Chapter 38
APRIL
FOURTEEN DAYS LEFT TO RESPOND to the divorce petition, and it’s just sitting on the desk in my room while I get the kids ready.
They are going to stay overnight with Leo for the first time.
When he first suggested this, the question escaped me automatically: “You want our kids to stay in a trailer?”
He bristled. “What’s wrong with them staying in a trailer?”
I felt the familiar waterfall of shame. “Nothing.” And there wasn’t.
I didn’t know why I said that. Whenever Leo wilts with fear or I thorn with shame, our conversations stop before they start.
We quiet our questions and injuries and angles on truth.
So I didn’t tell him that I was worried about security, because by the time the words reached my mouth, I’d answered my own question: our kids will be secure because they’ll be with the same dad who carried his daughter out of a burning house.
When we arrive in Argyle, crows are spread across the grass like chess pieces. Otto waddle-runs toward the birds, who glare at him and take to the sky.
Sadie waves at our tarped home. “Hi, house.”
Otto mimics his sister. “Hi-ho!” Like one of the seven dwarves.
For the umpteenth time, I check their bag for Bear Bear and Pull-Ups and toothbrushes.
At the door of the trailer, they sashay inside and take off their shoes.
Sadie’s sneakers strobe a quick rainbow, and Otto tugs his Velcro.
I hand their bag off to their dad, and I feel like an intruder in his tidy little home.
The futon has been made into a plush bed, the head framed with twinkle lights.
A bed rail is secured to one side, and two new stuffed animals sit upright on two fresh pillows, with a stack of Mo Willems books on the table beside.
A kids’ playlist is on low volume, and I notice the photo of Leo’s dad tucked under a David McCullough book on the counter.
I get the urge to kick off my shoes and run inside and drink horchata. How could I have thought this wouldn’t be secure when I know who Leo is? But also—I watch Sadie and Otto settle in—how can I leave here without them?
But I make myself do it.
And as I go to bed alone on Lexington Avenue, I’m surprised to find that my prevailing feeling is pride that I chose to marry Leo, because now two little people have a dad who well and truly loves them.
I picture them snug beneath twinkle lights, and I marvel that while Leo had no real home growing up, his children will now have two.
Getting woken by my bladder at three in the morning has been a dull and inconvenient fact of my life ever since I bore children.
In the dark bathroom, I barely notice the beetle in the sink.
I flip on the light, squint, and wash it down the drain, adding pest control to my mental list of ways to help around here.
I dissolve back into my mattress, guiltily enjoying my child-free bed. Micro-coils and memory foam put an end to all thoughts of sink beetles and to-do lists.
But two hours later, I bolt awake, gasping in revelation.
It is five o’clock in the morning, and a memory is jabbing me in the ribs.
“No,” I say out loud. “It can’t be.”
I have got to talk to Dad.
Dad crosses an ankle over his knee, his pants hiking up to reveal patterned socks from some Father’s Day or another. “Sure, I remember him. Ricardo.” Dad scratches his chin. “No, wait. Robert?” He pauses. “It was definitely an R name. Great guy.”
I drop to the couch beside him, shaking my head. “This is nuts.”
“What is?”
I remember trying not to stare at that store manager’s green eyes or his sleeve of tattoos: a beetle, a semicolon, and—right in the middle of his arm—a lion, ready to pounce. There are thousands of Ricardos, but there are not thousands of Ricardos with seafoam-green eyes and a lion tattoo.
“Nothing,” I tell Dad. I won’t bring anyone else into this until I’m certain.
“You sure, kid?”
“Yeah.” I wave it off. “I just remembered something.”
“Ah.” He slurps his coffee as though remembering something explains everything.
“Where’s Mom?”
“She’s—” He frowns. “Sleeping.” Then he asks, “You want to play a round of chess?”
I hesitate. The kids are gone until tonight. So no, I don’t want to play chess. I want to drive to Waco. I want to find the manager of Jed’s Hardware, confirm that he is who I think he is, and give him a piece of my mind.
But my dad is here with his patterned socks and degenerative disease, and I don’t know when the day will come that he might look at me and draw a blank.
“Sure,” I say. “But just one round. I have some errands to run.”
As always, he plays black and I play white, giving me the advantage.
As always, he wins. With us, it’s less about the outcome and more about the play.
When I head out, I kiss his forehead and ask if he needs anything.
He smiles and sips his coffee. “I’m good.”
Getting out of Dallas, there’s traffic on the High Five, but I don’t mind the extra time to think.
It’s not like Ricardo Torres went missing or anything.
Last we knew, he was in Odessa. I just never expected a chance encounter in Waco, or anywhere for that matter.
I think back to that night at Jed’s, all of us standing in the breeze, my deep gratitude for the care that manager had shown my father.
Still—I shake my head—if he is Leo’s dad, I know how this man neglected his son.
I crawl through a sea of Texas plates. The air conditioner blows cool, warm, warmer. On one side of me, a Chevy Silverado tows a tractor with a “Back the Blue” bumper sticker. On the other side, a low-riding Cadillac DeVille with a Mavericks sticker.
When traffic and lanes thin, I start trying to figure out what in the world to say to Ricardo-maybe-Rico. Scenes from The Count of Monte Cristo run through my mind. Justice and vengeance. I’m mad at Leo’s parents, and I’m a bit crazy-eyed by the time I arrive at the hardware store.
