Epilogue #2
“Yes,” both Manu and Hattie said at the same time, then laughed again, their eyes overflowing with the kind of dopey happiness that was reserved for people in love and expecting parents, too, Lulu assumed.
“I’m gonna be an uncle!” Lulu found Xavi’s eyes across the room. He, too, was smiling broadly, his eyes radiating a mix of emotions. “We’re gonna be guncles.”
Xavi nodded, biting his bottom lip in thought. “I guess we are. Huh, who would’ve thought?”
“Not me. That’s for sure,” Lulu shook his head. “I mean, are you guys even legal?” He winked at Manu, who slapped Lulu’s shoulder fondly.
“Shut up, cabrón.”
“Hey!” Lulu rubbed at his shoulder exaggeratedly. “It’s a legit question. Last time I checked, you were still in diapers.” Manu groaned while Hattie ooohed and aaahed at the image of a baby Manu in diapers.
Then Xavi’s timbre voice broke through the chatter and banter as he rose and went to stand next to their mother, who was staring out at the backyard, deep in thought.
“Alma, are you okay?” Lulu hadn’t noticed, but at some point, she must’ve gotten up and gone to stand in front of the window facing the square of yellowish grass in the back.
“Sí, sí, I’m fine.” She turned, facing Xavi. “I’m fine, Xavi.”
Carefully wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Xavi smiled at her, his features soft and filled with empathy.
“You’re going to be an abuelita, Alma.”
“I… I don’t…” Their mother stammered, her gaze flickering nervously to Manu and Hattie. “I don’t…”
“You are, Alma,” Hattie spoke with conviction as she got up from the armrest, pulling Manu with her.
“You’re going to be a grandmother. In five months.
” Hattie’s cheeks glowed, her eyes spilling over with fondness, and suddenly their mother started crying quietly, tears trailing down her wrinkled, gaunt cheeks.
Xavi tightened his grip on her bony shoulders, shaking her carefully.
“Wow, you hear that? Five months? Cono.”
And suddenly it was all too much. The four of them, standing there like a family. Something snapped inside Lulu, and suddenly there was no air left in his lungs. His heart clenched and clenched, struggling in his chest to pump more blood through his body, but there was no air. No fucking air.
Stumbling from his seat, he stormed through the living room and down the hallway, slamming the front door wide open when he reached it.
Running down the steps to the porch, his feet almost slipped on the last step.
Gravel crunched under his sneakers as he strode across the driveway toward a lonely swing hanging from a honey mesquite.
He heard heavy footsteps on the gravel behind him, then within seconds strong arms wrapped around him from behind, Xavi’s familiar scent and feel engulfing him.
Lulu instinctively struggled in Xavi’s arms, the touch that he loved more than anything suddenly unbearable.
“Let me go!” he seethed through clenched teeth.
“No,” Xavi’s chest rumbled against Lulu’s back.
“Let me fucking go, mano.” Lulu reached for the swing, clinging to it like it were the last straw in a world a storm had left devastated and unrecognizable.
“Never,” Xavi gritted against his neck, his grip tightening. “Not a chance.”
“But you have to,” Lulu sniffled, his eyes burning, his throat raw like it had been torn to shreds by sandpaper. “I can’t… I can’t… Breathe. There’s no air.”
“I know, but there is. Just breathe, baby. Don’t run.”
Lulu continued to struggle in Xavi’s arms as tears cascaded down his cheeks and further down his chin and neck, painting his light blue T-shirt with darker dots of blue.
Then, eventually, a tiredness—decades of tiredness, really—overcame Lulu, and all the fight went out of him.
His legs gave way beneath him, but Xavi held him up, strong and steadfast, like an anchor, ever-present and unmoving.
“You’re good, mano. You’re good,” Xavi cooed against his neck. “It’s okay. You’re allowed to be angry with her. It’s okay.”
“I hate her!” Lulu cried out into the desert, which lay just beyond the line of brush behind the Mesquite. “I hate her!” he yelled to everyone who’d listen and to no one in particular.
