It had taken her awhile, but she’d learned to deal with the sad expressions on many of the faces of the loved ones inside. The ones who, like her, had been left behind, forgotten, by the same hard-headed man whose presence, twelve years later, forced her visit today.
Annoyed by her current situation, Anamaría jerked the gearshift to park, then wiped her sweaty palms on her leggings. She sucked in a deep breath, slowly releasing it like she would instruct a victim in danger of hyperventilating. When that did nothing to slow her mid-cardio workout pulse, she reached for her water bottle and took a hefty swig.
“Llegaste?” her mom’s voice cut through the hazy memories trying to push their insidious way to the surface in Anamaría’s mind.
“Yes, I’m here. I gotta go, mami. Te llamo mas tarde.”
She chugged another gulp, certain that her promise to call later wouldn’t stop her mom from bugging her before then. When it came to overstepping the boundaries of propriety and privacy with her children, her mom didn’t baby step over it. She freaking leapt.
All with good intentions of course. Lydia Quintana de Navarro lived and breathed for her husband and children, their extended familia, and their entire comunidad. That also meant when she felt she knew was what best for someone, there was no shying away from letting them know it. Or from using her mad passive-aggressive skills to get her way, particularly with her kids and grandkids.
Like a truth-teller affirming Anamaría’s thoughts about her mom’s meddling, her mom’s voice stopped Anamaría seconds before her finger hit the “end call” icon on the dashboard screen.
“God has a plan for you, nena. I know He does.” Her mami’s voice softened with concern while it also sharpened with the conviction of her faith. “Dios te bendiga, mi vida.”
Before she could reply to her mother’s usual “God bless you, my life” farewell, the call was disconnected.
God has a plan for you. The sage advice replayed in Anamaría’s head as she rubbed her thumb over the AM Fitness logo imprinted on the side of her water bottle. This—AM Fitness—had to be the plan. That was her focus now.
The black and red script in a font painstakingly selected because of its strong, hip vibe indicative of the brand she sought for her burgeoning business reminded her of how far she’d come since the last time she had seen or spoken to Alejandro.
Her heart had mended. Her conviction that she’d made the right decision by staying behind had solidified. Her anger at his mulish behavior had dissipated to mere indifference.
Ignoring her trembling fingers and the annoying jitters in her stomach, she tugged her keys from the ignition, grabbed her backpack, then left the safety of her vehicle.
Like many in this older Midtown neighborhood, the Miranda’s was a modest, single story stucco house. Theirs was painted the same welcoming soft peach as the privacy wall, with dark gray hurricane shutters bookending the windows. Alejandro and his younger brother, Ernesto, had lived here their entire lives. Until their father, in a fit of anger Anamaría felt certain he’d never meant, threatened to ban Alejandro from their home if he chose to turn his back on running the restaurant that was their familia’s legacy.
Despite the threat, Alejandro had boarded that plane to Spain. Off to seek fame and fortune on his own terms. Without his father’s blessing. Without her.
The humid breeze snagged a few errant strands of hair from her ponytail, blowing them across her cheek. Anamaría tucked them behind her ear and shook off the anxious tremors threatening her painstakingly erected wall of indifference. She paused in front of the wide wooden door nestled in the privacy wall’s alcove. Overhead, the sprawling bougainvillea with its deep green leaves and bright fuchsia flower petals climbed the inside walls and slight overhang in a colorful canopy offering shade to those who entered. But the plants’ sharp thorns were as prickly and painful as the memories of Alejandro she’d buried deep in a pirate’s treasure chest, rarely allowing herself to unearth.
If she was honest with herself, she’d admit that the sweat dotting her upper lip had more to do with seeing Alejandro again after all these years, and less to do with the island climate she’d endured her whole life.
All she had to do here was put on her game face. Channel her I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude that challenged any sexist, chauvinistic firefighters at work to question her abilities when it came to saving their asses. Treat this like another routine 911 call. Alejandro, another random patient she might need to load in the back of her …or, bueno, his mom’s sedan… for the short drive to the emergency room at Florida Keys Hospital if need be.
