Chapter 47 Us
Us
Maria
On Castelar Street, right where it meets Cardenal Belluga, there’s a very odd two-story building.
On the corner, it’s topped by a kind of round turret that starts at the front door and goes all the way to the top, on the terrace, with a crumbling, old-fashioned railing.
And it’s beautiful, even though it’s not made of any kind of precious material.
Blanca says it’s inspired by neo-Mozarabic architecture, and I say that we’ve finally found a house we’ll want to live in forever.
Finally, after two years of “trying out” apartments that were always missing something. It was expensive but perfect.
The building was originally a single dwelling, now converted into four roomy apartments: two slightly dark first floors and two penthouses with access to a nice terrace. We live in one of those, the one on the left.
We had to apply for a mortgage that made Carlos lose sleep for a while.
It wasn’t unusual to wake up in the night and find him sitting in the bed, with his headphones on and iPad in his hand, pretending to work while he did calculations.
Up until last year, before they transferred him to the international department at his label, his salary wasn’t enough to make any miracles happen, but luckily I’m doing pretty well for myself.
So a few months ago we redid the kitchen, trying to preserve as much as we could. We kept the original floor, tiled and beautiful. On it, Carlos’s bare feet sound different from Marín’s on the hardwood in our first apartment, but I like it even better.
Our bedroom is my favorite room in the house, where I would spend a hundred percent of the time I’m here, but I can’t, of course.
I fell in love with the ornate fireplace, which is still beautiful even if it doesn’t work.
We covered part of the floor with a pretty rug, sanded the walls, and painted them white.
The bed has an antique wrought-iron headboard that reminds me of the one in Bedknobs and Broomsticks.
In one corner, we have a dresser that always has at least one book on it and a bottle of perfume and a cactus.
On the other side, my dressing table: a wooden table with a couple of drawers topped with a round mirror.
On the wall opposite the bed, another big mirror, this time rectangular, which used to belong to my grandparents.
We just have it propped against the wall, telling everyone it was easier that way…
and we’re not lying: It’s easier to move it when we feel like playing around to see how we look when we make love.
This room is where everything we really are was born: We talk, we decide, we share, we have sex, and we laugh…but all in whispers because Gema’s room and ours are only separated by a bathroom.
Living with a teenager isn’t easy, especially with her because she’s smart as a whip and she has us wrapped around her little finger.
We had to learn quickly to take turns being bad cop so we can throw her off the scent and win a battle every once in a while.
In general, there usually aren’t problems, especially now that she knows what she wants to study, she feels at home, and her head has settled down a little. But sixteen-year-olds are intense…
The living room has beautiful light that spills onto the bookshelves that take up the whole wall next to the big window.
Rugs, leather poufs, the couch, the coffee table, the round dining table we use for lunch on weekends—the room is full of surfaces where we can flop down and spend time together.
That’s one of the rules of the house: One night a week, we have a movie night while we eat dinner, and Sunday lunch is sacred, whether you stayed up all night or not.
It’s a custom that all three of us find comfort in. We have a family. Of our own.
This house is our home, Carlos and Maria’s, where Coco and Marín are forbidden, even when Loren and Blanca come over for dinner or to hang out. We’re Maria and Carlos here.
* * *
Carlos comes into the kitchen, where I’m drinking tea and reading The Flowers of Evil by Baudelaire for the millionth time, wrapped in a gray chunky-knit sweater with a cowl neck and skinny jeans.
I love Friday afternoons, when we both finish work early and have the whole weekend ahead of us.
The sun isn’t shining today—it was cloudy when we woke up—but the house looks so pretty in this gray light.
He has a folder tucked under his arm, his iPad and the backpack from Loewe that I bought him to celebrate his promotion hanging from one shoulder.
His thick hair is a disaster because he needs a haircut, but I love when he buries his fingers in it until they disappear.
He’s also wearing a thick sweater, but his is crew neck and black, combined with his classic matching skinny jeans.
The worn brown ankle boots are the cherry on top… Ay, Mama.
“So hot.”
“Right back atcha.” He leans forward and gives me a kiss on the forehead. “Is Gema back yet?”
“No. She sent me a message saying she was going to the library for a bit.”
That’s a lie. She texted me saying she was going to be at her boyfriend’s house, but Carlos doesn’t know Gema has a boyfriend.
A few weeks ago I caught them in their underwear in her bed, fooling around.
I almost had a heart attack, but it was my fault for barging in without knocking.
Since then, we’ve decided it’ll be our little secret, at least until she works up the nerve to tell her brother she’s going out with someone.
To repay my silence, she promised not to go all the way yet…
and to be very responsible if one day she decides she’s ready.
Carlos is going to want to die when he first finds out, but, well…
he has to accept that his little sister is growing up and she’s about to be a beguiling woman.
“But she’ll be home for dinner, right?” he asks with a furrowed brow.
“Yeah, yeah. Around nine, she said. Do you have to work?”
“No.” He pulls a chair out from the table and sits down next to me. “You look a little green?”
“I feel awful, to be honest.”
He nods and bites his bottom lip. “Should we do it?” he asks me.
“Now?”
“She’s not home. She can’t catch us.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Well, I do.”
“But I don’t want to,” I repeat.
“Don’t be like that. Come on.”
I drum my fingers on the table as we look at each other. He nods, like he’s saying the moment has come and stands up; he has to tug me along to get me to follow him.
* * *
Our bathroom is not even close to modern, but we like it like this. It has character, like the dried flowers that are always on the sink, which is right where our eyes are glued, sitting on the edge of the claw-foot tub I’m obsessed with.
