Chapter Fourteen Dinner with the Reyes Family #2
Gloria returned to the sink without arguing, which made my body search for one. In the living room, Amy sat cross-legged beside Lola in safety glasses, green excavation dust on one knee of her trousers. Comfortable. As if she had always belonged there. I gripped the dish towel harder.
“Mom would have liked her,” Gloria said.
My grip tightened on the counter. Our mother had died five years earlier. She had loved runners, loud music, careful people, and anyone who remembered flowers. She would have asked Amy a hundred questions and fed her twice.
“Low,” I said.
“True.”
The faucet ran. Water struck a plate. The sound became too much like the aid station—the paper cup, the hiss in my ears, the volunteer whose mouth moved without words reaching me. My fingers tingled. I set the plate down.
Gloria turned. “Dani?”
“I had a panic attack during the first marathon.”
The confession left in pieces, but it left.
Gloria set down the plate. “You told me you got sick.”
“I did. I threw up. I also couldn’t feel my hands and thought I was dying.”
Fear moved across her face—not disgust or disappointment, but fear for me, years late.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I did not want this face.”
“This is my sister-hid-something-painful-for-three-years face.”
I picked at the dish-towel label.
“And the second race?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Amy gets that part first.”
Gloria studied me. “You used me to practice the opening sentence.”
“Yes.”
“Do not make her pay for the fact that the second one is harder.”
“I won’t.”
Gloria dried her hands. “You told me first.”
“I needed to find the first sentence somewhere I could not lose the person hearing it.”
Her eyes filled. “You cannot lose me.”
“I know that now.”
“Do not use knowing it with me to decide Amy cannot handle the choice.”
“I won’t.”
“Thursday?”
“Thursday.”
Gloria watched me long enough for the escape route to appear.
“I want to move it,” I admitted.
“Until after the challenge?”
From the living room came Amy’s laugh. Money. Certification. Public image. Her, fitting here.
“Yes.”
“Cowardice with a calendar.”
“Yes. Keep Thursday.”
I hated her. I loved her. The same feeling often. “I will.”
From the living room, Lola called, “We found a bone!”
Gloria lowered her voice.
“Dani, you have spent years believing one bad moment makes you untrustworthy. Do not create the betrayal you’re afraid of.”
Her warning stayed with me.
After dessert, Lola fell asleep on the sofa with the fossil brush still in her hand. Amy helped Gloria carry her upstairs. I remained in the living room cleaning green excavation dust from the rug. When Amy returned, she sat beside me on the floor.
“Your niece is intense.”
“Genetic.”
“She wants the timeline by next Sunday.”
“You agreed.”
“It requires research.”
“You’ve found your life’s work.”
Amy picked up a plastic runner from the cake decorations.
“Did Gloria speak to you?”
My pulse jumped. I did not reach for dishes.
“Yes.”
“About Thursday?”
“And the first marathon.”
Amy became very still. “You told her.”
“The first sentence. Panic attack. Not every detail.”
The clock in the hallway ticked twice. I let the silence remain instead of filling it with a joke.
“Why her first?” Amy asked.
“Because I knew she could not stop being my sister after she heard it. I needed proof the sentence could exist outside my body.”
“That is understandable,” Amy said. Her voice had gone more formal, which meant the answer also hurt. “It does not cancel Thursday.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Her hand rested on the rug, inches from mine. “She also asked whether the relationship is real.”
“What did you say?”
“That it started fake. That I want more than the agreement.”
Her breath changed.
“I don’t know what more looks like while part of me still tracks every split and thinks your finish can answer something about me,” I said. “Miguel is your coach. My body has not accepted the memo.”
“Then that is part of what Thursday must clarify.”
“Yes.”
“And the other question?”
“What?”
“You said you want more than the agreement.”
My heart began again.
“Yes.”
“What kind of more?”
“A real date.”
I said it. Simple. Terrifying. Amy’s fingers stopped tracing the dinosaur’s tail. Not rejection or acceptance. Something warm and uncertain.
“After Thursday,” she said.
The condition was fair. It still stung.
“After Thursday.”
We sat together on the floor, not touching.
The distance between our hands seemed louder than the entire house.
From upstairs, Gloria called that Amy’s coat was on the chair.
The moment ended. At the door, Amy hugged Gloria.
She kissed Lola’s forehead while the child remained asleep. Then she turned to me.
“Thank you for dinner.”
“Thank you for coming.”
“I meant what I said.”
“About Christmas?”
Her shoulders lowered.
“About wanting to come if we are still in each other’s lives.”
The condition hurt again.
“Yes.”
She stepped onto the porch. Cool night air moved between us.
“Thursday,” she said.
“Thursday.”
Amy walked toward the waiting car. I watched until she was gone. When I closed the door, Gloria stood in the hallway.
“You set a date?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.”
The sleeping child, dinosaur book, flowers, and empty place where Amy had sat answered for me.
“No,” I said. “I don’t.”
Thursday waited four days away. For three years, I had hidden the worst moment of my life because I believed the truth would change how people saw me. Now the woman I wanted was asking to see me clearly. And I had no idea whether I could survive being seen.