“You’re kind of a big shot.”
“Right?” he said. “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“And … you’re a blessing to me too, Dad.”
His face screwed up like he might cry again, but he didn’t.
“Go on in,” he said as he opened the screen door. The door smacked shut behind us.
Five seconds later I was sitting in the kitchen on a child-size plastic stool while Luciana brushed my hair with a doll brush. Being five, she was very bad at it. It was painful. But with each wince of pain, I was gladder to be here. I’d hung my dress in Luciana’s closet and left my shoes in there too. My heart still ached, but at least my feet were happy.
“Please sit very still,” Luciana said in her sternest voice when I fidgeted. Her older brothers sat on the couch, pretending they weren’t as interested in the hairstyling as they were. The oldest, Paul, was playing a video game on his phone, and the younger, Gus, was watching him.
My dad leaned against the kitchen counter next to Benny, the two of them holding beers. “Your girl’s grown-up.” Benny flung an arm over my father’s shoulder. All of a sudden, they looked just like the photo on the mirror in our hallway.
“She still knows how to screw up pretty bad.”
“Let’s call her our I-25 bandita,” Benny roared.
The boys laughed. Luciana flung all my hair in front of my face. “Let’s not,” I said from beneath it. The boys laughed again.
“Where’s Letty?” I asked.
“Picking up a few things,” Benny said. “We’re glad you absconded this morning, bandita. We needed a family dinner. Jacob and his crew are coming up from Los Alamos.” He gave my dad a sympathetic nod. “Only one missing is Maria.”
Maria? It took me a moment to recognize my mother’s name.
Silence fell upon the house, which had, to that moment, been very loud. The only sound was the pew-pew-pew of video game guns coming from Paul’s phone. “Pa-blo!” Benny said in his loud, friendly voice. “Turn that shit off.”
Paul simply got up and wandered into the next room and Gus wandered after him.
Benny’s house was big and old. I always felt like there were rooms I’d never seen, as if the place just went on and on endlessly, little rooms leading into big ones and big ones into little ones. Letty had impeccable taste. The house had an effortless desert bohemian feel, with lamps sitting on stacks of books and solitary tiny cactuses sitting on heavy old tables. Aside from Benny’s one thousand unfinished projects, the place could be on the cover of a design magazine, though Letty would never even think to thumb through one herself. Benny was slow at renovating. In the kitchen, for example, the tile above the counter had been ripped out along one wall and hadn’t been replaced. I thought it’d been like that the last time we’d been here, but I couldn’t be sure.
Luciana suddenly got very still. I wondered what she was doing back there. “You don’t have scissors, do you?” I asked.
“No, but I can get some,” she responded without missing a beat. Everyone erupted in laughter. Every time there was laughter, I felt myself on the verge of tears. It was Nick. I couldn’t stop thinking of him.
“Hey, Lulu, can I take a little break?”
“Just a little one,” she said, reluctantly letting go of my hair. I flipped it back and could see again.
“I’m gonna call him,” I said to my dad. I grabbed my phone and walked out onto the porch before I could change my mind.
“You sure?” my dad called as I walked out.
I didn’t answer.
I pressed the number and the phone rang. My throat went dry. I had no idea what I’d even say. But after three rings I knew he wasn’t picking up. I waited for his voice mail. “Hey. It’s Nick. Leave a message.”
I figured I’d done a lot of missing in my life, maybe more than average. I was pretty good at it. Still, I’d never felt this before. I guessed it was that sharp feeling of love. Without Nick there to receive it, it felt more dangerous than ever, more terrible and fearsome and huge. “Hey. Hi. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I hope we can talk. Someday. Maybe. I totally understand. If you don’t want to—” Things were going downhill fast. So I hung up. I stood on the porch and stared up at the silent stars.
My dad was right. I should have just let it be.
I walked back in and gave my dad a sad little frown and he gave me one in return. I plopped back down on the too-small stool, even though Luciana had lost interest in doing my hair and was now inhaling Ruffles from a giant bowl. The stool felt like what I deserved. Punishment. I deserved to sit in the naughty chair the rest of my life.
