Chapter Twenty-Five Jenn
Chapter Twenty-Five
Jenn
Saturday evening
“Oh my God, this is amazing!” I murmur into my drink—a new cocktail Stef has been working on for her restaurant. “You have raised sangria to an art form!”
She nods, flashing me a knowing smile. “I know, right? It’s the cinnamon stick.”
“Wait, really? That’s it? A cinnamon stick? That’s so . . . not sexy. I thought maybe you were going to say prickly pear or kumquat or some crazy kind of plum . . .”
“Nope. Just your garden-variety cinnamon stick. It’s very Spanish—as in Spain—so that’s kinda sexy, I suppose,” she offers with a shrug, reaching for an empanada.
We’re sitting out on the deck of her condo in Little Havana, just down the street from the restaurant.
I take another appreciative sip, licking my lips when I’m done. “Yeah, okay. I’ll buy that. Sexy Spain. And hey, I appreciate you taking a Saturday night off from the restaurant. I know you like to be there to keep an eye on things on the busy nights.”
“Mama, ever since the Food Network did a feature on us, every night is a busy night! I got myself an excellent manager to pick up some of the slack so I can spend more time at home . . . with my girlfriend.”
I sit up straight on the couch and set my drink down on the glass-top side table next to me. My cousin is notoriously fickle about partners. I learned a long time ago not to get too attached to any of them. I can’t even remember the last time she threw around the G word!
“Really? An actual girlfriend girlfriend? Like the kind who stays all night and has breakfast with you in the morning? That kind of girlfriend?”
She shrugs, offering a cryptic smile. “Maybe. Sometimes.”
“And her name is . . . ?” I fish.
“Bertha.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Bertha?”
“Yes, Bertha,” she repeats. “Hey, not everyone can be a Jennifer or a Jessica—”
We both freeze.
For a moment we’re suspended together in companionable regret, neither knowing how to proceed.
If we pretend it didn’t happen—that Stef didn’t just invoke my dead sister’s image by murmuring her name—then it’s like pretending she didn’t happen.
But if we make a thing of it, then it’s like it still hangs over us.
And it does. It absolutely hangs over both of us, but not in the way it once did.
My cousin sighs heavily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”
I wave a hand at the sentiment she can’t finish.
“No. Of course she was going to come up. How could she not? Me being back here in Miami doesn’t just dredge up my past as an adult.
It takes me right back to . . . you know .
. . to that time. To before . . . and after.
” I take a breath and then a long sip before I pivot our topic of conversation to something a little less emotionally challenging.
“So, uh, do I get to meet Bertha while I’m here? ”
She shrugs as she picks up the pitcher of sangria and tops up my glass before doing the same for herself. “Maybe. Depends.”
“On what?”
When she sets the pitcher back down, her dark eyes find mine, and I see Lita there in her features. The long lashes, the slightly sleepy lids, the delicate nose, and the full rosy lips—Stef has always been the one who most resembles our grandmother.
“On how this trip goes for you. I want to be available if you need someone to decompress with while you’re here.”
Decompress.
I recognize one of my husband’s favorite buzzwords.
“When did you talk to Gabe?” I ask.
To her credit, my cousin doesn’t deny the accusation. “We exchanged texts this afternoon. I wanted to ask his advice about something.”
I quirk an eyebrow, my interest piqued. My husband didn’t mention this when I spoke to him a couple of hours ago. “Oh? About what?”
She shifts a little uncomfortably. “There’s something I wasn’t sure I should tell you. So . . . I asked him.”
“Huh. And what did he say?”
“He said you’re a big girl, and you don’t need protecting.”
My God, I love my husband. “He’s right. So what is it that’s got you so reluctant? I mean, I think we’ve just about covered it all since I got to town—my work, my marriage, Jess, los abuelitos . . .”
I stop short because suddenly I know the answer.
“Lorena,” my cousin says, confirming my suspicion.
I sit up straight, nearly spilling the amazing sangria all over my favorite white blouse. It’s been so long since I’ve heard the woman’s name spoken aloud that it’s like taking a bucket of ice over the head—it’ll leave you stunned, speechless, and furious all at the same time.
My mother was barely sixteen when she gave birth to me and Jessica—a baby having babies, really.
Always boy crazy, she’d gotten knocked up by a much-older waiter at Cuba Libre who skipped town before Lito could turn him into gator chow.