So what if instead of her firefighter gear she wore exercise clothes having come directly from a private workout with a middle-aged woman staying at the Casa Marina Resort. Her sundress from church was in the car, a balled up, wrinkled mess inside her gym bag. No way was she wasting twenty minutes driving to her place in Stock Island just outside of Key West and back to freshen up. Not for him.
She refused to allow herself to care whether or not she looked her best for the man who had walked away from her so easily.
Straightening her spine, Anamaría reached for the weathered metal door handle.
Her plan was simple. Get in and out quickly. Keep chit chat to a minimum. Remain professional and focused on her task—not the man—while she checked Alejandro’s vitals and the pin sites of the external fixator keeping his surgically aligned tibia shaft in place while his compound fracture healed.
No doubt Alejandro had come back kicking and screaming. Metaphorically speaking anyway. That had been the general consensus during the conversation she’d tried to tune out around the table at her familia’s mandatory weekly dinner the other night.
Nothing short of desperation and the need for assistance with his daily care—with a heavy dose of maternal insistence, no doubt—could have finally brought the prodigal Miranda son home.
Anamaría figured he wanted to be back in Key West about as much as she wanted him here.
That would be … not at all. As in zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
If luck was on her side, her visit now would be a quick “all’s well” checkup. Then she’d be on her way, Señora Miranda’s fears for her oldest’s well-being calmed. Intent on maintaining her distance until he left again.
Because he would leave again. Everyone knew that.
Only this time, when Alejandro Miranda boarded his flight to wherever his photography skills took him, he would not be taking her heart with him.
After having decided almost two years ago to quit waffling and just do it—her younger brother’s wise, if Nike-themed advice—she was finally intent on making her own true career dreams a reality. Thanks to her brother Luis’s fiancé’s mentorship as a social media influencer, AM Fitness had started getting more buzz, accruing more Instagram followers, and, most recently, the potential offer of representation by a talent agent.
There was absolutely no time for distractions or strolls down a memory lane riddled with what-might-have-been potholes.
Alejandro Miranda was her past.
Anamaría’s eyes were focused on the future.
All she had to do was get through this one awkward meeting. Then they could go their separate ways again.
A tiny pang of regret seared a hot trail through Anamaría’s chest.
Stubbornly she stomped down the painful sparks like the dying embers of a careless fire. Shoulders back, head high, she pushed through the wooden door, ready to face the man who had shattered her once tender heart.
* * *
Sitting on the worn floral-print sofa in his familia’s living room, Alejandro Miranda cursed the bad luck that had dragged his ass back to Key West. The island home he’d left behind over a decade ago, by choice and by force.
His mami sat on one side of him, his abuela on the other, their dark eyes pools of concern. Across from him, his sister-in-law, Cece, and two-year-old niece, Lulu, perched on the matching loveseat pushed against the opposite wall, their gazes tra
ined on him expectantly. His brother Ernesto leaned against the armrest, hovering at his wife’s side, his brow furrowed with uncertainty.
Trapped by their intent stares, Alejandro jabbed his fingers through his hair in frustration and thought about that old copy of Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home he’d found at a secondhand bookstore in London several years ago. The title had grabbed him, but the words on the pages inside had really resonated.
According to Wolfe, you could never return to your old life, your old ways, even your old hometown, and find things the same. Ha! The guy obviously hadn’t tried going back to a Cuban familia rooted in tradition.
Sure, some things had changed. Cece and Ernesto had been about to start high school, barely making heart eyes at each other, when Alejandro had flown the restrictive coop his papi ruled. Curly-haired, pudgy-cheeked Lulu hadn’t even been a thought in her parents’ pre-pubescent minds. He’d missed many of their important life moments, and more.
