CHAPTER 16
DIEGO
Diego was still mulling over his phone call with Wylie days after they spoke.
Their conversation had only served to cast doubt on his decision to put space between them.
He thought he’d be giving Wylie a clean break and allowing him to focus on school.
He’d also thought that Wylie’s absence might offer Diego some clarity, but his emotional state of mind was as murky as ever.
After leaving his second session with his new therapist, Dr. Bob, he had more questions than answers. Even though Dr. Bob was pushing ninety, he was still sharp as a tack, and he was making Diego work for it.
What do you think it means? What is it that you want from life? What are your next steps to achieve that goal?
Apparently there were no cheat codes in therapy. Diego was expected to solve his own problems.
They’d talked about some of his attachment issues, how it was difficult for him to let people in and how, when they got too close, he tended to back off and try to put distance between them.
How it had likely developed as a protective measure to prevent himself from being hurt. But there were tradeoffs.
Was what he’d done to Wylie? Was he denying himself a potentially wonderful relationship because of his own fear of being hurt or betrayed?
There was a term for it, he’d learned: self-sabotage.
Tuesdays were a big day for him now. He had his meeting with his probation officer in the morning, followed by a therapy session with Dr. Bob, then dinner at his mom’s house.
It was a lot of peopling in one day, and a lot of self-reflection, so he was more than a little drained when he walked up to his mother’s modest two-bedroom home in Lakeside Heights from where the bus had dropped him off a few blocks away.
He needed to get himself a car. And car insurance.
It was too damn hot outside to be walking around everywhere or waiting for the bus.
And a car would make it possible for him to visit Wylie, if he was still welcome.
And even though he was dog-ass tired, the extra shifts at the pit still weren’t enough to distract him from missing Wylie and obsessing over the fact that he may have fucked up the best thing to ever happen to him.
“You stink,” his mom said to him upon greeting him.
Crinkling her dainty nose, she pulled back from kissing his cheek and suggested he take a shower.
He took her up on the offer, grabbing some of his old clothes from a drawer of the guest bedroom.
They sat down to dinner soon after, boliche served with black beans and rice, ripe plantains, and hot, buttered Cuban bread.
The food was delicious, as always, and Diego wondered what Wylie would be having for dinner that night.
He hoped he wasn’t relying solely on frozen food and takeout.
“Have you talked to Arturito lately?” his mother asked after giving him her usual updates and inquiring as to whether he’d been to church.
(He had not.) Her question seemed out of the blue, especially since Diego had, like, thirty cousins and couldn’t be expected to keep up with all of them individually.
“I saw him a couple weeks ago at family dinner,” Diego said.
“And did you talk to him?” she asked insistently, staring at him with some hidden meaning.
Diego thought back to his therapy session that day, his complaint that every interaction with his mother felt like it was spoken in a code that he couldn’t possibly decipher.
But of course if he brought that up to her, it’d turn into an argument, and one thing he’d learned over the years was that his mother was always right.
So, Diego only looked at her quizzically and said, “He told me he moved out and got a new job.”
She nodded slowly, acting even more cryptic than usual. “You should call him.”
Diego didn’t bother pointing out that most kids Arturito’s age hated phone calls and much preferred texting. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“Is there something wrong with calling your cousin? I talk to the Tías every week,” she said, as if his question were completely uncalled for. There was also the implication that Diego should also be calling his Tías every week, but there weren’t enough hours in the day for all that nonsense.
Still, she sounded defensive, like she was hiding something.
Diego studied her closely, waiting for her to say more, but she only wiped her mouth primly and set her napkin on the plate.
“Are you finished?” She motioned to Diego’s empty dish.
He’d practically licked the plate clean.
One thing he couldn’t fault his mother for was her cooking.
“I’ll get it.” He stood and gathered their plates, taking them over to the sink where he rinsed and stacked them in the dishwasher to his mother’s exacting specifications.
She hovered nearby, busying herself with wiping the counters while glancing over to check his work.
