Chapter 52
LEO
THE NIGHT HOURS HAVE NEVER been very kind to me.
I startle awake in my moonlit trailer, where I face off with Cody. With a roaring inferno. With raindrops poking my head, trapped alone in an empty trailer where the door is sealed shut.
I shiver, my heart trying to sprint from my body.
I flick on a lamp and catch my breath.
Then, April’s smile. Her voice. Are you saying I have to wait nine more years to marry you? The good is always more sluggish to return to mind than the bad.
After our night beneath the stars, April had to get back to her apartment to relieve the babysitter. She said, “Talk tomorrow?” And she hung from my lips by a kiss that had more promise than our wedding day.
But here I am, alone again with promises and their limitations.
I check the clock. 4:02.
Sighing, I shuffle to the kitchen and drop a bagel into the toaster.
The divorce papers are still on the table, and I consider taking a lighter to them. I meant it when I said I want to be married to her, and I believe she meant it too. Yet the painful memories endure.
I eat my bagel dry. Then I leave the divorce papers and find my wallet. Pull out a different piece of paper. And grab my car keys.
“?Hola?”
“Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Who is this?”
“…Leo.”
It is 7:35 in the morning, three hours since I gave up on sleep. If I had waited any longer, I would have chickened out.
Rico’s gravelly voice brightens. “Leo, good to hear from you.”
“Do you have breakfast plans?”
I’ve already driven to Waco. I took a chance.
By eight o’clock we are at a gas station near Jed’s, standing at a side counter and ordering the best huevos rancheros I’ve had in my life. We swipe away limp shreds of lettuce and sit at a little wooden booth.
“I don’t know why I called.”
“Doesn’t have to be a reason, mijo. I’m glad you did.”
We go hard with the Cholula, and we eat quietly while day laborers come in for warm food, jugs of water, packs of Marlboro Reds. They’ve been working for hours already.
Eventually I say, “Why—”
But I shake my head and shift in my seat. A version of this repeats itself twice more. I want answers. Why didn’t you get help? Why didn’t she? Why didn’t you come for me?
But there aren’t answers, I realize. There are stories.
So I push past a thickness in my throat and ask, “What, uh, was she like? And you.”
Rico napkins off his hands and mumbles, “Un segundo, let me text Javi at the store.”
Then, for two hours, he tells me about their families and fights, their homes and inside jokes, their worries and losses. He does not hold back. He has no excuses, and many regrets.
The earliest years of my life have been chapters with missing pages and redacted lines. But at a gas station taqueria, my own story is given back to me.
Afterward, we do not hug. We don’t even touch. But we do grab some churros to go, Rico footing the bill with a firm voice that takes me back. “No, Leonardo.” He opens a tattered wallet and adds, softer, “Just let me.”
When I get back in my car, I hear Deb’s words. From where I sit, it doesn’t look like your dad’s fault either. And with a bag of churros warm in my lap, I glance to check that my father’s car is gone. Then I hunch over my steering wheel and weep.