Saturday, November 26th
1960

Benita wondered if her son had taken leave of his ever-loving mind.

"You're going to do what?" she whispered, staring at him in high-pitched shock and rising fury.

"Someone has to help him, mamá." Rafael rather thought that one-sentence answers would be best at this point, given the escalating expression on his mother's face. He was jittery but determined.

"Let me see if I've got this straight," Benita hissed, after a solid twenty seconds of rough silence, red-faced and plainly trying not to scream. "You ... think ... that you're going to take the money put aside for your college years ... a total of thousands, since you've sworn up and down since the age of eight that you want to be a lawyer ... after we came here to give you that opportunity ... and give it to your sodomite freak of a cousin ... so you can go galivanting off with your girl Friday, because you don't think that she's going to stick around after graduation."

"First of all, Ivaleigh isn't my assistant, Mom, she's my girlfriend, we're equals. And second, that's not why we came here. It's because of the greenhouses, and to stop tía Pilar from having another panic attack about la policía, and you know it. And it's not all of the money, just a few thousand so Julio can stay on his feet. Five, at most. I'll still be a criminal lawyer. Things are just gonna get pushed back for a year, cos Ivaleigh's gonna need my support. She might agree to stay in California, but it won't be around LA, she doesn't like it much, cos of what she's had to do to get by." Rafael said this all very fast, with clarity.

"OR – "

"There is no 'or', Mom, c'mon! Be human! Weren't you the one saying not even five days ago for Dad and Elena to go judge among themselves?! I'm trying to do the right thing! And don't call Julio names! I don't like or understand it much better than you do! But he obviously can't help himself! Any more than I can change how I feel about Ivaleigh! This is who we are!"

"Rafael – "

"This is who we are!" Rafael yelled. "C'mon, Mom, it's only five grand, there'll still be more than enough left over. I haven't changed my mind about being a lawyer, but, damnit, I want to help my cousin!"

"Why?!" Benita demanded loudly, pleadingly. "Are you a ... a ... are you?"

Rafael's expression hardened. "Considering what I was doing with Ivaleigh the night Elena had her arrested, I'd have to say no."

"You say you're not, so let him go. Let him handle his own problems, he brought this on himself. Same as Elena. I spoke with Pilar yesterday, she and Juan are considering putting her out right after graduation. They'll be cutting her off financially."

"Oh, yes, of course, cos that'll solve everything." Rafael bit out, after a moment of processing silence. Frowning, he continued with, "Hypocrite. You backed me up for seeing Ivaleigh when Dad was raising hell, but you're pissing all over Julio and Elena for things they have no control over. And I wonder what the hell la tía Pilar y el tío Juan, Elena's never gonna crack. You heard her, she hates how she feels."

Benita flinched at the truth but held her ground. "It's not the same thing, Rafael. You and Ivaleigh aren't doing something Godless, or having impure thoughts."

"Premarital sex in the bed of my truck and I have impure thoughts about my girl all over the place." Rafael countered, almost smug, thoughts of his times with Ivaleigh flashing through his mind.

"THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT! WIPE THAT SMIRK OFF YOUR FACE, THIS IS SERIOUS!" Benita shouted, and Rafael took a step back, his expression asking if she was out of her mind. Taking a moment to (try to) calm down, she said in a quieter tone that rang with finality, "I don't want you giving him any money. Period. I won't allow it, and neither will your father. Julio will just have to figure it for himself. End of discussion, Rafael."

Late Sunday morning, Rafael sneaked out while his mother was having a shower, and drove his truck to the northeast, towards the Placerita Canyon State Park, turning off the CA-14 onto the off-road trail, following it some seven miles in to a secluded area hidden by trees and bushes; this was where four camping trailers sat, some forty feet in length each, the wheels and license plates missing and all of them painted in varying shades of green and brown to allow for better camouflage. The insides had all been gutted and replaced with boxes, several hundred, all stacked up to ceiling-high and labeled with the monetary amounts held; some bore names, as well, for different reasons.

God knew his mother was going to disown him for this, if she found out, but Julio needed the money.

Five thousand's a bucket drop, they've been at this mess years before any of us were born.

