28. Carmela
Carmela
A s soon as we step off the plane back home, I miss the warmth of California. I never thought there’d be a day when I preferred the West Coast to the East. Since my meltdown after Anders and I had sex in the hotel room, all I can think about is how much I just wanted to stay.
That, and how much I miss my family.
Which is why we’re currently driving to my parents, stopping at our house to unpack our shorts and T-shirts and repack a bag for Maya—who isn’t exactly happy that she’s going to stay with grandparents she’s never met and who haven’t bothered to be a part of our family for fourteen years.
Anders and I—and Mick, although reluctantly—are all in agreement, however, that it’s the safest option for Maya right now. And I know if I explain what’s happening, my parents will take her in a heartbeat.
Maya pouts in the backseat of my Mirai Limited, headphones on, ignoring me as I try to make eye contact through the rearview mirror. It’s Anders’ turn to sit in the passenger seat while I drive.
“How long has it been since you’ve spoken to them?” he asks quietly, just in case the headphones are for show and Maya is pretending she’s not listening to our conversation.
“It’s been years. They pretty much disowned me when I made the choice to move in with Mick.” I recheck the mirror to see Maya mouthing words to a random song, head bobbing as she scrolls through something on her phone. “When he got married, it was well-known news. But they never reached out to see how I was doing or what happened to me.”
“That must have been hard. Being alone when you needed her the most.” Anders smooths his thumb over my knuckles as our hands rest on the center console.
Not once has he brought up my breakdown. There hasn’t been another time when I thought he would tell me those three little words, either. I hate how complicated everything has become. But Anders is taking it all in stride.
“I had Denise, so I wasn’t completely alone,” I explain. “She was the closest thing I had to a mother figure when Mami stopped talking to me. ”
“Whatever happened to Denise?”
Fondly, I think of the woman who took me under her wing. “She died. Shortly after, I found out she left the club to me, but it wasn’t hers to give. She’d accumulated so much debt that the bank was going to seize and liquidate it all. Mick stepped in and partnered with Vinny to buy it, and we turned it into Désirer.”
Anders taps his knee with his pointer finger, something he does when he’s deep in thought. “So Morroni was part of it from the beginning? And Mick just bullied him out of it? How did those two even connect?”
“I don’t…I don’t know, actually.” I realize that Mick has never told me just how he got tangled up with Vinny in the first place.
“So what stopped Morroni from retaliating? Everything I’ve found shows he’s been relatively calm since he was iced out.”
“I mean, I guess because I kept Luca and his men on for security? As long as Luca is there, Vinny has a foot in the door.” I shrug, still trying to think of how or why Mick would have gone into business with Vinny, only to break ties so suddenly, so many years later.
“It just seems too easy,” Anders murmurs, shaking his head. His fingers raise to stroke his beard as he mutters to himself. “The only connection we’ve found with the men who were murdered is that they all had memberships at Désirer. But what if they were in on what Morroni was doing? Ahh, it still doesn’t explain the letters, though. Why threaten you specifically?”
I think back to the names of the men who were killed. None of them ring any specific bell save for being members. Even when Vinny was at the club, I can’t think of any distinctive time he held an audience with any of them.
All thoughts of murders and whodunit are pushed from my mind by apprehension as I pull into my parents’ neighborhood. “Hey, smooth guy?” I interrupt his mumbling.
“Huh?” His attention turns to me, and he only takes a second to realize we’ve slowed down on a quiet suburban street. “Oh, shit. Do you want me to wait in the car with Maya while you talk to them first? Or how do you wanna do this, baby girl? I got your back either way.”
“I still don’t know why I have to stay here. Why can’t I just stay with Jill like normal? They don’t even want us,” Maya speaks up from the back, startling me.
Hearing her say her grandparents don’t want her pains me. I’ll be damned if my little girl will be subjected to the wrath I had to endure the last time I saw Mami and Papi.
I turn into the driveway of the house I grew up in. The yellow brick, red tiled roof, American foursquare home looks just like it did the day I left. The same low bushes are trimmed neatly in front of the porch. Pots of violets still frame the stairway leading up to the mahogany door with its etched glass panes.
I draw a slow, deep breath as I exit the car and make my way up the stairs. Everything about this place is exactly the same. I can only hope the one thing that has changed is Mami’s mind.
After I ring the doorbell, I straighten my jacket. Instead of sticking with the casual clothing I’ve been wearing the past few days, I opted for a cream-fitted blazer and high-waisted pants from alice + olivia. My power suits always make me feel more in control of a situation, and right now, I need all the help I can get.
Through the panes, I can see the blurred image of Mami. My lungs burn with the breath I’m holding as the sound of footsteps grows louder, and I fight the urge to turn around and find any other solution to keeping Maya safe.
