22. Tristan #3
He allows a sweeping gaze around the tiny kitchen.
The fridge is full of magnets, artwork, and an old jury summons.
There are a couple of boxes in the corner, Christmas decorations that never got put up.
There’s tortillas and chips on the counter.
A tub of chocolate ice cream is always in the freezer.
“It’s not your mother.” Dad places a hand over his heart, looking older than I’ve ever seen him.
But he’s practical as he goes on. “I bought this home because that was the American dream. It provided my family shelter. Gave you a place to come home to after school. I think of your mom singing by the piano.”
She was the only musical person in our family. Unless you count Luis’s rap days.
“But I’m not going to hang onto this house because it’s the last place she spent with us. With me.”
Dad’s eyes hang to the right, looking over my shoulder at the fridge. Where there’s a letter from a woman who killed my mom when she robbed a small convenience store. She’s serving life in prison.
Dad forgave her years ago. I never will.
“I’ve thought about this for a while,” Dad says. “I want you to take the money. Get yourself a place.”
“Dad—”
“You’re going to need a place one day.” There’s a frankness that blindsides me.
“I’m not homeless.”
“You’re building a life for yourself. Let me help in this way.”
“But you don’t have to.”
He smiles softly. “I like the woman you brought home today.”
I sigh. “Dad.”
“Go rescue her,” Dad jokes. Just like that, he’s done with this life altering conversation.
Nothing else can be said because a wave of men show up in the kitchen. They’re a mixture of my dad’s work and church friends.
I leave the kitchen before I get dragged into their conversations. I’m searching for Isolde when I spot Rae and Luis.
“They’re together right?” Rae asks.
Luis’s got a beer in his hand. “I mean, I don’t think they’ve put any labels on it. The eye fucking is getting insane, though. No, like, you should see them at the gym. Every guy there knows not to get too—”
My cousins jump, but not because they see me.
Isolde appears in the hallway, and they quickly stop whispering.
Photos hang along the walls. Some were placed by my mother. The rest showed up after my aunts stepped in and ensured the house never went too far gone when it came to interior design.
“Who’s that?” Isolde asks, pointing at a photo.
I know exactly who it is by the way Rae and Luis share a panicked look.
“That’s Tris’s mum, right?” Isolde points to another photo. “But I’ve seen this girl in other photos, but I don’t know who she is.”
When she notices their silence, she blushes.
“Sorry, is that too nosy?” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.
“No,” Rae rushes to says.
“It’s just. . .” Luis blusters.
I step out of the shadows. “It’s Mariah. My old high school sweetheart.”
“Oh.” Isolde nods, showing no signs of discomfort. “She’s really pretty.”
Rae visibly gulps, and Luis’s eyes are wide.
“She died when she was twenty.” I’m completely calm as I say it. After all these years, it’s just one more fact to state.
Isolde typically looks serious. Now is no different. Her blue eyes are darker in the dim light, the depths all knowing.
“I’m real sorry about that,” is all she says.
Rae and Luis extract themselves, walking backward down the hall. At my pointed glare, they hurry up.
“Sorry,” Isolde says, and this time it’s for prying. “I didn’t mean to.”
“She’s in a lot of photos,” I say, shrugging. “I’d known her since kindergarten. She was one of us, you know.”
Isolde nods.
“We didn’t start dating until high school.” The photo on the wall is from our graduation. “She went off to college. I went to work for the Irish.”
We told ourselves we wouldn’t be that couple hanging on just to hang on. After high school, we didn’t break up, but we accepted we’d probably find more to life.
Except all we ever did was drift back to one another. We called each other with big news. Sent silly texts almost daily. When she had car trouble, I drove up to her university campus.
“What happened?” Isolde asks.
“Wrong time, wrong place. Got shot.”
I’m not expecting the twisted look on Isolde’s face. The tenderness. “I’m sorry.”
“One of Marissa’s drug runners,” I say, knowing she’ll understand how my life is a patchwork of Marissa. I decided to shred the fucking tapestry in the only way I knew how—by gunfire.
She steps closer. “I’m really sorry, Tris.”
It’s a connection I wish we didn’t have. The understanding of grief.
“I loved her,” I admit, realizing a half-second later how the truth might make her uncomfortable.
Her blue eyes shine up at me, soft and sad. But it’s all on my behalf. She leans her forehead against my chest, a move she’s doing more and more. It never fails to make me smile.
As I’m running my hand down her back, another truth hits me. Saying I loved Mariah out loud is now more fact than feeling. It’s a statement from long ago.
“Hey, Iz.” The words come of their own free will.
I’m sure I’ll spend nights thinking about how ill-timed they are, how I can’t talk about loving an ex-girlfriend and then say what I’m about to.
Any self-preservation is long gone, because something hits me so hard and so fast I can’t stop it. “What if we moved in together?”