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THIRTEEN
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
~ Sun Tzu
MELODY
4:59 AM
I stood waiting, watching each second pass on my watch. I thought about it: how I would do this, how I would start over dozens of times and could come up with nothing…nothing but my own past. I would start the same way my father had started with me.
57.
58.
59.
“Dona.” I shook her shoulder. She tried to roll away but I ripped the cover off of her. “Dona get up.”
“Mommy—”
“Now.”
She rubbed her eyes, slowly sitting up, clearly confused. Her dark hair was a complete mess around her and she made it worse by scratching the side of her head. I wanted to brush it down for her but instead, I stepped back.
“Take her,” I said to Fedel, who emotionlessly picked her up.
“Mommy!” Dona panicked as he grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder. Ignoring her, I held the door open for them, walking forward as I pulled my hair up into a ponytail.
“Fedel? You’re holding on too tight!” She squirmed but he didn’t say a word, just kept walking, and I knew his grip wouldn’t loosen. “Mommy, what’s wrong? Mommy?”
I could feel her starting to panic; it was probably because she was confused, but also because she was tired. Opening the door, Fedel walked quicker, shifting her into his arms before throwing her into the deep end of the pool.
“MOMMY!” She screamed and a quiver went down my spine, but I ignored it. She was still better off than I was. No one woke me up with Orlando. I was grabbed while sleeping and thrown into the deep end, no explanation, nothing.
“Swim, Donatella,” I said as she flapped her arms around uselessly. She knew how to swim; I’d made sure of it. At the moment, she was just scared. Wrapping her arms around herself, she stared at me, her wet hair sticking to her face. She didn’t move, just stared at me as I sat down on the pool chair.
“Why aren’t you swimming?” I asked her.
She frowned. “It’s cold.”
“You will live.”
She swam to the edge of the pool and got out. “I don’t want to swim.”
Fedel picked her up with ease and threw her right back in, more harshly this time. The sound of her face hitting the water made my throat dry. It took a second but she swam back up, brushing her hair off her face, gasping out for air.
“I don’t care if you want to swim. Top to bottom.”
“Mommy!”
“Now!”
She took a deep breath, moving to the edge of the pool before taking off. I wanted to smile at how naturally good she was, but my face felt frozen. She swam smoothly from one side to the other.
“Happy?” she snapped angrily at me, trying to get out again, but she paused the moment she saw Fedel hovering over her.
“Do it again.”
