Chapter 1 - THE BOTTLE AT THE DOOR
My father slapped me while I was still connected to an IV.
I was lying in a private ER room in Scottsdale, Arizona, my skin burning beneath the thin hospital blanket, when Roberto Hernandez leaned over the bed and put his finger inches from my face.
“You’re going to obey this time.”
My throat still felt scraped raw from the allergic reaction. Every breath reminded me how quickly my wedding reception had turned into paramedics, oxygen, and the frightened face of the man I had married less than four hours earlier.
My mother stood behind the bed in an ivory suit.
Patricia had not touched me since arriving.
My sister Fernanda stood beside her in the fuchsia dress she had worn to my wedding, arms crossed, looking irritated rather than frightened.
Dr. Sarah Jenkins had stepped out to speak with a nurse.
That was when my father struck me.
His palm hit my left cheek.
My head turned into the pillow.
The IV pole rattled.
“One car would’ve saved everyone this trouble.”
For a second, all I could hear was my own breathing.
I slowly turned back toward him.
Fernanda stepped closer.
“You should’ve just given me what I wanted.”
She meant the SUV.
A ninety-five-thousand-dollar luxury SUV she had demanded that Hernandez Hospitality Group purchase for her as an “executive vehicle,” even though Fernanda had not worked a full week at the company in more than a year.
I had refused.
Three days later, at my wedding, she wore a body mist she had known since we were teenagers could trigger a severe reaction in me.
By the time I reached the hospital, my skin was inflamed, my breathing was unstable, and half the family was already repeating Fernanda’s explanation:
She forgot.
I had almost believed it.
Then my father slapped me for refusing the car.
I did not cry.
Something inside me became very quiet.
Roberto raised his hand again, though he did not strike me.
I looked past him.
Someone was standing in the doorway.
Alejandro.
My husband still wore his black wedding tuxedo. His bow tie was gone and his white shirt was wrinkled from hours in the hospital.
In one hand he carried a transparent hospital property bag.
Inside it was a small glass bottle with a dark pink cap.
Fernanda’s body mist.
I knew it immediately.
So did she.
Her crossed arms dropped.
My mother’s expression changed.
My father slowly lowered his hand.
Alejandro did not come farther into the room.
He looked directly at Fernanda.
“You should’ve left that bottle at the wedding.”
Nobody spoke.
The distinctive bottle had been found beneath the vanity in the bridal suite after paramedics took me away.
Alejandro had not found it.
The venue manager had.
And she had put it aside because one of the bridesmaids told her the bride had a documented fragrance allergy.
Fernanda stared at the bag.
I watched the color leave her face.
That reaction told me more than the bottle itself.
May you like
She had not forgotten.
She had expected that bottle to disappear.
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