PART 2
The party went completely silent.
Twenty people stared at my brother.
“We had a memorial,” the woman said. Her name was Lupe Medina. She’d lived across the street from my parents for thirty years. “At St. Timothy’s. You cried. You said he went peacefully in his sleep.”
Another neighbor stepped forward. A big man in a Diamondbacks cap.
“I gave you two hundred bucks for the flowers,” he said slowly. “You said Marisol couldn’t afford to fly home.”
Ray’s face went red.
“It’s complicated. He wanted it that way. He didn’t want people visiting.”
“I never wanted anything,” my father whispered from the lounge chair.
Everyone turned.
His voice was weak, but it was clear.
“Ray told me Marisol was dead,” he said. “Car accident in Denver. He showed me a newspaper. He said I had nobody left.”
He looked up at me with wet eyes.
