Because It Is My Blood

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  To my beautiful mother, AeRan Zevin, who always sends me home with second supper and who makes life beautiful

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  CASA MARQUEZ HOT CHOCOLATE

  I. I AM RELEASED INTO SOCIETY

  II. I COUNT MY BLESSINGS

  III. I RESUME MY EDUCATION; MY PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED; MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ’ROUND

  IV. I AM SURPRISED; I AM SURPRISED AGAIN

  V. I TAKE MY LEAVE

  VI. I AM AT SEA; BECOME FAR TOO ACQUAINTED WITH THE BUCKET; WISH FOR MY OWN DEATH

  VII. I BEGIN A NEW CHAPTER; AT GRANJA MAÑANA

  VIII. I RECEIVE AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR WITH AN UNEXPECTED REQUEST

  IX. I RECEIVE LETTERS FROM HOME

  X. I REAP WHAT I SOW

  XI. I LEARN THE COST OF FRIENDSHIP; MONEY STILL MAKES THE WORLD GO ’ROUND

  XII. I AM CONFINED; REFLECT ON THE CURIOUS NATURE OF THE HUMAN HEART

  XIII. I ENGAGE IN RECREATIONAL CHOCOLATIERING; RECEIVE TWO NOTES AND A PACKAGE

  XIV. I ENCOUNTER AN OLD FOE; ANOTHER PROPOSAL; WIN LOOKS UNDER THE WRAPPER

  XV. I GO TO RIKERS

  XVI. I ATTEND CHURCH

  XVII. I HAVE DOUBTS

  XVIII. I ATTEND A SCHOOL DANCE; NO ONE GETS SHOT

  XIX. I GRADUATE; YET ANOTHER PROPOSAL

  XX. I PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

  ALSO BY GABRIELLE ZEVIN

  COPYRIGHT

  IN THE DESERT

  In the desert

  I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

  Who, squatting upon the ground,

  Held his heart in his hands,

  And ate of it.

  I said, “Is it good, friend?”

  “It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;

  “But I like it

  Because it is bitter,

  And because it is my heart.”

  —Stephen Crane

  Casa Marquez Hot Chocolate

  1 red chili pepper

  ½ vanilla bean

  1 cinnamon stick

  3 or 4 crushed rose petals

  2 cups milk

  2 or 3 squares bittersweet chocolate without nuts*

  Pick up your machete and split the chili pepper down the middle. Remove seeds. Are you still holding your machete? If not, what is wrong with you? Abuela advises you should never let your guard down in the kitchen. Okay. Still holding your machete, split the vanilla bean the long way. Break up the cinnamon stick. This will be hard—your anger will be an advantage in this task. Crush the rose petals with your fists like a teenage girl with a broken heart. (You know about that.)

  Drown the chili pepper, vanilla bean, cinnamon-stick pieces, and crushed rose petals in the milk. Heat the milk until it is simmering. Let it simmer for no more than 2 minutes. Any longer, the milk turns bad, and Abuela says that the whole thing will surely be a disaster.

  Shave chocolate into thin strips, then whisk into milk mixture until chocolate is melted.

  Remove from heat and let rest for 10 minutes. Strain, and heat again. Some like it warm, but not you, Anya.

  Serves 2. As your own nana—que en paz descanse—used to say, “Share it with someone you love.”**

  *Balanchine Bittersweet is preferred but you can use whatever you have on hand.

  **WARNING: This is not sweet. Drink at your own risk.

  I

  I AM RELEASED INTO SOCIETY

  “COME IN, ANYA, have a seat. We find ourselves in the midst of a situation,” Evelyn Cobrawick greeted me, parting her painted red lips to reveal a cheerful sliver of yellow tooth. Was this meant to be a grin? I certainly hoped not. My fellow inmates at Liberty Children’s Facility were of the universal opinion that Mrs. Cobrawick was at her most dangerous when smiling.

  It was the night before my release, and I had been summoned to the headmistress’s chambers. Through careful adherence to rules—all but one, all but once—I had managed to avoid the woman for the entire summer. “A situ—” I began.

