Free Monstress by Lysley Tenorio Page B

button again and again.
    â€œYou think I’m stupid.” He grabbed my arm, squeezed it tight. “I know about you, Felix.”
    He was stronger than I thought. “Let me go,” I said, then finally pushed him off. He stumbled back, almost fell, and the bag of livers slipped from his hands, everything inside spilling onto the sidewalk.
    The traffic light was still red, but I crossed the street. Papa Felix would be close behind me, so I walked faster, zigzagging through the tourist crowds. Police blocked the next intersection—a moving truck had rear-ended a minivan—and I couldn’t continue. So I turned around, ready to face him, to say whatever needed to be said. But he wasn’t there. I started back through the crowds and finally found him still on the corner, head bowed like a mourner at a grave. He was bent down, picking up the livers from the sidewalk, one by one; a true believer might have thought he was extracting Negativities from the Earth itself. To me, he looked like a penniless man gathering coins.
    â€œJust leave them,” I said. “Let’s go.” Standing over him, I could see the silver in his roots, all that I’d missed.
    What else could I do? I joined Papa Felix on the ground and helped him clean up. People who passed us looked curious, then repulsed by the livers in our hands. Some shook their heads, like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
    T hat whole day his focus was off. Twice he palmed a liver but not a blood bag, which made for oddly bloodless Extractions. Then he did the opposite with the last patient, extracting nothing but blood. He tried to explain: “Nothing is there. Nothing is wrong with you.” The patient got up and refused to pay, then peeled a plastic crucifix from the wall and dropped it on the ground. He slammed the door on his way out, so hard the walls shook. And I realized I was done.
    I began cleaning up, one last time, and made no ceremony of it: I simply put things away. All the while Papa Felix just stood by the window, staring straight ahead at the vacant building across the street. Only when I took the day’s cash from the ice bucket did he finally speak. “Don’t deposit the money,” he said. “You keep it. Belated birthday gift.”
    Birthday. I had turned nineteen three weeks before, on the plane to America. But I didn’t know exactly when it happened—that whole time in the sky I wasn’t sure if it was today or tomorrow, which country was ahead or behind and by how many hours or days—not until Papa Felix leaned over, in the moment before he fell asleep, to whisper, “Happy Birthday.”
    I put the cash in my pocket. “I’ll take it to the bank.”
    â€œI know what you think of me, Felix. But it’s the best I could do.” He was still staring out the window, but squinting now, as if the evening moon were unbearably bright. “Can you tell me the name of a man who would do any different?”
    I didn’t answer. I grabbed my windbreaker and backpack. I checked the peephole before leaving, but as I stepped into the hall I noticed a small, white envelope on the floor. I picked it up. Inside was a picture of Papa Felix, and on the back was a note that read Felix Starro and Felix Starro. Regards, Mrs. Celica Delgado . It was the photo she’d taken two days before, and when I looked closer I saw part of me within it, the very edge of my face. But what struck me was Papa Felix’s graying eyes and the sinking skin beneath, his knobby shoulders, the fading color of his old hands.
    T hat night, Papa Felix slept even more deeply, and I took the cash from the inner lining in my luggage and packed it into a large, padded envelope, then put it inside my backpack. I slipped into bed but stayed awake. It was morning by the time I finally closed my eyes, noon when I woke.
    Papa Felix was dressed, packing his clothes. “Last full day in