31 #2
Vera and Svet in their corner, all eyebrow flicks and micro-signals.
They look at each other, they get each other, and I can already tell they’ve got a plan for everything: the house, the world, and, if hunger hits, the fridge.
I like Vera, but I’m openly biased toward Svet, and I’m not hiding it.
Daenerys can show up on a dragon and I won’t care—I’m still voting for the little one.
In my head I call a reality show and go, "Good evening, I’m here to nominate Svet for Best Tiny Human on the planet, thank you, Spain," I cry, they cut to a tearful close-up, the music swells—and then she looks at me, lifts an eyebrow, goes, "What’s wrong with you, Alaska? " and my inner theater falls apart.
"Are we sitting down or what are we waiting for?" Julia calls from the table, with a clap.
People shuffle, half sit, half fight over chairs, someone’s already biting into bread and hasn’t even found a plate yet.
Even so, Julia has that voice that organizes everybody and somehow also strokes your earlobe, so we obey, because otherwise you’ll get stuck with bathroom duty, and nobody wants that.
Irina arrives with a giant ladle and boss eyes—she doesn’t let a single thing slide—leans in, plants a quick, furtive kiss on Svet’s forehead, and goes back to the pot of baba.
I can’t tell if it’s baba ghanoush or just purée, but it’s nice and thick.
She crosses paths with Julia at the corner of the table and they start their food Cold War: this goes here, that doesn’t get touched till s o? an d? so shows up.
I pick at grapes so I don’t get dragged into their domestic UN.
Sabina, perfect, angles her chair to favor her profile, looks me over, gives me a full onc e? over in two seconds, and smiles.
That smile of hers that says, "You’ve already told me without a word.
" I nod with a face that says, "Yeah, girl, I slept, I’ve got mascara on, I didn’t lose my keys today," and she clinks her glass against mine without speaking—W i? Fi connection.
"Have you tried my salad?" Amaia at my ear, genuine excitement.
"I loved it," I reply with a confidence I do not possess.
"Which one did you like best?" she fires another, and I stare at the bowls—green, greener, green with stuff.
I turn into an expert: crisp leaves, a tart note, mischievous little seeds, a balanced flavor. In my head, MasterChef applauds; in reality I can’t tell chives from zucchini and I pray whichever one it is has cheese, because if it’s got cheese, I’m good with anything.
"The one in the bowl with the little dots," I improvise. "That one looks amazing."
"That one’s mine," Amaia says, proud. Thank God.
"Vera, plan for today?" I ask, because I smell conspiracy.
"Order, checklist, zone cleaning, dinner at nine, game at ten," she fires back.
Svet winks at me. I drop my eyes to my bread and play deaf.
"Okay, chairs for everyone, phones away, napkins where we can see them," Julia directs, final order.
"I’m next to Svet," I announce. I’m not giving up my perk.
"Obviously," she says, half a smile, and I consider myself paid in full. And suddenly, big existential question. "Aunt Alaska, pistachio or lemon?"
I pick pistachio, and Svet jots it down under "complicated things." She adds a list of nighttime shenanigans to my fake résumé as the aunt who doesn’t set boundaries, and Vera gives me the conspiratorial look. We’re a team, and I’m the quarterback of childish whims.
I look at Nat, way down at the other end—social distance, planetary, and a pinch lesbian.
She has no idea what’s going on, so I play mysterious with my glass to my lips, waiting for my Best Supporting Actress award in Unrequited Love Scene.
Inside, fantasy: me flinging the glass, Nat leaping onto the table, French Kiss in the background, and Julia serenely baking cookies.
Between one toast and the next, Irina snags me.
"How are the books?" she asks, not looking at anyone else.
"Still in boxes," I tell her, "but I’ve already made room for them."
She nods like someone scoring a private goal. Julia touches her wrist and steers her back to the general conversation.
And me, the one who walked in here three months ago with my little backpack and a fire, I catch myself happy in this meticulously organized chaos. Nat brushes my back as she passes. No one notices. Or everyone does. I bite my lip and count to five.
Let’s see how we end up finding a spot today. In this house, one always turns up. And if not, we carve one out.
After coffee, we split into tribes. On the couches it’s Irina, Julia, Sabina, Vega, Mikel, and me. Nat is roaming the dining room with Amaia, Luna, and Martina, playing who can toss the most crumbs on the floor to make the girls laugh, very Montessori.
Vega opens her mouth and I’m already bracing for one of those lines that spike your pulse, because when she inhales, she brings fireworks.