Mami opens the door. She hasn’t changed much in the last fourteen years. Gray streaks through her dark hair at the temples, and her deep brown eyes carry a sadness I’ve never seen. Other than that, she looks just how I remember.
“Can I help yo–” Her words die in her throat as her hands fly to her mouth. “Carmelita?” she asks unbelievingly.
“Who’s at the door, love?” Papi’s voice drifts down the hall from the kitchen—along with the nostalgic aroma of café cooking in the cafetera.
He pops his head around the corner just as Mami cries, “It’s Carmelita!” before throwing her arms around me.
Tears instantly spring to my eyes as I return her hug. Papi jogs down the hall, mouth open in a toothy grin. Where Mami has barely changed in appearance, Papi now has no hair, and his face is beginning to wrinkle around the eyes and mouth. Our eyes lock over Mami’s shoulder. “Hi, Papi. Mami.”
This wasn’t the welcome I was expecting.
Years of unresolved, pent-up frustration melt away in seconds as my parents embrace me with tears flowing down their faces. Distantly, I hear the sound of the car doors opening and shutting over Mami’s sobs.
“I have someone I want you to meet.” I pull back and shift my attention to where Maya and Anders are walking up the porch.
Mami and Papi both make sounds of disbelief. “Is this nuestra nieta?”
“Yes, this is your granddaughter, Mami. This is Maya.” I wrap my hands around Maya’s shoulders as she comes to stand beside me. She’s stiff, and a frown mars her beautiful face. I don’t blame her for having her guard up, and I won’t force her to be overly friendly—as long as she’s respectful and polite .
“Querida ni?a, eres hermosa,” Mami tells her how beautiful she is, walking forward to cup her cheeks.
Maya’s lips turn up for an instant before she replies, “Thank you.”
“And who is this?” Papi asks, gesturing to Anders, who’s perched on the top step, waiting to be invited into the fray.
I freeze. Unsure of how to introduce Anders. We didn’t discuss this, and if my parents find out he lives in California, it’s only going to invite a lot of questions I don’t have the answers to.
Anders steps up beside me, holding his hand out for Papi to shake. “Anderson Brooks, sir. I’m your daughter’s boyfriend.”
Well…I guess that settles that.
“...and then he told him, ‘ I’m going to need the strongest tape you have, sir. Because your daughter is bound to break my heart. ’” Mami finishes telling the story of how she and Papi met in the hardware store my abuelo owned.
Anders laughs politely and gives me a discreet, concerned look—the fifth in the last hour. For not seeing my parents in nearly fifteen years, they act like no time has passed at all. But there’s still a tense layer of apprehension in the air. It shows in Maya’s clipped tone when answering a question and Mami’s tight smile when she asks how I’m doing as a single mother.
“So, what about you, Anders? How did you meet our little girl?” Papi asks, like he’s talking to a high school boyfriend instead of a nearly forty-year-old man.
Anders takes a careful pause before a smile stretches over his face. “At a restaurant. She tried getting me to order oysters instead of steak.”
Mami’s eyebrows draw together. “Oysters? Carmelita, you hate seafood.”
Anders blanches as Maya frowns at Mami. “Why do you call her Carmelita?” she asks.
“Because that’s her name.” Maya gets a stern look, which I know all too well. “Not the nonsense that good for nothing–”
“Mami!” I interrupt her, jolting forward slightly in my chair. Maya doesn’t know how long Mick has been my boss , or why I changed my name. I’ll be damned if this is how she finds out.
“Maya, why don’t we let your mom talk to your grandparents alone for a little bit?” Anders suggests, already standing from his chair.
Maya looks like she’s about to argue, but when she sees the look on my face, she rolls her eyes and stands as well. “Fine. Wanna play online chess?”
I watch them go through the living room to the solarium Papi added onto the house so they could enjoy the backyard in the winter. Anders throws me a wink when the doors shut before occupying Maya’s attention.
“She doesn’t know Mick is her father. I’d like to keep it that way,” I inform my parents.
Mami makes a disapproving sound. “He forces you to change your name. Isolates you from your family. And then doesn’t even have the nerve to claim her as his child?”
“Lettie, love, let her speak,” Papi soothes.
I shoot him a grateful look. Papi was always the one breaking up the fights Mami and I used to have—always the voice of reason. “We changed my name to keep you from being embarrassed, should any word of what happened get out. And he may not have wanted to meet you, but you made it very clear that I was no longer welcome at home.”
“That is not true, Carmelita!” Mami cries indignantly. “We said as long as he was in the picture, we wanted nothing to do with the situation. You were his mistress ,” she spits the word like it’s an evil thing, capable of physical harm. I don’t deny her accusation because it’s the truth.
But I won’t let her make me feel small for it.
