Chapter 3: The Choice
The engine ticked like a slowing heart as Dominic killed the ignition. Silence rushed in, vast and heavy, broken only by the sigh of hot wind over sand. He pulled a crumpled pack of Camels from his glove box, tapped one out. It was the first time she’d seen him smoke since before Mina.
The click of the Zippo was unnaturally loud. His hands weren’t steady. He drew in, the ember flaring in the gathering dusk, and exhaled a stream of smoke that the wind snatched away. He stared straight ahead, at the bleeding sun smeared across the horizon.
“This ends,” he said, his voice rough from the drive, from everything. “One way or another.”
Catalina didn’t look at him. Her eyes were fixed on the distant purple mountains. “It doesn’t end. It’s in her DNA. It’s in every breath I take.”
“I know.” He took another drag. “So we bury it. Deep. We lock it down and throw away the goddamn key. We be what she needs. A mom. A dad. Nothing else.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “And Brian? He’s sniffing around, Dom. He’s not stupid.”
“Let him sniff. We give him nothing. We act normal.” He finally turned his head, his gaze a physical weight on her profile. “Can you do that?”
She closed her eyes, seeing the knife on the counter, the cold promise of it. “I don’t know if I’m that strong.”
“You are.” He threw the cigarette out the window. It died in the dust with a faint hiss. He reached over, his calloused fingers catching her chin, turning her face to his. The contact was electric, a violation of his own new rule. “We have to be.” His thumb brushed her jaw. “Or we burn. All three of us.”
His meaning hung in the air, more terrifying than any confession. He wasn’t just talking about feelings. He was talking about discovery, ruin, losing Mina. The price of their truth was a cost they could never pay.
She leaned into his touch for a second, a stolen fragment of time, then pulled away. The emptiness it left was a fresh wound. “Then we bury it,” she whispered, the words tasting like ash.
He nodded, once, his expression hardening back into its familiar, stoic lines. The moment was sealed. A pact made in the desert dust. He started the truck, the engine roaring back to life, a decisive sound. He didn’t look at her again as he pulled a U-turn, pointing them back toward the city, toward the life they had to pretend was enough.
The highway became a blur of neon and sodium vapor lights, a tunnel of civilization pushing back against the desert they’d left. Streetlights flickered across Dominic's face, turning his stony expression into a sequence of stark, fleeting masks. The silence between them was no longer heavy; it was thin and brittle, something that could shatter from a single wrong word.
“She’ll be waiting for you,” he said finally, his voice low, the statement mundane but loaded. “Probably sitting on the couch with that stuffed bear.”
“Mr. Wrinkles.” A faint, real smile touched Catalina’s lips for a second. “She’ll have Questions. Toddler Questions about where we went.”
“Tell her we checked on a job.” He shrugged, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “It’s not even a lie. We did.”
He downshifted, the Mustang rumbling as they exited toward their neighborhood, the familiar streets feeling foreign now. The world outside the car was the same as it had been two hours ago—the same taco stand on the corner, the same palm trees silhouetted against the night sky—but they weren’t. They were two people carrying a live grenade with the pin halfway out, walking carefully through a room full of people they loved.
“Brian texted me,” she said, staring at her hands. “Before we left. He asked if we wanted to catch a movie tomorrow, him and Mia, us. A normal thing.”
Dominic’s jaw clenched. The truck idled roughly at a stop sign. “So we go. We laugh at the stupid parts. You pass me the popcorn. Normal.”
He turned onto their block. The warm glow from the living room window of their house was visible halfway down. His childhood home. Their home now. A sanctuary that suddenly felt like a set for a play they were painfully under-rehearsed in.
“I’m scared, Dom,” she whispered, the admission pulled from her like a confession in the dark of the cab.
He didn’t answer, but his hand left the gearshift. For three long blocks, his fingers rested on her knee, a grounded, solid weight. It was the only promise he could make. Then he pulled into the driveway, cut the engine, and the weight was gone. The house waited, a silent witness.
The house waited, a silent witness. They approached its front door like thieves, the keys jangling too loudly in Dominic’s hand. He pushed the door open, releasing a wave of warm, lived-in air scented with garlic, oregano, and the waxy sweetness of crayons.
Mina’s high-pitched shriek of “Daddy!” cut through the tension before they’d even stepped fully inside. A small, pajama-clad missile launched from the couch, dodging past Brian who was sitting there with a beer.
