When Life Gets in the Way

by Ines Vieira

  “Tio, we can't stay.”

  “No! Isaac filho, I promise you that I would never let anything happen to you or your mother. I can't do much for what you went through, but I can do something about it now. Evelyn, we need to go to the police.” She shakes her head no. I would too. That would just piss him more, and I know that the cops couldn't do jack shit if he decided to show up. Or worse, corner us when we were alone somewhere. All he would need would be just a couple of seconds to do his damage. The cops would be too late to stop it.

  “We need to at least get a restraining order on him. Maybe if we get the authorities involved that will scare him enough to keep his distance.” My uncle sees our reluctance. He’s desperately grasping at straws. No piece of paper would scare that man.

  “Okay, Carlos. We’ll stay. Just until Isaac finishes school. He’s gone through enough, and I want to see my baby graduate right.” I look over at my mother and by the look she gives me, I know that she is only saying this to ease my uncle’s conscience. It seems to do the trick and I can hear the tension lift off his shoulders. I don’t need to wait a couple of months to graduate. I can get my GED if push comes to shove. My mom knows this, but my uncle doesn’t.

  If we leave, no! When we leave, we have to do it when it's not expected. We’ll also have to go someplace where no one knows us. Can't stay east side and can't go back to Arizona either. North seems like a good option, maybe even Canada. We won't be able to tell anyone where we end up in, but at least we’ll be safe and so will the rest of my family. Hector won't retaliate against them if we aren't here to witness it.

  Cass.

  I’ll have to leave Cass.

  She has just opened her heart to me and now I was going to have to leave her behind. That man didn’t only break me and my mother. He was going to make me break the love of my life too.

  Hell better have a nice place waiting for the fucker!

  CASS

  Breathe. Just breathe. Jess’s words are still lingering in the air and I feel like a ton of bricks have been placed on my chest. My whole body is numb and I can’t feel my legs. I drop onto the bed broken.

  “When?” She’s looking at me as if she has just told me that someone died. But the pain I feel is much worse than that. This is it. I’ve lost him. I have lost him for good now.

  “I’m not sure. I overhead Aunt Evelyn last night talking to my parents. Maybe by the end of the week. I mean ever since my dad threw my uncle out of the house, she’s always scared that she’ll run into him on the street. And now with what happened last night, well, she’ll be safer if she leaves this place.” Jess sits next to me and strokes my back. It’s a small comfort compared to the million shattered pieces that my heart is in.

  “Do you know where they are going?” I feel her shake her head.

  “I think its best that we don’t know. That way we don’t slip and tell someone that may tell my uncle about their whereabouts. It’s safer this way.” Of course it is. It makes sense, but it also means that I won't know where he will be, or how to contact him. Just the thought that I’ll never see him again cripples me.

  “Where is he now?”

  “Cassandra, think for a minute before you do something stupid. It’s his mom. She needs him, just like yours needed you. Don’t make it harder on him than it needs to be.”

  “I won't. I just need to say goodbye. I just need to thank him. I just need to…” My tears are flowing and I can't control them. I want to be strong but I feel myself falling apart with every breath I take. Jess hugs me with all her might and I love her for it, but it's not enough. I need to see him.

  Deep down I knew this was coming. Since the day I saw him all battered and bruised, I knew that he wouldn’t be safe here. His mom wouldn’t be safe. Hector Silva was the devil and he would do everything in his power to destroy those who crossed him Even his own flesh and blood. Isaac didn’t have to tell me that every day we had spent together since that night, were precious and that they would eventually come to an end. I felt it in every kiss. In every caress. He was saying goodbye even if he didn’t want to come on out and say the words themselves.

  “Jess, where is he?” I plead. I hold her hands tightly across my chest. “Please,” I beg. My best friend looks at me with tears in her eyes.

  “He’s at the store with my dad. I’ll drive you.” Jess hates to drive, yet she got into her mom’s car and drove to my house to give me the news that would forever change my life. And now she would drive again to take me to the origin of that pain.

