“I’m at work. Do you need something?” I cut her off, not even remotely caring that I was being just as rude as she was. There was something about not wanting to have this conversation right by the salon that had me looking both ways and crossing the street, wanting to get away so that Sean and his customer couldn’t see, much less hear whatever shit was about to come out of my mom’s mouth and mine. It felt too personal already.
“If you would’ve answered, you would know Louie se enfermó. You didn’t answer so they called here. I went to pick him up already, and I took him to the clinica at the pharmacy. He said he hasn’t been feeling good for days—”
My heart sank. I knew he hadn’t looked well that morning, but I’d asked him. I started pacing up and down the sidewalk outside.
“He has strep. Do you know if Joshua is feeling okay?”
Rubbing my forehead, I told her the truth. “He hasn’t told me he was sick. I think he’s fine.”
“Ay, Diana. You don’t ask if they’re feeling okay?”
I almost told her that it wasn’t like she’d asked me daily if I was feeling fine or not, but I kept my mouth shut. “No, Mamá. They only tell me if they aren’t.”
“Well, Josh might be sick too. Maybe you should ask from now on, no? You have to remember you don’t only take care of yourself now. You have to take care of them too. Pay more attention.”
It wasn’t very often my mom flayed my parenting skills, but when she went beyond a little comment here and there, she went in for the kill. This was one of those moments. My guilt for not insisting that Louie tell me he was feeling crappy was bad enough, but my mom’s words just severed all the veins and arteries that connected my heart to the rest of my body. I should have asked more questions when I’d noticed his pallor. She was right. It was my fault, and I felt awful instantly.
In a cool, smaller voice, I said, “Okay. I get it. Thank you for picking up Louie. Let me know how much I owe you for the doctor’s visit, and I’ll pay you back—”
“You don’t have to pay me anything.”
Well, I sure as hell didn’t want to owe her a cent after the reaming she’d just given me. “No, I’ll pay you for it and the medicine. I’ll call Josh’s school right now and check on him. Thank you for picking up, Lou.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” my mom said as if she could sense the distance I was throwing between us. This had always been our relationship: she went in like a battering ram and didn’t worry about what she damaged until afterward. I didn’t want to think too much about how similar we might be from time to time.
“Well, I want to. If he isn’t feeling well, I’ll call the Larsens and see if they can pick up Josh so you don’t have to. You’ve done enough. Thank you.”
“Diana—”
“I need to get back to work. If it’s an emergency call my work. I gave the school the number for the salon, but I guess they didn’t write it down. I’ll make sure to take your number off the contact list—”
“No seas asi.” Don’t be like that, she said.
How else could I be when she tore all the love, time, and effort I put into Josh and Louie to shreds in seconds? How? I didn’t do everything for them, but I did a lot, and no one could say I didn’t put them first. But that was exactly what my mom had implied and it hurt a hell of a lot more than it should have. I didn’t think she ever would have told my brother what she had just said to me if he hadn’t been able to get off work to pick them up.
“I get off work at seven. I’ll pick Lou up then….” For one brief, hurtful moment, I thought about not telling my mom I loved her. Every single time we got off the phone, I made sure to. That went with all of my loved ones. But as quickly as the thought came into my head, I knew I couldn’t do it, no matter how angry I was. So I rushed it. “Love you, bye.”
I hung up on her and didn’t even feel bad about it.
I had done a lot of stupid, selfish things in my life, but I didn’t want Louie or Josh to ever be affected by those kinds of decisions. Not ever. But my mom had stomped on me and made me feel like the biggest douchebag on the planet, even if I had asked Louie if he was okay.
I was trying my best, I thought. Most of the time I did pretty well.
Pon más atención.
Oh man, it felt like she’d sucker punched me. I did pay attention to them. How could she make it seem like I didn’t?
All this weight settled nicely on my chest, and I let my heart swim around in my mom’s words. I had just let out a deep, shaky breath when I heard, “Diana!”
Literally standing three feet away from me, in the opposite direction I’d been facing, were Trip and Dallas right outside of the tattoo parlor next door to the deli I had, at some point, stopped pacing in front of. Great. Had they overheard? “Hi,” I greeted Trip a little weakly, knowing he was the one who had called my name.
He didn’t even try to pretend he hadn’t listened in. “You okay, honey?”
Being judged and found lacking by the people who were supposed to love you never left anyone feeling all right, and I didn’t see a point in pretending otherwise when chances were he had heard enough to know I wasn’t. I wasn’t trying to impress him, or much less Dallas, by not being upset at something so personal. “You ever disappoint your parents?” I asked the blond with a forced smirk, trying to make light of something I wanted to believe happened to every child no matter what the age—something I didn’t want to ever have Lou or Josh feel.
Trip’s chuckle was so rich and honest, I knew I had done the right thing by not going the strong route. “Only every day.”
I couldn’t help but smile a little, even if he was lying.
He winked at me before asking, “Getting lunch?” with that flirty grin that didn’t do anything for me right then.
