Chapter 1 - Beside the Dog's Bowl
"Eat it off the floor, then. That's where you belong."
Ricardo Vega heard his wife's voice before he saw his father. He had been home from a six-day business trip for less than thirty seconds. His suitcase wheels were still humming across the kitchen tile when he looked around the island and felt something inside him tear.
Arturo Vega, eighty-two years old, was kneeling beside Scout's stainless-steel dog bowl. His thin hands shook over a plastic tray of cold rice and chicken scraps. One slipper had fallen off. His pajama sleeve was wet, and the knees of his pants were dark with dirt. He tried to stand when he saw his son, but his legs wouldn't hold him.
"Dad?" Ricardo said.
His father lifted his face. Tears had collected in the deep lines beside his nose. "Ricky. You're early."
Celeste, elegant in cream silk and gold earrings, opened the refrigerator as if nothing unusual had happened. "Your father made a mess at lunch. I told him he could eat where he wouldn't ruin the furniture."
"He's on the floor."
"And he has a roof over his head. More than some people get." She filled a glass from the water dispenser. "I'm not running a luxury hotel for an old man who refuses to listen."
Ricardo dropped to one knee. "Why didn't you call me?"
Arturo glanced at Celeste. Fear crossed his face so quickly it hurt to see. "She said you'd be angry with me."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Celeste snapped. "Don't start telling stories. You're such a chatterbox."
Ricardo's suitcases hit the floor hard enough to make Scout bark. "Don't call my father that."
He reached for Arturo's arm and saw bruises around his wrist, four dark marks in a row. Arturo tried to cover them.
"Who did this?" Ricardo asked.
Celeste set down the water. "He falls. He's eighty-two."
Arturo clutched Ricardo's jacket with surprising strength. "She told me if I didn't sign the papers, she'd take everything from you."
"What papers?"
Celeste moved toward the counter, where a thick blue envelope lay beneath her handbag. Ricardo picked it up before she could reach it. On top was an authorization to sell his father's old workshop on Mercer Street.
May you like
At the bottom was a signature that looked exactly like Ricardo's.
Except Ricardo had been thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic when it was written.