Brian raised the bottle in a casual salute, his eyes quietly cataloging their entry. “Took you guys long enough. Had to watch ‘Moana’ twice.”
Dominic scooped Mina up, burying his face in her curls for a second, an anchor. “Car trouble,” he lied, the words smooth and easy. “Needed a specialist touch.”
Catalina breezed past him, dropping her keys on the side table with a practiced clatter. “His idea of specialist is a bigger hammer.” She leaned down, brushing Brian’s shoulder with her hand. “You’re a saint. What’d we owe you?”
“You’re buying the popcorn tomorrow,” Brian said, smiling, but his glance flicked to Dom holding Mina. “She was no trouble. We built a fort.”
Mina wriggled in Dominic’s arms, reaching for Catalina. “Mommy sad?” she asked, her tiny fingers patting Catalina’s cheek.
Catalina’s breath hitched, just for a microsecond. “No, baby. Just tired.” She took Mina, the child’s solid weight a relief and a rebuke.
The lie sat between them all, another unseen guest in the room. Dominic moved to the fridge, pulling out a beer for himself, needing something to do with his hands. “You staying for a beer, B?”
“Nah, I should head out.” Brian stood, stretching. “Mia’s waiting. Seven tomorrow for the movie?”
“Seven,” Catalina confirmed, her voice perfectly normal, almost cheerful.
The door clicked shut behind Brian, leaving a new silence in its wake. Catalina stood rocking Mina, who was now heavy-lidded against her shoulder. Dominic stared at the closed door, the cold bottle sweating in his hand.
Dominic stared at the closed door, the cold bottle sweating in his hand. The echo of Brian’s departure left the house’s normal sounds exposed—the hum of the refrigerator, the clank of the radiator. He finally took a long pull from the bottle, the taste faintly metallic.
Catalina shifted Mina’s weight. The child’s eyes were closing, long lashes fluttering against her cheek. The sight unspooled something tight in Catalina’s chest.
“You doing okay?” Dominic asked, his voice low so as not to disturb her.
“I’m holding our daughter,” she said, the simple truth a complicated shield. She adjusted her grip, Mina’s soft hair tickling her nose.
She began to walk toward the hall, the floorboards creaking under a familiar, tired rhythm. Turning into the nursery’s soft glow, she lowered Mina into the crib as the little fists loosened their sleepy hold on her shirt.
Mina stirred, a soft whimper escaping her as her bear was tucked beside her. Catalina smoothed the blanket, her hand lingering. She looked down at the perfect, trusting face and felt the desert’s pact settle like stone in her gut.
“Hey, mija,” she whispered, her voice a hushed melody. She brushed a curl from Mina’s forehead. “So... monkey time for bed.”
Mina’s eyes opened halfway, a drowsy smile playing on her lips. “Monkey cuddles,” she murmured, voice thick with sleep.
“So many monkey cuddles.” Catalina reached for Mr. Wrinkles, tucking the worn bear under her arm. She squeezed it, making a soft, chittering sound.
The sound earned a final, sighing giggle. Mina’s eyelids slid shut for good this time, her breathing deepening into a steady, gentle rhythm. Catalina stayed there, listening, one hand on the crib rail.
From the doorway, Dominic watched them, a silhouette cut from the hall light. He didn’t move.
He didn’t move. Catalina stepped past him into the cool, dark hall, her shoulder brushing his chest. The contact was a spark on dry tinder.
He moved with a suddenness that stole her breath. His hand shot out, grasping her bicep, and he spun her gently but firmly against the hallway wall. The impact was soft, but final.
His body pressed against hers, all hard muscle and trembling restraint. Then his mouth was on hers, a collision of two decades of silence. It was not gentle.
It was a claim. It was a war. She gasped into it, her hands flying up to push against his shoulders, but her fingers curled into his shirt, pulling him closer.
He walked them backward, never breaking the kiss, a clumsy, desperate slide along the wall toward his bedroom door. He kicked it open, the frame rattling. They spilled into the dark room.
“I want to fuck you,” he whispered against her lips, the words raw and guttural, a truth stripped of all its poetry.
A jolt shot through her, a white-hot wire of pure, undeniable need. She arched against him, a low moan escaping her throat. “I’m coming,” she gasped, the confession ripped from her.
“Me too.” His voice was a ragged promise. His hands were everywhere, on her hips, sliding under her shirt.
