Natalia

 

The trash bag in my hand was heavy and leaking gross liquid. I hustled as fast as I could towards the back, eager to toss this thing in the dumpster before I got coated in the disgusting cocktail of dishwater, half-eaten food sludge, and God knew what else was seeping through the thin plastic.

 

Reaching the dumpster, I flipped open the lid with one hand and reared back, coiling all of my weight before launching the bag into the yawning bin. It landed with a crash. A rank smell whooshed out, attacking my nostrils. I backed away in a coughing fit, bent over with my hands on my knees as I hacked and struggled to regain my breath.

 

When I had finally cleared my lungs, I turned and headed back inside. The kitchen was looking much the worse for wear these days. Nearly every piece of equipment was scabbed over with rust. The stovetop was missing almost all its knobs, half the range wouldn’t even ignite, and the sink had stopped draining properly years ago, causing a foul stench to emanate from the pits of the plumbing. It was a miracle a health inspector hadn’t come by to shut us down.

 

I weaved through the kitchen and pushed my way through the double doors at the other end, headed to grab the last bag of trash from the servers’ station out front.

 

Daddy’s office was on the short hall between the kitchen and the dining room. I saw the door was cracked open part way. A thin beam of light scythed out into the shadows. From within, I heard his voice, muttering like always. I crept up to the door and cocked my ear in its direction.

 

“Goddamn Esposito motherfuckers,” Daddy grumbled. I heard the swish of papers passing through his hands. “Hope the whole goddamn lot of them get wiped out. Fuckin’ exterminate them. After everything they’ve taken from me…” His voice trailed off.

 

I’d spent enough time eavesdropping on him to understand the gist of what he was saying. The Espositos were bleeding us dry. The restaurant would hardly have been profitable under the best of circumstances, but when we were paying wildly extortionary sums in “protection money” to the Esposito enforcers who came by each month, we were drowning in debt we couldn’t keep up with. Not to mention the damage they inflicted every time they came in to collect. They demanded free meals they hardly touched, sat around and drank our booze for hours without leaving a cent, and scared away all the other customers. I’d heard Daddy say more than once that the Espositos were parasites.

 

Daddy had grown old and deteriorated just like the restaurant itself. Where it had mold, he had gray hairs. Where it had rust, he had wrinkles. The liver spots on his hands and neck grew uglier by the day, and his stoop had never been worse. It looked like just standing and breathing was torture for him.

 

All that, of course, only made him meaner. He never stopped yelling anymore. It was always, “Natalia, hurry up,” or “Natalia, why haven’t you done that already?” I was working sixteen, seventeen hours a day just to keep the restaurant cobbled together. We were barely making it. Daddy had taken to retreating into his office at inconvenient hours to pour over the numbers and confirm exactly what we already knew.

 

We weren’t going to make it much longer.

 

I sighed and started moving again to finish the last of the chores. It was dark outside and the front of the restaurant was still and quiet. One fluorescent light flickered overhead. I walked over to the trash bag plunked on the ground, hefted it up in my arms, and pivoted to make one more trip to the dumpster.

 

It struck me every now and then that this wasn’t the life a thirteen-year-old girl was supposed to be living. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t play with friends. All I did was work. I guessed I should have been upset about that, but it had been the same way for so long that I didn’t even have the imagination to picture how my life could be different. As far as I knew, this was the extent of things. It would always be like this. Just chores and worrying and the grating sound of Daddy’s voice, barking at me to go faster if I wanted to keep a roof over my head.

 

My arms were trembling with fatigue as I kicked open the back door and waddled, wide-legged under the burden of the heavy trash bag, towards the dumpster. I dropped the bag with a groan. Bobbing onto my tiptoes, I flipped open the lid—and screamed.

 

A bloody hand had flopped out.

 

My eyes registered every detail before I could look away. The hand was caked in blood that had grown crusted and dark, at least a day or two old. Two fingers were missing. They had been severed messily at the last knuckle. The hand was attached to the body of a tall, muscular man with tattooed arms and eyes rooted wide in shock and pain. His jaw had fallen open, too, revealing the gummy stumps where several teeth had been pulled out. Worst of all was the hole blown open in his stomach. It was a gaping, bloody mess. He’d clearly been tortured and murdered.

 

I backed away, hands clasped over my mouth, stunned beyond belief. I tripped and fell to a seat on the stairs leading back inside. My whole body was shaking and coated in cold sweat. There was…a body…in our dumpster. What was it doing there? Where had it come from?

 

I heard a lumping sound from inside. A moment later, the door screeched open and my father stuck his head out. His brow was furrowed. “What the hell are you doing sitting around out here, Natalia?” he demanded. I didn’t look at him. I just raised a shaking finger to point at the hand that still dangled on the outer rim of the opening to the dumpster.