  Mrs. Cobrawick interrupted me. “Do you know what I like best about my job? It’s the girls. Watching them grow up and make better lives for themselves. Knowing that I had some small part in these rehabilitations. I truly feel as if I have thousands of daughters. It almost makes up for the fact that the former Mr. Cobrawick and I were not blessed with any children of our own.”

  I was not sure how to respond to this information. “You said there was a situation?”

  “Be patient, Anya. I’m getting there. I … You see, I feel very bad about the way we met. I think you may have gotten the wrong impression about me. The measures I took last fall may have seemed harsh to you at the time, but they were only to help you adjust to life at Liberty. And I think you’ll agree that my conduct was exactly right, because look what a splendid summer you’ve had here! You’ve been submissive, compliant, a model resident in every sense. One would hardly guess that you came from such a criminal background.”

  This was meant as a compliment so I thanked her. I snuck a glance out Mrs. Cobrawick’s window. The night was clear, and I could just make out the tip of Manhattan. Only eighteen hours before I would be home.

  “You are most welcome. I feel optimistic that your time here will serve you well in your future endeavors. Which brings us, of course, to our situation.”

  I turned to look at Mrs. Cobrawick. I very much wished that she would stop referring to it as “our situation.”

  “In August, you had a visitor,” she began. “A young man.”

  I lied, telling her that I wasn’t sure whom she meant.

  “The Delacroix boy,” she said.

  “Yes. He was my boyfriend last year, but that’s done now.”

  “The guard on duty that day claimed that you kissed him.” She paused to look me in the eyes. “Twice.”

  “I shouldn’t have done that. He had been injured, as you probably read in my file, and I suppose I was overcome to see him well again. I apologize, Mrs. Cobrawick.”

  “Yes, you did break the rules,” Mrs. Cobrawick replied. “But your infraction is understandable, I think, and human really, and can be overlooked. It probably surprises you to hear an old gorgon like me say that, but I am not without feelings, Anya.

  “Before you came to Liberty in June, acting District Attorney Charles Delacroix gave me very specific instructions regarding your treatment here. Would you like me to tell you what they were?”

  I wasn’t sure, but I nodded anyway.

  “There were only three. The first was that I was to avoid any unnecessary personal interaction with Anya Balanchine. I don’t think you can disagree that I followed that one to the letter.”

  That explained why my stay had passed in such relative peace. If I ever saw Charles Delacroix again (and I hoped I’d have no reason to), I’d be certain to thank him.

  “The second was that Anya Balanchine was not to be sent to the Cellar under any circumstance.”

  “And the third?” I asked.

  “The third was that I was to contact him immediately if his son came to visit you. Such an event, he said, could possibly necessitate a revision to both the quality and length of Anya Balanchine’s stay at Liberty.”

  I felt myself shudder at the word length. I was well aware of the promise I had made Charles Delacroix regarding his son.

  “So, when the guard
came to me with the news that the Delacroix boy had been to see Anya Balanchine, do you know what I decided to do?”

  She—horrors!—smiled at me.

  “I decided to do nothing. ‘Evie,’ I said to myself, ‘at the end of the year, you’re leaving Liberty and you don’t have to do everything they say anymore—’”

  I interrupted the conversation she was having with herself to ask, “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes, it seems I’ve been forced into early retirement, Anya. They’re making a huge mistake. Not anyone can run this kingdom of mine.” She waved her hand by way of changing the subject. “But as I was telling you before … ‘Evie,’ I said, ‘you don’t owe that awful Charles Delacroix a thing. Anya Balanchine is a good girl, albeit one from a very bad family, and she can’t help who does or doesn’t visit her.’”

  I offered cautious thanks.

  “You’re very welcome,” she replied. “Perhaps someday you’ll be able to return the favor.”

  I shivered. “What is it you want, Mrs. Cobrawick?”

  She laughed, then took my hand in hers and squeezed it so hard one of my knuckles cracked. “Only … I suppose I’d like to be able to call you my friend.”