Panic surged through the pleasure, sharp and clear. She broke the kiss, turning her head to the side. “Don’t come in my pussy,” she breathed, every word a struggle. “I’m fertile.”
He stilled for a fraction of a second, his breath hot on her neck. Then his hips drove against hers, a single, definitive thrust. “Too late,” he growled.
He said it into the hollow of her throat, the words muffled by skin and surrender. A violent tremor shook her, part ecstasy, part despair. The world narrowed to the dark room, the smell of him, the chalky taste of drywall on her tongue.
Silence crashed back in, deafening and absolute. He slumped against her, his forehead resting on the wall beside her head. Their ragged breathing was the only sound in the universe.
He pushed himself back, his face a mask of anguished shock in the shadows. He looked at her, really looked, seeing the consequence in her wide, glassy eyes. Without a word, he turned and walked stiffly into the connected bathroom, closing the door.
The lock clicked. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet. Catalina slid down the wall until she sat on the cold floor, her knees drawn up, listening to the shower begin to run.
Catalina slid down the wall until she sat on the cold floor, her knees drawn up, listening to the shower begin to run. The water’s hiss was a furious white noise that couldn't drown out his final words. Too late. They echoed inside her skull, a clinical verdict.
Her legs wouldn’t cooperate at first, trembling as she shoved herself upright. She stumbled into the hallway, the cool air a slap after the heat of his room. The sight of Mina’s door, slightly ajar, hooked something vital in her chest and pulled her forward.
Her own bedroom door was a sanctuary she slammed shut, the lock engaging with a solid, satisfying thunk. She leaned her full weight against it, sliding down to the floor again as the first sob tore loose from her throat. The crying was silent and violent, a convulsive rattle shaking her shoulders.
She felt hollowed out and simultaneously too full, violated not just by him, but by her own body’s traitorous response. She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, seeing it again on a brutal loop: his demand, his climax, the immediate, cold retreat into the shower’s steam. It wasn't love; it was a transaction of guilt, and she had been both willing participant and crime scene.The shower stopped. Silence from his room. She imagined him toweling off, the ritual cleansing, erasing the evidence. Every muted sound from beyond her locked door felt like a fresh violation. She pressed her forehead to the cool wood, her breathing a ragged, wet sound in the dark.
She pressed her forehead to the cool wood, her breathing a ragged, wet sound in the dark. She waited for the scream of his engine, a final punctuation, but only silence seeped under the door. He wasn't leaving; he was just walling himself off in his own wing of their shared prison.
The stillness broke her. Catalina pushed off the floor, her body moving on a cold, operational logic. She yanked a duffel bag from the closet, its nylon smell sharp in her nose. She packed fast, no thought, just motion: jeans, a few shirts, her worn boots.
On her nightstand, the small leather-bound diary felt like a block of lead. She stared at it for three heartbeats, then stuffed it into the bag, zipping it closed with a decisive rip. The only light now came from the crack under Mina's door.
Opening it felt like pulling a stitch from a fresh wound. The nightlight haloed her daughter’s sleeping face, the bear, the room steeped in innocence. “Baby,” she whispered, the word barely air. A sudden cramp, low in her belly, twisted through her.
Tears blurred everything as she reached for the notepad on the changing table. The pen shook. “My Mina...” she started, but the line swam. How do you explain an erasure to a child who only knows presence? “Be good for your Daddy. Mommy loves you. She just… can’t breathe here. I’m so sorry.” She folded the single, insufficient page and tucked it under Mr. Wrinkles’s soft arm. Her lips brushed Mina’s temple for the last time, a ghost of a touch.
She paused in her doorway, placing the diary on the floor like a confession. It was a final, damning artifact for anyone who cared to look. Inside, one underlined entry from a week ago screamed up from the page: “I feel gutted by him.Used. The thing I want most is the thing that makes me feel most hollow. Like my own skin is a crime scene.”
Then she was in the garage, the damp concrete smell enveloping her. The driver's side of the Supra was a familiar cockpit. The engine snarled to life, a note of pure rebellion in the sleeping neighborhood. She didn’t look at the house as she reversed, didn’t check the rearview until the street had curved away, leaving only darkness and the open road ahead, hungry and infinite.
Dom’s Charger blocked the driveway’s mouth, its headlights off, its silhouette a hulking shadow against the streetlamp’s sodium glow. She hit the brakes, the Supra’s tires chirping on the warm asphalt. He was just leaning against the driver’s side door, his arms crossed, a fresh cigarette glowing.