 

Daddy frowned as he followed my finger to see where I was pointing. When the realization hit, he froze. I heard his breath catch in his throat. “Come inside,” he said brusquely, grabbing my upper arm and dragging me indoors. He shut the door and locked it behind us.

 

Inside, the fluorescent buzz seemed so loud in my ears. I was in shock. I’d never seen something so violent and awful before. I’d heard stories, of course. It was hard to escape that kind of talk given where we lived. But I’d always thought it was just that—stories, nothing more. Now, there were bodies in my own front yard.

 

Later that night, long after Daddy had sent me upstairs, I lay restless in my bed in our little apartment above the restaurant. I couldn’t close my eyes. Every time I did, I saw that hand flopping out, bloody and horrendous. There was no getting away from it.

 

Eventually, I gave up on trying to sleep. It just wasn’t happening tonight. I was too scared of what nightmares might be waiting on the other side of consciousness. That hand, finding new life and chasing after me…I shuddered. My stomach rumbled, and I realized I hadn’t eaten all day long.

 

I slipped on a jacket and padded downstairs to scrounge a quick bite from the day’s leftovers. On my way to the kitchen, though, I noticed the light in Daddy’s office was on. He was talking to someone. I paused, unsure whether I wanted to listen in. But I knew I had to get closer when I heard him screech, “In my dumpster?”

 

Sidling down the wall, I paused just outside the door and held my breath.

 

“It was necessary, Antonio,” someone else in the office rumbled. There was no mistaking the slick confidence in that voice. It was a Esposito enforcer. No one else would dare talk so casually to my father.

 

“My daughter found it! You couldn’t even have the decency to cover it up with something? Roll it in a rug? Christ!”

 

“I suggest you lower your voice,” the man warned. I could hear Daddy’s throat catch. He wanted to protest, but he wouldn’t dream of doing it in front of the men who made our lives a living nightmare. “Now, if you’ll let me continue. We had to get rid of the thing. Those fucking Punisher assholes are getting aggressive, and we had no choice but to strike back.”

 

The wheel of a lighter clicked, followed by a sharp inhale and the scent of a cigarette drifting into the hallway. “But in my dumpster?” Daddy complained.

 

“We’re at war, Antonio,” the enforcer told him. “The Esposito family is not about to let those biker fucks dictate what goes on in this city. Everyone needs to do their part to fight back. That includes you. Are we clear?”

 

My father said nothing. I heard the scrape of a chair as the man stood up. Pouncing down the hallway, my mind was racing with what I’d just heard. I didn’t know who or what The Punishers were, but the word “war” was pretty clear. It meant bodies, more of them, just like the one I’d found earlier that day. And if we were part of it, did that mean Daddy and I were in danger, too? I felt sick. Daddy was mean to me most of the time, but I still didn’t want him to end up in a dumpster like that man.

 

I disappeared into the kitchen just as the door to Daddy’s office swung open. The click of footsteps retreated down the hall towards the front. A jingle of bells indicated that the man had left.

 

On my way back upstairs with a plate of food, I saw the light in Daddy’s office was still on. As I passed by, I snuck in a glance. His head was buried in his hands. He looked like the saddest man on earth.

 

# # #

 

I was on high alert for the next few weeks, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. No more bodies in the dumpster and no more late-night appearances from the Espositos. The only change was that Daddy didn’t let me go outside anymore. It was like the body had never existed. I wanted to ask him about it, but if Daddy knew I was snooping on his private conversations, he’d throw a fit. It was better just to keep silent and mind my own business.

 

It was late Friday night. The dinner rush had long since subsided, and I’d finally gotten permission to flip the sign on the front door to Closed. Normally, Daddy would have calmed down a notch, but he’d been on edge ever since the dumpster incident. I didn’t know it was possible for him to be any angrier, but he managed to find a way. Every tiny slip-up drew a reprimand from him. A dropped dish meant a full fifteen minutes spent with his furnace on full blast, screaming in my face, telling me what a waste I was and that I was killing him all by myself. I was more careful than ever.

 

I wiped down the tables, flipped the chairs on top, and started mopping the floor to soak up all the spilled food from the evening. I was lost in my own world, humming quietly, when I pirouetted and swung the mop around to move to the next section of floor.

 

On my spin, I let the mop head drift just a few inches too high. I saw what was coming, but I couldn’t react quick enough to stop it. The mop struck an upturned chair where it hung from one of the tables. The force of my spin sent it clattering into the one next to it. Together, their combined weight tipped over the table, which struck the next one over, and on and on again, until a dozen tables knocked into each other and went tumbling to the ground like dominos.

 

The sound of wood breaking erupted throughout the quiet restaurant. I stood frozen in fear, mop in hand and splintered furniture around me on all sides, when Daddy stormed in. One look at the scene and his face went taut with fury.

 

“Daddy, it was an accident—” The slap of his hand across my face cut me off mid-sentence. Blistering pain shot through my jaw. I dropped the mop and ran to the kitchen.