  Once we got there, I felt a lump in my throat pulsing its way to my chest. Jess’s dad was outside scrubbing away at the walls that were covered in filth. Red graffiti covered the once blue walls of the shop. Hateful words like «Whore, Bitch, Traitor.» There were other words also plastered on the walls, but even though my Portuguese wasn’t fluent, I knew that the words bared a similar tone to the English written ones. I look over at Jess, and it sinks in why Isaac’s mom wants to move sooner rather than later and why it’s best not to tell anyone her whereabouts. Isaac’s father although violent in nature was a coward and like most cowards, he would hurt the ones most vulnerable. While Isaac and his mom remained living at Jess’s house, they were all targets to his temper. Everyone. Including me. That’s another reason why he’ll go, and that’s why I won't be able to change his mind.

  I think twice about leaving the car. Is it really fair to him that I show up now? Am I really this selfish to put my own needs before his every time? No, not this time. I would let him go. He needed that of me, but I couldn’t let him leave until he knew how I felt. At least that. If we never see each other again, I want him to have that one certainty. I want him to hear me say it. At least once.

  I gathered all the courage I had and got out of Jess’s car. She tells me that she’ll wait for me to take me home once I’ve done what I came to do. I cross the street and hesitate once again, but it's too late. Mr. S has already seen me.

  “Olá querida. The shop is closed today Cass, but feel free to go in and grab what you need.”

  “I’m actually here to see Isaac. Is he around?”

  “Isaac? Yes, he’s inside with his cousins helping me out.” He smiles back. This man has had his store vandalized, yet he is still so freaking upbeat. I wonder how he does it. But still it must hurt to know that it was his own brother that caused so much damage.

  “I’m so sorry Mr. S. The damage to the store, I mean.” He straightens up and wipes his wet hands on his shirt.

  “Oh well, windows can be put back up, walls can be painted over, whatever was burnt can be replaced. Nothing is ever truly damaged. Everything can be fixed, if you put your mind to it.” He smiles back at me. I can't help but appreciate his optimistic view on life. I wished more people were like Jess’s dad. I wished that bad things didn’t have to happen to good people. But looking back at Mr. S., I was positive that even if bad things continued to happen to him, that would never affect the way he saw life. Full of possibilities .Again, if only there were more people like him in the world, than what a wonder it would be.

  I walk into the store and see shattered glass still splattered on the green floor. The fire didn’t consume much but it made enough damage that the store will need to be painted over and the counter would need to be replaced, but other than that, the store didn’t suffer any major damage. I look to the back of the store and see Alex, Tony, and Isaac in deep discussion.

  Then he sees me. He looks tired. His hair is all over the place and his clothes are filthy from cleaning up this place, and yet to me, he’s still perfection. I hear him tell his cousins to give us a minute and I nod to them as they leave.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he says as he cleans his hands on an old rag.

  “What are you doing here?” his voice is filled with angst and it hurts my soul.

  “Is it true? Are you leaving?” I walk closer to him, but the closer I get, the more I feel my heart thumping away at my chest. Please let me brave
enough to do this.

  “Yeah,” he continues to look at me as if he doesn’t know what else he should say. Isaac has always had a hard time finding his voice when he didn’t know what else to do. I continue to walk closer to him and once I’m close enough that I can just reach out and touch him, I stop.

  “Okay.” I try to search his eyes for any glimpse of hope, but there is none that I can find. I have to let him go, once and for all and I feel my heart die with every breath I take.

  “Okay?” He asks and I see him search my eyes with the same yearning of hope. I nod and I feel my tears threaten to burst out, but only one is stubborn enough to fall. He reaches for my face and I lean into his hand. We both break in front of each other with one small touch. I grab hold of him and let myself cry even though I know it’s not fair, even though it will only make this harder. His mouth is in my hair and I feel him kissing my head. But we don’t say a word. I don’t want to let go of him, but I know that I will have to. He breaks free from our embrace and holds my face in his hands.

