24. We Don’t Divorce #2
“Oh, give me a break. Even you have to admit the whole thing is absurd. She wants him, she doesn’t want him, she’s jealous when he dates someone else, then she dates someone else.
No one can keep up! In fact, I’m surprised Diego didn’t divorce her first.” I pick up my comb and resume untangling the knot in my hair.
“He should consider himself lucky. It’s a blessing in disguise. ”
“I don’t know if my brother sees it that way.”
He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my shoulders before kissing the top of my head. I cover one of his hands with mine and wait expectantly for him to finish his train of thought but he falls quiet instead.
“What’s wrong?”
He shrugs lightly. “I always hoped that with time they would find their way to each other.”
“Karina is being impossible.”
“Karina is a deeply traumatized person. Just because she doesn’t show it doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel it.”
“Oh, she shows it all right. To the rest of us instead of a fucking therapist.”
I abandon my comb and it makes a loud clatter as it crashes into my perfume bottles. Alejandro sits beside me on the vanity bench and presses his lips against my temple.
“I’m sure she’d have a much easier time if you were a little more sympathetic.” He whispers.
“Alejandro, I’ve tried. We’ve all tried.
There’s no getting through to her. I did my part.
I was there for her when Brent died, I took care of her during her pregnancy, and we’re all helping to raise Lela.
She lives a good life but we can’t force her to enjoy it.
She has to want it for herself. I can’t force her to be happy or to stop self-destructing.
Which she’s doing right now by the way.”
For some reason, the urge to cry bubbles up inside my chest but I suppress the feeling.
“They seemed fine when we came home,” he says. “I wonder what brought it on.”
“Nothing brought it on. She’s just…” I sigh. “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Things were okay for a while after Brent died.
Karina put all her energy into preparing for Allegra’s arrival and then her impromptu wedding to Diego.
I finished my master’s by the skin of my teeth that spring and things never slowed down after that.
Allegra was born, the business fell into a bit of trouble, and a few months later the whole family moved back to Barcelona.
From there, it became all about going legitimate for good.
Four years passed in the blink of an eye and Karina was able to bury Brent under the rubble of her old life.
I’m not sure if she ever really dealt with it and any attempts to appeal to her have failed.
She keeps her heart and mind so closely guarded I wonder how Diego ever managed to break those walls down.
Because try as she might to conceal it, I know Karina loves him.
Maybe that’s the problem. She’s so madly in love with him that she doesn’t think she deserves to be as happy as he makes her because she’s still harboring guilt over something that isn’t her fault and never was.
I’m not trying to be hard on her. She frustrates me. I want her to be happy and it upsets me to see her self-sabotage the way she does.
“Can we drop this, please?”
He follows me back to bed and I arrange the pillows on my side before climbing in.
My back is to him and I turn off the lamp near my side of the bed, plunging us into near-total darkness.
A second later, his lamp goes out as well and the bed shifts under his weight.
I’m practically hanging off the edge of the mattress when he snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me against him.
He drops a kiss on my shoulder. “I’m sorry if I upset you.”
“I’m not upset. Just sad.” I turn over in bed to face him and he pulls me closer. “I don’t know how to get through to her.”
“Maybe we should get her some help.”
I shrug in response. “What’s the point? She won’t talk to anyone. Karina was always reserved but never like this, she—”
I’m struck by the sudden tenderness in my throat. My eyes burn and I blink until my lashes are wet.
“I know this is the only version of Kay you guys have ever known but…oh, I wish you had met her before.” I whisper.
“Kay was radiant. Fun and funny. I loved her so much because I wanted to be like her. Sharp, smart, independent. And it makes me so angry because sometimes it feel like Brent won. He’s been dead for years and yet his presence still lingers.
I hate him. I hate him so much it burns me from the inside out. ”
Everything tightens and coils inside me. I bury my face in my hands when I feel like the emotions might rip through me and Alejandro holds me against his chest.
“No one will ever know that version of her again.” I cry quietly. “And all I can do is sit back and watch as she blows her life up because she refuses to be helped.”
No one here understands and I doubt they ever will.
They don’t know the old Karina, the one I loved and traveled the world with.
The cousin who helped me with my homework and did my makeup for middle school prom.
The one all my friends loved because she was cool and fun but also unwaveringly responsible.
Everyone knew that if Dahlia’s cool big cousin Karina was going somewhere, it meant their parents would give the okay too.
It’s so hard to mourn a person while they’re still living. Every once in a while, I catch glimmers of that girl and hope swells inside me. As time passes, those instances become fewer and father between and I fear for her well-being. What else can be done?
If losing Diego isn’t enough to snap her out of it then I don’t know what is.