Her heart hammered against her ribs. The glare of her headlights cut through the darkness between them, illuminating the fine dust kicked up by her sudden stop. “Move the car, Dominic.”
“Or what?” His voice was flat, devoid of its usual gravel. It was worse than anger.
He took a slow drag, the ember brightening his expressionless face. “You just leave her a note?” He pushed off the door and walked toward her windshield. “Under a stuffed bear?”
She gripped the steering wheel until the vinyl creaked. The road behind him was a ribbon of empty freedom.
He stopped a foot from her bumper. “Get out of the car, Cat.”
“I can’t stay here.” The words sounded thin, even to her.
“You think I don’t know that?” A flick of his wrist sent the cigarette arcing into the gutter. “You think I was just gonna let you vanish into the fucking night?”
He walked to her door, the sound of his boots methodical and heavy. She didn’t unlock it. He crouched, his face level with hers through the glass, his gaze a physical pressure.
“We bury it, remember?” he said, his voice a low rasp she felt in her bones. “We don’t run from it. We don’t leave her.”
A hot tear tracked through the dust on her cheek. She looked away, at the empty passenger seat where the duffel bag sat.
“Open the door.” It wasn’t a request.
Her thumb found the lock release. The click was a surrender. The door swung open, and the night air rushed in, smelling of gasoline and his cigarette. He didn’t touch her.
“Go back inside. Throw the bag in your closet. Be there when she wakes up.” He stood, his shadow swallowing her. “We live with it. That’s the sentence.”
That’s the sentence.
She sat in the car until her hands stopped shaking, then she shoved the door open, her boots scraping on the asphalt. She walked past him into the garage, the duffel bag heavy as a body in her hand.
The night inside the house was a held breath. She dumped the bag in the closet, the zipper sounding grotesquely loud. From the hall, she could hear the low, steady rhythm of his breathing from behind his closed door.
In her own room, the diary lay where she’d left it, a dark rectangle on the floor by her bed. She couldn’t bring herself to touch it. Sleep was a flat, dead lake she wouldn’t step into.
The blue hour before dawn found Dominic in the hallway, barefoot. His door was open; hers was shut. The diary was just sitting there, a deliberate landmine.
He picked it up, the leather warm from the house. The spine cracked as he opened it to the last written page.
Her handwriting was a frantic spike, ink dug into the paper. He used the shower to wash me off. I heard the water and pictured it, hot and hard, sluicing my smell from his skin. I sat on the floor and felt the ghost of him inside me, and I wanted to crawl out of my own bones.
Too late. He said it into my neck. It wasn't an accident; it was a surrender. A final fuck you to God, or fate, or whatever’s laughing at us. I am so afraid of my own body now.
I packed a bag. Mina’s door was open a crack, the nightlight on. I stood there and a cramp hit me, low and deep, and for one sick second I hoped… but it was just pain. Just us.
Leaving the note was the cruelest thing I’ve ever done. He stopped me at the end of the driveway. His eyes in the headlights were empty. We live with it, he said. That’s the sentence. He’s right. There’s no road out of this, only the walls getting closer.
Dominic closed the book, his thumb resting on the embossed cover. He looked at the closed door of her room, then down the hall toward Mina’s. The silence of the house was a weight, solid and absolute. He placed the diary back on the floor, exactly as he found it.
He stared at the grain of the wooden floor, the diary a dark stain in his periphery. The words—crawl out of my own bones, a final fuck you to God—were now crawling inside his skull. He’d felt the same ghost.
The shower. He’d stood under the scalding water wanting to peel his skin off. Her smell had been on him, in him. He’d scrubbed until his chest was raw.
He looked at her closed door, then down the hall to Mina’s. The walls were closer. He could feel them in the quiet, pressing in from all sides.
His own line echoed back, hollow. That’s the sentence. He’d meant it as a life raft, something to keep them from drowning in the chaos. She’d heard it as a life term.
A floorboard creaked under his weight as he shifted. He pictured her on the other side of that door, awake in the dark, feeling that same trapped dread. The thought was a physical ache, a fist around his sternum.
He took a step toward Mina’s room, then stopped. Going to her now felt like a performance. A part of the act.
He ran a hand over his shaved head, the bristles a familiar roughness. The dawn light was starting to bleed around the edges of the blinds, turning the hallway from deep blue to a dull gray. It revealed nothing new.