Sofia Vasquez

Twenty-three days.

The figure reverberates in my mind like the trickle of blood from a never-healing injury every drop a signal that time is escaping our grasp like grains of sand from a shattered hourglass. I linger in the kitchen of La Isla Dorada at 4:52 a.m. the moment when the city’s rhythm eases enough to make you think it’s asleep but I am certain—it’s observing, anticipating, tallying the moments before it steals my granddaughter away, from us. The hot grill ...