“I just needed to get out of the salon for a minute to deal with this,” I said, giving my phone a shake as I kept my gaze on Trip and not the brown-haired man beside him who had eaten dinner at our place two nights ago. “Getting a tattoo on your lunch break?” I tried to joke.
It was my neighbor who responded, forcing me to glance in his direction. “No. I’m getting some work done,” he explained just like that.
“Oh.” I nodded and looked away from him, not sure how long it was okay for me to make eye contact before I crossed the fine line of our friendship or whatever it was. “Umm, my little one is sick right now, and I’m not sure if Josh caught it or not.”
“What’s wrong with Louie?” Dallas asked almost instantly about the little boy who had sat beside him—and a couple of times partially on top of him—for hours, playing some shooting game.
My shrug was more helpless than I would have liked for it to be. “Strep throat.”
Both men winced and I nodded.
“I need to give Josh a call and check up on him, he’s supposed to have batting practice tonight but I don’t know if he’s sick or not.” God, I hoped not. “I’ll see you later.”
“Okay, see ya, honey,” Trip said.
I smiled at him and just as I did that, Dallas added, “Hope Lou feels better.”
I smiled at him too and watched as both men turned and headed down the street toward the parking lot or mechanic shop, wherever they were going.
Not bothering to cross the street again, I dialed Josh’s school from where I was on the sidewalk, asking first and then demanding that they put him on the phone so I could make sure he was feeling fine. I waited outside the deli until his voice came over the line.
“Hi?”
“J, it’s Di. You okay?”
“Uhh, yeah, why?” He quickly added, “Are you okay? Is everything okay?”
Here went another ton of guilt. I was such an idiot. “Everything is fine. Don’t worry. I’m sorry. Louie got sick and your abuelita had to go pick him up. I just wanted to check with you and make sure you’re feeling okay.”
The long exhale out of him made my heart hurt. “I thought…,” he whispered, his relief evident. “I’m n
ot sick, but you can come pick me up if you want.”
This kid. I couldn’t help but laugh. “Get back to class. Your grandpa is picking you up today,” I said, even though I was sure he hadn’t forgotten. Our schedules hadn’t changed much over the last two years.
“’Kay, bye.”
“Bye, I love you.”
“Love you too,” he whispered right before the line went dead. At least someone loved me.
Wiping at my eyes with the back of my hand, I didn’t realize until right then that I’d gotten teary-eyed at some point. Jesus. I wasn’t sure why I let my mom’s words bother me so much; it wasn’t the first time she’d said a variation of me not doing a good enough job with the boys. It wouldn’t be the last either.
* * *
“What you’re trying to tell me is that you’ve reached blue whale status?”
Vanessa’s laugh on the other end of the phone made me smile as I steered the car down the street toward my house. “Shut up.”
“You’re the one carrying a full-sized kid. I’m only speaking the truth, and you can’t handle the truth.”
“The doctor said he’s in the highest percentile in size—”
“No shit.”
“But he’s not that big—”
“Compared to what exactly? A baby elephant?” Some days, all a girl needed was to talk to her best friend to make a day that hadn’t been great better. I had done enough thinking and replaying everything that happened with my mom. I didn’t want to deal with it any more than I already had, so I’d been relieved when my phone rang and Vanessa’s name had flashed across the screen.
She groaned. “I haven’t gained that much weight,” she argued. “I’m all belly.”
“Until the belly eats the rest of you,” I joked, earning a big laugh out of her that made me smile. “I promise I’m going to try and schedule my trip to visit you. Everything has just been hectic lately. I barely have time to use the bathroom, and even then, someone is banging on the door asking for something.”
“I know, Di. It’s fine. I wanted to tell you I mailed Josh’s birthday present yesterday. Are you ready for his party?”
I almost groaned. The party. Ugh. “Almost,” I answered vaguely.
“That sounds convincing. Fine, I won’t ask. How’s it going with his baseball team?”
Spotting my house coming up, I turned the wheel to pull into the driveway. “He really likes it so far.” It was me who had been having issues with it. “I already got suspended from practice for getting into an argument with a mom on the team.”
“Diana! What did she do? Say something about Josh?”
In normal circumstances, she knew me too well. “She called me Teen Mom.”
There was a pause. Vanessa was a product of a parent who had become one as a teenager. “What a bitch.”
“Uh-huh. It’s fine. He likes it, I’m not worried about it, and the coaches are…” I let out a low whistle. “Not my type, but they’re nice to look at.”
She laughed. “Have your parents brought up him doing soccer again?”
I almost grumbled. That was a sore spot in my family. No matter how many times I explained to my parents that, just because I had two cousins who played professionally, didn’t mean every person with the last name Casillas was going to be good at it. “Nope.”
“And Louie?”
“Still no. He mentioned wanting to try karate, but he’s happy skateboarding for now.”
“I’m sure it’ll—shit. I need to go pee, but I need both hands to get off the couch—”
I just about shouted out a laugh, imagining her trying to get off the couch and failing.
“Shut up. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Okay.” I snickered again. “Love you.”
“Love you too,” she replied.
“Bye,” we both said at the same time.