“Now?” he asks.
“No. Wait a little. I’m not ready.”
He doesn’t say anything. He bites his cheek and looks at the watch my father gave him when we got married.
Yes. We’re married. I think Blanca and Loren still don’t believe it really happened, like we drugged them or it was some kind of joke ceremony.
But no. We got married, for real, with a wedding dress, hair clips shaped like dragonflies, a bouquet of lilacs and mini daisies and other wildflowers.
It wasn’t on the beach, like everyone was expecting, but instead at the house my parents have in a village in Leon.
It was insanely cold, and our noses were red in all the photos, but we’re so happy it makes us laugh.
Me, all flowers and draped chiffon, and him, all black suit and white shirt.
Why did we get married? For the party, let’s be honest. And it was worth all the money and stress just for that moment, when everyone had gone home to sleep and dawn was starting to break and the two of us, bundled up and alone, drunk with happiness, took turns on the wooden swing my father hung from the red-leafed beech tree at the back of the garden, which was covered in fairy lights for the wedding.
“Maria…now.” He says very seriously, like he does when he’s so nervous he’s about to vomit.
“What if…?”
“What if nothing. Give it to me. I’ll look at it.”
He stands up from the edge of the tub, and I do at the same time. There’s a scuffle in front of the ancient sink that leaves us giggling.
“Give it to me.”
“No, Carlos! You give it to me!”
“You’re gonna throw it out the window. I know you.”
“How am I gonna throw it out the window? Come on, please, give it to me!”
I have to dig my nails into his hand a little to make him let go so I can grab it. Then I actually do open the window as fast as I can and hurl it out.
He crosses his arms and looks at me, not knowing whether to laugh or scold me.
“Okay, now what?” he mutters.
“We already know what it says.”
“I still think we’ll need confirmation at some point,” he retorts.
“When it turns eighteen.”
My comment tips the scale toward laughter.
“Maria…” he begs. “We’ve been doing this for a week.”
“I know! But it’s just that…I’m not ready.”
He sucks his teeth and nods. “Okay. Come on, go sit down in the living room. I’m going to turn up the heat and I’ll bring you a blanket.”
“Thank you. You’re so good to me. So wonderful. You’re the best,” I rattle off quickly.
“Yeah, yeah. And you’re a pain.”
I settle in on the couch, in my favorite corner, and turn on the TV.
Maybe we can watch a movie to distract us a little while we wait for Gema, but the first thing that comes up on Netflix is the new releases, and one of them is Aroa’s movie…
which won her the Silver Shell at the San Sebastian film festival and turned her into the new face of Spanish cinema.
Well, she was definitely a good actress.
I hear Carlos coming over, and I start babbling:
“They’re advertising that damn movie again. We’re gonna have to watch it at some point. But you know she gets her tits out, right? And I don’t want you to see your ex’s tits again, even on screen.”
He sits down next to me, in that graceful way of his. Fuck, where the hell did he get it from? I’m a little enthralled by the way he looks at me, with a half smile.
“My love,” he whispers. “Let’s make this decision together. It scares me too but…”
“I don’t wanna know.”
“But we already know.” He smiles. “You’re throwing up every morning, you’ve missed two periods, and your bras are starting to get too small. We’ve been doing it like crazy people for three months, and four months ago you took out your IUD.”
“Yeah.” I swallow. “But you… Just give me a few days to get in the right mindset.”
“Does it scare you?”
“So fucking much. What if I’m a shitty mother? I wasn’t expecting it to happen this fast,” I moan. “What do you have in there? Anti-aircraft missiles or what?”
He smiles, and his dimples knock me out. “What about me?” He thumbs his chest. “I don’t even have an example to follow. What if I’m a shitty father? What if I forget the kid in a cart at the supermarket? What if I don’t know how to teach them good values? What if it’s born with my nose?”
“If it’s born with your nose, that’s fine, but for the love of God, don’t let it inherit your ears. I don’t like the shape of your lobes.”
“You’re an idiot.” He nuzzles my neck and kisses me. “We’ll do the best we can, just like this. This house, this family, Gema. We’ll do it, Maria. I have no doubt, even though I’m freaked out. This time I’m ready to be the one who pretends not to be scared, okay? So I can comfort you.”
I suck my teeth and whimper.
“I went out and found it in the alley,” he whispers.
“I figured.”
“Do you wanna know?”
“Can I say no?” I smile.
“We’re expecting.” His hand slips under my sweater. It’s warm, and I feel butterflies, the fucking butterflies, fluttering even harder.
“We have more than enough love, my darling,” he says, looking at me. “We need to share it.”
We snuggle into the sofa, with the TV still on, on standby, emitting a cold, blue light to rival the dim, warm glow of the floor lamps dotted around the living room.
No, we don’t need a movie on the screen because we already have the next premiere in our heads.
Family. The plan. The promise. The music.
Bare feet padding around the house. Laughter.
Tears. Sleepless nights. Pain. Worry. The happiness of someone sneaking into our bed every morning.
Absurd conversations. Diapers. Looks. Excitement.
Life. Isn’t that the meaning of all this?
Life. The one we live, the one we create if we want to, the one we dream of.
At least we can make ourselves feel better by knowing we’re trying… We’ll always try, every day, whether it works or not, because we can’t give the fear any more strength.
We don’t say anything for a while. We just hold each other and inhale each other. I guess we’re also thinking about how and when we’ll tell the family, which includes Blanca and Loren.
But we don’t say anything, maybe because the truth hiding behind lies is this: Usually the thing we keep quiet is the one that matters the most. At least…that’s all the truth in my lies.