Chapter 23 Gracie
Three Weeks Before the Wedding
As I walk through the familiar front door of the Morales house, the smell of frying tostones greets me like an embrace. It’s followed almost immediately by an actual embrace as Mrs. Morales bustles down the short flight of steps and opens her arms wide.
“Gracie, Gracie,” she says into my hair when I lean down to hug her. She plants a kiss on my cheek, and I feel the knots in my back melt. Holding me out by the shoulders to examine me, she says, “It’s been too long and you’re working too hard.”
“Guilty on both counts,” I say apologetically. “How have you been?”
“Too blessed to be stressed,” she answers with her usual mantra as she releases me and turns to Sofia. But this time, I can’t help noticing the slight weariness she says it with, and a pang goes through me for not making more of an effort to visit.
After Sofia’s mom has thoroughly examined both of us, we walk up the short flight of stairs and through the cozy living room where all our zombie movie marathons would secretly happen.
When we get to the heart of the house—the kitchen—Abuela is there, stirring a large cast-iron pot I know contains her famous sancocho.
She bangs the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot before turning to us with a wide smile.
She hugs me, wine is poured, and sore backs have been thoroughly discussed before I finally notice who’s missing from the kitchen. “Where’s Mr. Morales?” I ask.
Sofia’s brothers and sister come to Sunday dinner when they can, but her dad has always been the linchpin of the gathering.
His wife is fond of complaining about his personality being too big for any room, but I’ve always found that his off-tune humming, inappropriate jokes, and endless anecdotes fill a part of my heart that’s always been too quiet.
My own father never has anything to say to me.
Sofia, her mom, and Abuela exchange glances.
“Let’s sit,” Mrs. Morales says too brightly, leading us to the table. I try catching Sofia’s gaze, but she avoids me, grabbing a plate of steaming-hot tostones instead.
Trying not to panic, I blurt, “He’s okay, right? His angina isn’t acting up again?”
“No, no—nothing like that,” Mrs. Morales assures me, but Sofia is looking down at her hands instead of digging into her food, and if there were any signal that the end is nigh, it would be that. “But we did want to talk with you.”
“Okay,” I say, trying to stay calm. But Sofia bites her lip, and her chin is puckered in the way that always precedes tears.
Mrs. Morales takes a centering breath and reaches her hand across the table toward me. I grab it like someone’s just thrown me a rope down a cliff I’m dangling from.
“Héctor moved out. We’re separating, Gracie.”
“He… what?” I say stupidly. I heard her words and comprehend them, but registering them as fact is proving difficult. “I don’t understand.”
Her dark eyebrows press together as she squeezes my hand. “I know it’s a shock. But believe me when I tell you it was the right decision for both of us.”
I close my eyes and try to calm my racing heart as a million warm memories war with what she’s just told me.
I don’t want to believe it. Mr. and Mrs. Morales have been my blueprint for a loving, supportive relationship for as long as I can remember.
The glue holding my heart together feels like it’s dissolving, but as I look into Mrs. Morales’s tired, pained eyes, I can only imagine what she must be feeling.
What Sofia and her whole family must be going through.
“I’m so sorry,” I say in a choked whisper. “What can I do to help?”
She gives my hand one last squeeze before letting go. “It’s enough that you’re here. We’ve had some time to adjust.”
My eyes find Sofia’s, and I know she hears my silent question: How long? But then I remember the studio potluck and how wan she looked. Her words return to me like a gut punch. “You don’t have time to help me, Gracie.”
All at once, breathing becomes difficult.
Guilt is a fist around my throat for missing this.
For being so wrapped up in my own troubles that I didn’t notice my best friend was going through something of this magnitude.
I came here tonight selfishly seeking comfort after things went sideways with Jude, never questioning the stability of this foundation I’ve always relied on.
But this whole time, it’s been splitting beneath my feet.
“But I thought you were so happy,” I say, eyes stinging as I turn back to Mrs. Morales. “I-I thought you loved each other.”
I hate that I’m asking her for an explanation, but I can’t stop the words from tumbling out of me.
Nearly all my life, I’ve heard Mr. Morales retell their love story like the soundtrack to my own hopes and dreams. I’ve witnessed it myself in his over-the-top affection and the way they always seemed to know what the other was thinking.
