“We just came to get our things,” Nico says stiffly, keeping me close to his side. “We’ll stay at a hotel. It’s fine.”
But it’s not fine. Nico wants to protect me, but this is my father. He’s in pain, and I hate the fact that I caused it, even if his anger hurts me too.
“Dad?” I whisper. I release Nico’s hand and walk toward my father, then squat down next to his chair so we are eye level. “Daddy?”
When he looks at me, his eyes are full of hurt and sorrow. “Meu docinha,” he murmurs, with a gaze that’s softer than anything I’ve seen from him in years. “Linda.”
I don’t respond, just hold still as he reaches out slowly to brush a few stray hairs out of my face. His hand lingers on my cheek, a tender touch I haven’t gotten from my father for longer than I can remember. A tear trickles down my face, followed by another as one falls down his as well.
My father. Crying.
“You’re not mine anymore, are you?” he asks sadly. “Not my daughter anymore.”
More tears fall, but I don’t deny his words. Because it’s true. Although I’m his daughter, through and through, I don’t belong to him anymore. Not since he left my mother and effectively left me too. Really, not since I left him and moved to New York.
“What happened?” he asks hoarsely.
I brush a few more tears away. “What do you mean?”
“He said he found you in an apartment…beaten, he said.” Dad sits up and swipes the damp tracks off his cheeks. “What happened to you?”
“Dad…” I twist some of the fabric in my dress. This isn’t a story I can tell easily, even to a therapist.
“Tell me.” It’s not a request.
Nico takes a step forward, and my dad looks up wearily.
“I deserve to know,” he says, his voice creaking slightly, “what happened to my daughter. At least give me that.”
I open my mouth to tell him he doesn’t deserve anything. That he left Mom and me last year to fend for ourselves. That he called maybe three times for an entire year, and basically abdicated any rights he had as a father. That it’s because of that hurt, that neglect, that I chased people and places all last year to ignore the pain and loneliness I was feeling inside.
But instead I move to the couch that faces the chair. Nico automatically comes to sit next to me, wrapping a protective arm around me that clearly announces his role as my protector all over again. Dad glares at the hand clasping my shoulder, but says nothing.
“It was last year. Just after you went back to Brazil,” I begin. “I met a man—”
I’m interrupted almost immediately by Nico muttering, “Please. Ain’t no man that I saw.”
I elbow him in the side, and he casts me a lopsided smile before tugging me closer.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s the truth, though.”
I roll my eyes and turn back to my dad, who tips back more of his drink.
“Was he American?” Dad asks.
I shake my head. “No. He was from Buenos Aires. He was studying business at CUNY and lived close to where Nico used to, up by Harlem. He…”
I drift off. I don’t want to go through the details anymore. I’ve spent most of the last year combing through them, recovering from the trauma of that short relationship. What it did to my body. My heart. My mind. It’s only been in the last few months that I’ve really started to feel like myself.
But my father needs to know. He needs to know because he’s partly responsible.
“He was a lot like you, actually,” I say.
Dad’s head whips up and he winces, like it gives him a headache. His eye is already turning black. “What do you mean, he was like me?”
I gulp, and Nico squeezes my shoulder encouragingly.
“Proud. South American. He came from a strict, wealthy family, and he was very, uh, bossy. Hard to please. He was…familiar to me. I didn’t understand that at the time, but I do now.”
I look directly at my father, forcing myself not to look away as he studies me and ingests my description. But it’s true. Giancarlo was, in many ways, a placeholder for the other authoritarian in my life. The order and control he exerted over me, the manipulations, echoed the normality of my father’s control, and so, in a fucked-up way, made me feel loved. In my confused heart, one that was already in pieces after Nico had left, after my father had left, that attention made sense. And for a while, it felt better than nothing.
Until it felt so much worse.
“And so what happened?” my father inquires. “How did you end up…” He trails off, unable to complete the sentence before he has to take another drink.
I exhale heavily. “He was…not good to me,” I say quietly.
