Chapter 31 No Substitutions
No Substitutions
Jack
I arrive at Sal’s house in record time. The short ride here, my thoughts chased each other in misery, torn between the well
of grief in my chest and the guilt of leaving Poppy alone on the houseboat. I stride to the door, pounding on it. The porch
light comes to life, but the windows remain dark.
Poppy’s stricken face won’t leave my mind. I know I shouldn’t be mad at her; hell, I shouldn’t feel that way about Kiara,
either, but blood won’t stop rushing in my ears.
“Jack? What are you doing?”
I whip my head around. Chester just pulled up in his truck. He’s leaning out the window, concern on his features. The passenger
door opens. Kiara hurries in my direction. In the light coming from the porch, I see she’s wearing a strappy green dress,
her hair piled atop her head in curls. She’s in heels, too, which stops me in my tracks momentarily.
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“Did something happen?” Kiara joins me on the porch, Chester not far behind. Her gaze darts over me, as if cataloguing for
injury. “Is it the restaurant?”
“You told Poppy I was in foster care?”
Kiara winces. “I assumed you’d have mentioned it to her by now.”
“Why don’t we go inside?” Chester says.
I finally spare him a look. He’s in a pair of dark wash jeans and a button down, and I can smell the cologne on his skin. “What was this, a date? Are you fucking serious?”
“Inside,” Chester says again, firmly. Kiara passes him the keys; he unlocks the door and yanks me over the threshold.
I wrench away from him. “You didn’t think to mention to me that you finally asked out Ki?”
“It isn’t your business,” Kiara snaps.
“Oh, sure.” I laugh shortly. “Just like it wasn’t your business to tell Poppy my whole fucking life story.”
“I didn’t tell her your whole life story. And anyway, there’s nothing to be ashamed—”
“If you think this is about shame, then you don’t know me half as well as you think you do.” I’m breathing hard. Kiara’s dark
eyes take me in cautiously. The pity in them turns my stomach sour. She half-reaches out, but I slide away before she can
try to rope me into a hug. “That wasn’t your story to tell.”
“Maybe I don’t know you as well as I think I do anymore,” she says in a frosty voice. “You’re the one who let himself become
a stranger.”
“And what, you thought you’d punish me by sharing my past?”
“Of course not! Forgive me for assuming you told the woman you’re working and living with about how you grew up.” She crosses
her arms, hip cocked, looking so much like Sal in the set of her mouth that I can’t stand it. “If you’re looking for an apology,
you’re not going to get one.”
“We’re barely living together.”
“She could be back at her apartment, but she’s not.”
I scowl. “It’s easier this way.”
“What’s so bad about her knowing? It doesn’t make anything different.”
I can’t possibly begin to explain the tangled mess of emotions fighting with each other in my mind.
I rub my chest, shutting my eyes. How can I articulate the shame of knowing I wasn’t truly wanted by anyone until I was practically an adult?
That I threw my one chance at a family away, and ran rather than try to repair it?
That Poppy can’t understand being in the world alone, and how resentful it makes me feel, even though I’m drawn to her more than anyone, ever?
“Chester, give us a moment,” I hear Kiara say.
I open my eyes. “You hurt her, and I’ll break both your kneecaps and cut off your balls with a rusty spatula.”
Chester nods. “Fair.”
“Oh my god,” Kiara says, rolling her eyes. “Just go into the kitchen, babe.”
“Babe?” I repeat once we’re alone. “You’ve progressed to pet names? How long has this been going on?”
“Like you didn’t encourage him.”
“I didn’t realize he would actually—”
“Well, I like him.” Kiara takes one of my hands in both of hers. “And I can tell you like Poppy. That’s okay.”
I slump, the fight going out of me. “She isn’t who I expected her to be.”
Her mouth twitches. “Understatement of the century.”
“I didn’t think she’d stick around,” I admit. “I was hard on her—I’m still hard on her. I thought she’d run back to New York.”
And now I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t see her fishtail braids every time I stepped into the kitchen.
“But she’s still here.”
“She is. And she’s doing an amazing job.”
“Sometimes you don’t know who’s going to have an impact on you. It’s not like you can predict a connection.”
By the tone of her voice, I’d bet she’s thinking about her and her dad, as well. When I started working at Sailfish, I didn’t
expect it to be anything more than a punishment, and later, a job. A way to get out of the group home as much as possible,
because I could only stand the fighting and bullying for so long. The more time I spent with the Torreses, the more relaxed
I became. I felt like I belonged for the first time in my life—not just in the kitchen, but in Sal’s home.
“I guess.”
“The more you push people away, the worse off you’ll be, Jack.”
