Chapter 37 #2
Two hundred and forty-five hours after Mamá had her stroke, she passed away quietly in her sleep.
No hello. No goodbye. I knew it because that was what he told me.
The hours. I didn’t know what time or day it was.
It was sunny outside. I knew that. While we mourned, the sun danced.
I was by her side, and so was Mara. Nico stood behind me, the solid wall of support I hadn’t known I needed until I did.
Her funeral passed. A quick one because what was the point of it all?
People who had abandoned us came to the funeral.
Alfonso told me he couldn’t get hold of his son.
I couldn’t bring myself to care. He gave Nico a glare.
Called him an asshole. I told him to get the hell out.
I only cared about the staff from the psychiatric residence.
They’d taken care of her when I couldn’t.
I thanked them. Words grating like parchment against a dry throat.
Sonia told me Mamá had been lucky to have me.
I didn’t have an answer for that. On the way out, she squeezed Nico’s shoulder.
Of course they would know each other. When he turned back to me, his gaze didn’t meet mine.
But even from a distance, they looked suspiciously wet.
I’d forgotten in my grief. When I wasn’t there, he’d been there for her. He too had lost someone precious.
When our last parent was buried, when our entire foundation had collapsed, Mara and I went for a walk.
“What’s that?”
She’d stopped. I stopped too. “What?” My voice was still cracked.
“You’re humming.”
I was? I gave her a weak smile. It was strange that I could do that when we’d just buried Mamá. “It was a song Papá used to sing.”
She smiled too. I continued to hum; she locked her arms in mine, and we walked again. In the distance, Nico leaned against the car, following us no doubt with his gaze.
My feet sank into the sand. Leaving a trail behind of good times and bad. I looked up at the sun. It was a wonder that it never stopped.
“Remember when Yaya used to visit?”
I smiled. “She hated that we called her Yaya.”
Mara giggled. “She wanted us to call her Nonna.”
Instead, we had purposefully mixed them up. Calling our Italian grandmother Yaya and our Spanish grandmother Nonna.
“I think she secretly loved it.”
I shrugged. “We didn’t give her a choice.” A few steps later, I remembered my last call with Mamá. Pain stabbed my heart, and I stopped walking. Losing Papá still hurt in the most unexpected of times. I had another one to add to it now. “Mamá used to add wine to her paella recipe.”
“No?” Mara’s eyes went wide. “Was that why it always tasted divine?”
“Probably.”
“I’m going to miss that.”
“I’ll make it for you.”
She laughed. “It’s a long way to come for paella.”
My breath caught. I didn’t want to tell her there was a deadline for Nico and me. Five more days and I’d pack my bags and be back.
“I like him.” I followed her gaze. Hand in his pocket, the other with a phone cradled to his cheek, his eyes still pinned on me. Every time I looked at him, my heart skipped a beat. Like it had lost track of the plan.
“Shall we go back?”
She nodded. We turned and traced our footsteps back. Like we used to do when we were young, we tried to sink our feet into the trail we’d left behind.
“How come you never asked me about him?”
“What’s there to ask?” Mara looked at me. Then back at him.
“He knows too much about us. About Papá,” I clarified.
“So?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what I knew. That Nico was involved in his death. I wanted to defend him in her eyes. “He knows something we don’t,” I said instead.
She shrugged. “Maybe we were never meant to know. Otherwise, Papá would have told us.” She picked up a seashell.
It was beautiful. Cold and unique. Just like the man waiting for me.
Dusting it off, she placed it in my hand.
“He’s intense, but he loves you. You should have someone who loves you like that. ”
He didn’t love me. But it didn’t stop me from asking. “Like what?”
“Like he’d rather bleed himself dry than watch you in pain.”
Mara left soon after in a taxi that Nico had requested.
He seemed to know the driver. When he got close to him and muttered something in his ear, I was sure it was a threat.
Something like I’ll take off your head if you don’t make sure she’s safe.
She hugged him. He told her to visit us in New York.
I wondered how she’d do that in the five days we had left.