Beside me, Nico tenses.
“What do you mean, ‘not good’? Layla, be more specific.”
“I mean like that!” I blurt out. “He would yell at me, just like you do. Demean me. Talk down to me, all the time. He’d make me second-guess myself and all the important relationships in my life. I never felt so alone until I was with him, and at the end, when I fought him about it, he took it out on me physically!”
My voice is shaking at this point, as if I never knew how much I really did blame my father for all of this. Would I have been attracted to someone like Giancarlo if I hadn’t learned this kind of thing at home? I’ll never know. But maybe not. Maybe…
“He hit me here.” I point to my cheek, while tears start to roll down it all over again. “And here.” To my eyebrow. “And cut himself too, and bled all over me. And tried to force himself on me. He would have succeeded too if N-Nico hadn’t shown up when he did.”
By the time I finish, my voice is almost a whisper, and the tears are flowing freely. Nico’s arm drops to my waist so he can hug me as close as possible. He presses a long, lingering kiss to my forehead, like he’s trying to absorb the memories and take them away.
He doesn’t have to say those three words he does when I’m scared, but I feel them anyway. I got you. And he does, he always does.
Dad, however, has no idea. He flashes an angry look at Nico. “And where were you this whole time?” he demands. “You say you love my daughter. You want to protect her. Why did you only come at the end?”
“You are not trying to blame this on him, Dad,” I put in.
Nico inhales, but keeps his arm tightly wrapped around me. “I was in Los Angeles, trying to make an honest living. A future instead of being a nobody,” he says, recalling Dad’s harsh words from earlier. There’s no more pretense in his voice. No more “Dr. Barros” or “sir.” Things are real now, and he has nothing to lose.
“Nico saved me,” I say. “Dad. Dad!”
Finally, my father turns back to me, and it’s then he sees the truth in my eyes.
“I’d be dead without him,” I say. “You owe him my life. I owe him my life.”
Dad tips back the rest of his liquor, then sets the glass on the side table with an audible clink. I can’t imagine what he’s feeling, discovering all of this about his daughter on top of the fact that she’s marrying a tatted-up bad boy from Hell’s Kitchen and carrying his child.
“You know he’s a criminal too?” he asks. “First day you were here, I did a background check. I knew you were no good. He beat a store clerk within an inch of his life, just like he did to me. Do you know this, Layla? Does that make him a hero too?”
Nico wilts slightly beside me—the motion is so small, that I can barely sense it. But I can. I know him too well. I slide my hand to Nico’s knee and squeeze. I love you, I try to convey.
“Dad, I know about Nico’s record. And for what it’s worth, he didn’t do the crime he was convicted for. Either way, it’s in the past. He was just a teenager. Should we hold all of the indiscretions of your youth against you?”
“That’s not the point,” Dad spits. “He’s not good enough for you, linda. You deserve the best, not a boy who, good as he might be, only wants you for your money.” He glares at Nico. “How do we kn
ow he’s not still wrapped up in some kind of criminal organization? You are so naive, Layla. I know how these things work. You do not.”
“What the fuck…” Nico says, but before he can reply, I sit forward so I can look my father in the eye.
“You are intoxicated, which is the only reason I’m not walking out the door right now,” I say clearly. “But if you want me in your life, you need to stop. Stop making up stories. Stop trash-talking the very best person in my life, a person to whom you actually owe a great debt. Just stop.”
Dad swallows, looking between us, taking in our connection. We are unbreakable. Internally, I beg him to know it.
“I’ll cut off your tuition,” he says, though his voice is already weakening. “I’ll cancel my check for this semester. I won’t pay for your school next year, or any year after. You want to go to this silly school so you can take care of poor people like this? I won’t do it. Not if you are with him.”
“Then I won’t go to school next year,” I say. “I’ll work and pay for it myself.”
“We’ll pay for it ourselves,” Nico adds beside me. He sits up a little straighter. “Layla’s going to finish school, with or without you, Sergio.”