And bam—instead of a line, half her snack goes straight onto the Persian rug.
No warning, no stomach warning, no belly rumble, nothing—eject and move on.
And it doesn’t stop there. She repeats. Another round.
The living room freezes. Mikel steps forward, back, forward again, goes white—whiter than white—clasps his hands, and I read his lips: “Please don’t make it my turn to clean, please don’t make it my turn to clean, amen.”
By the time I move, Julia and Sabina have already rolled out the operation: one holds her hair like a stylist on So You Think You Can Dance and the other shows up with a towel, water, a bowl, ammonia, and an anti-drama syrup I wish existed and will chug the second someone invents it.
I swear they’ve got the choreography down.
Julia talks to Vega like she’s Princess Kate but actually nice: “Breathe through your nose, sweetheart.” Practical, no drama.
“Easy, love.”
Mikel is white, whiter, bone white.
I hang back a couple feet, hands up, not clear on anything.
Before, Vega was entirely my circus: I held hair, cleaned what no one wanted to look at, and put on the face of a nurse at some fancy private hospital.
But now the whole relatives world tour shows up, and I’m just floating, half happy I’m no longer the designated sucker on call, half hurt because…
well, what am I supposed to do with this sense of usefulness?
I fantasize about dropping to the floor and scrubbing like crazy out of sheer pride, but I bite my tongue, breathe, station myself behind Julia, and provide logistical support.
Vega plants her feet, looks at us with full Disney fawn face, eyes wide and blinking.
She huffs softly. I want to hug her, haul her into the bathroom, slide the latch, and let no one in, but I hold back because she might let loose a surprise puke and my hair is decent today; I do not have time for another wash.
“It’s been happening for days,” she admits, documentary-level innocent. “Mostly in the mornings. In the afternoons… I don’t know, I feel really weird.”
Julia and Sabina lock eyes for two seconds, a whole telegram, keyword floating in the air.
It’s that moment when moms can smell teenage drama from ten feet away and decide they’re witches.
All they’re missing is a raven and a cloak.
I smell it too, the whole living room does; a ridiculous tingle runs through me and I get the idiot nervous giggles, then I get mad at myself for laughing.
Sabina goes full eighties Madonna, aura of “I’ll rip your ear off if I have to,” and issues a PSA for anyone listening: “Hold up,” she says.
“If anyone thinks about making me a grandma before I hit fifty, I will kill them. Sorry, Irina, queen.” She shoots Irina a look. “With all my love, I’ll kill them.”
Julia laughs right in her face. “Oh, please, Barbie Siberia, I can see the panic from here.” Julia turns to Mikel and to Vega—mostly to Vega, because Mikel is very busy being handsome and useful only in photos. “Come on, kids aren’t stupid. You do know what condoms are, right?”
“Yes!” Vega and Mikel blurt in unison, way too fast.
“I mean… most of the time.” She looks at the ceiling. “There was this… one time.”
“One time what?” Sabina pins her with that glacial blue stare.
“One time we didn’t have any and…” Mikel looks at the ceiling. “It was quick.”
“Quick doesn’t make it less likely to get someone pregnant,” Irina says, finger in the air.
Sabina puts a hand to her forehead like the lead in a Turkish soap, and Amaia comes barreling toward us, guns blazing. “One time! Of course! Once is plenty! Have you heard of biology?” She turns to Sabina. “Tell me no, please. Tell me this is a deluxe stomach bug.”
“It could be,” Irina says, tempered steel. “Or it could not. Breathe. We go to the pharmacy. And then, if we need to, you know, Blondie—you’re a doctor.”
Vega actually gets scared. “What if…?” Her voice cracks.
“If it is, we’ll deal,” Julia says, squeezing her hand. “First we check. Then I yell at you.”
Mikel, already picturing his life as the teen dad on some crappy show nobody watches, mutters, “It can’t be…” But his spirit is already defeated.
Vega repeats the vomiting performance. My stomach starts rolling, and as an empathetic puker, I feel the nausea rising. I look at Nat, who's in the background shaking her head. Zen personified. Or maybe she just can't deal with a full-on Walking Dead routine in the middle of the living room.
Someone tries to insist it's a stomach bug—maybe it was me, maybe my cosmic self, whatever. Not even the universe is sure. Sabina ignores the world harder than the Oscars snub Spanish films: there she is, with evil-queen hair, a perfect couldn’t-faze-me-if-the-house-were-on-fire face, steady hands, cleaning and tidying with such ruthless efficiency it makes you anxious.
Disgust never visits her; only authority.