Chapter Text
After eight long years, Manny Noceda had grown used to the feeling of his daughter tackling his lower legs like a four-foot-tall pigtailed missile. He remembered picking Luz up from her first day of kindergarten, the way she had nearly knocked him down with the momentum of her hug, so overjoyed to see her father again after five hours in an unfamiliar place. He remembered the way her little feet would pound up the stairs to his office on the second floor of the home he and Camila had worked so hard to buy when she brought Luz home from school. He remembered the way Luz clung to his shin before he left on his week-long business trip, as though she could keep him from leaving, or hold on so tightly that he’d have to travel with her koala grip the whole time.
So, when he heard the keys rattle in the door, the thump-thump-thump of his Lucecita’s feet against the hardwood, Manny rose to his feet, ready to catch Luz, like he always would.
When she pulled her face away from his shirt, it was damp with tears. Manny’s heart tumbled into his stomach.
He didn’t ask her what was wrong. Didn’t want to force her to talk about it until she was ready, not when he could only make out one word in four through her tears. Luz had never been a pretty crier, smearing snot along Manny’s work jeans, but that couldn’t have mattered less in that moment. Manny’s daughter needed him.
“Going t’ Hell,” Luz mumbled, squeezing Manny’s leg tighter.
“You’re not going to Hell,” Manny promised. He patted her head, running his hands along her several braids. “Not now. Not ever. Not while I’m around.”
Luz sobbed harder. Manny could hear his wife coming up the stairs.
“Nothing’s ever going to happen to you, Lucecita. You’re my baby. Not even God is gonna be able to get past your papa.”
Luz cried something unintelligible.
“Manny, she’s not scared of going to Hell,” said Camila, moving into his office. Her eyebags were heavier than they had been before she had taken Luz to church that morning, which was saying something, because she’d been taking serious overtime at the clinic to make up for the lost income as Manny worked from home. She looked older than she had a few hours earlier, frown line deepened between her eyebrows and creases by her nostrils, weighted as though from sneering. She slowed, steps away from Luz and Manny, hesitant to interrupt – Luz had always been closer with her dad. “She’s worried about you going to Hell.”
If his daughter hadn’t been crying, clutching him as though he was going to vanish in a puff of smoke, Manny might have laughed. The thought hadn’t crossed his mind in years.
He met his daughter’s weepy eyes. She nodded. It broke Manny’s heart. Just like his daughter to care more about her beloved father than her own immortal soul. When she was smaller, whenever Manny had kissed her, she had kissed him back twice, soft like the pecks of a baby bird. Years passed before he asked her about it, only for her to say with deadly seriousness that she wanted to give back twice as much love as he gave her. Manny had nearly cried on the spot.
“The priest was talking about Hell today,” Camila said by way of explanation. Manny had figured as much. “Not much. Nothing out of the ordinary. That it’s a bad place where sinners go, that nobody in church needs to fear it because we’ve been saved. But after the services, Tia Maria told her to pray for you.”
From the look in his wife’s eyes, Manny knew just how harshly Camila had scolded Maria the moment Luz was out of earshot.
“That you were going to Hell because you weren’t there.”
Luz sobbed harder.
In the absence of words, Manny patted her head. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to contradict his daughter’s religious education – he and Camila had agreed to raise Luz Catholic, regardless of his own agnostic upbringing and atheist adulthood, all the better to help Luz fit in with her mother’s side of the family – but Luz was barely eight. She still struggled to tell the difference between her storybooks and the real world, and regardless of his beliefs, he wasn’t going to tell his daughter that church was wrong.
“Don’t worry, mija,” Manny soothed, patting his daughter’s head. She pressed into his touch. “I’m not going to Hell, and even if I was, it wouldn’t be so bad.”
Luz sniffled, looking up at him with her big, wet eyes.
Manny gave her a comforting smile, tucking a braid behind her ear. “I’ll make friends with the Devil. Give him my winning smile, a much-needed hug, and convince him to stop being so mean.”
