For several anxiety-heavy minutes, Jeremy watched Rosa eat in silence. Desperate to reach her, he tried again.
“‘He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone—’”
“‘Eighty-four days now without taking a fish,’” she finished. “What is your favorite classic novel, The Old Man and the Sea? Now you’re going easy on me.”
“Because I owe you an apology.”
He spoke the words with all sincerity, praying that she would accept his apology. Allow him to explain, and not think less of him when he finally admitted his past.
“Yes, you do.”
Her matter-of-fact words matched her expression when she finally looked up at him.
Okay, she wasn’t going to make this easy. At least she was listening.
“Today didn’t really go as I had planned.” He paused, figuring she’d have a comment about his candy-coating the obvious.
Lips pursed, Rosa stared blankly back at him as if to say, And?
“And it wasn’t exactly fair for me not to have prepared you for the potential awkward situation. To be honest, part of why I moved back is because I thought Sherman and I had moved past it. I’m not so sure that’s true. But apparently others, people I haven’t socialized regularly with for years, don’t mind bringing it up.”
“It. You keep using that word, but you haven’t defined what ‘it’ really is.”
Where to start?
His eyes closed, negative emotions welled up inside of him, most notably fear over her reaction.
He knew where to start. The beginning. The reason why it had taken him so long to admit to Sherman he had no desire to go into law. Because he hadn’t wanted to disappoint his father. Because he felt compelled to prove himself worthy of the Taylor name. Instead of just the “adopted” Taylor son. All because of...
Anxious, he rubbed his hands together while he worked up the nerve to tell her.
“I don’t really talk about this much. At all really. But if you Google and click enough links you’ll probably come across several old articles that mention I’m adopted.”
Rosa’s expressive eyes widened in surprise.
“Yeah, I figured you didn’t know. Or else you were being discrete by not asking me about it.” He took a deep breath. Now or never. “I don’t talk about being adopted because my birth father isn’t exactly a model citizen. Hell, let me go ahead and put it out there. He’s a scumbag who’s in prison now.”
Her spoon clattered against the side of the bowl, and a small gasp shaped Rosa’s mouth in a little O of surprise.
Uncomfortable yet relieved to finally rid himself of the past’s dark cloud, Jeremy rushed through the sordid story. “My mom met Roger Wilson when she was in college. They dated for a while, but he had a temper, and it started to get physical. At times violent. She tried to break it off, but he wasn’t happy about it. He showed up at her apartment drunk one night and . . . and things got ugly.”
He paused, gulping back the anger that always clawed at him when he thought about what his mom had gone through. “Thankfully the neighbors heard her screams and called the cops. Mom wound up with a broken arm, bruises from his chokehold. She pressed charges, but a couple weeks later, when she found out she was pregnant, she offered him a deal. Sign away parental rights and she’d drop the case against him.”
One hand pressed to her chest, Rosa stared back at him, dismay slackening her features.
He floundered with the story for a second. Struggling with the fear that knowing his true parentage could make Rosa think less of him in some way.
That “adopted son” label that cropped up in an article about Sherman’s family from time to time still managed to get under his skin.
“Flash forward about five years,” he went on. “My mom was working as a legal assistant for a law firm in Chicago. She met Sherman, a young lawyer on the rise, at a charity event. He swept her off her feet and jumped in to take on a fatherly role with me. Mom deserved everything Sherman offered—a healthy relationship, love, a better lifestyle. But she wasn’t easy to win over.”
Jeremy found himself smiling as he remembered his mom turning down Sherman’s first proposal after they’d only been dating a few months. She said she needed to be sure. More importantly, she wanted Jeremy to be sure.
Sherman had wined and dined both Jeremy and his mom. What was even better were the times he’d patiently listened to Jeremy rattle on about this dinosaur or that amazing play in the Cubs game earlier in the day.