Quite a profitable line of work, too, being that the adults were always careful of everything they did, to make sure there were no mistakes. Juan's construction company made for a nice front, employing mostly immigrant workers. Send the powder out, bring the money in. Don't snitch, don't use (Sara and Diego had threatened to send Enrique to the streets the one time he'd tried, and he'd been thirteen), and don't flaunt anything. Simple as that. Their family wasn't real high end in the trafficking area, but they did very well, serving businesses in regions like Puerto Rico, Columbia, and Peru, as well as some areas in the States.

Ironic I'm going to be a lawyer.

How long before they get caught? What happens if they get caught?

What happens if Mom and Dad split up?

Julio was already there at the trailers, having rode his dirt bike in, standing in the open doorway of one of the campers, a box in his hands that was labeled, $8000, Hundreds, Julio, Apartamento/Casa. Stepping down to the ground, he closed the door behind him, locking it, stowing the key into his coat pocket.

"Tiene sentido, ¿no?"

"Sure. All the sense in the world. Mom and Dad might be splitting up."

The reality surrounding them felt thick, surreal.

"Oh. That's not cool." Julio shook his head. "You think Elena'll keep her mouth shut? I'm not dropping out this close to getting a diploma."

"I think she'll stay quiet. It'd get too messy at school otherwise, for all of us. It'll be a hell of a façade to keep up. Pilar and Juan told Mom they're thinking of kicking Elena out after graduation. Cutting her off of the money. I wouldn't be surprised if she ends up doing what you've just done." He shrugged, smiling a little.

Julio nodded slowly, before shaking his head again, picking up his backpack and sliding the box in, zipping it up. "¿Por qué estás aquí?"

"Venía a traerte algo de dinero. I won't say anything. Thief's honor."

"Where were you?!" Benita nearly screamed when Rafael arrived back at the hotel room a few hours later.

Sporting a new pair of sunglasses, holding up two bags of t-shirts, he answered innocently, "Olvera Street. And relax, I changed my mind about the money."

"You did?" She looked both surprised and suspicious.

Rafael lied with a straight face, shrugging. "Well, after I called Julio on a payphone and told him. He told me not to be so stupid, that he'd get a job. He's moving in with a friend of Tadeo's, Yadira, she's gonna help him find work, probably at the car shop."

Benita nodded, eyes narrowed, her expression grim but satisfied. "Good that you're thinking clearly. Leave a note next time. But Yadira, does she know?"

Rafael nodded, biting his tongue, shrugging again. "Apparently, but she doesn't care. Julio said his biggest concern is Elena running her mouth at school. I told him she probably wouldn't, not if she doesn't want it biting her in the ass."

Enrique, Daniela, and Sofia had been forbidden from saying anything, as well.

Elena, meanwhile, was dealing with the consistency of her mother's bitter anger, as well as her father's cold silence, and had taken to either hiding in her room or being out of the house since Tuesday afternoon. Daniela looked both stubborn and apologetic for reading Elena's diary, while Sofia was keeping her thoughts to herself.

Pilar and Juan were hardly looking their daughter in the eyes anymore, and Elena wanted to weep. Wanted to slap Daniela senseless for her betrayal. Wanted to disappear. Wanted to grab Julio by the arms and scream, How could you do this to me?! Wanted to know how it was that he could be so casual about his preferences, to act like it wasn't a big deal that he'd been disowned and disinherited. Wanted to ask, Don't you UNDERSTAND?

And now, Pilar was talking about kicking her out on graduation day, about cutting her off, and therefore wrecking her dream of being a doctor. She'd told them over and over that it was a man she would end up with, no matter what, that she would marry and bear children, no questions asked; that hadn't stopped the sideways looks, the anger and the silence. It hadn't stopped the conversations that Elena could plainly hear, and the lectures to Sofia and Daniela about the dangers of homosexuality.

Sitting on her bed now, her arms wrapped around her tented knees, her aching head resting on them, her stomach in so many knots that she didn't have an appetite anyway, Elena listened in silence as Pilar prepared dinner for Daniela and Sofia, with Juan talking about his day, about some worker who'd done this, and a different worker who'd done that.

If I ran away, would they care?

Aprila, Rome was nine hours ahead of the Los Angeles time; it was going on one o'clock there, on Monday afternoon (November 28th), and Genevieve stood in the kitchen of the small, Tuscan-style house that she shared with Logan, reading Michael's letter, at once amused, excited, and impressed.

"Logan!" she called when she was finished, in her soft French accent, "Babe, we should start packing, we need to go to Los Angeles!"