The screen door swung open and Letty walked in carrying a bag of groceries. “Oh my god, Miranda!” she called out when she saw me. “You idiot!”
I was always shocked by how pretty Letty was in real life. Her hair was perfectly messy and she was wearing one of Benny’s worn-out button-downs. Its hugeness made her seem even more tiny than usual. She made a beeline for me and bent down and flung her free arm around my neck. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said. “I was praying for you all the way home from the Albertsons.” She smelled perfect too. She was so good at wearing perfume, she made it seem like her natural scent.
When Letty made her way into the kitchen, Luciana looked up from where she was scarfing chips. “Lu!” Letty called when she walked over and looked into the nearly empty bowl. “You need to stop eating these chips! They’re for everyone.” Luciana gave me a big smile.
“I love Ruffles,” she said unapologetically, her eyes wide and her mouth covered in grease. As soon as Letty turned her back to attend to dinner, Luciana started chowing down again.
“What can I do to help?” I stood up and tried actively not to be a lump of sadness.
“Set the table?” Letty said, taking the lid off the most giant pot I’d ever seen. Steam billowed, covering her face.
“Sure,” I said. “Oh my gosh, what is that?” I wandered over to her.
“Pozole,” she said. “This’ll fix you up.” She smacked my butt and put the lid back on and then turned and gave me another big hug, this time with both arms. “We’re proud of you, Miranda. You did such a good job of pissing off Pete.” She turned and my dad and Benny chuckled. Then she turned back to me and put her palms on my face. “You did the right thing, mi’jita. You’re a good friend.”
I loved Letty. She and my mom had been best friends growing up. My mom had introduced Letty and Benny in college. Letty had known my mom longer than my dad had, and her memory of my mother’s sanity and goodness was long and strong and her faith that my mother would return remained unshakeable. That she continued to love my mom and pray for her fiercely, as if battling the devil for her soul, meant a lot to me. For all these years, Letty had done a good enough job loving my mom for both of us. It only occurred to me right then, standing in her kitchen, that all the time Letty had been giving me advice about how to deal with Syd’s disappearance, she was speaking from her own experience. Her best friend had been gone, not missing too.
I went to the cabinet that seemed most logical for keeping dishes, but inside I found an assortment of different sized Crock-Pots. I continued to open and close cabinets until Benny, obviously amused, finally spoke up. “Dishes are over here, bandita.”
“Oh.” The dishes were in fact in a cabinet by the stove most people would reserve for pots and pans. I wondered what my father, who was so fussy about his own kitchen, thought of the way Benny and Letty lived. I think he loved it. He watched everything going on with what looked to me like longing. Maybe Benny and Letty and their kids made him imagine a future with my mom that had never come to be. Or maybe Benny’s face screwed him up. Because there was something of the person he’d loved in there.
I set the dining table for eight and the kids’ table for five.
“When’s Jacob’s family coming?” I asked.
The evening had taken on the feeling of a holiday dinner. I’d located t
en mismatched napkins and was hot on the trail of another three. I tried to muster up some cheerfulness even though I knew prom had started in Cruces and Nick hadn’t called or texted.
* * *
I was sitting on the sofa, spaced-out. Luciana had commandeered my phone and was sitting in my lap playing a Barbie game with the volume turned all the way up when the screen door opened and my uncle Jacob’s family came through. Jacob was bald and quiet, an insurance agent with a passion for fly-fishing, and his twin sons, my cousins Marco and Tony, were eleven and extraordinarily well behaved. His wife, Vanessa, was a real estate agent—the third-highest grossing one in the Los Alamos area, she had once found a savvy way to tell us. If Syd were here, she’d have attacked her with fake friendliness, trying to draw out the dumb motivational sayings a person like Vanessa was likely to live by.
“Miranda,” she said in her overly professional way, waving to me with a few fingers. Her sons stared at me like I was a freak. God only knows what they’d heard about my waywardness on the drive over.
“Hey, Tony, hey Marco,” I said as they scurried past me.
