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I dart to the front door and desperately knock.
“Where the fuck did you go?” Laura snaps as she opens the door, only to be silenced by the blood on my clothes.
“What is happening?” she asks, looking at me in panic.
“Is Mom home?” I ask urgently.
She turns away from me.
“Mom! Can you come here?”
My mother appears from the kitchen.
“Laura, honey, is that Alyssa?” she asks.
She also falls silent as she sees me.
“Mom, I have a dying man outside,” I say before she can start to ask any questions.
“What?”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll explain everything later. He has two gunshot wounds, one to his leg and the other wound is to his upper body. Can you help him?” I ask my mother.
“No way—take him to the hospital,” cries Laura.
I look at my mom with pleading eyes. “Mom, I cannot take him to the hospital.”
My mother’s face changes from shock to sternness.
“Laura, get the first aid box and boil me some hot water.”
“But Mom!”
“Now!”
Laura murmurs something inaudible as she walks away.
My mother turns to me.
“What are you waiting for? Get him inside the house, go through the back—it’s a nosy neighborhood.”
Tears of gratitude sting my eyes as I return to the car to get Bunny and Antonio.
Antonio lies on the clean sheets that Laura spreads on the laundry room floor as Bunny calls for the doctor.
“Scissors,” she calls to Laura. Laura pulls the scissors from the scalding hot water.
With the scissors, my mother cuts through his blood-soaked shirt and pants. Because of the blood, it’s tricky to find the bullet holes, but she carefully rinses away some of the blood and presses a clean towel to the wound on his leg.
“Press here,” she tells me. I replace her hands with my own, closing my eyes at the sight of the wound. Maybe it’s the pregnancy, which makes me queasy all the time right now, or the stress, but I can’t look at Antonio’s injuries without wanting to throw up.
My mother rinses off Antonio’s shoulder next, and then she presses another clean towel against the wound. Antonio stirs a little, frowning, but he doesn’t wake up.
“How long until the doctor gets here?” she asks of Bunny.
“He said about ten minutes,” Bunny replies. “Can I help with anything?”