At the sound of his Christian name echoing through the room, Dad winces again. But he doesn’t argue with it.
“I’m not leaving New York, Dad,” I say. “I’m not leaving Nico. We’re a family, he and I. That’s what we are now. Maybe what we’ve always been.” I stand up, and Nico follows suit.“You can be a part of it or not,” I tell my father. “I hope you will. But if you’re going to be in it, you can’t boss me around anymore. And you need to treat my fiancé, your grandchild’s father, with respect. Otherwise…that’s it. We’ll live our lives, and you can live yours.”
I exhale the breath I didn’t know I’d been holding at the end of all of it. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, putting my foot down with my father. All my life I’ve been his little girl. Someone he coddled early, but disciplined more and more, trying to make into something he could never be: someone he was satisfied with. But all it taught me was that I was never enough. It made me scared. It kept me from understanding what love was.
Until I met Nico.
Like a magnet, Nico moves close, wrapping both of his strong arms around my waist as he pulls me against his front. It’s a move that’s typically affectionate for him, but given the context, in front of my father, marks me as his as much as I’ve named him mine. In this room, we are a unit, more so than I have ever been with my parents.
Nico flattens his palms over my middle, over the child that’s still barely more than an idea yet. But it’s there, nonetheless. And now it’s all that matters.
My father sighs. He’s a man beaten, withered. And for the first time in my life, he looks old. He gazes at us for a long time, tapping his lips like he’s wishing for a cigarette or something to take off the edge. Then he sighs, long and low, and says something that genuinely shocks me.
“Thank you,” he says formally. He stands up, and to my surprise, extends a hand to Nico. “For my daughter’s life.”
Nico stares for a minute, then unwraps his right hand from my waist and accepts the handshake.
“Right,” he murmurs. “You’re, ah, welcome.”
“I’ll never be happy about this marriage, you know,” Dad says. “She’s too good for you.”
I cringe, but Nico just tucks both arms back around me.
“She is,” he agrees. “But that never stopped me from loving her. It’s happening whether you like it or not, Sergio. We’re a family now, like she says. That’s all there is to it.”
Dad’s weary eyes drop to my stomach. They float over me, over Nico, as if for the first time registering us together. Whole.
“Yes,” he says. “Deos me ajude…I know.”
And with a squeeze of my shoulder, he turns and trudges down the hall, a man defeated, but I hope, a man who is also learning to accept what he can’t change.
Nico and I watch until Dad disappears into the darkness. My chest feels hollow, but I’m also strangely calm. I may never fully have peace with my father. You can’t undo twenty-some years of anger, control, and abandonment in a few minutes. But the catharsis feels good. Right. And maybe we can both move forward.
“Let’s get some sleep, baby,” says Nico, rubbing my shoulder sympathetically. But before I can ask whether or not he thinks we should keep sleeping separately or risk my dad’s continued wrath by sleeping in the same room, his phone rings.
It rings. At one o’clock in the morning. And the number is from New York. Where they’re only an hour behind. Everyone we know understands we’re in Brazil right now, where cell phone roaming charges are ridiculously high.
“What the fuck…” Nico murmurs as he flips it open. “Maggie. What’s going on?”
I watch as he collapses back onto the couch and thrusts a hand through his hair. His sister’s voice is as loud and insistent as ever; though I can’t understand her, I hear her urgency. Her fear.
“Fuck,” Nico keeps whispering as she talks. “Okay, calm down. Mags, I said calm the fuck down. Listen, I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? First flight out tomorrow. Gata, don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine.”
She says a few more things, and I fall next to Nico. He clutches my hand while he listens.
“Tomorrow,” Nico reassures her. “Okay. Yeah, call Ileana. I don’t care if it’s late. Blow her shit up until she answers. We’ll figure this out. Okay, bye.”
“What’s going on?” I ask as soon as he closes his phone.
When he turns to me, most of the color in his beautiful tan face is gone. The fierce light, the sparkle in his eyes is gone, replaced by utter hopelessness.