After many arrangements and rearrangements and one epic negotiation on the part of Paul, who ended up squeezing in and eating with the grown-ups, we were ready to sit down. As soon as we’d gathered at the table, though, it became clear that, after all that searching, I’d set the wrong dishes. I’d put down plates. You ate pozole from a bowl, of course. I hopped up to collect the plates and help Letty gather bowls of all sizes from various cabinets. When everyone finally had one (my dad ended up with something that looked suspiciously like it’d been designed for use by an animal), we lined up at the stove and served ourselves from the giant pot.
Cilantro, lime, and onion were piled high on plates on the table, along with stacks of warm tortillas wrapped in dishcloths. With all our mismatched bowls of steaming pozole, Letty’s old farm table looked perfect, like something a rich Santa Fean would pay good money to achieve. At the center, an unwieldy bunch of wildflowers sprung from a pickle jar. Beside it, I noticed, was a little santo. It was facing the other way, and when I reached over and turned it around, I saw that it was Saint Jude. Of course. This one wasn’t like any other. It’d been hand-carved from wood. It resembled no celebrity.
I was so hungry when finally everyone had sat down, I dug my spoon in and took a glorious first bite before I realized I was the only one who’d started eating. My father, seated to my left, knocked my knee under the table hard.
There was to be a prayer before the meal.
It would’ve been more awkward to remove the spoon from my bowl, so instead I lay the handle against the side and put my hands in my lap.
Benny looked around the table. He was such a sentimental guy. That was one reason my father loved him. Benny was never shy to tell the people he loved how much he cared about them. “Well,” he began solemnly. “We’re here tonight because of our bandita, Miranda. Our sister Maria’s girl—and our brother Pete’s—who’s all grown-up and ready to rebel.”
I could feel my face turn red. My dad was smiling. I stared into my bowl.
“Who’d like to lead us in prayer tonight? Anyone can. Paul, you’re sitting at the big table, you want to do it? Peter? How about you?”
“Hard pass,” my dad said quietly. Benny and Letty chuckled.
“I’ll do it.” Everyone turned and looked at me. I nodded tentatively at the stunned faces. “I’d like to. If that’s all right?”
“Sure,” Benny said, giving my dad a quick glance. “Vámanos.”
My father looked at me, worried I was making a disastrous joke.
But it wasn’t a joke. I nodded to reassure my dad.
Everyone got silent. The little lick of flame carved above Saint Jude’s head was painted a bright orange. I focused on it, trying to forget that I couldn’t pray. I remembered how I’d told Nick it was stupid not to consider going to Harvard simply out of a fear of becoming like his dad. But wasn’t that exactly what I was doing? Had my mother taken God away from me? Or was I just scared to have a God of my own, a God without her? It was my crap. I was sick of not having anywhere to put it. So maybe I’d just own it. I’d take care of it. It was mine now. And it’d always been mine.
I closed my eyes and reached for my father’s hand on my one side and Letty’s on the other. I heard the rest of the hands at the table find the ones beside them. I noted how good it felt to hold hands like that, to be together in this room. My father had kept in touch with Benny and Jacob, the brothers of the woman who’d broken his heart. He liked them—he loved them, of course—but I also knew he’d done that for me. This family of people who looked like me was one more gift from my father.
I swallowed hard. Four score and seven years ago. I pushed it gently aside. “God?” I said cautiously, as if he might answer back. “Lord,” I continued, steadier. “Whoever you are. Whatever. Thank you.” My father squeezed my hand and I took that as encouragement. “Thank you for this wonderful food we’re about to enjoy, and for the family here tonight, and for those who couldn’t be here.” My voice shook, but I drove through it. “We ask that you guide us and help us to do the right thing. Help us to love one another.” I took a giant breath. “And we ask that you protect my mother, Maria Black. That you help her.” I felt the tears come down my face. I paused. My father tightened his grip on my hand. “Oh. And if you could help my dad find his Goldilocks planet—and maybe do a NASA press conference—that’d be super-cool too.” I heard a few laughs. “Amen?” I asked, tentative.
