Axel
The drive to the Santoro house felt longer than it actually was.
Delia sat in the passenger seat staring out the window, her whole body angled away like she was trying to occupy as little shared space as possible.
We’d barely spoken all week—not since I’d apparently crossed some invisible line by cleaning her apartment and she’d crossed an actual legal line by assaulting a couple having a private argument.
I’d been trying to help. She’d interpreted it as control. Annoyingly, both of us were right in our own ways. We’d reached an impasse that made every interaction feel like navigating a minefield.
The call from the police station had stopped my heart.
I’d been in her apartment when my phone rang with an unknown number. I never answered unknown numbers during meetings. Something made me answer anyway.
“Is this Axel Irving? We have a Delia Santoro here who says you can verify—”
I’d run out of her apartment and called my lawyer on the way to my car.
The entire drive to the station, my mind had been running through worst-case scenarios. What had happened. If she was hurt. If someone had hurt her.
When I’d seen her in that interrogation room—defiant, furious, trying to project an aura of not caring—the relief had been so intense I’d nearly said something monumentally stupid.
Instead I’d gotten her out. Handled the paperwork. Driven her home in silence because I hadn’t trusted myself to speak.
I’d thought not talking about it would help. That giving her space would show respect for her boundaries.
Apparently I’d been wrong about that too.
“You didn’t have to do this,” Delia said suddenly, still not looking at me.
“Do what?”
“Come to dinner. You haven’t attended in years,”
“Your family invited me.”
“Not like it mattered to you before. And my mother invited you—she probably doesn’t even remember doing it. Daniel just went along with it because he feels guilty.”
“I don’t mind.”
“You should.” She finally turned to look at me. “Fair warning—Since your absence, you probably don’t know Mom’s been having more bad days than good lately. She might not remember who you are. Or she might remember you perfectly and say something completely inappropriate. It’s a coin toss.”
“I’ve known your mother for years. I also understand how Alzheimer’s works.”
“Understanding it and living with it are different things.” Her voice went quieter. “It’s hard to watch. Even for me, and I’m her daughter. You don’t have to subject yourself to it out of some sense of obligation.”
“It’s not an obligation.”
“Then what is it?”
I kept my eyes on the road. “It’s dinner. With people I care about.”
She was quiet for a moment, then turned back to the window. But something in her posture had shifted slightly. Less like she was trying to escape and more like she was just tired.
The Santoro house looked the same as it always had—a modest two-story in a neighborhood that had seen better days but still held onto its dignity. The lawn was neatly maintained, the porch swept clean, a wreath on the door that Elena had probably put up months ago and forgotten about.
Home. It still felt like home, even after five years of deliberate distance.
Elena opened the door before we could knock, her face lighting up with genuine joy. “There you are! I was starting to worry.”
She pulled Delia into a hug first, holding on just a beat longer than casual, like she was reassuring herself that her daughter was real and present. Then she turned to me.
“Axel. My second son.” She wrapped her arms around me and I bent down to accommodate her shrinking frame. She felt more fragile than last time—lighter, like she was slowly disappearing around the edges.
“It’s good to see you, Elena.”
“You both look too thin.” She ushered us inside. “Maria made enough food to feed an army. You’ll eat until you can’t move, and then you’ll eat more.”
I looked at Delia, she held my gaze for a beat.
Today seemed like a good day. Elena’s eyes were clear, her movements purposeful if slower. She led us to the kitchen where Maria was indeed assembling an army’s worth of food, and Daniel was leaning against the counter looking like he hadn’t slept in days.
He caught my eye and mouthed “thank you.”
I nodded, uncomfortable with the gratitude. Staying with Delia was not a task at all, it was something I was happy doing.
“Axel!” Maria pulled me into a hug that smelled like garlic and rosemary. “You’re too skinny. Doesn’t my niece feed you?”
“I usually cook,” I said.
“Of course you do. Delia burns water.” Maria kissed Delia’s cheek. “No offense, mi amor.”
“None taken. It’s disappointingly accurate.”
We settled around the table—the same table where I’d sat for Sunday dinners as a teenager, where Miguel used to tell stories about his patients, where I’d fallen in love with a girl who talked too much.
The food was incredible. Maria had outdone herself with chicken and rice and plantains and beans and enough side dishes that the table groaned under the weight.