“F’real?” Luz asked.
“For real. After all, doesn’t everybody need a friend?”
Luz’s smile was like the sun.
“We’ll go fishing for dragons together in the Lake of Fire,” Manny said, raising his arms as though casting a line. “Grill our catches and have a hellfire barbecue together. We’ll invite all the other kindhearted heathens for a party. The poet Virgil, of course, but also Albert Einstein, Douglas Adams, and good ol’ Grug, the very first human to paint on cave walls.”
Luz giggled. She wiped her tears on Manny’s jeans.
“We’ll all hold hands and take turns talking about our feelings, and share stories from being alive,” Manny continued. “Virgil will recite his poems, Doug can talk about how much he hated writing despite being so gosh-darned good at it, and Grug can tell us all about the time he took down a Saber-Tooth Tiger.”
“Daaaaaaad!” Luz whined, but couldn’t hide her smile. “It’s Saber-Tooth Cat! They weren’t tigers! Also, they lived in South America before there were any people in Africa.”
“That’s my smart girl.” Manny ruffled her hair. Camila preened with pride. “And then, after I tell all of them about how smart you are, the Devil will pipe up. After being quiet and sullen the whole time, he’ll talk about what it meant to fall from grace.”
Camila gave Manny a dangerous look. He disregarded it.
“The Devil used to go by Lucifer, the Lightbringer, while up in Heaven, but he had been thrown out for being a rebel. A weirdo. Nobody had called him that in ages. Not after being stuck in a dark, dismal Hell. But now, among friends, he can smile again, light up the whole underworld.” Feeling daring, Manny pinched his daughter’s cheek. “You’re my lightbringer, Lucecita. If little Lucy Lightbringer is anything like you, I’m going to be very happy in Hell.”
Camila pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, but Manny knew she couldn’t argue with results. Not when their precious little light was smiling like she could blind her parents with the shine of her teeth, her drying eyes haloed in red.
“I love you, Papa,” said Luz.
“I love you too, Luz.”
“I don’t think the church is good for her,” Manny said.
Camila met his gaze out of the corner of her eyes, sighed, and bookmarked her page. She leaned forward to prop up the pillows behind her and groaned. “Don’t,” she said softly. “I don’t want to have this conversation again.”
“I don’t want Luz coming home in tears again,” Manny rebutted. “The whole time I was reading her bedtime stories tonight, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What if she has nightmares, Cam?”
“She’s not going to have nightmares.”
“She shouldn’t be worried about her own father burning in Hell. If she dreams about it, if it feels real – we’re her parents. It’s our job to worry about her, not the other way around.”
“I am!” Camila snapped – and wilted. “I am,” she repeated. She pulled off her reading glasses, wiping at her eyes. “I’m so scared for her, Manny.”
“I know,” Manny said. “I am, too.”
“She’s already had to switch schools.” Camila gestured vaguely with her reading glasses. “The way things are going here is better, but it’s still not what we wanted from her. When I was her age, isolated, bullied, alienated from my peers, my family were the only people I had left. They weren’t perfect, but they were there for me. I want that for Luz.” Camila sniffled. “I need that for Luz. She deserves a good support network, one as big as we can manage.”
A thousand thoughts flitted through Manny’s head. He voiced none of them, instead electing to hug his wife. She sniffled again, holding him close.
“I want Luz to have her family at her quinceañera ,” Camila murmured. “Her whole extended family. It was the best day of my childhood, although that’s not really saying much. It was just what I needed.”
Manny ran his fingers along Camila’s back. After a moment, he said, “Is it what Luz needs?”
Camila didn’t answer. She just held Manny closer.
They didn’t go back to church after that. It was an unspoken agreement, as far as Luz was concerned. Mami and papá never asked her if that was what she wanted, but she didn’t complain about getting to sleep in on Sunday mornings, and that must have been good enough for them.
She didn’t mention Hell again.
Not yet.