But the old portrait of his papi, mami, Ernesto, and him, snapped at the Sears studio twenty plus years ago, still hung in its clunky frame on the pale blue wall above the love seat. A throwback you wouldn’t find in any gallery that displayed Alejandro’s prized photographs today.
Worse, the expectation on his mami, abuela, and Ernesto’s faces weighed as heavily on his shoulders now as it had back then.
Twelve years away and still he felt their palpable hope that he’d fall in line. Quit shirking his responsibilities and agree to work alongside his papi, learning the business to take over the restaurant someday. A life sentence that would shackle Alejandro’s dream of traveling and photographing the world.
It was the reason why he had stayed away for so long. One of several.
“Your papi is sorry he couldn’t be here to welcome you home,” his mom said. She slid to the edge of the sofa, leaning forward to plump the leaf green throw pillows cushioning his injured left leg resting on top of the rattan coffee table.
“Por favor,” he muttered. “Let’s not pretend. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to fall off that rock ledge in El Yunque and wind up in this damn—”
“¡Oye! Language!” Ernesto interrupted. He jerked a thumb at his daughter, busy murmuring something to the baby doll cradled in her tiny arms.
¡Carajo!
The second damn nearly slipped out before Alejandro stopped it. He wasn’t used to having a kid around. Unless they were the subject of his photograph, and then his camera helped him maintain his distance.
He dipped his head in apology at his brother and Cece.
“If I hadn’t wound up in this position,” Alejandro continued, “I’d be on my way to Belize for my next shoot. Not…”
Not here, surrounded by the people he had let down. Girding himself for when his father came home from Miranda’s, their familia restaurant that was his father’s pride and joy. The legacy Alejandro had spit on by walking away.
“Gracias a Dios que estas bien,” his abuela said softly.
Yeah, thank God he was okay. If “okay” meant slipping down a fucking waterfall and busting the shit out of his leg, then being forced to return to the home he could no longer claim to face the people he was destined to disappoint.
He squelched the sarcastic retort knowing it would hurt his familia and sagged back against the worn sofa cushions. His leg ached, signaling the time neared for him to swallow another over-the-counter pain pill. He’d given a hard pass to the opioid and acetaminophen with codeine the doc had tried prescribing post-surgery in Puerto Rico. No way would he risk developing any sort of dependency or addiction. There’d been a time after his divorce when he’d come way too close to relying on the bottle to dull his thoughts. Years later, that flirtation with dependency still haunted him.
“How are you feeling, hijo?” His mami finger-combed his thick hair a few times, a gentle caress that reminded him of times past. When he’d lain on this same couch or the double bed in his room, and she’d soothed him when he was sick.
“Your face is pale,” she complained. “And you feel a little warm. Are you hurting?”
He shook his head, lying but unwilling to cause her more distress. His jaw clenched tightly against the pain radiating from two of the pin sites high on his shin, a couple inches below his knee.
“Kiss it better, ‘buela,” his little niece suggested.
Despite the fatigue and disillusion crushing him, Lulu’s cuteness drew his smile. Her pudgy cheeks plumped even more when she grinned back at him.
“I’m not sure that’s going to work, chiquita, but thank you for suggesting it.” He winked, pleased when a cute giggle burst from her mouth. She hugged her bald baby doll to her chest, twisting from side to side.
Her innocence reminded him of the toddler he’d photographed once in a remote Costa Rican village. Spending time photographing the villagers and volunteers as they toiled at constructing a rustic school building and the eco-brick steps leading up a slight incline to the site had been a humbling experience for him. One of many over the years.
Cece caressed her daughter’s hair, her expression gentle with maternal love when she looked over at him. “It’s good to see you, Ale. Even if it is like this.”
She thrust her chin at the Ilizarov external fixator with its four rings and multiple K- and olive-wires piercing his shin, holding his tibia in place. Lulu had already been warned to keep her distance from the cyborg-looking contraption after racing over to greet him and nearly bumping against the rings.
