Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens Read online

  But it hurt, it hurt, it hurt.

  Back home, Master Denijs had been good to him, when he showed up on the carpenter’s doorstep as an eleven-year-old urchin. He took Delfin in and fed him and taught him. But whenever Delfin went back to his father’s house, to tell him of his studies and accomplishments, the door remained closed.

  He knew what it was like to dream, and he knew what it was like for others to scorn those dreams and deny them.

  He knew the cost of dreams. He knew the loneliness and the determination. He also knew the strength that came from fulfilling dreams—the pride that came from being a small part of a much larger construct.

  But he’d learned what she hadn’t discovered yet. That escaping was easier if you could trust the kindness of strangers. Not those who wish to close off hearth and family, but those who wish to open doors. Not the ones who spit at you and beat you up, but the ones who would keep you from falling. The dragons, not the plague sprites.

  * * *

  It was night when Alix saw Delfin again. He’d come to her.

  “Please stay.” He spoke so softly, she almost wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly. He leaned against the bridge, hidden by the shadows she would usually wrap herself in. He looked so fragile. He looked like she’d felt, the first time she’d talked to him.

  “I can’t. I…” She closed her eyes for a moment and tried with all her might to pull herself together. “Please don’t ask me to stay. This city is a cage to me, and I won’t be locked up here any longer.”

  “Wait, then. Wait for me.”

  Despite the late hour and the arrival of dusk, the quays around them were bustling. But none of the sailors on the riverboats and none of the workers in the warehouses minded the two of them. They packed grain and cloth and hummed rowdy shanties, while Delfin and Alix walked not quite hand in hand.

  She didn’t want to point out the simple truth: that in the grand scheme of things, in the great design of the world, they’d only just met. They lived very different lives. For all the time they had spent together these past months, for all that they may both have fallen in comfort with each other, love was nothing more than a possibility. And possibility was an easier sacrifice.

  Alix couldn’t bear to speak those words.

  Delfin spoke for her. He pushed a strand of black hair out of his face, and his brown eyes focused on her. “We’ll pay off your bond together and then travel on. To the cities in the north. Across the sea. Wherever you want to go.”

  She winced. “You are at home here. You shouldn’t give that up for me.” She sat down in a shadowed place near the bridge. She cradled her cane close. Even here she heard the sound of construction, though in this case it was a chapel, not a belfry. “And I don’t know if waiting is enough for me.”

  * * *

  Delfin tried to follow her gaze, but she stared into the distance, and she seemed to be kilometers away from here. He couldn’t ask her to wait again. He wanted to. He knew that dreams lost some of their shine without a means to share them, and a home was empty without a heart.

  But he would not stop her.

  “Think about it, at least? If you do try to leave, don’t go without saying good-bye?” He’d fallen for her. Hard, like a beam off the scaffolding. But if he loved her, he could never bind her.

  She bit her lip, and then she nodded. “I promise.”

  And—before he changed his mind—he told her what he’d gleaned from the masters’ comments, from gossip around the Belfry. Then he walked away.

  That night, he started carving a new piece.

  * * *

  The day the dragon came to town, all of Ghent assembled around the Belfry to watch it find its place on the tower. The streets were crowded from the city walls to the quays, from Saint Jan’s Church to Saint Niklaas’s.

  From high upon the dragon’s perch, everyone in town appeared equal. The priests and the merchants. The weavers and the smallest guilds. The pickpockets and the poorters, in their houses of stone. To the dragon, they were all puny and fleeting, their lives too short compared to the lifespan of towers. The builders who had envisioned the Belfry had not lived to see it come to completion. The builders who had finished this stage of the Belfry would not live to see the cloth hall erected next to it.

  And yet. They would continue to build.

  So the dragon would guard them. Priest and poorter. Weaver and pickpocket. Merchant. Messenger. Carpenter.

  * * *

  The sound outside cascaded like waves against the guild house. It rose and ebbed as the dragon made its way from the city gate to the Belfry.

  Delfin knew it was his right to be there. He had helped create the wooden tower where the dragon would rest.

