Author's Note: Letty's family is complicated but she shares her father's love of engines.
Chapter 2
Alejandro Ortiz had three loves in his life. His wife, his daughter, and engines. It was why he was so good with them, why he was one of the most trusted mechanics in his unit. Because he loved each and every vehicle he worked on as if it were one of his family. Sometimes he loved engines a little too much.
Sometimes his wife would complain that he must love engines more than her if he could spend so many hours out in the garage after a full week of work with overtime.
She didn't understand.
But Letty did. She had that same love. Sometimes Alejandro thought that might be why Marina drank so much. Because she felt left out in this little family. She felt lonely. But he loved her more than he could show too, otherwise he wouldn't stick around when she was at her worst.
When she was really hitting the bottle often he and Letty would spend more and more hours in the garage. He would show her how every part of a car worked, from the inside out. At ten she already knew more than most adults would ever know about a car and how to fix it. Maybe she'd been neglected in other ways, with a father who worked too much and was sent off to war and a mother who drowned all her unhappiness in alcohol.
But this time spent bent over the hood of a car together was special. He couldn't always be here, but his daughter knew that he loved her, and their shared love of cars just tightened that bond.
He smiled at her across the hood of the red Chavelle that they were fixing up and had perhaps been perpetually fixing up. His wife often complained about the cost of towing the vehicle every time they moved for his job, but between deployments and work he didn't have nearly as much time to work on it as he would have liked. And Letty refused to work on it at all without him, even though he knew she was more than capable of many of the repairs.
Perhaps it was just because it was their special thing, their time together. He understood why she wanted to preserve that. And he wasn't in any hurry to discourage her. It would be all too soon before she was too old to hang out with her boring old dad. Or before she was less interested in cars than she was in boys. That thought terrified him more than a little. Especially if she took after him when it came to love too. She'd only fall in love with someone who would hurt her.
He lifted his head as he heard the back door bang shut. Letty straightened as well, bracing herself for the fight they both expected.
Instead when Marina appeared at the opening of the garage she looked… normal. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed at them. "Dinner's ready," she said, then looked to her daughter. "Leticia go wash up good, you probably have grease under your fingernails again."
Letty looked like she wanted to protest, but she didn't. Just turned and hurried into the house.
Alejandro wiped his hands on a cloth and closed the hood of the car. "You're not mad we've been out here all afternoon?"
Marina sighed again. "No I… it's important you spend time together. I know I've been drinking too much. It makes me crazy. I think I need help," she said softly.
Alejandro hid his surprise and softened, going to wrap his arms around his wife. "Then we'll get it for you okay? First thing tomorrow. While I'm here so I can help you out, okay?"