There was a small inheritance when she died. Angel used the money and grants and side jobs to pay for the student nursing program at Bronx Community College. But with a child, it wasn’t easy. Her lab partners would compare notes on grinding sessions and Beyoncé’s salty AF concerts while she wrote reminders to pick up diapers and Goldfish crackers. Thank God for Gabriela—her Dominican neighbor had bullied her way into their lives a few years ago, insisting on helping with Jose. “Auntie” Gabriela treated them like family.

Angel stooped and gathered her homework from the apartment floor. She’d been working on it since returning home from morning practicum rounds. The medical training taught her to recognize Jose’s triggers and how to deal with the onset of an asthma attack, but, really, she needed a good-paying job. A nursing job.

“Mi chiquito?” she called out. She and Jose had exchanged less than ten words that day, which had included Can you keep it down? I’ve got to study. As she scrabbled for air beneath an avalanche of schoolwork and practicums and part-time jobs, he got the short end of the stick.

She looked at the clock and the guilt bubbled up in her stomach. How can it be time to go to work already? She hated her nights at the Peacock. Her teeth clenched at the thought of the handsy men in their tailored suits and the entitled women with their eyes focused on the air above her forehead while they ordered their lavender-infused martinis. It took all her willpower not to throw the shade right back in their faces, with force. But the tips at the high-end club were too good. Those bitches and their flowery drinks pay my rent.

There was a knock at the door. Gabriela had come to get Jose and bring him with her downstairs, so he could hang out with her and the other stylists in Gabriela’s beauty salon while Angel catered to the rich.

“Come in!” she shouted, and made her way back to Jose’s room, picking up socks and a baseball mitt along the way. She pushed open his door, “Baby, how many times do I need to tell you to—”

Her heart lurched.

“Jose!”

Chapter Two

The student nurse at the local medical clinic’s intake desk scrunched up her pink face as Angel glared at her. She and Angel were both in their early twenties, and in the same classes, but Theresa was routinely mistaken for a high school candy striper fresh from cheerleading practice.

“Angel, you know as well as I—”

“Look here, girl, you’ve got eyes in your head. Get the doctor. Now!” Angel gestured at the small boy huddled on Gabriela’s lap in the waiting room, ashen-faced, with big, scared eyes, laboring to catch his breath.