“I know, baby, but you don’t. You don’t. There’s not a hateful bone in your body, baby. There’s not. But you’re hurtin’, and that’s okay.”
“I do,” Lulu insisted with everything he had. “I do hate her,” he repeated because the alternative—that he still loved her—would just mean more pain, more hurt, more disappointment, when she eventually relapsed or disappeared again.
They both dropped to their knees, Xavi folded around him, speaking quiet words of comfort against Lulu’s temple.
The hot wind blew in from the desert, drying Lulu’s tears, leaving his skin tight and itchy.
The swing moved with the wind, lonely and worn from years of the unforgiving New Mexican sun beating down on it.
Unforgiving. His therapist’s words rang through Lulu’s head.
‘It is not up to you, Mr. Cisnero, to offer your mother forgiveness or understanding. It is not up to you to be the bigger person. No one in their right mind would expect that from you. You are a victim of severe neglect and unfathomable abuse. No one should expect that from you.’
Victim. It had taken Lulu hours and hours of therapy to accept that word. He’d always hated the idea of being a victim. It meant that you were weak and that someone else held the power over you. Or at least, so he’d thought until his therapist had put it into perspective.
‘Being a victim, Mr. Cisnero, means that things were done to you that were not okay. Things that should never have been done. It doesn’t make you weak.
You are a strong young man. It’s clear to anyone who knows you.
You are a survivor. But you are also a victim.
Victim originates from Latin and means a sacrificial animal.
Your well-being, your safety, and your childhood innocence were sacrificed because your parents were neglectful and abusive.
But that’s on them, not on you, Mr. Cisnero. ’
“I thought I was ready. I thought I was ready to see her. But I can’t forgive her. I won’t.” Lulu spat the words against Xavi’s neck.
“You don’t have to. No one expects you to. I don’t even think she does.”
“But… but Manu will,” Lulu sniffled.
“Perhaps. But maybe he needs it. And that’s okay.
He’s going to be a father. Perhaps he needs to.
” Xavi sighed, then eased Lulu away from his shoulder gently.
“But you, baby, you don’t have to.” His eyes were so warm, so bright, like twin flames burning with such eternal strength.
“But please, cisne, try to make peace with your past. Peace with her. It’s not the same as forgiving or forgetting, even.
It just means that you finally allow yourself to rest. Let yourself rest, baby. You deserve it.”
Rest. Lulu had never thought of it like that.
“It’s hard,” he admitted, resting his forehead against Xavi’s. “I thought I wanted her to be better, to be happy, to be clean… But now I just wonder why she couldn’t be all those things for me and Manu. Why we weren’t enough.”
“It’s not about you, baby. It never was.”
“I didn’t think it would be this hard.”
“I know. I think it’s fucking hard, too. But we can’t keep holding our breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Lulu nodded, his mouth twisting into a weak smile as the desert wind caressed his neck, coaxing the small hairs to rise. The mesquite rustled above their heads, almost like it was making it known that it agreed. Rest, my friend.
“I love you,” Lulu whispered against Xavi’s lips.
“I love you, too, cisne.” And Lulu felt Xavi’s smile in every word. “So much.”
“I know.” He did know. Now he knew. It had taken Lulu decades to see it, to understand how someone as perfect as Xavi could love someone like him.
But he did understand it now. Because Xavi wasn’t perfect.
No one was. But they were perfect for each other, evening out each other’s scars, righting each other’s wrongs, just like the mesquite was perfect for the harsh, dry New Mexican soil.
“You ready to go back inside, baby?” Xavi hummed, then pressed a dry kiss against Lulu’s mouth.
“A few more minutes. Just hold me for a few more minutes.” He kissed Xavi back, deepening the kiss as he coaxed Xavi’s lips to separate for his tongue.
“Okay,” Xavi spoke, inviting Lulu in. “Okay,” he drawled as his fingers dug into Lulu’s shoulders, his tongue dipping out to meet Lulu’s.
Lulu sighed as he closed his eyes, surrendering to the one man who would always mean safety and love and home.
Even miles away from their real home, under a honey mesquite, next to a worn swing in the vast New Mexican desert, Lulu was home.