“Amen,” the room said.
I opened my eyes. I wiped my tears. When I turned to Letty, she nodded. She approved of my prayer. Letty was definitely the most religious person I knew, so I took that as a solid win.
It was done. I’d done it. I’d prayed. It was so stupid. All this time, I’d been waiting for something to come back to me, something that had been taken away. My zero. But instead it felt like something had escaped. It’d been inside me this whole time. I just needed to let it out.
“Good prayer, bandita,” Benny said. He, too, had tears in his eyes. He lifted his beer bottle. “To Maria,” he said. Everyone picked up their glasses.
“To Maria,” we all said. My father and I looked at each other. He nodded the nod that had for so long meant the same thing: we were going to be okay. Things were going to be fine. We’d get through.
“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” I whispered.
“And I feel fine.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe you don’t like that song.”
I shrugged and he kissed my head. “Good job,” he whispered.
* * *
The pozole tasted so good, I emptied my first bowl in a matter of minutes. When I got up from the table to serve myself another, the clock on the stove taunted me. It’s too late, it said with its blocky red digits. Get over it.
I stood in front on the giant pot of pozole and let the steam hit my face. I ladled another bowlful and headed back to my seat. There were conversations happening all over the table, but I was content to be alone with my soup. Luciana was sitting with my phone hidden beneath the kids’ table, still transfixed by her Barbie game. It was probably for the best she had my phone. That way I couldn’t check every five seconds to see if Nick had replied. I’d told her to tell me if I got any calls or texts while she was playing, and she claimed to know what I was talking about, but I couldn’t be sure. I was just considering going over and taking a peek to check for myself when Paul suddenly rose from the end of the table and walked tentatively to the front door.
He peered out the screen door.
Everyone got quiet. I could hear that the goats were bleating in the side yard. Benny looked like he might stand up, but then he didn’t.
“Hi.” I heard a voice come from the darkness. Someone was out there. I glanced down at Saint Jude and had a moment of total heart-thumping bewilderment, thinking I’d called up an actual miracle and when Paul opened the door my mother would be
standing on the porch, her dark hair pouring over her shoulders. THE IMPOSSIBLE! It’d happened. She’d come home.
My father looked at me.
“What is it?” I asked him, frightened. “What’s going on?”
But before he could answer, the voice spoke a little louder. “Is Miranda here?”
“What’s going on, Dad?”
He smiled and shrugged.
“Yeah.” Paul put his hand on the door handle then hesitated. He turned to Benny. Benny nodded. The room couldn’t have been quieter as he opened the door. And then it was like a dream. Total unreality on every level. It was Nick. He was standing in the living room, looking shocked to have so many faces staring at him. He turned red instantly, of course. But when his eyes finally found mine, his face relaxed and he smiled. The only sound in the universe was the jangly music emanating from the Barbie game on my phone in Luciana’s hand. She was holding it, dumbstruck, staring at Nick. “That’s not it. Try again!” Barbie said in her syrupy voice. “Keep trying. You can do it!”
I stood up, stunned, and for what seemed like a very long time, the two of us just stood there in the silence, staring at each other.
“Hi.” It was all I could think to say.
He smiled self-consciously. “Hi.” I was so astonished to see him that it took me a moment to recognize that something about him was weird. But then I saw it. Of course. He was wearing his Eagle Scout uniform, complete with a red-and-blue-striped neckerchief and a very dumb beret, which he snatched off his head and clutched in his hands politely as soon as I laid my eyes on it.
Paul let go of the door and it smacked loudly into the silent room.
“Come on!” Barbie said from under the table. “Girl, you got this!”
“Wow,” I said, my eyes steady on him. “This is definitely the weirdest, most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me.”
Nick smiled wide. “I’m so embarrassed for you.”
“May I be excused?” I asked the silence. I didn’t know if I was asking my dad or Letty or God or anyone at all. Really, I was only making it clear to everyone that I was going to walk outside with the boy I loved and no one on Earth or any other planet was going to stop me.
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