Oh man, he hadn’t thought about those early years in a long time. Absently, Jeremy picked at the inseam of his jeans, letting the good memories wash away the bad. Far too often lately the negative ones had held sway over him, causing a chronic stress that kept him awake at night.
“I am so sorry about what happened to your mom,” Rosa said, her voice thick with tears.
He glanced up to find her eyes glistening with moisture. The good in her must be horrified by the hatefulness of his story.
“My mom says it made her stronger.” He cleared his throat, as always, humbled by his mom’s perspective. “She’ll tell you that she came out the winner, because she got me.”
“Sounds like a smart woman who’s an amazing mom.”
Rosa’s sincere words made his eyes sting.
“Yeah, she is.”
They shared tentative smiles, and his heart swelled with optimism.
“I’m relieved that you felt comfortable enough to share that with me. But, um, I’m not too sure how that plays into what happened today?” she asked quietly.
The tiny furrow between her brows showed her confusion. Unfortunately, the only way to clear it up was to share more of his ugly story.
“Right after Sherman and my mom got married, he started the official adoption process so there’d be no second-guessing his commitment to the both of us. Even when Michael came along a couple years later, Sherman didn’t change how he treated me. The thing is . . .”
Uncomfortable baring his secrets, even to Rosa—or probably especially to Rosa—Jeremy slid his gaze to the framed photos on top of her bookshelf. One showed a young Rosa wearing a white dress, a tiny veil on her head. Her First Communion. She stood sandwiched between her mom and dad, her hands clasped in prayer at her chest. The photo captured their love and joy in one still frame.
The juxtaposition of her happy family photo with the shameful family story he needed to share with her embarrassed him even more. But he owed it to her to explain.
“My sophomore year of high school, Roger Wilson was arrested for manslaughter. He got in a bar fight and a man died. In Chicago, a story like that makes the papers once, then another one takes its place.” Jeremy scrubbed his hands over his face, the frustration and shame he’d battled back then sweeping over him again. “But a damn reporter found out about my tie to Roger. The papers had a field day: ‘Sherman Taylor’s adopted son connected to a killer.’”
He finger-quoted the air as he recited the awful headline the paper had printed.
“Ay Dios mío, that’s terrible! Why would they say that about you?” Rosa looked more upset for him than scandalized by Roger’s charges.
“Mom and Sherman went on the offensive, and the story got squashed. But kids at school talk. Rumors don’t die as easily. It became my mission to prove I’m nothing like that man.”
“You aren’t. Not in any way.” Rosa held out her arm to him.
He grasped her hand, grateful for her acceptance. A bit leery if he deserved it. Skeptical as to if she’d feel the same once she heard the rest of what he had to share.
“I’ve always tried to make my dad proud,” he admitted, forcing himself to continue. “Avoid doing anything that would make him regret adopting me. Or remind anyone of where, who, I come from. Before I even started college at Northwestern, Sherman had begun voicing the strong desire to have his sons follow him into the family business. But, when the time came, I just couldn’t bring myself to go to law school. Everyone
assumed I’d follow in his footsteps. Part of me wanted to. I really thought I could.”
Frustrated all over again, Jeremy speared a hand through his hair.
“I can’t imagine your parents not wanting you to be happy in whatever you chose,” Rosa said as she set the dinner tray on the footstool’s cushioned top, her soup half-eaten.
“I couldn’t see that back then, and I botched things. Afraid of disappointing them, especially my dad, I didn’t say anything. I took the LSAT and applied to law schools, at the same time I was taking the GRE and applying to master’s programs in computer information science on the sly. When I got accepted to Harvard Law, they planned a surprise dinner party for me. Only—”
God, he hated remembering the mortified look on his mom’s face that night. “Only, I surprised them in the middle of it by announcing my intent to go to University of Illinois for my master of computer science.”
“Oh, Jeremy, you didn’t?”
Shame filled him at the sadness weighing down Rosa’s softly spoken words.