The house was too quiet with her gone. No hospital visits. No funeral arrangements. Grief strolled out of all corners. I was bursting at my seams. Terrified I’d break far worse than I’d done already, I asked him if he wanted to go for a drive.
“Yes.” His voice was steady. I couldn’t remember if he’d ever said no to me. “Where to?” he asked.
“Home.” Without another word, he drove out. The drive passed in a daze. I couldn’t focus on anything. Mara’s words bubbled inside my head.
Maybe we were never meant to know.
Otherwise, Papá would have told us.
You should have someone who loves you like that.
Like what?
Like he’d rather bleed himself dry than watch you in pain.
“You want to go inside?”
“Huh?”
He’d parked outside our old home. I didn’t even ask him how he knew the address.
Or how he knew I was even referring to it when I could as well have meant the apartment we’d stayed in after Papá had died.
We had a view of the house. The black cobblestones leading up to the front door.
Palm trees lining it on either side. Fuchsia bougainvilleas wrapped around the house like a bracelet sparkling with gems. My obsession might have started there.
A memory falls into place. Papá on his ladder, trimming the bougainvilleas. Mamá and I seated in the garden below him.
“Look what I made for you,” Mamá said. It was a bracelet of bougainvilleas. “If you get lost, that can guide you home.”
“Anna?”
Now both of them were gone, and only the bougainvilleas were left behind. But even those I didn’t own.
I fought to push words through my vocal cords.
“Thank you.” He didn’t respond, and emotion had turned my body to stone.
The breeze picked up and a few lonely leaves from the bougainvillea fluttered to the ground.
“Thank you for visiting her.” I squeezed my eyes shut. My mind filling with words from Mamá.
He takes care of me, you know.
He’s here to see me now.
He’s brought me a lot of things. Tostada con tomate, churros con chocolate, mollete antequerano…
It wasn’t about surveillance. “You looked after her when I couldn’t.”
Het let out a rough, dissatisfied sound. “I wouldn’t say that.”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I would. She was happy when you visited.” I bit the inside of my cheek, still a lonely tear slipped down my face. I wiped at it, even as my throat thickened and the realization that she too was gone swelled in my chest. “I don’t know how I will move on,” I choked.
He took my hand in his. Thumb tracing over my fluttering pulse.
I couldn’t look at him without shattering, so I kept it focused on the house, even though it was nothing but a blurred vision and agonizing memories.
He kissed my pulse and another piece of me cracked.
“I’ll give you something to build on,” he said, in a voice filled with a sorrow I didn’t like.
“What?”
“Do you want to go inside?” he asked instead.
Papá would have loved for us to live there. I’d been remembering more about him the last ten days, and I was sure of it. “No.” I shook my head. “It’s sold.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I dragged my gaze away from the house. Turned to him.
Something in his eyes… did he buy it? Who took the piano out of the house, the star in his office, every personal item I’d seen in his?
My lips wobbled. I ached to know, but it terrified me too.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted to find out. Just like I was petrified to ask him if we were going back to New York.
Or if he was, and I was going to stay back. I didn’t know which was worse.
I didn’t know why I had wanted to kill him when he had been injecting life into my veins.
I didn’t know when I’d first noticed it, but now that I had, that was all I could see.
The hum of music in every room following me around.
Memories of Papá dished out to me like jewels on a platter.
Then when he looked at me… like he was now…
like I was the reason he lived… like my death would be his too…
He tipped my chin. “What do you want, stella mia?”
You. I wanted him. I didn’t know his part in Papá’s life, but he wouldn’t know him so well if he’d meant nothing to him. Papá had liked him. Loved him. I knew that. I took a shaky breath. At the last minute, I chickened out. “It’s too painful.”
“I know.” He thought I meant the house. But I meant letting go of him. I climbed over the gearshift and straddled him. Then, burying my head against his thudding heart, I broke into tiny pieces. Because of him. For him. He stroked the ache in my chest like I always did and told me I’d be okay.
But how could I be when it wasn’t bricks I wanted or his death? All I wanted was his thumping heart to be mine.