“They got her,” he whispers. “My mom. Immigration arrested her tonight. She’s…they got her.”
And that’s all my strong man can say as his greatest fear comes true: Carmen, his mother, who was brought illegally to Puerto Rico and then to the United States when she was just a small girl, has finally been discovered after more than thirty years of living in the shadows of New York.
Without thinking and while my father watches, utterly confused, I pull my phone out of my clutch and start dialing automatically. Nico’s face is blank. There’s not much I can do, but one plan of action lies before me. My father is probably passed out by now, and unlikely to help at any rate. But there’s one other person who understands what Nico has done for me. Maybe, just maybe she’ll help.
“Mom?” I ask when I hear her familiar voice. “It’s Layla. I’m still in Brazil. But, Mom…I need your help. Nico needs our help.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Nico
“I don’t want you to go. It should be me.”
“Shhhh. We’ve been over this.” Layla looks up from checking her passports and tickets and strokes my face. “This is the quickest option if you don’t want to be tied up in court for months or even years.”
I have to hand it to my girl. While I sat there in a daze, getting sand all over her dad’s fancy white couch, she was on the phone with her mom for at least two hours, giving her the details on the situation and figuring out a solution. It was clear at first that Cheryl didn’t want to help. She wanted to wait until the morning and talk to Ileana. But in the end, I wonder if Layla didn’t call her mother first just to get her dad to spring into action. Because as soon as the dude realized Layla was on the phone with his wife, he shot out of his bedroom, not giving a shit that it was almost three in the morning at that point. He snatched the phone from Layla and took over the situation immediately, and we just sat back while the two of them argued about who was going to help us the most.
Which is how we found ourselves here at the airport the next morning, me holding one ticket back to the States, and Layla clutching another for Santiago.
I hate this. I fuckin’ hate this, and so does Sergio. But, as Ileana confirmed when we talked to her this morning, it was probably the easiest way
. Layla has dual citizenship, so she doesn’t need a special permit to fly to Cuba from Brazil. So the plan is for her to do just that: fly to Santiago, get a copy of my mother’s birth certificate, then go to Montreal and on to New York. Sergio helpfully upgraded her flights to first class all the way and shoved a credit card into her hand, along with a massive pile of Cuban pesos that he got from the bank on the way here.
“Fifty if they hassle you,” he reminds her as her flight to Rio echoes over the airport loudspeaker. I smirk. For all his polish, Sergio Barros is clearly a man familiar with the art of bribery. “One hundred to speak to a supervisor. Say it with authority. You’re my daughter, Layla. Don’t forget this.”
Layla blinks up at him. “I won’t, Dad. I promise.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I tell her again. “I’ll do it. I’ll sneak in through Venezuela or somewhere like that. Some place where they won’t stop Americans.”
Layla places her hand on my arm. “Stop. I’ll be fine. I’m not violating any laws here, and I’ll meet you in New York in a few days, okay? I promise.”
I sigh. This is so damn wrong. Here I am, sending my brand-new fiancée and my unborn baby on a plane to a country where U.S. citizens aren’t supposed to go. And to top it all off, Layla doesn’t even really speak the language. They’re going to take one look at her big blue eyes and trusting face and eat her alive. Fuck.
It goes against everything I know to be right. And yet…it’s the only thing to do.
“Nico,” she says again, pulling me out of my misery. “Take care of your mother. I’ll be there in a few days.”
The loudspeaker calls the number and the boarding information of her flight one last time. Layla presses a final kiss to my lips, and I pull her closer, taking a little more. I’d rather walk through fire than put her in danger. But this is how it has to be.
“Three days,” I murmur against her lips. “If you’re not back in three days, I’m coming after you myself.” My hand drifts up her side to where, underneath her thin t-shirt, the words “saudade para tí ” are etched over her ribs—just like the Portuguese equivalent is on mine. Fuck. I miss her already, and she’s not even gone.
Bad Idea- The Complete Collection Page 101