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She smiled one of her giant smiles and then whispered, “They already know what we are up to,bobo.” Dumb-dumb.
I laughed at her, then moved over to the other side of the bed to set up the game. She looked healthy that night, like the medication was finally working and she was able to fight the infection. She had been through so much, and she was missing out on the last few weeks of her last year in school because of her constant infections.
“Alright, you get the car,” I said, and she rolled her eyes at me, almost like she was saying,like, duh, to me. As if I had forgotten. “I get the dog.”
“Oh, save the top hat for Lucía. She’s always the top hat when she plays with her family,” she said casually. I turned to look at her, a question on my face. “I told her we were playing tonight, and she said she would stop by if she could for a few rounds.”
“Alright.” I looked at her and handed her the dice, her small hand reaching out towards me. I looked at the door, then back to the board game, a small flutter in my belly at the possibility of seeing that kind doctor.
“Ohmigod,” she gasped. “You like her!” She was squealing in her bed, moving her legs up and down and clapping her hands like an excited toddler.
I smiled and shook my head, reaching for the dice that were still cupped in her hands. “Estás delirando,” I said, a grin on my face. It was the happiest I’d seen her in a long time. The disease was definitely taking a toll on her. She was diagnosed in her early teens, but it had come back in the last year, and it was doing so with a vengeance. Everything and anything would give her an infection, and she would be inthe hospital for weeks at a time. It was so hard to watch her bored to death in that little room. The only thing keeping her sane was that doctor, probably, and her books. “We’re just friends.”
“Just friends,las bolas,Fran,” she said. “Even the nurses say so.”
I snapped my head towards her, my eyes widening. She cackled like a mad woman, screaming with such delight that I couldn’t help but laugh too.
“You’re a lost cause,” I added, setting up the game in between us and sitting at the foot of the bed. She tucked her small legs under her, dragging the table towards her with a big smile on her face.
“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes, but her smile lingered, even as we got into the game. She started telling me about her day, catching me up on some nurse gossip, then talking about how the pretty doctor—wink—was not taking good care of herself and would normally not have lunch during her shifts.
“What happened here?” I asked, looking at the back of one of her hands. The bruises extended all the way up her forearm and towards her elbow. “What the fuck?” I stood abruptly and walked to the door to look for the doctor.
“Fran,” she said from her bed, sitting up straighter and rolling her shoulders back.“It’s nothing!” she uttered quickly. “They drew blood the other day, and it just bruised. Calm down.”
“Does it happen often?”
“Duh.” She rolled her eyes again. “I have leukemia, dumb-dumb.”
“So what?”
“Oh my god.” She sighed. “Let’s just play, okay?”
“I’m going to ask the doc?—”
“Double sixes!” she interrupted. “Yesssssss.”
I made a mental note to talk to the doctor about her bruises. Jazmín moved her car all the way to the electric company and purchased the property, taunting me a little because she already had a leg up from her double roll. We played like that for a while, going back and forth between purchasing properties and paying rent to the other one. A few rounds in, Lucía peeked her head into the room, a playful smirk on her face.
“Hey, you,” she said to Jazmín, walking directly to the foot of the bed. She had a notepad out and was looking at the monitor right behind her, taking quick notes of my sister’s vital signs. “How are you doing?”
Jazmín’s face lit up at the sight of the pretty doctor. We had lucked out with her because in the last few months and since my sister had been in and out of the pediatric unit, she had become close to Lucía. She had kept her company when Jazmín’s mother wasn’t able to be there and I was either running late or wouldn’t be there either.
“Ugh, you guys are exhausting,” she said with a big smile on her face. “Sit. You get the top hat.”
Jazmín handed her the Monopoly piece, then the dice, and then we played until my sister fell asleep with the dicein her hand. It felt so normal, even with our surroundings and the constant beeping of the machines around us. Like whatnormalfamilies would do on free nights to spend time together.
“Do you mind if I join you?” a soft voice said from behind me. I turned my head at the same time as Lucía moved in my direction. I had been absentmindedly stroking the Monopoly box while lost in my thoughts. She took a few steps towards me, standing right in front of me on the other side of the table.
“Ohhhh, Monopoly,” one of the brothers said from the other side of the pool while rubbing his palms together. “Dibs on the thimble,” he yelled, jogging towards us and taking a seat beside me on the long bench.
“Jacinto,” someone groaned from the back porch. “Calm down.”
He was bouncing on the seat next to me, eagerly opening the box and setting the board down. “Luli is always the car,” he said and grabbed the small piece to hand it to her. I snapped my head in her direction, trying to find answers on her face. She was sitting across from me, her hair cascading down her back and a colorful headband decorating the crown of her head. She was wearing a white dress, much like the majority of the women there. But hers made her eyes stand out. Even in the dim light of the dark night, she was shining. “Sucks to be you if you were going to pick that piece.”
“I’m good with the dog,” I added and shrugged inresponse. Lucía smiled at me, and if I weren’t looking so intently at her, I would have missed the tiny squint that came my way. A second there and then gone.
“Jacinto,” someone else warned as they walked in our direction. “Please don’t scare the innocent.” There was laughter around the table, and Lucía laughed in her brother’s direction, rolling her eyes discreetly and then looking back at me with a watchful expression.
