Chapter 42
APRIL
A FEW DAYS AFTER DAD’S appendix scare, I watch the words on my phone fly away as I press send.
NEED TO TALK TO YOU SANS KIDS. CAN I COME OVER SOMETIME SOON?
Leo responds, TONIGHT?
I’LL CHECK WITH MOM AND COME AFTER KIDS ARE IN BED
OK
This gives me six hours to man up or chicken out. Seeing Dad in the hospital was a reminder not to put off what’s important. And this is important.
So six hours later, I get in the car with no idea how to do this, only that I must.
And here he is, opening the door of the trailer.
Here I am, looking up at a face that I want to take into my hands.
I walk inside and notice a new framed photo: the four of us just after Otto was born, before our world tilted on its axis.
I inhale, and he offers me a drink. “Wine, water, tea?”
“You drink wine now?”
He pulls out an unopened bottle of moscato. He doesn’t drink moscato—he got this for me. Uncorking the wine, he says only, “It’s no horchata.”
I hold out a glass, and he pours. Grabs a can of Velvet Hammer for himself.
We go over to the futon, where I slip my shoes off.
Part of me might always want Leo. But right now, more than I want him, I want his good. So I take a shaky breath. “Do you remember when my dad had car trouble right after we started staying with them?”
“Yeah?”
I set my wine down. “It wasn’t car trouble. He got lost. But it was before they were ready to tell everyone about the Alzheimer’s. He ended up in Waco at this hardware store he used to go to in college.” I pluck a cuticle and continue. “When Mom and I got there, he was with the store manager.”
Leo sets down his beer, puzzled.
My heart pounds. “It was—he—well, the manager, he had this—distinct arm tattoo.” I swallow. “A lion.”
Leo’s breath goes jagged.
“It’s him, Leo. I went back to confirm after I saw your photo. The manager is Ricardo Torres.”
Leo leans forward, elbows on his knees, face in his hands.
My words accelerate. “I didn’t tell him who I was, but I really think you should talk to him.”
This is the part I dreaded. What is Leo thinking, and what does he need, and how long do you have to be married to someone before you can get something like this right? I rest a hand on his shoulder, not knowing what else to do.
Finally, he leans back and says, “I’ve actually started looking for my parents.”
“Seriously?”
“No luck.” He stares at his beer. “Until now.”
“So, what will you do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t just go up to him at the store.”
I’m surprised he isn’t running from this. I look at the cut of his jaw, aching to kiss it like I’ve done so many times before. I wonder when this desire will fade, and I pick up my glass to busy my hands. “If there’s any way I can help…”
“Really?”
I set my wine back on the table, no sip taken. “Yes. Anything.”
He nods.
“Hey,” I say.
He looks at me, raw and waiting.
“I’m sorry I never tried to learn more about your parents and what life was like for you.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t ready.”
“I know, but I didn’t help.” I pause. “Which didn’t reflect how much I loved you.”
I want to rip the d off that word and burn it. I love him, in real time. Surely he must know that the pain hasn’t canceled out the love.
He takes a sip of his Velvet Hammer and asks, “Will you come to Waco and ask him to meet me somewhere away from the store? I mean, if he wants to.” Leo takes another swig. “A big if.”
This right here is why I’ve spent years angry at his parents. Because Leonardo Torres—teacher and father, friend and son and brother—has spent his life believing he’s unwanted, because those two selfish people left him alone and alone and alone. Yes they were young, but he was younger.
My hand is on his arm as it tightens, releases, tightens. And then a pinching of my heart, because didn’t I also communicate that he was unwanted when he found me with another man?
I pull my hand away from him, stabbed with shame, and I say, “Of course I’ll come to Waco.”
I find myself at Jed’s Hardware again two days later, and this time Rico spots me immediately. “Hola, mija. How are the shears?” He is cleaning a grill.
I haven’t used the shears; I’ve been busy divorcing your son. “They’re good.”
“Bueno. What can I help with today? I thought you’d be in Odessa by now.”
“Um, sir, do you have a minute?”
He frowns. Shoves his rag into his back pocket. “Sí.”
We step aside.
“I was never moving to Odessa. But my husband was born there.”
Rico frowns, looking so like his son.
“And I think you know him,” I say. “Leonardo Torres.”
Color drains from Rico’s face so rapidly that I reach out to steady him.
“Puta madre.” He scans the store as if expecting to see a ghost.
“He’s not here, but he does hope to talk to you.”
Nodding slowly, Rico walks to a nearby stool and sits. “Okay.”
“Okay, you will?”
My father-in-law looks up, his eyes the color of ivy. “When?”
I think of Leo parked down the street, waiting.
“As soon as you’re ready.”