Chapter 34
chapter thirty-four
priscilla
“You can’t be here.” I’d barely walked in when Chase intercepted me outside of the interrogation room.
“What do you mean I can’t be here?” I was not in the mood for bullshit and Chase was really barking up the wrong fucking tree.
“I just want to ask Mr. Baker a couple of questions,” I said shouldering myself into the observation room.
He was still in there, looking slick as always.
Three-piece suit on point, wing tip shoes, and dead eyes.
His expensive lawyer sitting next to him, ready to pounce.
“Chase, are you going to tell me you think this guy is innocent? Look at him!” I said waving my hand at his smug face.
Chase let out a sharp breath and rubbed his eyes hard. “I know how to do my job, Priscilla. Antagonizing him isn’t going to get us anything.”
“I just need five minutes, just five, and I’ll fucking have him.”
“Gutierrez.” My back went up at the way the lieutenant called my name. He was never friendly, but he’d never been hostile. But right now, he sounded like the sight of me was making his blood boil. “You’re no longer assigned to this case. You’re not even on duty right now. Why are you here?”
That question hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. Why was I here?
Chase was doing his job. Even if it wasn’t what I’d do, it wasn’t my call.
That’s how things worked. I’d be furious if someone tried to come and overstep on one of my cases.
I was acting recklessly because I was running.
I was here so I didn’t have to sit with Juan Pablo and tell him about my fears.
Or even more terrifying, my hopes. I could barely cope with the idea that in the last two days, I’d been basically handed two opportunities that could change everything for me.
I didn’t know how to process the prospect of doing this differently. Of having to count on others.
Of having to rely on Juan Pablo.
“Priscilla.”
Oh my God, was I crying in front of the lieutenant?
“Go home. You need the time. I don’t want to see you here until the second.
” His eyes had lost the annoyance from earlier and now all I saw was concern.
“We are all here for the same reason you are, we don’t want anything else to happen to that child.
That’s why she’s out of the home, that’s why there’s an order of protection.
If anything happens, I’ll call you myself. But you need to let this go.”
I nodded numbly and walked out of the precinct without saying a word.
By the time I got into my car, I was sobbing.
I didn’t know what to do with myself. No, that was a lie, I wanted to go back to two hours ago and have a redo with Juan Pablo.
I wanted to be in his warm living room, sitting in front of the fireplace.
Instead I’d pushed him away and hurt him.
And as if she could sense I was struggling, my mother’s number flashed on the Bluetooth screen.
“Mamí.” My voice was all clogged up from crying, but I was fucking done trying to keep it together. I was sad, and scared I’d ruined things with J and with my job.
Before I could even speak, she knew. “Que pasa, m’ija?”
I took a deep breath and felt the tears streaming down my face.
My nose was running. I felt so scared, but the desperation to finally say it won out.
“I think I want to quit my job.” My heart was thumping so fast in my chest I thought it was almost certainly going to beat right out of it.
My voice sounded exactly like I felt—small and terrified waiting for my mother’s judgement.
“Mi amor, is that why you’ve been like this? So distant? Ay, m’ija.” The heaviness of those last words cut me to my core. “Have you been putting yourself through hell on your own?”
I thought about that before I answered. I had, in the beginning.
For months I’d been going through the motions every day feeling more and more like the life I’d been single-mindedly working for didn’t fit me at all.
I’d sat with that truth like a lead balloon in my stomach, but then J had teased the truth out of me.
He’d held space for me to finally speak the words out loud, my friends had been there, too.
And that had helped. But I’d still not let myself own it, because it all came down to this.
My mother and my father.
Their disappointment. I’d always thought I’d put up with almost anything if it meant that my parents could still be proud of me, but every day the weight of that felt like it would eventually bury me.
“I’ve been talking about it to J.” Just saying his name made my breath hitch, because I’d hurt him tonight. When he’d tried to be there for me, I’d hurt him. “We had a big fight about it today.”
There was some tongue clicking and teeth sucking. “Ay, Priscilla.” My mother was trying her hardest to be there for me, but the news that I was sabotaging her plans for J and me was a low blow. “Is this about your shop? Is that what you want to do?”
I couldn’t tell if her tone was reprimanding or just curious. “Yes, kind of.” She just made a noise of approval, but didn’t ask anything more, waiting for me to explain. “I’ve been doing this blog, and I started a podcast.”
My mother let out a soft laugh at that. “Mamita, you think I didn’t know about that?”
I was sure flames were going to start sprouting from my face. Because the thought of my mother hearing the episode about ass play was literally too much for me to handle right now.
“Oh my God, Mamí, please tell me you haven’t been telling your friends.” I wasn’t exaggerating the panic in my voice even a little bit.
“Some of my friends. I only listened to a few, the ones that I uh…thought I’d like.
But, m’ija, how could you think that I wouldn’t be interested in something you’re doing?
Your father and I love you and are so proud of you no matter what you do.
Even if I don’t necessarily understand all of it.
” She sounded more than a little flustered and I was starting to really think she actually listened to me go on for forty-five minutes about rimming, pegging, and prostate massagers.
Kill me now.
But somewhere under the incredible cringe-worthiness in this conversation, I felt oxygen coming back into my body. My mother and I were talking about my podcast and there was no yelling or shaming. I’d told her I didn’t want to be a cop anymore and there had been no condemnation. We were talking.
And the thing was, I knew my parents loved me.