 

He’d never hit me before. In all these years, he’d thrown every curse word in the book at me; he’d ranted and raved and belittled me; but he’d never hit me. It felt like a huge, thick line had been crossed, like we’d gathered up a crucial bit of momentum that would send us tumbling down into an even worse life faster than we’d ever gone before. Rock bottom had never looked closer.

 

My skin was on fire where he had struck me and a deep ache was starting to settle into my jaw. The lights were blurry and dizzy through my teary eyes, but I didn’t stop moving until I had run all the way through the kitchen and onto the back stoop. Only then did I fall to a seat and let the tears flow freely.

 

He hit me. Daddy had hit me. That was all I could think about, all I could feel as I sobbed on the back steps.

 

After a while, though, the tears just stopped. There was nothing left in me to feel sad. I’d cried out the last bit of me that felt anything, or at least that was what it seemed like. All that was left was a numbness that looked like it stretched forever. Maybe even the rest of my life.

 

“Why are you crying?” came a sudden voice.

 

I jerked my head up from where it lay in my arms. A boy stood in front of me. He looked about my age, maybe a little older. His eyes were a bright blue beneath dark hair that swept over his forehead, long and shaggy. His head was tilted at a curious angle. Something about his gaze made me think he knew everything about me right away.

 

“No reason,” I said, sniffling and wiping a hand across my eyes. I didn’t want to be seen crying. All I wanted was to be alone. Couldn’t this boy see that?

 

“That’s dumb,” he said bluntly.

 

I ogled at him. Did he really just say that? “What do you want?” I asked him defiantly.

 

“I wanna know why you’re crying.” His head was still cocked to the side as he looked at me.

 

I considered him for a moment and decided to tell him the truth. “My daddy hit me,” I said.

 

The boy’s blue eyes flashed for a moment with an emotion I couldn’t quite read. “He shouldn’t do that.”

 

I shrugged. “He’s my daddy. He can do whatever he wants.”

 

“No,” the boy said as he shook his head, “he shouldn’t do that to you.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Nobody should hit a woman.”

 

I saw his fists curling. Part of me wanted to laugh. It was a ridiculous scene, after all. What was this teenage boy going to do to my grown man of a father? But another part of me saw how serious he was. “It’s not like I can do anything about it,” I said.

 

“You should stand up for yourself.”

 

“How?”

 

“It doesn’t matter. Just find a way. You can always stand up for yourself.”

 

I didn’t know what to say to that. To be honest, the thought had never occurred to me before. This was just how my life was destined to go. An angry dad, a failing restaurant, and chores that never ended. That’s what was in store for me. The idea of pushing back against those things was alien, too unheard of for me to even process.

 

I asked, “Do you fight back against your daddy?”

 

The boy’s fists relaxed. “I don’t have a dad.”

 

My jaw dropped. “What do you do, then? How do you get food and stuff?”

 

“I steal cars and sell them,” he boasted. “I can do whatever I want.”

 

If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t have believed them. Plenty of street kids lied about being bigger and badder than they were. It wasn’t the first time I’d talked to one of them while I was out back. But usually I could tell right away they were phony. With this one, something was different. I believed him without questioning it.

 

“What’s your name?” the boy asked.

 

“I’m Natalia.”

 

“Nice to meet you, Natalia. I’m Nicholas.” He crossed the distance between us and stuck out a hand. I looked at it curiously. “Shake my hand,” he demanded.

 

I reached out and placed my palm against his. His grasp was firm but gentle. I liked the warmth of his skin. He looked straight at me as he squeezed softly. His eyes were bright in the darkness.

 

Just then, my father’s voice interrupted. “What the hell do you think you’re doing out here, Natalia? And who the fuck is this?”

 

I dropped Nicholas’s hand immediately. “It’s, um, just someone who, uh…”

 

Daddy’s eyes narrowed. His gaze darted from me to Nicholas and back again, dark and accusing. “You street rat, get the hell away from my daughter,” he spluttered. Saliva flew from his lips. “And get the hell away from my restaurant! Go on, get!”

 

Nicholas backed up slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. He didn’t say a word, but I knew what he’s thinking. Stand up for yourself. He turned and walked away. I lost sight of him when he turned the corner at the end of the alleyway.

 

Daddy gripped my arm and yanked me to my feet. “You think you can sit around and cry out here? Get the hell back in there and clean up the mess you made!” He hurled me in through the door he held open. My shoulders drooped as I walked back towards the disaster of a dining room.

 

For a moment, when Nicholas touched my hand, his words made sense. Standing up for myself seemed feasible. But now, on the other side of the door, I surveyed the wreckage, and it felt impossible again. Wood splinters everywhere. The ruined tables crumbled chaotically around the room. This would take hours to clean. I’d be up all night trying to piece everything back together.

 

Nicholas was wrong. There was no escaping this life of mine.