  It was his dream to be there. Or at least, it had been. But he was preoccupied by everything that hadn’t happened this past week. He hadn’t seen Alix. He hadn’t heard from her. He had wanted to give her space, but that space felt like a prison to him. He’d kept himself busy.

  But now he had to know if Alix was still there. Alix with her smile as bright as lightning and eyes like a thunderstorm. If he hadn’t heard from her, perhaps that was a good thing. His heart hammered in his throat as he walked up the stairs to her attic.

  Perhaps she was still waiting. Perhaps she could show him where to go next, or he her.

  Perhaps—

  * * *

  Alix turned to him. From their vantage point high up in the guild house, the tower of the Belfry peeked just across the roofs, but Delfin didn’t even glance at it. He kept his eyes on her, and there was so much hope in his gaze. All she could offer in return was fear and her presence.

  She had meant to stow away. To mutter her spells, hide in the belly of a ship, and hope for the best. But something had stopped her every time. Maybe it was the fear of being caught. Maybe it was Delfin’s warning. Or maybe it wasn’t just about escape anymore.

  She didn’t know if this was what trust felt like, but maybe that didn’t really matter. Because they were here, together.

  Delfin offered her what he was holding: a strong wooden cane wrapped in clean linen. One by one, she removed the rags. The cane was carefully carved, with fine lines running along the shaft.

  She pulled back the cloth that covered the handle and paused and stared.

  A finely carved dragon’s head.

  The handle was a work of art, better than anything she’d seen Delfin create over the months. The wooden dragon had a pointy snout and pointy ears, with beady, intelligent eyes. Its scales ran all the way down to its neck, and it seemed to smile.

  “I was hoping you’d still be here. The city has its dragon. If you’re to travel the world someday,” Delfin said softly, “you deserve a dragon of your own to keep you safe.”

  Around the Belfry, the crowd roared, as if the city itself approved of his words.

  Alix wrapped her fingers around the dragon and tested her weight against the cane. The handle was the exact right height, the cane itself far stronger than the market-bought ones she’d worn down. She could lean on this without a fear of breaking. She could stand taller without a fear of falling.

  “I never knew what it meant to fall in love,” Delfin said, the same words he’d spoken when he’d told her about his Ghent. “But I know what it means to create, and maybe the two aren’t so different? Creation is an act of hope. You start with nothing but possibilities—with planks and nails, with bricks and mortar, with parchment and paint—and you put them together in an effort to discover perfection. To find magic in the melding.”

  “What if you never reach perfection?” she whispered.

  “You keep trying.” He held out his hand to her. “If it isn’t love, then friendship. If it isn’t belonging, then at least it’s not being lonely anymore.”

  The bells of the Belfry began to toll. Everyone on the square and on the streets that circled the towers held their breath as the gold-plated copper dragon was put on a wooden platform and raised upward.

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sp; They should watch.

  But neither of them moved. Storm-blue eyes locked with carpenter brown. Alix leaned on her cane. And if the city held its breath for the dragon, it held its breath for this, too.

  Alix stepped closer until she stood right in front of Delfin, until she put her hand in his. “I don’t know if waiting is enough for me. But I promise I’ll try.”

  Delfin covered Alix’s hand and pulled her closer still. Closer, until they melded into each other. Until his mouth met hers, tenderly, carefully, questioning. And she nodded in reply.

  For a small measure of eternity, it was impossible to tell where one person ended and the other one began. Around them, the city with its winding streets and steep climbs, its unforgiving narrows and its ceaseless ambition, shone and claimed them both for a little while longer.

  * * *

  “Where do you want to go when you’re done waiting?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “That’s too easy.”

  “Everywhere.”

  * * *

  And high atop the Belfry tower, the copper dragon looked out over the cardinal directions. It guarded the long, meandering roads that led to Ghent and away from it, toward the salty sea or deep into the mainland. It guarded the travelers who found their paths in and out of the city every day, who simply passed through or passed by, who planned to build new lives or escape old ones. It guarded the crossroads and the chances and all the choices along the way.

