by Ruby Lang
A dangerous light appeared in Jenny’s eye, one that he recognized from when they were children, but before Jenny could open her mouth, Magda’s sister had come behind the table to buttonhole him. “Are you the volunteer coordinator? I found this woman”—she gestured at Jenny—“bullying my little sister. She’s not a suitable representative for your fair.”
Jenny started to turn her hand up slowly—her preferred way of giving the finger—but Ty shot her a warning glance. “I’m so sorry to hear it,” he began.
“You—you don’t apologize,” Magda whispered fiercely at him, joining the fray. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“But he—”
Magda sent her sister a look. “No one asked you to interfere. I can take care of myself.”
“Clearly you can’t.”
What the hell?
“What the hell?” Magda said at normal volume.
“Language, Magda,” her sister hissed.
Wow, Magda’s sister seemed to say the exact wrong things. Ty couldn’t help shaking his head in warning. But the women weren’t looking at him. They were too focused on each other.
“Flora,” Magda murmured with admirable evenness. “What the hell are you even doing here, anyway?”
“You mentioned something about it yesterday. You never tell us about fun things you’re doing usually.”
“So you came to check up on me.”
“I thought it sounded like a good place to bring the kids. They’re over there in the line for the bouncy castle with James.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t check to find me at the bouncy castle.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that this is none of your business. It means that even though I don’t have kids and a husband and a career that I’m great at, I am an adult who is trying to get her shit together and you have no faith in me to take rejection, to work, to clean up after myself, to fight my own fights, to be an adult.”
“I—I what?”
“You have no faith in me.”
“What do you mean we have no faith in you? We’ve stood behind every shitty choice you’ve made, haven’t we?”
Magda froze.
In the background, the youth choir’s song about peace and belonging swelled to a crescendo.
The sisters continued their whispered fight. “So, that’s what you really think, don’t you?”
“No, that’s not—you’re doing great. I worded that poorly.”
“Doing great. Yeah, I’m doing great, Flora. So you don’t have to check up on me and intrude on my one moment of fun. You don’t have to jump in to defend me. Because as you say, I’m doing great.”
Magda pulled off her apron and stalked off.
Poor Mr. S, who had come up to the booth with an aluminum pan, watched her stride past. His gaze swung over to Ty, Flora, and Jenny. Jenny shrugged. Mr. S hunched over his famous pastelillos and crooned at them as if to protect them from the tension emanating from the group.
“Everything okay?” he asked, seeming reluctant to give up his food to people who wouldn’t treat it right.
Ty took a deep breath. He wanted to go after Magda but he wasn’t sure if that would be welcome. And even then, what could he say? What right did he have to say anything to her?
Judging by the confusion on Flora’s face, she still didn’t quite get it.
“What just happened here?” Flora asked.
She turned and pointed at Jenny. “You. You’re the one who riled her up. She never talks like that to me.”
At least they’d stopped whispering. They’d moved on to full-throated arguing now.
“But you’re the one who made her stalk off. Think about that one.”
Ty said as quietly as he could manage, “Jenny, I suggest that you help Mr. S. with his tray and maybe start selling some dumplings again. And you”—he motioned to Flora—“you aren’t supposed to be back here.”
“I’m tired of all of this lack of respect.”
Ty said, “From the sounds of it, I’m sure Magda is, too.”
He turned to Jenny, who was smirking. “Do you need any help?”
“I could use some as long as you don’t give me any sass.”
“I promise I won’t. You’re the professional here.”
Chapter Twelve
Checking to see if you’re okay, Ty had texted.
Mr. Serra just wants all of his dumplings to get along.
He sent Magda an image of Mr. S gazing at his pastelillos, as well as a few other golden fried dough friends. Then Ty sent another attachment—a photo of a picture he’d taken at the Harlem museum booth that made her stop on the sidewalk.
A scooter zoomed around her as she stared. It wasn’t the best quality—a photo of a photo—but it made her forget her anger for a moment.
More messages pinged. She grimaced. Flora, Alma, and her mother were confused—and not pleased with her.
Maybe she’d overreacted. Maybe she’d proven further that she was a spoiled child who needed careful handling, who they expected to have to rescue day after day. But there was so much in their past, in the way they treated her, that she was trying to navigate. It was as enormous as her debt and as difficult to handle.
By the time she arrived back at the townhouse, she’d received another couple of messages. One of them was from an unfamiliar number. She sat down at the counter to drink some water and checked her voicemail.
“Ms. Ferrer, this is Karima Carter. My partner and I viewed the townhouse on Strivers’ Row last month. I’m sorry to call you on a holiday, but I wanted to let you know we want to make an offer.”
