it was true. But she was sure she would learn.

She stayed until her mother fell asleep, her hand going slack in Elena's grip. Then she kissed her forehead, gathered her things, and walked out of the hospital into the gray November afternoon.

* * *

The city felt different on the subway back to Brooklyn. Or maybe Elena felt different, hyper-aware, every stranger's glance landing like a touch, every shadow seeming to hold something waiting.

She got home, showered for twenty minutes, standing under water that never got fully hot, scrubbing diner grease from under her fingernails, from the creases of her elbows, from her skin until it felt raw and new and someone else's.

She was pulling on her uniform when the knock came.

Two sharp raps. Official. Elena opened the door to find a woman in a navy pantsuit, clutching a clipboard like a shield. CPS. She knew the look before the woman spoke.

"Miss Marcelo? I'm Linda Park from Child Protective Services. We need to talk about Mateo."