I had never doubted that, ever. But they came here with nothing, and they sacrificed so much.
I didn’t want them to feel like I’d tainted their legacy.
That I’d broken my part of the deal. How could they talk to their friends about me now? To the family back home?
“I just want you and Papi to be proud of me. You were both lawyers, for fuck’s sake.”
“Priscilla, language.” I laughed at that, because my mother never let a curse word slide, not even in a crisis.
“Perdon, Mamí. I’m serious though, you left so much behind, and dealt with so much sh…
I mean, crap, for me to have everything I needed.
” My mom and my dad had come in the seventies after finishing law school in the DR, hoping that an educated couple could make headway here.
But there hadn’t been many options other than manual labor.
My mom had worked in restaurants and my dad in a bodega Uptown.
They’d managed to turn that into good jobs, but it had been a struggle for a long time.
“I feel so selfish, like I’m being wasteful.
I don’t know.” I started crying again, as my mother tried her best to soothe me from hundreds of miles away.
“M’ija, let’s do the Facetime, so I can see you.
” I laughed at the way she said Facetime.
I called her from my phone, still sitting in my car.
But when I finally saw my mother, the last of my control snapped and a deep sob escaped my throat.
I felt so alone at that moment, and what hurt most was that I knew it didn’t have to be that way.
That I could be with J now or Bri, or even my parents.
But I’d been pushing them away at every opportunity.
“Oh, Priscilla, mi amor. I need to be looking at you when I tell you this.” My mother’s skin was lighter than mine, but we had the same face.
She had a few wrinkles now at sixty-seven and the little moles around her eyes were multiplying almost by the day, but it was still the face that had always shown me love, unconditionally.
“We will always be proud of you, m’ija. No matter what you decide to do, we will always support you.
I don’t care what it is.” She paused and wagged a finger in front of her face as I smiled.
“As long as you’re happy. That is all we care about.
You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders, mi amor.
We trust your judgement, we trust you. You’re a helper and a doer, always, since you were little.
We know that no matter what it is you end up doing, it’ll be something that will help people. ”
“I just don’t want to end up in a situation where I worry you, Mamí. I don’t want you thinking I can’t take care of myself.”
My mother looked at me like she couldn’t believe what I was saying, her head shaking in apparent disbelief.
“You have never given me a reason to worry, and that’s not because you have a good job, but because you’re a good woman and I know what you’re made of.
I want you to feel free to live your life, in whatever way you want. ”
She closed her eyes and I saw her reach out, almost as if she wished she could touch my face through the screen, and I wished she was here, too.
“I was lucky. Your abuela Miguelina was a strong woman and your abuelo was a fair man and he listened.” I smiled thinking of the strong, tall woman that we’d gone to visit every summer.
“Girls got married off all the time to older men, richer men, but your grandmother wouldn’t hear of it.
She wanted me to go to college. And when I came home with your dad, and people talked..
” My father was very dark-skinned and it had been the source of many unpleasant conversations amongst my mother’s very light-skinned family.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Mamí.” She waved a hand as if to say, it’s all in the past.
“When I brought him home, my mother only wanted to know two things: If I loved him and if he was good to me. The rest we could figure out together. She didn’t want me trapped by her choices.”
I let out a long breath and looked at my mother’s tired eyes, but there was so much love there, love that could catch me if I needed it and maybe it was time for me to try and let go. “I’ve never felt trapped, Mamí.”
She dipped her head and smiled again. “Maybe not consciously, but we have so much to prove, mi amor. Even if we didn’t tell you, we asked for a lot. But it’s different now and I got nothing left to prove. Do your thing, m’ija. If I don’t understand something, I’ll ask.”
I was completely wrung out. But now that things with my parents didn’t seem so terrible, the pit in my stomach about Juan Pablo was getting wider by the second. “I think, I messed things up with J, Mamí.”
I expected her to dismiss my words, or tell me J was crazy about me, but her eyes got really serious, more serious than they’d been so far. “That you have to fix yourself, Priscilla. Let him be there for you, learn to lean on those of us who yearn to catch you, mi hija querida.”
I was crying again, but this time it was different. I felt different.
We ended the call after I promised her that I would call her after I got home, so she knew I was okay. Then I remembered J had asked me to do the same.
I took a detour, but I’m headed home. Will let you know when I get there. I’m sorry about earlier.
His response came almost immediately, like he’d been waiting for my message.
Thanks for texting. There’s nothing to apologize for.
I waited for another minute, my eyes fixed on the screen, waiting for the three dots to pop up promising another message, but nothing came.
Everything had been said. I knew where I stood with J, now I needed to meet him halfway.
I picked up my phone and sent another message.
Is your man’s offer still on the table?
I waited with my heart in my throat for a response and within seconds, it came.
Of course. Tom was serious. You just have to say the word. And why are you texting me? I thought you’d be riding Italian/Puerto Rican dick all the way into the New Year. Don’t act coy. We all know you two are fucking again.
I didn’t even have the energy to act affronted.
The Italian/Puerto Rican in question is not very happy with me at the moment.
The message had barely sent when my phone was blowing up with a call from Camilo.
I picked up ready to be reamed out, but when he spoke, all I could hear was the love and concern I’d been getting from all my people today.
“What happened?”
I didn’t deserve them. Actually that wasn’t true, I did deserve all of it. I just needed to start acting like I knew it.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and told him.