Magda sat down. She remembered Ms. Carter and her partner. They’d come twice, once with a bored-looking broker, once by themselves, and seemed genuinely interested in the place—but they had also questioned her about how firm Byron was on his asking price. Then she’d heard nothing.
She couldn’t allow herself to get her hopes up too much. After all, even if they did meet Byron’s price, he still might reject it out of hand.
Unless she tried to do something about it.
She probably wouldn’t be able to manage her sisters and mother—not when they could overwhelm her, not when she felt such an uncomfortable knot of love for them—but maybe she could figure out how to deal with her uncle.
* * *
Byron was not happy she’d asked him to fly in, although she knew he did so at least once a month. She arranged for a car to pick him up at the airport. She booked him his usual hotel—though he usually made his travel arrangements himself. In short, she did everything to make it as easy as possible for him to come up.
He still grumbled.
Worse, he really dug in his heels when she asked him to tour the house with her. “I don’t need to walk this place from top to bottom. I know this house like the back of my hand.”
“You’ve made a ton of changes to it over the years, but I don’t think I’ve seen you go up one floor beyond the kitchen.”
“I’m old and my knees can’t take the stairs,” Byron snapped.
“You’re fine. We’re going to be examining everything you’ve done on each floor, so you’ll have plenty of time to recover.”
Byron opened his mouth again and snapped it shut. No doubt he was warring between wanting to prove he was hale and hearty enough to run up the stairs like a gazelle, and the desire not to contradict himself even further.
They started in the backyard and moved their way up. In minute detail, she showed him every repainted closet, every newly installed light fixture, every pipe and panel he’d ordered in the time she’d undertaken the sale.
Byron scoffed at the staged dining room and said something about how the bed had too many pillows for a body to get a proper sleep. But he grew quieter as they got higher up in t
he house and Magda felt a pang of worry that maybe she had overexerted him.
They got up to the level below the roof. Byron looked around. “What, you didn’t fix up a garret so that buyers could pretend they’re starving artists?” he asked.
“You only wanted two rooms staged, so that’s what I did,” Magda said. “Besides, this floor has some things on it.”
Byron stilled. Then he said, “Well unless you find a buyer for this place, I don’t see the point of renting out a storage space for a few boxes.”
“I did find a buyer, uncle.”
Magda pulled the offer papers out of her bag.
Byron looked furious. “What are you trying to pull here? I assumed you were trying to butter me up to ask me to extend my deadline. Or tell me about some repair you wanted me to make, or that you wanted the rest of the house filled with throw pillows or something.”
“These people are interested in taking the house as is. They don’t want any more renovations. A broker who they consulted with earlier in the summer discouraged them from offering, but they kept thinking about it. Karima Carter, she grew up in this neighborhood, and she knows the history. They took time to get their ducks in order so you’d take their offer seriously. They’ve really tried, Uncle, and maybe what’s important here, they really seem to love the house. They came by to see it again last night and remembered everything about it.”
Byron still clutched the papers in his hand.
“It’s a good offer, Uncle.”
“Get me a better one.”
“You haven’t even looked at it. They wrote you a letter. They’re starting a family. They’d be really happy in it. I have to ask you, with all these compelling reasons, are you sure you want to sell it?”
“Of course I’m sure. You know how much it’s costing me in taxes?”
“So why won’t you sell it, then? Why won’t you consider any of the offers? Why do you keep sending workmen? Why have you gotten rid of every stick of furniture but you still have these old boxes hanging around?”
“I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” Byron said furiously. “You’re my broker.”
“I’m also your niece,” Magda added gently. “Please, take a look. Read the letter. Think about it. You can call your lawyer, and we could be all done in six weeks, as long as their financing checks out.”
Byron was still looking a little lost.
She added, “I’ll help you sort through the boxes, Byron, if that’s what you want. Or I can ask Mamí to go through them with you”—if Mamí was still speaking to her—“or I can help you get rid of them.”
“No!”
He stood straight, his eyes blazing. “No one is putting those memories in the trash.”
“I didn’t say we had to—”
“I am not looking at this offer. I am not calling any lawyers—”
“Byron, calm down.”
“I will not calm down. You can’t tell me what to do.”
He sat down heavily on a trunk.
She assessed him warily. He was red-faced from yelling at her, but he wasn’t panting or sweating. He looked tired but...
She shouldn’t have pushed him so hard.
She took a deep breath. “Let me go downstairs to get you some water.”
“I don’t need any damn water.”
“I won’t be a minute.”
She wanted to push. She wanted him to look at the damn papers that Karima Carter and her partner Sara had worked so hard to put together. Maybe he wouldn’t care about the letter, but he should at least think about the offer. It might seem like nothing—a dollar amount scribbled on a piece of paper, some signatures, but it was important. It was a guarantee that they were going to have their financial lives scrutinized by their bank, by Byron’s lawyer, by her. It wasn’t quite like going up before a co-op board; they wouldn’t need to produce reference letters from their friends and past landlords and managers. But it was still bad enough.
