Page 71 of Harbor

Lucia leaned back to rest against the couch as the boys took their turns first. Diego got a six, but tried to sneak a seventh square where a ladder was waiting for him to go higher. All it took was a look and a chuckle from Renzo for the boy to sneak his piece back to the correct spot. Renzo went next, landing on the square before Diego’s. Lucia rolled a fucking two.

Playing with only one dice meant it was going to take them forever to get to the top of the board what with all the snakes sending them back down to a bottom level. She didn’t even mind. This little game would keep Diego good and distracted for a while. They all needed that for the time being.

A half hour in to playing the game, and Renzo was the only one on the last line of the top of the board. Diego was back near the middle after landing on yet another snake, and glaring at the dice like it was plotting against him. Lucia had given up even managing to get halfway through the board because each time she did, another snake seemed to be waiting to take her to the bottom level once again. It wasn’t really about winning, anyway, but rather giving them something to do until—

Renzo’s burner phone rang on the counter in the small kitchen where it had been left to charge. He gave Lucia a look—an oh, well sort of thing—before pushing up from the floor to go and grab the call. At that point, Diego was still fine considering it was his turn to roll the dice and see just how close to the top he might be able to get with his turn.

Lucia kept one eye on Diego to make sure he didn’t cheat again, and one on Renzo picking up the call. He turned his back to them, but that didn’t hide his voice from her.

“Yeah, Ren here.” A beat of silence passed, and Renzo nodded. He listened for another few seconds before replying, “Yeah, you got it. I’ll be down in two minutes, Todd. Sounds good … Later.”

Hanging up the call, Renzo shoved the phone in his pocket and turned to face them again. Although, his gaze only drifted to Lucia since Diego was still busy moving his piece on the game to the correct spot, which just happened to be a ladder that took him right up to the square after Renzo’s piece.

“Look, I’m winning!”

Renzo laughed. “That’s great, buddy. Lucia will keep playing with you, though, okay? I have to head out and do some stuff.”

Instantly, Diego’s happy expression melted away. Like there was nothing else his brother might have said that could have hurt him worse than those words he just spoke. In a way, Lucia felt like Diego had been two seconds away from a meltdown for days. Each time Renzo left to work, the first place he went was that window. And she was damn near convinced that if not for her making him get away from the window, that was where he would happily stay all day until his brother got back home, too.

She heard it in his voice when he talked.

Saw it in his face when he looked at her, or looked for Ren.

He was scared they were going to have to go again. Or worse, he was terrified Renzo wasn’t going to come back to him when he left day after day. The fears might be unfounded in a way, considering they had unpacked their bags and didn’t even talk about the possibility of needing to leave again when Diego was within earshot, but that didn’t matter. Diego was a kid, and kids didn’t understand or process things the same way adults did.

It was as simple as that.

Renzo, clearly seeing his brother was ready to throw a fit about him leaving for work, decided to try a different route of pleasing the boy to keep him calm. “How about when I get back, I bring you one of those mini pizzas you like from downstairs, huh?”

Diego’s wide eyes turned from Renzo, to Lucia. She could already see the water starting to line the boy’s eyes. All it took was one blink, and fat tears slid down his cheeks. A sniffle echoed, and then the crying started. All out, ugly crying that echoed in the apartment. Lucia let out a sigh, and slid closer to Diego to wrap an arm around his small shoulders. There wasn’t very much else she could do, really.

She’d been waiting for this.

Renzo hadn’t gotten to see it at all.

“But we’re not done playing,” Diego mumbled through his tears. “You have to stay and finish the game, Ren. You said we could play—you said!”

“Yeah, but I also have to work, buddy.”

Yeah, that didn’t help at all. If anything, it just urged Diego’s crying to turn up a notch. The wailing started, too. An all-out temper tantrum, really. Lucia didn’t blame the kid. She figured it was hard for kids to learn the right way to express their emotions at this age, but especially a kid like Diego who had spent the last several weeks in a constant state of chaos.

San Francisco was his first moment of stability, really. Here, they had something that felt like a home to him. He had a bed that was his, and a room he was allowed to put his things inside. He was starting to get a schedule set for himself day in and day out, but that didn’t mean anything. She bet to him, all he saw were things that could be taken away from him again.

He was terrified they were going to take all of this away from him.

“It’s all right,” Lucia murmured, kissing the top of Diego’s curly head. “Ren’ll be back, and we’ll finish our game, then.”

“B-but—”

“I gotta go,” Renzo said. “I told him two minutes.”

“Yeah, it’s all right,” Lucia told him.

But it wasn’t.

Diego was far from all right.

It was just yet another thing they were going to have to deal with later. It seemed like that was happening a lot lately. She didn’t blame Renzo, herself, or even little Diego. This was just something else for them to handle when they could.