  He searches my eyes again, and I must look like a total mess but I don’t care. I need him to know. At least once, I need him to hear it from me.

  “Isaac…I love you.”

  “Jesus woman, your timing sucks.” He laughs shyly and I can't help but offer my own small grin. “But I already knew that.” He cleans away my tears.

  “You did?”

  “I’ve known for quite some time, even if you only caught up to it now. It’s okay baby, better late than never.” He smiles back at me.

  “You could have told me, you know?” my tone is sarcastic, but I knew he would find the humor in it.

  “What? And spoil the surprise? Never. I knew you’d come to that conclusion on your own. I mean, any girl that gets accepted to Berkeley must be sharp enough to realize how fucking lovable I am, right?”

  “True. But you did make it hard sometimes for me to figure it out.” I tease back. He continues to wipe my tears away and all the humor has left his demeanor.

  “I know,” his voice is soft. He continues to stroke my face. He’s trying to memorize my face and I do the same with his. Every star in his eyes is recorded forever in my heart.

  “I do love you. If I never see you again, I just want you to know that.” He bites his lower lip, and I see his eyes watering.

  “Jesus Cass. Only you could destroy me today.” He swallows hard but doesn’t take his eyes off me. “You’re my girl. Whether you're eighteen or eighty, you will always be my girl.” He pulls me to his chest one more time and whispers in my ear, “Promise me that you’ll remember that, Cass? Promise me?”

  “I promise.” I no longer control my tears and my heart is no longer living in my body. When he leaves, my heart will leave with him. “I’m your girl. Now and forever”

  I have never meant anything in my life as much as the vow I made him that day.

  EPILOGUE

  CASSANDRA

  One year later

  San Francisco was all that I had expected it to be and more. The city was vibrant in color and when you walked the streets of San Francisco you felt the life coursing through its veins. Berkeley was also a dream come true. I loved my classes and professors. Even though it was hard keeping up with all my assignments and still maintaining my daily job at the marina, it was well worth the sacrifice. Thankfully, the scholarship I was able to get from Berkeley, paid for everything except room and board but my part time job at the restaurant paid enough for those expenses. I could have lived in one of the dorms but after just one semester living there I knew that I was better off living off of campus. I preferred my solitude. It kept me focused. Even at the restaurant, I was nothing but focused. I had gotten lucky getting this job. One of Ronnie’s relatives had a restaurant chain. He had opened one in Plymouth before I left and Ronnie had introduced me as the next ‘Christiane Amanpour’. He asked if I had any experience working in a restaurant and I told him that the closest I got was serving food to my own family. He offered me a job on the spot, saying that a person that was this honest even when she shouldn’t be, would make a great journalist and deserved a break. It was harder than I thought, but the tips were great and knowing that I was able to take that pressure off my parents financially was a godsend.

  The only time I allowed myself to think of anything that wasn’t related to school or work was when I clocked out of the restaurant. I would walk the marina for hours. Especially on the weekend shift, when I would clock out just before it got dark. I would walk over to one of the piers that most looked like the one we had back home and just sit there and watch the sunset. The first time I had come here, I had felt as if I wasn’t alone. It was as if he was sitting right next to me, leaning his head on mine. Whenever I had felt homesick or whenever missing him was just too much to handle, I would come here. Sunsets in San Francisco were beautiful, but I couldn’t help feeling that the ocean that I was staring at wasn’t the same, and of course it wasn’t. What lay in front of me was the Pacific Ocean. Even though it was as glorious as the Atlantic that kissed Plymouth’s sands, it was still not the same ocean that I once had shared with him. But the sky was the same. Blue like his eyes and glorious like his soul.