“That’s the first and only time in my life I’ve seen my dad at a loss for words. Oh, he recovered quickly. I mean, hell, the man is a master when it comes to speaking in front of a crowd. But I could tell how devastated he felt.”
Jeremy shook his head slowly, going back to that spring night. The outdoor terrace lit with lanterns, their family and a few close friends gathered around the brick fire pit to help fight the cool Chicago spring weather. “I knew I had let him down. Big time.”
Elbows resting on his knees, Jeremy hunched over. “That was not my finest moment. To my parents’ credit, they supported my decision, even if they didn’t approve of my behind-the-scenes maneuvers.”
“No one likes to be kept in the dark.”
Her accusation hit left of center in his chest with bull’s-eye accuracy.
His spirit sunk even lower and he slid to the edge of the bed. His feet hit the carpeted floor as he held out his hands in supplication, desperate for her to understand. “I should have told you about Roger Wilson sooner. I own that. But I assure you, Rosa, I am nothing like him. You know me!”
For several heart-stopping moments, she stared at him in silence. Then a tear slipped from her left eye, leaving a wet trail down her cheek. She swiped at it with one hand; the other reached out to grab his.
Her tight grip punctuated her words. “I do believe you’re a good man, Jeremy. Nothing could make me doubt that. But”—she let go of him and crossed to her dresser—“but you’ve lied to me.”
“What? No!”
He moved to follow her, but she threw up a hand to ward him off. When she turned away from him he sank down on the bed, feeling rejected.
Her back to him, he caught her reflection in the oval, gilt-framed mirror hanging above the chocolate-stained dresser. She ran a finger over the intricate design carved into the lid of a small wooden box. Moved the treasure holder a touch to the left. Slid a black-handled comb and brush set off to the side. Gently tapped a framed picture of her and her sisters, edging it back the tiniest bit.
The concentration scrunching her face would make you think her task involved intense brain power. He knew the mindless organizing helped her work through whatever was bothering her.
Namely, him. His history with Roger Wilson. Whatever she thought he’d lied to her about.
“Rosa?” he said when he’d started to feel like he was stuck in one interminable silent scream, waiting for whatever would happen next.
“You should have told me all of this sooner. I was worried about what your parents would think of me,” she said, still fiddling with the items in front of her. “If I was a gold-digger trying to trap you.”
“They’d never—”
“I know, it’s foolish of me to worry about that.” She caught his gaze in the mirror, her mouth a twist of displeasure. With him? With herself? He wasn’t sure, but she went on. “And that’s my hang-up, not theirs. But if your parents were supportive of your decision to not go to law school like you said, what was all that about today?”
“You’re not the only one with hang-ups. Or so my mom says,” Jeremy admitted. “Ever since I decided to go for a dual master’s in business and computer science, I distanced myself from anything having to do with the law firm. It was easy most of the time. I left for school, was only home for holidays, and right after graduation I moved to New York.”
He shrugged, trying to play it off like it hadn’t been a problem. In reality, the time away, the distance he’d purposefully put between himself and his parents—and even Michael, unless his kid brother visited—had eaten away at him.
Rosa turned around, leaning her butt up against the dresser’s edge. Her red and white candy-cane-striped house socks drew his attention when she crossed her feet, her arms mimicking the same pose over the Pride and Prejudice quote on her sweatshirt. The shot of color from her socks next to her nondescript grey sweatpants epitomized the flash of attitude she seemed to like throwing at him every once in a while.
“And today?” she asked.
“Today was me, and probably my dad too, trying to feel things out. I haven’t been back that long, and I know he’s leaving the ball in my hands. Letting me decide what I’m comfortable with, especially when it comes to the law firm.”
“I guess I can see why you may not have wanted to share all that with me before, though some type of warning would have been appreciated.”
“You’re right.”