  High atop the Belfry tower, settling in for the ages, the dragon smiled.

  Captain, My Captain

  FRANCISCO X. STORK

  —TODAY IS THE day. Now or never.

  That’s what Captain America has been telling Alberto since 2 a.m.

  Now it is time to get up. Baby Chato is crying. Alberto can hear him in Lupe’s bedroom next door. Captain America told Alberto he could take Wayne’s gym bag, and it wouldn’t be stealing because Wayne pays him eight dollars an hour. Luis and Jimbo, the other members in Wayne’s painting crew, get fifteen dollars an hour, and some of those hours are spent drinking beer and talking on their cell phones. Captain America wants him to pack his best pair of pants, a dress shirt, and his new shoes along with some everyday clothes. There is a spiderweb in the ceiling of his room where two walls come together. Not once has Alberto seen the spider, even though flies get stuck there and are eaten.

  —A well-dressed person can survive on the streets longer than one who is not. You can walk into a supermarket and take enough to live on if you don’t look like a bum. It’s not stealing, because you will write down whatever you take and pay them later.

  Alberto can tell the spider eats the flies that get stuck in the web because he can see pieces of wings and tiny black legs. Captain America refuses to speak to him whenever Alberto studies the spiderweb.

  —I don’t care for spiders and their traps. They are creatures of subterfuge.

  Wayne’s full name is John Wayne, like the movie star. Lupe calls him John, but everyone else calls him Wayne and he doesn’t mind. Luis calls Alberto “Ventanas,” which is Spanish for windows, because Alberto is the best when it comes to painting window frames. Alberto paints the frames so carefully they don’t have to put tape along the edge of the glass.

  —That’s no way to live. Stuck inside a room, moving a brush up and down, back and forth, ten hours a day.

  Baby Chato’s cries are louder and more desperate. Alberto throws the covers off and puts on the white overalls on the chair next to his bed. The door to Lupe’s bedroom is open. He peeks in and sees Wayne facedown on the bed wearing nothing but boxer shorts. He’s clutching a pillow over his head. The side of the bed where Lupe sleeps is empty. Baby Chato stops crying as soon as Alberto lifts him from the crib.

  —It’s Wayne’s baby, not yours. Let him take care of it.

  There’s a tattoo of an eagle on Wayne’s shoulder. The eagle is like the one on the back of quarters.

  —That’s a bald eagle, the symbol of our nation. It stands for freedom.

  Alberto holds baby Chato against his chest. The diaper is heavy with pee. There’s a changing table next to the crib, and Alberto changes the diaper there. The talcum powder reminds him of the way his grandmother smelled in Mexico.

  —The gym bag is in the closet, and Wayne is not going to lift his face from under that pillow. Grab it now!

  Captain America can sound bossy. Alberto doesn’t know why Captain America talks to him. He had never heard of Captain America, until one day two months ago there was a whisper inside his head: I’m Captain America. I’m here to make you free. Alberto was not afraid at first. Captain America sounded like his own voice. He was only scared when Captain America picked up the volume and sounded like someone else. Captain America’s voice is both smooth like silk and cold like ice. After a couple of weeks Alberto worked up enough courage to talk back to him now and then when no one was around.

  —What about the time you were coming back from Walmart and you yelled at me to leave you alone? The lady next to you almost knocked your head off. That’ll teach you.

  A few days ago Alberto finally stopped asking Captain America to go away. Captain America only got louder and more persistent the more Alberto tried to silence him. The surest way to keep Captain America quiet for a while is to do what he says. Alberto tiptoes to the closet. Holding baby Chato in his left arm, he opens the door with his right and retrieves the red canvas bag. He checks to make sure that Wayne’s head is still under the pillow, and then he walks back to his room and throws the bag on his bed.

  —All right. Now we’re talking.

  Alberto stops and glances up at the spiderweb before he leaves his room.