Elena watched us eat with that expression mothers get when feeding people makes them happy. But there was something else in her eyes too, something I couldn’t quite read.
“So,” she said after a few minutes. “How are you two managing in that little apartment?”
Delia swallowed her rice. “Fine. It’s working out.” She stared at me before adding, “Axel is very neat and organized.”
The edge in her voice was unmistakable.
“And Delia is very creative with her spatial arrangements,” I said, keeping my tone deliberately mild.
Daniel made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Elena smiled, that satisfied smile that said she was pleased about something we hadn’t explicitly stated. “I’m glad you have each other. It’s important not to be alone during hard times.”
“We’re not—” Delia started.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Elena interrupted, looking between us with sudden intensity. “How I always knew you’d figure it out eventually.”
The table went silent.
“Figure what out?” Daniel asked carefully.
Elena’s smile turned knowing—that sharp, perceptive expression she used to have before the diagnosis, when she could read people like they were books written in large print.
“Just that Axel and Delia make sense together. I could see it even when you were young. Some people are stubborn enough to miss what’s right in front of them. ”
My heart stopped beating.
Delia laughed—forced and too bright. “Mom, you’re confused. We’re barely friends, let alone anything else.”
“I’m not confused about everything yet.” Elena’s voice was gentle but firm. “Some things I still see clearly.” She looked at Delia with unexpected sharpness. “You’ve always been too scared of being seen to notice who’s been looking.”
The words landed sharp in my chest. I felt them hit Delia too, saw her entire body go still.
Before anyone could respond, Elena changed the topic abruptly. “Does anyone want more wine? Maria, did you open the red or the white?”
“Both, Tía. Let me get you some.”
The conversation shifted, flowing around Elena’s comment like water around a stone. But the stone stayed—heavy and unavoidable.
I couldn’t look at Delia. Couldn’t risk seeing her expression. Or let her see mine.
After dinner, Delia escaped to the kitchen with a stack of plates. I followed because leaving her alone after that felt wrong, even though we’d barely been speaking.
We fell into the familiar rhythm—her washing, me drying. She scrubbed each plate like it had personally offended her. I dried them while trying not to think about Elena’s words echoing in my head.
“That was weird, right?” Delia said finally, not looking at me.
“Your mother seemed to be in her good days, that’s not weird,”
“That’s not what I mean.” She scrubbed harder. “I mean what she said. About us. That was weird.”
My heart was doing something irregular in my chest. “Elena probably meant we’re getting along well given the circumstances.”
“Right. The circumstances where we’re barely speaking and you’re passive-aggressively following my instructions by not helping me at all.”
“I was giving you the space you asked for.”
“I asked you to stop reorganizing my life. Not to stop existing in it entirely.”
The distinction apparently mattered. I’d missed it.
She rinsed a plate and handed it to me. Our fingers brushed. I dried the plate and tried to focus on something other than the way my chest felt tight.
She sighed. “Maybe mom is just confused because she’s used to seeing us fight for years and now because you live with me she thinks we’re destined for each other.
” Delia’s mouth quirked slightly. “Remember when she tried to set me up with that guy from her book club who collected toenail clippings just because we got along for thirty minutes?”
“I don’t think he collected them. I think he just mentioned he kept them once.”
“Once is too much, Axel.”
It was the first almost-normal exchange we’d had all week. It made the knot in my chest loosen. Just slightly.
“We’re not fighting,” I said.
“What would you call it?”
“Adjusting.”
“Adjusting is a generous word for whatever this hostile silence has been.”
“I was giving you space.”
“I wanted you to ask before doing things—not disappear entirely.”
I set down the dish towel. “What do you actually want from me?”
She was quiet for a long moment, hands still in the soapy water. When she spoke, her voice was smaller than usual.
“Honestly? I don’t know. I need help but I resent needing it.
I want you there but I hate feeling like a charity case.
I appreciate everything you’re doing but I wish I didn’t need any of it.
” She pulled her hands out of the water and grabbed a towel.
“I’m a mess of contradictions and I don’t know how to be anything else right now. ”
The honesty was unexpected. Raw in a way Delia usually avoided.
“I’m not keeping score,” I said. “I’m not there because I pity you or because you’re an obligation.”
“Then why are you there?”
Because I’ve loved you since I was fourteen years old and watching you fall apart is unbearable.