Chapter 25
I wake to the sound of pans clattering in the kitchen. For a moment, I’m disoriented. The smell of something frying—eggs, maybe chorizo—drifts through the apartment, and I sit up slowly, my heart doing this strange flutter in my chest. My mother is here. In my kitchen. Cooking.
I pad out to the doorway in my sleep shirt and shorts, bare feet silent on the hardwood, and I just stand there. Watching.
She moves around my small kitchen, her back to me, shoulders squared in that way she has—like she’s bracing against the world even when she’s just making breakfast. Her hair is pulled back in a loose bun, a few gray strands catching the morning light.
She’s wearing the same clothes from yesterday, and I wonder if she slept at all or if she just waited for dawn to do something useful.
The pan sizzles. She flips something with that same quick flick of her wrist I’ve watched since I was small enough to stand on a chair beside her.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I don’t know what to do with myself. She must sense me standing there because she glances over her shoulder, and our eyes meet for half a second before I look away.
“Come eat,” she says. It’s not a question but a command. However it’s softer than I’m used to from her.
I move to the table like I’m walking through water, everything slow and uncertain. I pull out a chair and sit, my hands folded in my lap. The table is already set—two plates, forks, napkins. She’s even found the salsa I keep in the back of the fridge.
She brings over a platter piled high with scrambled eggs, fried plantains, refried beans, tortillas warming in a cloth. More food than two people could possibly eat. She sets it down and takes the seat across from me, and immediately she starts loading my plate. A huge scoop of eggs.
“Mamá, you should eat, too,” I say, reaching for the serving spoon. “I can do it myself.”
She waves my hand away and adds three plantains to my plate. “I will. Eat.”
“Really, I—”
She’s already up again, moving back to the kitchen. I hear the fridge open, close. She returns with orange juice and pours me a glass without asking if I want any.
“Is this warm enough?” she asks, gesturing to the eggs. “I can heat it more.”
“It’s fine, Mamá. Perfect.”
She sits back down, but her eyes are scanning the table like she’s taking inventory. “I made extra rice. It’s in the fridge for later. And there’s chicken for tonight if you want—”
Another scoop of eggs lands on my plate.
My chest tightens. “Mamá—”
She reaches for the beans.
“That’s—”
More plantains.
“Stop.”
Her hand freezes mid-air, the spoon hovering over my plate. We both go still, and I wince at how harsh I sounded.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her voice careful.
I stare at my plate—this mountain of food that I didn’t ask for, that I can’t possibly finish.
My throat feels tight. I don’t know how to explain this.
How to tell her that kindness from her feels foreign, overwhelming, like something I don’t know how to hold.
I press my palms flat against the table, trying to steady myself. My pulse is racing like I’ve done something wrong just by asking her to stop.
“I’m not...” I take a breath. “I’m not used to this much attention.”
She sets the spoon down slowly. “What do you mean?” I can feel her eyes on me, but I keep staring at my plate. The eggs are perfectly scrambled, fluffy and golden. She always made the best eggs.
“I mean...” I force myself to look at her. “I’m not used to you fussing over me.”
Something flickers across her face. Confusion. Maybe hurt.
“I’ve always fussed over you,” she says, and there’s something defensive in her tone, something that makes her sit up straighter.
The words make me freeze, and for a second I can’t breathe. I want to let it go. I want to nod and smile and pretend she’s right because it would be easier, because we just started this fragile thing between us and I don’t want to break it already.
But I can’t.
“No, Mamá,” I say softly. “You didn’t.”
Her jaw tightens.
I push forward before I lose my nerve. “The only person who used to follow me around during breakfast was Papá.” My voice cracks on his name, and I hate that it does.
“He’d make sure I ate something before school.
He’d pack my lunch. He’d ask if I wanted seconds.
” The memories come flooding back—Dad standing at the stove, Dad sliding an extra tortilla onto my plate, Dad ruffling my hair as I ate.
“After he died, you were always...” I trail off, searching for the right words.
“You were focused on everyone else. Not me.”