Carajo, he winced just thinking about the agony that would have caused him.
“Gracias,” Alejandro replied to Cece.
He wanted to tell her it was good to be here. But they all knew it be a lie.
He didn’t belong here. Among them. He had always itched to be outside, not cooped up at the restaurant. He was more interested in seeing their small island from behind the lens of his camera. Capturing the beauty, wonder, and details so many missed in the busy-ness of life.
Making his own way in the world, not following someone else’s.
His eyes drifted shut on the past. The differences between them that still held true today.
This visit was only for a short time. Until he was healed enough to have the external fixator rings and pins removed, allowing him more mobility. Then he’d be able to handle the stairs at his townhouse in Atlanta, and he’d be fine on his own. As he had been for years.
Getting out of the wheelchair meant getting back to the job that gave his life purpose. And helped silence the occasional cry of loneliness that howled in the dark of night when his defenses were low.
“I still think we should have driven straight to the emergency room when we arrived here,” his mami said, concern lacing her words.
“He swiveled his head on the back sofa cushion to meet her worried gaze. “Let me rest a few minutes, then I’ll remove the dressings and clean the sites. I’m sure everything’s okay. I’m just tired.”
“Bueno, I would feel better if you saw a professional.” His mami ran her fingers through his hair once again. The loving gesture both soothed and pained him.
“Don’t be silly. I’m fine,” Alejandro assured her.
“Humph, so I am silly for worrying about my son now, ha?” she demanded with a sniff.
Arms crossed as he leaned against the far wall, Ernesto returned Alejandro’s exasperated grimace. They were familiar with this routine. When their mami was like this, you better pack your bags. Elena Miranda had a first-class ticket for you on a guilt trip you couldn’t avoid.
The fact that he’d held firm in not returning all these years, despite her heavy-handed attempts to lure him home, spoke of the yawning abyss separating Alejandro and his father. The bridge connecting them having long been burnt to the ground.
“A mother should not worry and want what’s best for her children?” his mami droned on.
“I didn’t say—”
“Bueno, since you refused to go see the doctor. I asked someone to come see yo
u.”
If he didn’t feel like death warmed over, he might have laughed at her over-protective, nature. “Mami, few doctors make house calls anymore. Not the ones my insurance company will cover anyway.”
“I didn’t call a doctor. I called familia.”
Fatigue weighing down his body, Alejandro slowly shook his head, not following. They didn’t have any physicians in their family. “What do you mean?”
Her brows furrowed, his mami exchanged a worried glance with his abuela, then sent a familiar “don’t say anything” parental warning at his brother who in turn threw an apologetic grimace Alejandro’s way.
Unease slithered down his spine.
“We only need someone with enough medical experience to properly clean your wounds and tell me if I should make you go to the hospital,” his mami said. “When the physical therapist comes later this week, I can ask any new questions I have.”
“Someone with…wait…” Alejandro shot a what-the-hell, how-could-you-let-her glare at his traitorous brother.
Ernesto ducked his head, a sure sign he knew what their mami was up to but refused to, or more like was wise enough not to, get in her bulldozing way.
“Mami,” Alejandro’s voice sharpened. “Who did you call?”
Her eyes narrowed at his gruff tone. A warning for him to curb his disrespect.
The stubbornness tightening his mami’s lips and the calming hand his abuela laid on his left forearm answered Alejandro’s question.
Dread descended like a dark storm cloud rolling in from the ocean.
“Por favor, tell me you didn’t—”
As sharp knock on the front door interrupted him. The hinges creaked in protest as the door slowly opened.
The rich, lilting voice that haunted his dreams, no matter how hard he tried to banish it, called out a hesitant “hola” as Anamaría Navarro stepped inside.
“Anamawía!” Lulu squealed.
Dark curls bouncing, his niece hopped off the loveseat. Her pink sandals slapped the grey and white tile as she ran with open arms toward the woman who’d unequivocally closed her heart to him.
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