  Lupe is by the stove, warming a bottle of formula. Even from across the kitchen Alberto can see the dark circles under her eyes. She comes over and takes baby Chato from Alberto. Baby Chato starts crying. She gives the baby back to Alberto, and the baby stops crying immediately. Lupe smiles, shakes her head.

  “You got the touch, little brother.” Lupe lifts the bottle from the pan of warm water and shakes a few drops of formula on her hand.

  “I can give it to him,” Alberto tells her. He takes the baby and the bottle to the rocking chair in the living room and sits down. Lupe grabs a can of Coke from the refrigerator and sits on the sofa across from Alberto and baby Chato.

  Captain America wants Alberto to leave Lupe and Chato and live on his own. Out on the streets, where he will be free. Alberto likes that part, about being free. Being free, as in not being told by Wayne what to do and how to do it. Being free, as in making something he imagines out of clay. But who will help Lupe if he leaves? The only rest she gets is when Alberto takes care of the baby or when Becky from upstairs babysits.

  —I never said it was going to be easy. Leaving the loved ones that are holding us back is the hardest part of being free. No doubt about it. It’s not the only sacrifice you’ll need to make.

  “Did you forget today was Sunday?” Lupe points at Alberto’s overalls. They are baggy, with paint splashes of different colors.

  “I heard Chato cry for a long time.” There was something else he wanted to say, but now he can’t remember.

  Lupe finishes his thought. “So you just grabbed what was nearest to you.” She waits for him to nod. “I let him cry, hoping John would pick him up. But…”

  —If you weren’t here, then Wayne would have to step up. That man is using you and Lupe.

  “Shhh!” he tells Captain America. Not that it ever does any good. The sound is out of Alberto’s mouth before he can stop it.

  Lupe turns to him with that look of hers. A few times now he’s responded to Captain America in Lupe’s presence, and each time she gives him that look, as if she’s wondering. It is a worried look, but it is also kind. Luis accused Alberto once of having a couple of marbles missing.

  —You’re going to let that bother you? How many marbles is a person supposed to have anyway?

  Lupe is saying something to him. He fo
rces himself to listen. “… it’s a place where you can make your own pottery like you always wanted. There are people there who can help you, or you can work on your own.” Lupe takes out a torn piece of paper from a pocket in her pink robe. “I wrote down directions for you. It’s not far.”

  Baby Chato sucks on the bottle with his eyes wide open. His little finger tugs on one of the brass buttons of Alberto’s overalls. Like he wants to pull Alberto into the blackness of his eyes. Wayne came in late last night, and he and Lupe argued. Lupe wants Wayne to live with her full-time instead of coming in for a night or two whenever it pleases him. If Alberto leaves like Captain America wants him to, Lupe would be alone with baby Chato most of the time. And alone with Wayne. The memory of Wayne grabbing Lupe’s hair, yanking her head back when she was walking away from his angry shouts, comes suddenly to Alberto.

  —We’ve gone over it a thousand times. Your sister chose her life. The time for you to choose yours is now.

  “Alberto, are you listening to me?”

  “Yes.”

  But she doesn’t believe him, so she tries again. “I want you to change before John gets up, otherwise he’s going to put you to work. I’ll pack some breakfast and lunch for you. Go do something you like to do for a change. Go on—give me the baby.” Lupe makes a move as if to stand and then sits down again, folds her hands the way she used to when they were little and they knelt beside their beds to pray. “I’m sorry. I got you into this. I know you’re not happy.” She looks in the direction of her bedroom, where Wayne is pretending to sleep. “It’s still better than before, isn’t it?”

  “Before,” Alberto repeats. When was before? Before they left Mexico? Or before Lupe met Wayne? There are so many befores Alberto couldn’t count them if he tried.

  “We live in a nice apartment. In Queens. Not like that dump in the Bronx. We send money to Mami every month. Candelaria and Concepción and even the abuelitos. They live on what we send. You have your own room with your own color TV.” She stops, as if embarrassed. Just then she sounded a lot like Wayne, who likes to list all the good things they have because of him. Alberto touches the back of baby Chato’s head with his hand, and baby Chato smiles. “He loves you,” Lupe says.