That feeling of being watched and judged was something he needed to bring up with Dr. Bob at their next session.
Should he call her out on her behavior or just let it go?
She’d probably argue that he’d given her more than enough reasons to keep a close eye on him, but she’d been doing that shit his whole life.
“Are you worried I’m not going to do it right?” he asked and motioned to the dishwasher.
“What? No,” she said, clearly caught off guard. “But if the rims of the glasses touch, they might break. I’ve had that happen before.”
He surveyed the glasses. None of them were touching.
“And if you don’t put the forks pointy side up, the food will stay trapped in them,” she continued, as if making her case.
All of the forks were pointy side up. She gave a few more instructions, all of which Diego knew already from having lived with the woman for a good chunk of his life.
But glancing from the neatly stacked dishwasher to his mother fretting nearby, he realized something they both had in common, that need for control.
To do everything just right to prevent a bad thing from happening.
How many times had Diego relied on his rituals in order to ensure a certain outcome?
As a kid and in prison too. The familiar was safe, even if stagnant.
It was why being with Wylie had felt so terrifying.
Because he couldn’t control what Wylie might say or do, and the fact that he’d up and moved to Gainesville for law school was proof.
But Wylie had remained consistent in his feelings for him the entire time, so maybe Diego was the problem. Too inflexible. Too controlling. Trying to orchestrate their relationship just like that damn dishwasher to make sure nothing broke.
And at what cost?
For sobremesa, they sat on the screened-in back porch and stared at the lawn Diego had mowed the week before.
He’d cut back her bougainvillea too, and the shrubs looked a lot better for it.
The firebush he’d planted would need to be watered if it didn’t rain again soon, along with the gardenia.
God forbid those gardenia flowers start to wilt.
He silently catalogued his landscaping duties while his mother sipped a vodka tonic.
He had iced tea. Usually there was a chore for him to do or something that needed fixing, but not today.
Today, there was just the buzz of cicadas and the strained silence that hung between them.
“How’s your friend? The one with the thing in his mouth?” his mother asked. She hadn’t brought up the topic of Wylie since their initial meeting, and Diego hadn’t offered any additional information.
“Wylie. He moved away,” Diego said with a pang of heartache.
“He moved away? To where?” she asked as if the idea were preposterous.
“To Gainesville. He got accepted into law school. Remember?” He’d made sure to tell her about Wylie’s career goals, to distinguish him from his old set of friends.
“Oh,” she said, sounding somewhat surprised. “Well, have you made any new…friends?”
Diego smirked, realizing this might be his mother’s way of asking if he was seeing someone romantically. “No, I’m not interested in anyone else. Think I might take a break from friendship for a while.”
She glanced over and searched his face, then turned back toward her lush backyard. “Were you two very close?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it. She was making an effort. Diego decided to be honest with her.
“Yeah, I liked him a lot. He’s pretty special. One of a kind.”
“Well, can’t he come back to visit?” she asked, now sounding incensed on his behalf.
“Maybe. I hope so.”
“Seems selfish to become your friend and then just leave you behind.” She gestured with one hand to emphasize her point, the gold bangles on her wrist clinking and chiming.
Their family was close knit, and in their culture, when someone left to go to school or start a new job, there was always the implication that they’d come back, that living elsewhere was a temporary necessity and returning home was always the end goal.
“He told me his plan early on, and he wanted to continue our friendship. It was me who ended it,” Diego said.
“Well, why’d you do that?” she asked, twisting in her chair to stare at him again.
“I don’t know. Got scared, I guess. Overwhelmed.”
She went back to sipping her drink. His mom had been one-and-done when it came to men.
After his father left them, she waited a long time before she got divorced, perhaps hoping they might reconcile.
And even since then, she hadn’t dated anyone else, to his knowledge.
Part of it had been her Catholic faith that looked down on divorce, but another part was probably her own fear of being hurt again.
Maybe because she didn’t trust her own judgement.
“It might still work out,” she said, showing a rare optimism that Diego didn’t know exactly how to interpret.
“Maybe.”