Then, because a seven-year-old had asked him to live, he kept going.
By the time Lily burst through the front door of the little house on Miller Street, Rosa Martinez was half asleep in her chair with a rosary tangled in her fingers and the television humming low in Spanish.
The door slammed hard enough to rattle the picture of the Virgin Mary on the wall.
Rosa jerked upright.
“Grandma,” Lily gasped.
One look at the child’s jeans and Rosa was out of her chair.
“Dios mío. Lily!”
She grabbed her granddaughter by the shoulders, spun her once, hands checking for wounds, cuts, brokenness.
“It’s not mine,” Lily said quickly. “There’s a man in the alley behind Maple Street. He’s been shot. He’s bleeding everywhere. We have to help him.”
Rosa froze.
Her hands stayed on Lily’s shoulders, but her mind went somewhere else at once. Somewhere old. Somewhere practical. Somewhere that knew exactly what a man in an expensive suit bleeding in an alley in South Boston meant.
“Did you call 911?”
“He said no police.”
“Then we call anyway.”
“No.” Lily shook her head fiercely. “I promised him.”
Rosa stared at her.
“You promised a stranger?”
“I promised a dying person.”
The distinction landed like a bell.
Rosa closed her eyes for one second too long.