But I’m brought back down to earth by the sound of the door chime, the nicely working air-conditioning, the row of garden hoses and light bulbs, and the mother who is lifting her son up to the lollipop turnstile at the cash register and saying, “Solo uno, chiquito.”
I swallow. I have no plan.
There’s a basket of tape measures in front of me, and it dawns on me how many things I genuinely need to buy in order to replace some of what burned, especially if Leo and I are going to be divvying up the little that’s left. So I load a cart.
When I get to the checkout counter, I ask casually, “Is Ricardo around?”
“Yeah, he’s—” The man, whose name tag says Javier, looks around. “Oh, wait. He’s at lunch, but he should be back soon.”
So I complete my purchase and then wander the shop more.
It can’t be him. This Ricardo guy has probably never gone by Rico in his life, never had a kid or lived in Odessa. It’s probably a popular tattoo. I’m completely insane for coming here.
Still, with every chime my gaze flies to the door.
Ten minutes later, Ricardo finally walks in, carrying two orange-striped Whataburger cups. He offers one to Javier, and I duck down the broom aisle, watching them through a cluster of mops.
It’s not him. I should sneak out. Go spend time with my dad.
I make for the door, head down.
“Miss?”
Not me, please not me.
“Miss!”
Yes, he is indeed calling me.
I turn and find myself face-to-face with Ricardo, Manager.
He holds out a bag stamped red with thank you thank you thank you. “This yours?”
I see the lion halfway up his arm, same as last time and same as Leo’s photograph, though more ink surrounds it now. He has no wedding ring, dirty fingernails, and a scar across one eyebrow where the hair doesn’t grow.
The tips of my ears get hot. “Thanks, sorry about that.” I take the bag I missed in my hurry to flee.
“Wait,” he says. “I remember you. Your dad—”
“Right, yeah. Thanks again for that.”
Concern fills his face. “Is he—”
“Oh, he’s fine! Yeah.” I add, “Loves his hammer.”
Ricardo looks genuinely relieved. “Glad to hear it.” He gestures to my bags. “Did you find what you need?”
Heat in my ears again. “Uh, sort of.”
“Is there anything else I can help with?”
He is far kinder than my imagined version.
“Actually, yes. I need some”—I look around—“garden shears.”
I don’t need garden shears.
“Okay, come this way.”
As he leads me to another aisle, I suck in a breath. In a breezy, small-talk way, I tell him, “We’re actually about to move.”
“Oh yeah?”
“To Odessa, yep.”
He says nothing as we come to a stop in front of a wall of garden shears. I pretend to compare them, to be making unimportant conversation. “You ever been?”
He looks at me, bemused.
“To Odessa,” I clarify, starting to sweat.
“Used to live there, actually.”
“Oh!” Too much, I tone it down. “Small world. Any favorite haunts or tips?”
What do I expect him to say, don’t have a son and abandon him there?
His eyes darken. “Sorry, I haven’t been there in many years.”
I select a random pair of shears. I can’t just ask the guy if he has kids, so I scramble for another angle or tool to buy. But then he quietly offers: “I lost my family there.”
My heart crescendos. Lost? Talk about revisionist history. He sent his own child away.
Javier calls from the register, “Oye, Torres!”
“Un segundo,” Ricardo calls back.
The shop tilts. Torres. The man standing in front of me is unequivocally Leo’s father.
I swallow. “That, uh, must have been terrible.”
I’m on the verge of quipping, “terrible for your son” and spilling everything, but I can’t do that behind Leo’s back. There must be a reason why this man never sought his son and his son never sought him.
Again, I look at him. Hardworking hands and Leo’s eyes.
“Sí.” He clears his throat. “Long time ago.”
The person in front of me might have caused pain, but he too has suffered. I’m humbled by his actual physical presence. Does he not deserve to know he’s an abuelo? Would he not want to know?
But it’s not my place. I found what I came to find.
Just like last time I was here, I touch his arm. “Thanks for the shears.”
He nods. “No problem.”
Then Javier takes care of me at the register as Rico greets another customer by name and asks how his shed is coming along, how his grandmother is doing.
With that, I leave Jed’s Hardware, the door tinkling behind me.
There is no traffic on the drive home, and the air-conditioning works better at cruising speed.
There’s still so much I don’t know. Where Ana is.
Why they failed Leo so badly. If they’re in touch with Nacho.
Whether it’s normal for a woman to be this invested in her almost-ex-husband’s estranged family.
And—not least of all—whether Leo will want to know about this.
I’m sure he won’t, but I should maybe tell him anyway.
I had flattened Ricardo Torres to his worst offenses, but he is flesh and bone and complexity like everyone else.
I know what a semicolon tattoo can mean: Did he try to end his own life?
My eyes prickle as though tears come from a shift in sight.
Rico is more of a stranger to me now than before I met him, and now Leo is a stranger too.
All his devotion to my family over the years, and what did I do?
I pitied him for his. And pity is but a shadow of love.
I want to start over. Want to say, Tell me everything. And when he changes the subject, to say, No, really. Marriage begins in the middle of the plot, and I never truly learned Leo’s early scenes. The pain there scared me too much, and I really believed I could just give him a new family instead.
My phone lights up and I glance at the screen.
It’s Leo, still saved as Tooth Fairy.
I click the speaker. “Hey, everything okay?”
“The kids are good, but…did you see the email?”
My voice drops. “What email?”
He takes a breath. “They declared the house a total loss.”