“He took care of his child in the ways that mattered. And I run two very successful businesses thanks to him.” My words are like acid, burning my tongue to say them. I’ve worked my ass off since Maya was born, but all my doors opened because of Mick’s name and reach. As much as I would love to say I did it all on my own, I have the lifestyle I do because of him.
“So why come home now? What’s changed? Is he finally out of the picture?” Papi asks.
“Look at her, Geo.” Mami gestures to my body. “Even if he’s gone, he’s still here. He’s turned her into someone I don’t even recognize.”
I blink away the angry tears that prick my eyes. “Why, Mami? Because I wear nice clothes? Because I chose to have a nice home with security? To be able to afford to send my daughter to a good school? You always looked down on people who had money. As a little girl, I never understood why, but as an adult, I know it’s because we didn’t have much of it. Is that why you’re so upset? You think I chose money over family?”
“Didn’t you, mijita?” she asks sadly. “You jumped into bed with a rich man who sold you pretty lies and let him use you. Did you tell yourself it was okay to let your child grow up fatherless, because you had a nice, big home and a private education for her? We may not have had much extra when you were growing up, but we did just fine for ourselves. We gave you everything we could, Carmelita.”
This time, I let my tears fall as my parents regard me with sad eyes. Papi reaches over to grasp Mami’s hand that’s bunched in her dress to stop her from further wrinkling the fabric.
“You never pushed for him to meet us, and we’ve been waiting for you to come home all this time. We thought you were ashamed of us, Lita,” Papi says sadly, using the nickname he gave me as a child: Lettie and Lita, my lovely Latina ladies , he used to call Mami and me.
Shock spears through me. “Waiting for me to come home? I thought you didn’t want to see me? Why didn’t you come looking for me if that wasn’t the case?”
“How could we? You changed your number. Changed your name. Carmelita Cabrera vanished into thin air. We even sucked up our pride and reached out to that menacing man, but all our attempts to reach him were turned away,” Mami explains sourly.
I blink. Does Mick know they reached out to him? He knew how much my family meant to me, if he knew they were trying to reach me, and he actively kept me from them…
My blood boils in my veins, fingers itching to reach for my phone to call him and demand answers. But I quell my ire because yelling at Mick can wait. I need to make the most of this time with my parents.
“I was never ashamed of you. I didn’t know you tried to find me. Honestly, I thought you wanted nothing to do with me, and I didn’t want to embarrass you. If I would have known, I would never have stayed away.” I hastily wipe the fresh wave of tears that fall down my cheeks.
Papi springs from his chair, pulling me from mine to wrap me in a hug. “It’s okay, Lita. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
I squeeze him tightly, locking watery eyes with Mami as she stands and embraces both of us. We stay like that for what seems like forever before moving back to our seats. “There is a reason I’ve come back now, though. I need someone to take care of Maya for a little while.”
“Is everything okay? What’s wrong?” Mami demands.
Sucking the inside of my cheek between my teeth, I mull over my words, deciding how much information I want to disclose. “Everything is fine. There is a security situation at my job and I need to stay in the city for a little while. I would feel much better if Maya was with people I trust.”
“Well, of course, she can stay here,” Mami starts, but Papi interrupts her.
“She can. But what will you have us say, Lita? Do you want us to tell people she’s our granddaughter?” His voice is wary, and if Mami had asked, I would have felt like they don’t want to tell people about their illegitimate grandchild. But since the question is coming from Papi, I know he genuinely wonders what story I want told .
“I think that would be okay,” I say carefully. “But it would be best to keep her last name a secret. Though, perhaps not going around introducing her to everyone would be preferable.” If I know my parents, they are still super active in the church, and the less people who go poking around about me and Maya, the better. Mami and Papi’s friends are incredibly nosy.
Mami nods. “That’s fine. Is everything okay? You said there’s a security problem. Should we be worried?”
My attention snaps to Anders and Maya, who are motioning that they want to come back inside. I wave them in as I tell Mami, “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Mom, I’m hungry,” Maya grumbles.
Mami brightens up and claps her hands. “Do you like pastelitos? We were just getting ready to make them before you arrived.”
One of my fondest memories with Mami is making the pastries filled with guava and cheese. However, I did not inherit her cooking gene. I cringe as Mami gives me an incredulous look when Maya asks, “What are those?”
“ What are those? ” Mami cries out. “?Me estás tomando el pelo? Carmelita, you never made pastelitos with your daughter? Come, Maya, it’s time to learn.”
Mami pulls Maya toward the kitchen, switching languages back and forth as she mutters about how I was never that great in the kitchen and asking Maya who cooks the meals in our house.
“Anders, how about a beer? You like baseball?” Papi asks, walking back toward the solarium. Anders follows him after a fleeting hug and kiss on my temple.
And just like that, after so many years of being absent from each other’s lives, my family is whole again.