“But there’s something else I want to ask you about.” She didn’t elaborate, and he followed her gaze to her nightstand. A set of wooden rosary beads pooled next to a sepia-toned photo of her parents when they were younger.
Her top teeth set to work worrying her bottom lip. Something else was on her mind. Or still didn’t make sense to her.
He waited, knowing she’d share her thoughts when she was ready.
“What I don’t know is,” she finally said, her head tilted in question as she stared at him, “where does Cecile fit into this puzzle?”
He gave himself a mental smack upside the head, remembering the snide ex-girlfriend routine Cecile had put on today. Like he and Rosa didn’t have enough problems already without adding an old ex to the mix.
“Your—how did you put it the night of Yazmine’s wedding?—oh, yeah, ‘family friend’ seemed to imply that she was or is more than just a friend.”
The crazy side of his brain wondered if, based on the finger air quotes she put on the last word, Rosa might be jealous.
The saner side, the one interpreting her pursed lips and tapping foot, told him pissed might be a better description.
Damn. He’d miscalculated. Again.
“Cecile and I dated a long time ago.”
“Narrow that time frame down a little more for me, please.” Her tone implied that wasn’t a request.
He rubbed the back of his neck, the tension headache he’d been fighting off threatening to go nuclear on him.
“We dated at the end of my senior year of undergrad, while we were both at Northwestern. To be honest, I knew it would please my parents and, since I was struggling with the law-school-versus-computer-science indecision, I gave things with Cecile a shot.”
“She hardly strikes me as someone you pity date. That’s more like—never mind.” She swiped a hand through the air. “Were you two serious? I mean, if you moving back to Chicago opens the door for the two of you getting back together, don’t let me stop you.”
“No!” Jeremy was off the bed in a flash, grasping Rosa’s forearm crossed in front of her chest. “There’s nothing between me and Cecile.”
“I need you to tell me the truth, Jeremy.”
The hurt pooling in her brown eyes crushed him.
“We were together for a few months. That’s all,” he rushed to reassure her. “She figured out that we wanted different things. I needed to get away from the suffocation I felt here, and she craved the lifestyle we’d been raised to expect. When I left to
start grad school early in the summer, we broke things off. Mutually. And she went to France to study art history.”
Rosa stared at him intently, as if weighing his words.
“Cecile’s family and mine are connected through Sherman and Harold. Those two have a history that goes back even before they started the firm together. But I have no plans of getting back together with her. That would be true even if you and the baby weren’t in the picture. Though I’m happy you both are. In the picture, that is.”
He slid his hands up her forearms to cup her shoulders. Desperation driving him to reach her.
“I am committed to you and our baby, Rosa. You have to believe that.”
“I want to,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be.”
Her full lips quirked in a poor imitation of her usually gentle smile. “It’s not that easy. I know the pressure of doing something for family out of guilt. Only, your answer was to escape, eventually all the way to New York. You still don’t have resolution with Sherman. I’m not even sure you’re at peace with yourself.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he argued.
“Yes, it does. How can I be confident that you’re ready to start a family with me, if you haven’t worked things out with your own? My papi always said, familia primero.”
Family first.
Jeremy had heard Reynaldo share the motto when the older man and his trío group, Los Paisanos, performed their songs. In fact, the last time had been at an impromptu concert almost a year ago here, in the basement, barely a month before Rey had passed.
Thinking of the older man, who had treated Jeremy like a son in the few years they’d known each other, and wondering how Rey would feel about him now, considering the difficult position he had put Rosa in, brought more shame on Jeremy’s already burdened shoulders.
“You told Dolores that I’m familia now too,” he argued, his heart pounding with the fear that she might be slipping away from him. “Are saying that, because of my past, you’re going to shut me out?”
“Of course not. We can’t undo our mistakes or take the blame for the mistakes others have made.” She uncrossed her arms and put her hands on his chest. “You and Sherman are good men, Jeremy. Don’t you want to try and make amends with your father before you become one?”
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