Still holding my hand, she guides me to the kitchen. Chester’s at the kitchen island, arms crossed, worry knitting his brows together. I settle beside him uneasily. Kiara pokes around in the fridge, pulling out a few beers.
“Are you hungry?” she asks.
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll make you a plate,” she says, gesturing to the kitchen table. “I have leftovers.”
I watch from the table, silent, as she bustles around, heating up a plate of seasoned chicken, rice and beans, and fried plantains.
The plantains make me smile despite myself. Sal was very particular about the frying process and made sure both Kiara and
I could do it with our eyes closed.
“Where did you go out to dinner?” I ask eventually. “Somewhere good?”
“Italian place down in Tequesta,” says Chester.
“Wasn’t as good as your food,” Kiara says as she sets down a plate for me, along with utensils and a paper napkin. “But we
had a good time.”
“Yeah?” Chester says, fiddling with the label on his Modelo.
A small smile plays on her lips. “Yeah. Of course.”
I take a swig of beer. I’m exhausted, suddenly. The deep kind that settles into your bones. Yearning not for sleep, but something
else.
“Thank you,” I tell her after a few bites of food. The guilt rises up again sharply. I hope Poppy is eating something for
dinner.
I’d planned to see if she wanted to go out for ice cream for dessert.
Kiara tips her beer to me. “Dad wanted you to be happy, you know. More than anything. That’s all he ever wanted for either
of us, right until the end.”
I thought that, too, until my last argument with him. I clear my throat, distracting myself with a few bites of food. “What
was it like?”
“What do you mean?”
“When he was sick.” We’ve tiptoed around the topic ever since I came back. I’ve been afraid to ask, but I need to know.
“It was hard.” Her voice cracks. Chester wraps his arm around her, squeezing reassuringly. “Really hard, Jack. The chemo ravaged him. He lost so much weight, I hardly recognized him. He joked that it was a good thing he was bald to begin with.”
My vision goes watery. I can imagine Sal cracking a joke like that, even in the throes of pain. He always wanted to put the
people around him at ease. The kitchen staff never got tense around him, even when something was going wrong. He’d fix it
with the same calm, loose attitude he brought to everything else, drifting between English and Spanish effortlessly.
“Sounds like him.”
“Eventually he wanted to stop. It had spread, the chemo wasn’t helping, so he just . . . wanted to focus on getting everything
in order, pretty much.”
“I’m sorry you went through that alone. I thought—” I stop. I was fucking selfish. There’s no excuse. “I just thought I’d
have time for a visit before he passed. I guess I didn’t want to see him like that. I didn’t want to ruin the image of him
in my mind, but I shouldn’t have left you to deal with it all by yourself.”
“You didn’t even come to the funeral,” Chester says quietly.
“I know.”
“You made me go through the aftermath alone. Again.” The pain in Kiara’s voice is impossible to ignore. She wipes her eyes
with her hand impatiently, smearing her mascara. “Damnit, Jack.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, voice breaking. I wish I was better with words; knew a way to explain the stinging knot of emotions I’ve
yet to unravel. “I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t come back.”
“He didn’t know who I was sometimes,” she admits. “Or he thought I was my mother. Something with the drugs he was on, the
nurses said. I think part of him just really wanted to get to her, wherever that is. When he did realize I was his daughter,
he’d pull me close and say . . .”
“What?”
Her voice wavers. “He’d say he was sneaking up to heaven a bit early, and he was sorry.”
Her words hit me like a punch. I can’t speak, chest tight with guilt, throat thick with regret. Tears fall down my face. I reach across the table, unsure whether to take her hand. Whether she’ll let me. A painful moment, and then her fingers close over mine.
I failed her, just like I failed Sal. I told her I’d be her brother, that I loved her, that she could count on me. But then
the moment it became time for us to truly be family, I backed out. I was a coward. A coward like my father, for leaving my
mother to have a baby on her own. A coward like her, abandoning her son with nothing but a name. I should have come back sooner.
I should have faced my past, instead of shoving it down until it came out twisted and ugly in the kitchen, the one place I’d
always considered a refuge.
I swipe at my eyes, clearing my throat. “But he’s there, now.”
She smiles tremulously. “I know you don’t believe in heaven.”
“Maybe that’s one of the things that’s changed.”
“Have you? Changed, I mean?”
“No. I’m still an asshole, for one thing.”
She laughs. A tear streaks down her cheek. She brushes it away roughly. “You’ve never been an asshole.”
“Of course you’d say that. You always thought the best of me.”
“Because I got to see the best of you every day for three years.” She stands to clear my plate, pressing a kiss to my hair.
“It’s okay if Poppy sees it too.”