But Mrs. Morales’s face betrays the smallest wince at my words, and my heart sinks lower.
“We do love each other. But sometimes,” she says softly, “love isn’t enough. ”
Automatically, I shake my head, because this runs counter to everything I believe—everything that this family taught me when my own didn’t want me.
That unconditional love might be difficult to find, but when it arrives, it can be strong enough to build a life on.
“But it has to be enough,” I say weakly.
“If love can’t hold two people together, then what on earth can? ”
Sofia and her mother both lower their eyes, but Abuela’s voice rings through the sadness. “Growth.”
Our gazes swing to her, where she sits at the head of the table, looking directly at me.
“She’s right,” Mrs. Morales says quietly.
She gives me, then Sofia, a tired smile.
“They say your children are your greatest teachers, and as I’ve witnessed you all try on and outgrow relationships, I’ve learned a great deal about what’s possible.
I’ve been figuring out what I want.” Her features pinch together as her voice begins to shake.
“I began recognizing patterns in my marriage that were never okay and asked for change. But Héctor was never a flexible man. He didn’t want to grow with me. ”
Sofia grabs her mother’s hand when a tear slips down her face. “It’s okay, Mami,” she says in a choked voice.
I wish I could speak words of comfort, too, but my body feels like a burning building without a drop of water in sight.
Mr. Morales hasn’t only been a father figure to me—he’s been the model husband and father against whom I judge all others.
But while I might be in shock, I don’t doubt what she’s shared.
Instead, my mind scrambles to adjust my perceptions of a man I thought I knew until I’m left with two questions.
How did I miss the fault lines when they ran deep enough to break everything apart—and just as importantly—why didn’t Sofia ever confide in me?
At this last selfish question, shame curls my shoulders forward. I know I shouldn’t make this about myself. Not when the family I love is hurting so badly. But there’s a kernel of hurt lodged beneath my ribs that wishes she had told me sooner.
Finally, I manage to say, “I’m here for whatever you need. I want to help in any way that I can.”
Mrs. Morales gives me a look filled with warmth. “Then eat with us. Keep loving us, Gracie, and know that we’ll always love you, too, no matter how the shape of this family changes.”
And so that’s what I do. We eat tostones, sancocho, and fragrant rice, and I will myself to keep my emotions in check. At least until I can get Sofia alone and beg her to help me understand how the unthinkable happened.
When we’ve done the dishes, said good night, and asked for Abuela’s bendición, Sofia and I leave the house, walking toward her car in the humid evening air. Neither of us speaks until the doors are shut and we’re safely out of hearing and viewing distance from the house.
“Sof—” I begin, hardly knowing how to articulate the snarled knot of feelings pulling tighter in my stomach with each breath.
“I know,” she says, looking up at the car ceiling and swiping beneath her eyes.
“How long have you known this was going on?” I ask, trying to keep the hurt from bleeding into my voice.
I understand all too well what she’s going through.
Navigating my own parents’ separation was one of the most difficult times of my life, and adding to her grief isn’t something I could forgive myself for.
But a smaller, more selfish part of me wants to ask if she was ever going to bother telling me if I hadn’t invited myself over for dinner. Even though, for most of my life, her family has been closer to me than my own.
I hear her swallow. “It’s been coming on slowly. Maybe for a year now?”
A year. I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did, but I was wrong. This time when I speak, I can’t hide the tremor in my voice, wobbly under the crushing weight of disillusionment.
“Do Luis and Dariel know? Does Marisol?”
“Of course they know,” she says off-handedly, and while I know I’m not her sibling—that of course they had to find out first—I can’t fully pretend that being left out doesn’t cut me to the quick.
Staring out at the dark, suburban street, I bite my lips together to stop the quiet cry threatening to escape.
I know this isn’t my family. But Mr. and Mrs. Morales took me under their wing when my own parents wanted nothing to do with me.
Instead of locking me in spidery garden sheds or dumping out my carefully organized sewing box on the floor like my stepsiblings used to, Sofia and her siblings invited me to carve my name in their tree fort.
They felt like my real family. Which is why I can’t stop my next words.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask in a small voice as the sting of feeling like an outsider gets louder than all my best intentions.