Lucky for her, my grandparents—while initially shocked, angry, and disappointed by turns—were all about having multiple generations under one roof.
And it didn’t hurt that Jess and I were unbelievably adorable.
Munecas, Lita called us. Dolls. But just because we looked like toys didn’t mean we were toys, as our mother found out soon enough.
It didn’t take long for her to grow tired of staying home with two crying, colicky babies while all her friends were making plans for homecoming dances, movie dates, and weekend parties.
The more she felt she was missing out on, the more she left our daily care to Lito and Lita, as if we were a couple of goldfish that she could fob off on them to feed occasionally.
My grandparents believed that it was around this time that she found her way to a drug habit.
She came home later and later, occasionally disappearing for days on end.
Until one day she disappeared for good. I have very few memories of her—just a few hazy images that may or may not be a product of my imagination.
Not that it matters. Lorena was never real to me.
“What—what about her?” I ask now.
“My father called to tell me the police had been in touch—the Alabama police. She was . . . your mother—Lorena, I mean—she’s . . . she’s dead, Jenn.”
I stare at her, trying to wrap my head around the words. “What?”
“She died. It was an overdose.”
“I don’t understand . . . How did they know to call your father?”
There’s a beat of silence in which I’m certain she’s debating whether or not to tell me the truth.
“She had his number in her phone.”
“In her . . .” I press the heel of my left hand to my forehead, as if it will somehow open my mind to the understanding it’s so desperately clawing to get at right now. “His number was in her phone? So . . . they were in touch, then?” I ask, hearing my own voice grow more brittle.
She nods once, solemnly. “I guess, yeah. Not often, but from time to time. Usually when she needed money. I didn’t know about it before . . . this.” My cousin shifts uncomfortably. “Dad said she looked really tired and beat down, like someone who’s had a tough life.”
“Looked?” I practically shriek. “Looked? Are you saying he actually saw her?”
Stef looks away toward the Miami skyline, then back at me. “He did. He took her to rehab about nine months ago. But . . . obviously, it didn’t take.”
I knock back the rest of my drink so fast that I choke in the process, grabbing a handful of napkins and spluttering into them.
“Whoa! Slow down there before you choke on a piece of fruit!”
By the time I’ve caught my breath, there are tears running down my cheeks—though I couldn’t say if they were because of the little asphyxiation episode or emotion. Both, I suppose.
“I’m sorry to upset you, but I thought you should know,” she says as she leans over and puts a hand on my forearm.
“When did this happen?”
There’s an awkward pause before she replies, “A few weeks ago.”
I sit up so abruptly that I actually drop the glass this time, sending ice cubes and orange slices sliding across the concrete balcony floor. “Damn it!”
“Jenn—”
“Why didn’t you tell me when it happened?”
“Dad didn’t think it was a good idea. Not right then, anyway. And it’s not like there was a service or anything. She was cremated and buried with Lito and Lita.”
At this I nearly start choking once more. “Are you fucking kidding me? This just keeps getting better and better!”
“Jenn—”
I shake my head harshly. “No. No, no, no. I can’t believe you all would do this—keep it from me and then .
. . Why? Why would you disrupt their graves to put her there?
” My hand flies to my mouth as I realize what else that means.
“Oh! Oh, no, you put her there with Jess! How could you do it, Stef?” I demand.
She stands up so that we’re eye to eye, her dark eyes locked onto mine. She holds them for a beat before responding. “Because it was what Lito and Lita wanted.”
She is completely calm in the face of my incredulity, releasing the words slowly, one by one, as if I need the time to process the complete thought.
She’s not wrong.
The huff of air that escapes me isn’t so much an exhalation as the involuntary response of someone who’s just been punched in the gut.
My finger goes instinctively to the elastic hair tie around my wrist, and I give it a quick snap.
It has the desired effect, forcing me to focus and not allow my emotions to take over. I have to look at this rationally.
Of course, it was what my grandparents wanted. In spite of everything, they never stopped loving their only daughter.
And, really, how many times in my own practice have I seen variations on this same story? Parents unwilling to give up on a child who had fallen prey to addiction. Even if it meant the rest of the family was destroyed in the process.
Not that our family suffered—quite the opposite.
Unbeknownst to my mother, by walking out the door and taking her vices with her, she spared us all years of suffering the direct fallout of her drugs and booze and men.
Or maybe I’m wrong; maybe she did know. Maybe abandoning us was the last good thing she could do for us.