Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around by Pagán, Camille (dar e dil novel online reading .txt) 📕

to charge me. But when he reached me, he immediately began running circles around my feet.

“No more running away and then surprising me!” I scolded as he continued to spin. “I almost peed myself.”

He cocked his head.

“Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe I did already. But you try giving birth to two children at once and see how your bladder holds up.”

Pedro circled me for a moment, then started for the house.

“Right,” I said, following him. “Let’s go hold down the fort.”

As the sun began to set, I was forced to admit that Shiloh would not be making it back to Vieques that night. I wasn’t worried about being on my own, though; I just feared his absence meant something terrible had happened to Milagros, or Charlotte, or maybe all seven of them. Worse, I would have no way of finding out for at least the next eight to twelve hours.

Why wasn’t the electricity back on yet so I could charge my phone and call them? Was there some magic carpet I hadn’t thought of that would get me out of here? Maybe Flor had another boat, or a rich friend who could lend me one, as well as a captain with a jaunty cap—or maybe just someone who knew how to navigate a boat through choppy water.

I let myself continue down this pointless path for a few minutes. Then it occurred to me that it was probably cocktail hour. I wasn’t feeling particularly festive without Milagros there, but I knew she’d have wanted me to keep up her tradition, and anyway, I had nothing else to do. So I let myself back into her house to get some rum. I was prepared to down the stuff straight, but I located an unopened container of guava juice in her cupboard and decided to see if it made a decent mixer.

Spoiler alert: indeed, it did. An hour later I’d finished two tumblers of island elixir, and the guesthouse had started rotating faster than the earth. It was not unpleasant, in that at least I couldn’t focus long enough to obsess about the terrible string of possibilities that my mind was insistent upon bringing to the surface. Maybe that’s why I decided a third drink was in order.

“I appreciate you not judging me,” I said to Pedro. Though his furry friends still hadn’t shown up to have their food, I’d been pleasantly surprised when Pedro decided to stick around the guesthouse. Now he was on the table—I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there, exactly, but sanitation had quickly made its way down my list of priorities, and I had convinced myself his perch made him more effective as a watchdog.

“I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this before, but you’re a pretty good listener,” I said, and I may or may not have been slurring. It was nearly dark, and I’d had to position a flashlight to shine on my makeshift cocktail station—so I couldn’t be faulted for missing the glass once or thrice. I added a splash of guava juice, mixed it with my finger, then lifted my tumbler to the dog. “Here’s to us.”

But as I put the concoction to my lips, I was forced to admit that no amount of alcohol was going to make me forget how much I longed for my family. I abandoned the glass on the counter, walked to the sunroom, and before I could chastise myself for being dramatic, threw myself down on the pullout sofa. The cushions still smelled like the girls’ strawberry shampoo, so I buried my face in them for a moment and inhaled deeply. When I finally came back up for air, I was crying like a baby. Or, you know. A woman who had no idea whether the people she loved most were alive.

I was crying so hard that I didn’t see Pedro hop off the table and trot over to the sofa, but he whimpered to let me know he was waiting just below my knee. I stopped midsob and looked down at him. Then I put my hand on his back, wondering how he’d react.

He closed his eye contentedly, but feeling his mangy fur beneath my fingers only made me cry harder, and he opened his eye again and jumped up on the sofa beside me.

“Well hey there, buddy,” I said, but he was regarding me rather skeptically. “You’re right,” I conceded. “You’re a tough little guy. I feel like you can handle the truth.”

He stared at me and waited.

I wiped my face on my T-shirt. “The truth is, I am so freaking tired, Pedro. I’ve been trying to keep it together for . . .” I was about to say weeks now when I realized what a vast understatement that was. My chest shuddered as I tried to take a deep breath. “Since my dad died,” I admitted after a moment. “I know he lived longer than lots of people get to live, but it doesn’t seem right that the only parent I had for most of my life is gone.”

My father was seventy-four years young, as he liked to call himself, and had been staying with us in New York for the twins’ birthday. Except he never did get to see them blow out their candles; the night before they turned twelve he bundled up and went out for a walk after dinner, and around the time he should have returned, a stranger called me and said she’d found him unconscious in the middle of a snowy sidewalk. We thought maybe he’d slipped on ice, but it turned out that he’d had a massive stroke.

Later I would tell people that at least he was with Paul and me in New York when it happened, which gave us a chance to say goodbye to him.

That was true. But to be clear, it was awful. When we could finally see him at the hospital, he was barely conscious, and half his face was just hanging there,