  Daddy always said that there was no commodity more precious or potentially volatile than friendship. I looked into her dark, red-rimmed eyes. “Mrs. Cobrawick, I can honestly say that I won’t ever forget this act of friendship.”

  She released my hand. “Incidentally, Charles Delacroix is an incredible fool. If my experiences working with troubled girls have taught me anything, it’s that no good ever comes from keeping young lovers apart. The more he pulls, the more the two of you will pull back. It’s a Chinese finger trap, and the finger trap always triumphs.”

  Here, Mrs. Cobrawick was wrong. Win had visited me that one time. I had kissed him, then told him that he should never come again. To my great annoyance, he’d actually obeyed me. A little over a month had passed since that encounter, and I hadn’t heard from or seen Win since.

  “As you’re leaving us tomorrow, this will also serve as our exit interview,” Mrs. Cobrawick said. She opened up my file on her slate. “Let’s see, you were brought here on…” She scanned the file. “Weapons-possession charges?”

  I nodded.

  Mrs. Cobrawick put on the reading glasses she wore on a brass chain around her neck. “Really? That’s it? I seem to remember you shooting someone.”

  “In self-defense, yes.”

  “Well, no matter. I am an educator, not a judge. Are you sorry for your crimes?”

  The answer to that was complicated. I did not regret the crime I had been charged with—having my father’s gun. I did not regret my actual crime either—shooting Jacks after he shot Win. And I did not regret the deal I had made with Charles Delacroix that had ensured both my siblings’ safety. I regretted nothing. Of course, I could sense that saying this would have been frowned upon. “Yes,” I replied, “I’m very sorry.”

  “Good. Then, as of tomorrow”—Mrs. Cobrawick consulted her calendar—“the seventeenth day of September in the year 2083, the city of New York considers Anya Balanchine to be successfully rehabilitated. Best of luck to you, Anya. May the temptations of the world not lead you to recidivism.”

  * * *

  It was lights-out by the time I got back to the dormitory. As I reached the bunk bed I had shared with Mouse these past eighty-nine days, she lit a match and gestured that I should come sit by her in the bottom bunk. She held out her notepad. I need to ask you something before you go, she had written on one of her precious pages. (She was only allotted twenty-five per day.)

  “Sure, Mouse.”

  They’re letting me out early.

  I told her that was great news, but she shook her head. She handed me another note.

  After Thanksgiving or even sooner. Good behavior, or maybe I use too much paper. Point is, I’d rather be here. My crime makes it so I can’t ever go home. When I get out, I’ll need a job.

  “I wish I could help, but—”

  She put her hand over my mouth and handed me yet another prewritten note. Apparently, my responses were just that predictable.

  DON’T SAY NO! You can. You’re very powerful. I’ve thought a lot about this, Anya. I want to be a chocolate dealer.

  I laughed because I couldn’t imagine that she was in earnest. The girl was five feet tall in socks and completely mute! I turned to look at her, and her expression told me that she hadn’t been kidding. At that moment, the match burned out, and she lit another one.

  “Mouse,” I whispered. “I’m not involved in Balanchine Chocolate that way, and even if I was, I don’t know why you’d want that kind of a job.”

  I’m seventeen. Mute. Criminal. I have no people, no $, no real education.

  I could see her point. I nodded, and she passed me one last note.

  You are the only friend I’ve made here. I know I’m small, weak, & mousy, but I am not a coward and I can do hard things. If you let me work with you, I will be loyal to you for life. I would die for you, Anya.

  I told her that I didn’t want anyone to die for me, and I blew out the match.

  I climbed out of Mouse’s bunk and went up to my own, where I quickly fell asleep.

  In the morning when she wrote and I said goodbye, she didn’t mention that she had asked me to help her become a chocolate dealer. The last thing she wrote before the guards came for me was See you around, A. My real name is Kate, by the way.

  “Kate,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  At eleven a.m., I was taken to change out of the Liberty jumpsuit and back into my street clothes. Despite the fact that I had been booted from the school, I had worn my Trinity uniform the day I had surrendered myself. I was so used to wearing the thing. Even three months later, as I was pulling the skirt over my hips, I could feel my body wanting to go back to school, and specifically to Trinity, where classes had started without me the previous week.