Tossing the phone into my open purse, I was cracking up all alone. Imagining Vanessa trying to hoist herself off the sofa again only made me laugh harder, easing my memories of the day further and further away. Out of the car, I opened the rear passenger door and reached in, slipping my hands through several grocery bags. My mom had sent me a text before I had gotten off, saying she would bring Louie home later, and with the Larsens taking Josh to batting practice and keeping him overnight, I had decided to hit the store on my way home. I’d stocked up on sick-kid necessities.
“Diana?”
I froze. Each wrist had four plastic grocery bags hanging off it. My cell phone was in my purse.
My heart started beating so fast there was no way I would want to know what my blood pressure could possibly be in that moment. I’d heard that voice before. It only took a second “Diana” for the tone to register with the part of my brain that didn’t want to recognize it.
It was Anita.
She had found my house.
She was here.
I wasn’t above admitting there wasn’t a reason for me to lose it, but I was going to do it anyway. I was more freaked out than angry, and that pissed me off. A knot filled the very center of my chest and my throat closed up. That part of me that didn’t want to deal with this—that never wanted to deal with this—said I should just get in the car, close the door, and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.
But I thought of Josh, and I knew I couldn’t do that.
Anita knew where we lived. She knew where we fucking lived. Arguably the biggest mistake of my brother’s life had somehow found our address.
My hands went numb right before they started trembling. I squeezed them into fists. I closed my eyes too, hoping this was a bad dream but knowing it wasn’t.
Slowly, I let out a long breath and ducked out of the car too hesitant when that was the last reaction I would want to have if I ever looked back on this moment. Like a bad dream, she was there.
Josh’s mom.
Josh’s birth mom.
I hadn’t seen her since Rodrigo’s funeral, where she’d pitched a fucking fit in the parking lot when she saw Mandy, my brother’s wife—Louie’s mom and Josh’s stepmom, who had always been more than that, until she wasn’t.
“Hi,” she said in a calm tone like the last time I’d seen her, she hadn’t called me a stupid bitch while she’d been drunk as a skunk. I could forgive her for that. We had all been in a bad place at that point. What I couldn’t forgive her for was trying to fight Mandy while she’d been grieving, and yanking on Josh’s arm when he hadn’t wanted to go with her. Why would he? Before the funeral, which I had no idea how she’d even heard about, she hadn’t seen him in three years. I could count on one hand how many times she had been with the boy she’d given birth to and given up parental rights to at nineteen.
I had nothing to be freaked out about. Absolutely nothing. But that was a lot easier said than done.
“How have you been?” she asked almost casually.
“Fine and I hope you have too, but you need to go,” I managed to tell her calmly, carefully, despite the fact that my hands and forearms had started tingling with discomfort and I was feeling about eighty other different emotions I wasn’t ready to classify.
“I just want to talk,” Anita tried to explain, one of her hands going to cup the elbow of the opposite arm. She looked thinner than the last time I’d seen her. The whites in her eyes were more yellow, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with her.
I’d told her very plainly when I’d shoved her toward her car after pulling her away from Mandy and Josh, “If you ever want to see Josh again, you need to clean your life up.” And from the yellow that was supposed to be white and the flat color of her hair, she hadn’t done that.
I knew Anita. At least I knew the person she used to be. She’d been this teenager who had fallen in love with my brother after meeting him at a club back in Fort Worth. She had been nice enough, partied a lot, laughed really loudly. I guess you could say we were a lot alike. Anita had only been seeing my brother for about two months when she told
him she was pregnant with his kid. She was only a year older than me, but as I took her in, I saw this person who seemed to have aged physically faster than I had. What had started off with her “not being ready to raise a baby” had turned into this person in front of me who got mixed in with one bad decision after another.
She was Josh’s biological mom, but in all the ways that mattered, he was mine, and I would only share what he was willing to give. He had been mine before Mandy, and he was still mine even after Mandy. I was the one who helped bottle feed him after he’d been released from the hospital. I’d been the one who took turns with my brother waking up in the middle of the night when he cried. I had cleaned his dirty baby butt, bought him clothes, blended his food when he’d gotten off formula. I was the one who cried when my brother met Mandy and announced to my best friend and me that he was moving out and getting a place with her. I was the person who had missed the shit out of Josh when I didn’t live with him for those years their family had been together.
Not Anita.
“Go. Now. There’s still the restraining order against you. You can’t be here,” I said, using that no-nonsense voice I’d practiced on the boys countless times.
Pink bloomed across her cheeks, and it reminded me of the expression on her face the first time she’d tried to see Josh when he was a year and a half. He’d started crying, sobbing actually, and she’d been so embarrassed, I had felt terrible for her. Then again, no one had made her disappear. No one had made her say and do the things that led to my brother filing a restraining order against her for Josh’s sake.
“Diana, please. It’s been so long—”
“If you want to see Josh, it’s not going to be like this. You can’t just show up here. You need to go. Now.”
Yeah, the rose color deepened and her eyes darted away. “Diana—”
“Anita, now,” I insisted, knowing damn well there was still an hour left until Josh got home from batting practice.
Wait for It Page 18