The color drains from her face. She just sits there, frozen, and I can see her processing what I’ve said. Her lips part like she wants to speak, but nothing comes out. Her hands curl slowly into fists on the table.
Panic rises in my chest. “I don’t mean anything by it,” I say quickly. “I’m just saying—I’ve always been used to fending for myself. I understand. You had so many kids to handle, and I was always causing you trouble, and I learned how to make my own breakfast and pack my own lunch, and—”
“No.” Her voice cuts through mine, sharp and final.
I stop mid-sentence, my mouth still open.
“You didn’t cause me trouble,” she says, and her voice is quieter now, but there’s something heavy in it, something that makes my chest ache.
The silence that follows is suffocating.
She’s staring at the table now, her hands flat against the wood, and I can see her shoulders rise and fall with her breathing.
“But I know you were doing your best,” I continue, my voice smaller now. “I know it wasn’t easy raising all of us alone. I just mean that I’m not used to you making me breakfast, or putting food on my plate, or checking if things are warm enough, or—”
“Eve.” I stop. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
“Don’t—Don’t make excuses for me, mija. Please, don’t.
” She doesn’t say anything else. She just picks up the spoon again and heaps more food onto my plate—slowly this time, deliberately.
Beans. Another tortilla. Her jaw is set, her mouth a thin line, and her movements are almost mechanical.
It’s her apology. I know this. My mother has never been good with words, with ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I was wrong.’ She speaks through food, through service, through the things she can control.
This—this overflowing plate—is her way of saying what she can’t articulate.
What she maybe doesn’t even know how to feel yet.
My vision blurs. I blink hard and pick up my fork, stabbing at the eggs. They’re still warm, still perfectly seasoned the way she’s always made them. I take a bite, then another, forcing myself to eat even though my throat feels tight.
We sit in silence. The only sounds are our forks scraping against plates, the occasional clink of glass against wood.
She’s not eating much—just pushing food around, taking small bites here and there.
But she watches me. Every time I glance up, her eyes are on my plate, making sure I’m eating.
I finish what I can. It’s more than I usually eat for breakfast, but less than half of what she piled on.
I set my fork down gently and reach for my orange juice, draining the last of it.
“I have to go to work,” I say finally, my voice strained.
I’m halfway out of my seat when I hear her say, “I’m sorry.” The words shock me to the core, and I sit back down to stabilize myself. I’ve never heard my mother apologize before. Not with words.
I remain there, frozen for a few seconds, before I sit back down heavily. “Ma—”
“I’m sorry about Luis,” she continues, her voice thick with emotion. “When Marco told me Luis lied to me about seeing you get in the car and that you walked home, I told Luis that perhaps you and him would not work out, but he seemed insistent. I shouldn’t have believed him.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” I agree, tightly.
“You should have believed me when I said I wasn’t happy with him.
You shouldn’t have hidden my things. You made him believe my family was just throwing me at him like I was a burden, like he had the right to treat me whatever way he wanted.
When he slapped me, Mamá, I knew he was comfortable doing that because he knew you would have sided with him. ”
“I would never have—”
“But he believed it!” I raise my voice, my throat tightening with anger and emotion. “You made him believe it when you basically told him it doesn’t matter if my daughter wants you or not. If you want her, you can have her, kicking and screaming.”
My mother’s face pales. “Eve.”
“You made him believe it was okay, Mamá,” I say harshly. “You. No one else. And I don’t know how to forgive you for that.”
She lowers her gaze. “I’m sorry, Eve. I was trying to secure your future.”
“Marriage isn’t in my future, Mamá. Especially not marrying Luis.
I told you, over and over again, but you just shut me up.
You would use your tears, your words, anything and everything to get me to say yes.
I never loved him. Not once. In the four years I dated him, I was so miserable.
He was cruel to me. He knew my family didn’t have my back.
No one did. He knew that I was on my own, and he took advantage of that! ”
My mother is silent. I wish she would fight back, say something so I could get some satisfaction, but she’s just quiet, as if she knows.
“I was wrong.” The three words have me closing my eyes.
“Why, Mamá? Why now? Why are you here now?”