  After I’d changed, I was brought to the discharge room. A lifetime ago, I had met Charles Delacroix in this same room, but today, Simon Green and Mr. Kipling, my lawyers, waited for me instead.

  “Do I look like a person who has done hard time?” I asked them.

  Mr. Kipling considered me before he answered. “No,” he said finally. “Though you do look very fit.”

  I stepped out into the muggy mid-September air and tried not to feel the loss of that summer too much. There would be other summers. There would be other boys, too.

  I breathed in, trying to get all that good exterior air into my lungs. I could smell hay, and in the distance, something rotten, sulfurous, maybe even burning. “Freedom smells different than I remember,” I commented to my lawyers.

  “No, Anya, that’s just the Hudson River. It’s on fire again,” Mr. Kipling said with a yawn.

  “What is it this time?” I asked.

  “The usual,” Mr. Kipling replied. “Something to do with low water levels and chemical contamination.”

  “Fear not, Anya,” Simon Green added. “The city’s nearly as run-down as you left it.”

  * * *

  When we arrived back at my apartment, the elevator wasn’t working, so I told Mr. Kipling and Simon Green that they needn’t see me to the door. Our apartment was on the penthouse level—the thirteenth floor, which the building elevator superstitiously referred to as the fourteenth floor. Thirteenth or fourteenth, it was a long trek up, and Mr. Kipling’s heart was still weak. My heart, however, was in terrific shape as I’d spent the summer doing Liberty’s strenuous athletic drills three, sometimes four times a day. I was lean and strong and I was able to race up the stairs. (Aside: Is it too much to add that, while my heart the muscle was in terrific shape, my heart the heart had certainly been better? Oh, probably, but there it is. Don’t judge me too harshly.)

  Having left my keys (and other valuables) at home, I was forced to ring the doorbell.

  Imogen, who I had left in charge of my sister, answered
it. “Anya, we didn’t hear you come up!” She poked her head into the foyer. “Where are Misters Kipling and Green?”

  I reported the condition of the elevator.

  “Oh dear. That must have just happened. Maybe it’ll fix itself?” she said brightly.

  What, in my life, had ever fixed itself?

  Imogen told me that Scarlet was waiting for me in the living room.

  “And Natty?” I asked. She should have been home from genius camp four weeks ago.

  “Natty’s…” Imogen hesitated.

  “Is something wrong with Natty?” I could feel the thrum of my heart.

  “No. She’s fine. She’s spending the night at a friend’s.” Imogen shook her head. “A project for school she needs to work on.”

  I tried very hard not to let my hurt feelings show. “Is she angry with me?”

  Imogen pursed her lips. “Yes, a bit, I imagine. She was upset when she found out you’d lied about going to Liberty.” Imogen shook her head. “You know teenagers.”

  “But Natty’s not—” I had been about to say that Natty wasn’t a teenager, but then I remembered that she was. She had turned thirteen in July. Yet another thing I had missed thanks to my incarceration.

  A familiar voice came from down the hallway. “Is that the world famous Anya Balanchine I hear?” Scarlet ran up and threw her arms around me. “Anya, where did your boobs go?”

  I pulled away from her. “Must have been that really nourishing Liberty food.”

  “When I saw you at Liberty, you were always in the navy jumpsuit, but in your old Trinity uniform, it’s more obvious to me that you look…”

  “Awful,” I filled in.

  “No!” Imogen and Scarlet said in unison.

  “It’s not like the last time you went to Liberty,” Scarlet continued. “You don’t look sick. You just look…” Scarlet’s eyes drifted to the ceiling. I remembered from my first year of Forensic Science that when a witness looked up that way, it meant that she was in the process of inventing. My very best friend was about to lie. “You look changed,” she said gently. Scarlet took me by the arm. “Let’s go into the living room. I have to catch you up on everything that’s been happening. Also, I hope you don’t mind, but Gable’s here. He really wanted to see you and he is my boyfriend, Anya.”