  It’s been over a year now and no one has heard a thing from him or his mother. Last time I talked to Jess she told me her uncle had been arrested. Apparently he had grown fond of setting fires. He had been arrested for attempted murder after locking his then girlfriend in a closet and setting fire to her house. Luckily she was able to survive, but not before suffering burns to her whole body and face. Another life ruined by that man. Every time I think about him, I can't help to think of all the horrible ordeals Isaac and his mom had been put through. All those years living under the same roof as that monster. In the end, they were lucky they were able to get out when they did. God knows what he could have done to them if they had stayed. He had been bitter and angry and combined with his love of whiskey, it was a miracle they got out at all. They were right in leaving. He was right in leaving. Even if that meant leaving me behind. I had come to terms with that long ago, yet the hole I had in my heart was still as big as the day he left. Sometimes I would be walking down the street, or shopping in Chinatown and I would see his blond hair blow in the wind, or hear his laugh in a crowded coffee shop, only to be disappointed to see that it wasn’t him.

  My mother had been right, though. When you are separated by the one you love, you can still live a normal life. You can still have goals and dreams of your own. You're still very much you. The only thing is that everything is just a little bit duller, a little bit grayer. But you live with that too. You soon start to live your life normally and forget that roses used to be redder, and birds used to sing sweeter. You forget that half of you is missing and just continue to move on.

  My mom was one of the lucky ones, though. After her surgery, she was able to get back to the woman she used to be. She had been able to get a job teaching Biology at Riverside and my dad was now able to turn down jobs that would take him away from home for long periods of time. If he could afford it, he would only take on one rig job a year. He made sure that he wouldn’t accept anything that would prevent him for being away for more than a couple of months at a time. They were both complete as individuals and whole together. Even if they spent months away from each other, they were happy. My mother’s tumor had put everything into perspective for all of us. I missed them dearly, especially Nicky. I don’t know if it was mom’s cancer scare, or those intense months of uncertainty that had finally taken its toll on him, but I sensed that my little brother was never the same. I wished that I could ease whatever was ailing him, but my heart was just as broken. Hopefully time would heal both our wounds.

  Jess and Ronnie kept in touch even with their own hectic schedule. They seemed genuinely happy and even though I tried to sound as joyous as they seemed to be, over the phone or when we talked on Skype, I knew I didn’t fool either of them. But I was content. That was enough for me.

&
nbsp; It’s Sunday morning and I’m up at the crack of dawn. As much as I would prefer to stay in bed all day, I have work, so, on these days I get up and do my five-mile run. I’ve found that running clears my head and its one of the few times a day that I feel that I can let go. When I get back I take a shower and start preparing myself for the long day ahead. On the weekends, I clock in at ten in the morning and only clock out at 4. I don’t mind really. I prefer the lunch crowd to the dinner crowd anyway. The lunch crowds on the weekends tend to be more of the family variety. Very noisy and very hectic. On the other two nights a week I work, it's mostly couples on romantic dates. Families I can handle, it’s the happy couples that are hard to swallow. But they tip better, so I suck it up. I put on my black skirt, white shirt and black vest and I’m ready to go. I’ve grown so accustomed to my uniform that if I could I would take it to school as well. Anything that prevents me from spending precious time dealing with what I have to wear the next day is a blessing. If there is anything that I’ve learned is that time is a precious commodity.

  As I take the 20-minute walk to the marina, I feel pretty pleased with myself. I had been able to hand in my assignment for one of my communication courses that I’m taking this semester way before the deadline. I know that having a 20 hour a week job and meeting all my classes demands may seem that I’m stretching myself too thin, but not having a social life really frees up your time. My assignment was based on an experiment done through social media. I had no idea that when I enrolled in a Journalism course how much time I would have to spend talking about and researching the importance of Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram. If Ronnie had taken anyone of these courses she would have passed them with flying colors. Our high school years were all very well documented thanks to Ronnie in every platform she was able to get her hands into. At the time, I remember it getting on my nerves, her wanting to take a picture of every little thing. Now, I find that some nights it’s the only comfort I have to fight off homesickness. By scrolling down those thousands of photographs that she insisted on taking, it ends up feeding my nostalgia.