Chapter 18 #2
My mind races down old roads that are long overgrown. Thinking back to my childhood, and if I could have met him in our little town, without knowing it. He left when I was a baby. But if he had another family, do they know about us? Know about me, and just never reached out?
“No, Sofia.” Her voice is barely above a whisper, sensing the rising fear in mine. “They were already born. Another man’s children that he lived with. Then he left them too. A womanizer, is what I think you call it.”
Piece of shit or bastard is what I say. Suddenly, the hurt becomes anger.
For using women like my ex. For sucking them dry and moving on.
I never met my papi. Would never have known if I had run across him in town while growing up.
And I’m glad I didn’t. I’d probably kill him myself for what he did to her and me.
“You were too young,” she continues when I don’t answer. “I didn’t want another man. Didn’t want to need a man the way I once needed him. And I didn’t want you to think love was something found in another. I wanted to give it to you the best I knew how. It’s all I hoped for.”
That’s exactly what I thought. I thought love was found in another. Muttered those words to him so many times until I stopped hearing them back.
“I figured if the first man I loved broke me like that, why try again? Why risk another heartbreak when I had you to raise? A daughter watching everything I did. Depending on me. I could not bring another man into that. No quería que tú sufrieras por mis errores.”
My chest twists.
This is the first time she’s ever said it so plainly. The cost, fear, and loneliness she must have felt . . . she wrapped herself in strength, love, and happiness so I wouldn’t see her bleeding. Hemorrhaging in pain and disappointment.
An example of that every day I was growing up. If she said she loved me right now, it would pale in comparison to how much of herself she gave up for me. Her nagging is her worry on steroids because of what she sacrificed for me.
It makes me feel horrible. Tears come from nowhere, and all I want to do is hug Paco to comfort me, even though he’s not in the room. I hear him playing with toys in the living room.
“Do you ever regret it? Do you ever wish you had someone then or even now?”
My breath catches on the guilt that she built this small, safe life for me at great cost to her.
“No. Not for a day.”
She says it so quickly. So forcefully that I believe her.
“And now?”
“Mija, no. I’m too old for foolish things. I have my life, my things, my friends, and you. It’s all I need.”
The tears I held back are flowing down my cheeks. I muffle my sobs. It’s so sad for her. So upsetting to think she’s only in her fifties and won’t try again. Never considered it because of him and me, and just everything.
And it hits home.
I could so easily be her.
I already have ten years of nursing experience. Could easily go another twenty or thirty more. The days fly by, and I could look up and be her, living that same life. Only mine is shrinking smaller and smaller, with the long hours I work and the way I come home and collapse.
“Should I do that? Not bother with men again.”
The question slips out before I can stop it. Before I can swallow it down. Before I can pretend it isn’t the very thing clawing at my throat since I walked out of Massimo’s car and watched the deadbolt slide home.
“No, Sofia. You should not do what I did.” Mami speaks in a gentle way, which she rarely uses. “You should not close the door to love because you’re afraid. What happened to me was my story. My lesson. It should not become yours.”
Her words hit something tender and raw in me. The wound is still healing over my divorce.
“I don’t know. Feels like I always choose wrong.”
“You chose wrong once,” she corrects. “Don’t make that mistake into your whole identity.
Don’t make that man into your future. You’re brave living in that big city, making your money, and taking care of yourself.
It is enough for now, but not forever. If a man comes along, worthy and strong. Then you choose him.”
A shaky breath escapes me as I wipe the tears from my cheeks. Could that be them? Not forever, but for now? With the twins, my whole body woke up, as if someone had lit a match under my skin. Massimo has been my private driver for weeks. I knew what was happening even if I didn’t want to admit it.
The sad look he tried to hide from me tonight. And Emilio, funny, wild, but with an infatuation with Paco. The way Emilio held Paco was like he’d die to protect a dog he met five minutes earlier. So much noise, bickering, and life in that house of theirs.
I felt safe there. Didn’t have to worry about a crazy ex getting to me. It’s impossible. A fortress inside a private neighborhood and two muscular men who just want to be with me.
“Mami, what if feelings come fast. Like too fast. Is that what happened to you?”
“Fast or slow,” she answers with a little sigh.
“Who knows what they are supposed to be. They just are. But if there is someone, which it sounds like there could be, then you let it happen. You see what happens. Watch how he treats you, how you treat him. Everything worth having takes something. But the right person also gives back more than they take.”
My throat nearly closes. My ex didn’t give back anything. He took until it drained me. Left me with no money, no love, and no dignity. Just numb, ashamed, and betrayed.
“But how do you know it’s good? How do you know it’s real?”
“You know, because it doesn’t make you feel small. Because it doesn’t make you hide. Because it doesn’t make you quiet. You are loud, Sofia. Loud with your laugh, with your opinions, with your heart. Don’t choose someone who doesn’t like loud.”
The twins are loud. Emilio, more so than Massimo, but one thing is for certain. They love my loudness.