She was angry that Byron seemed like he was going to dismiss it like he’d dismissed all the other offers over the years.
When she came back upstairs, Byron had stood up. He was looking out the small window, a little too casually, as if she’d almost caught him at something.
She handed him the bottle and he drank it thirstily. “I wanted to show you something,” she said.
She pulled up the picture Ty had snapped at the fair. He squinted at it. “I can’t see anything on this tiny screen.”
She enlarged a section and then moved the picture around so that he could read the caption Ty had included. “That’s you, isn’t it?” she said. “Outside this house.”
Byron finished the bottle and set it down beside him. He didn’t reply. He picked up the offer papers and started to make his way downstairs.
“Uncle,” she started to say.
“I’m not going to talk to you right now, Magda. I walked all through this place, and let you talk all you wanted. I’m about due for a good dose of quiet now. Goodbye.”
With that, he yanked open the door, to the beep of the alarm system, and started down the street.
Magda sighed. At least he’d left with the papers instead of crumpling them in a ball and throwing them in her face.
Thursday after Labor Day
“My Uncle Byron is missing.”
Ty had gotten back from a meeting at Mrs. Espinosa’s apartment when Magda called.
He’d been, well, happy. God, why was he excited to see her name light up when he should have felt all sorts of other things: sadness it wouldn’t work out between them, resentful she’d chosen her path, and that it wasn’t his? But no, his stupid pulse pounded and a smile leaked into his voice with his hello.
But then she sounded worried and his heart had dropped.
“He checked out of his hotel,” she was saying. “Hasn’t gone back to Miami either, according to his housekeeper. He won’t return my calls, but he did text me saying he was all right after I checked in. His housekeeper must’ve alerted him I was looking for him. I know it’s stupid. I know it’s been a little over twenty-four hours and he says he’s fine, but we said some things to each other yesterday—and now this.”
“Does your family know?”
“Yes, I told my mom when I started worrying, and I called her after I heard from him. I didn’t tell her everything. Then I needed to talk to you because—because I knew you’d understand.”
They both breathed for a minute.
“I received an offer for the townhouse. I pushed him to take it and I showed him the picture you sent. I wanted—well, you know what I wanted. I got my hopes up and went at him too hard.”
“Magda.”
“It’s okay. I don’t want to talk about this. How are you?”
He gave a short laugh. “I’m okay.” He gave her a minute to interrupt, but she seemed to want the distraction. “I just came back from a meeting. And now I’m going to make something to eat.”
“What are you making?”
“BLT. Mrs. Freeman gave me one of her tomatoes.”
“She must love you.”
“I was never quite sure of her feelings until the moment she handed one over.”
“Was there a ceremony?”
“Aside from the part where I knelt and she touched my shoulder with it?”
She laughed, and it was good to hear it.
She sobered quickly. “I shouldn’t talk about this with you. I shouldn’t enjoy this so much—calling you. But for some reason, you’ve become the person who doesn’t make it worse when I say things out loud to you. It becomes almost okay.”
“I feel the same.”
He could hear her moving around.
“That picture you sent me, the one in front of the house with Byron’s brother, the one from the museum, I thought—I don’t know
why I thought it would be good to show him his memories were there no matter who owned the house, that they’d been preserved. But it was clearly a shock for him. It was clumsy of me. I should have prepared him more.”
“It’s like you said, though. It’s always going to be tough letting go of a home, especially when in Byron’s case, it’s been in his family for so long.”
“I left him alone for a few minutes to get him some water. And then after he was gone, I went upstairs again to straighten out and I noticed one of the boxes was ajar.”
“He was looking inside.”
“Yeah. So I peeked, too.”
She paused.
“No bodies, right?” he asked gently.
“No. More like...ghosts. Photographs. Hundreds of them from over the years. So many of my aunt—of Ariana—when they were young and newly married. Street scenes and pictures of relatives and friends. Some of them had been developed at the drugstore, you know the way they used to do that. And some of them, I think Byron did himself. Now I remember it used to be his hobby. He had a little darkroom in his parents’ basement. It smelled bad so my sisters dared each other to go in. It had one of those eerie red lights and I remember trying to be like my sisters and hiding in there one day and I guess I flicked the switch and I was convinced I saw the Devil’s eye. I started screaming. And of course we weren’t allowed in anymore, and I forgot about it until a couple of days ago when I saw the pictures. All of these beautiful photos.”
“That sounds amazing. What an incredible record of his family, and of life in this neighborhood.”
“It is. It was. Ty, I don’t know. Maybe it’s wrong to try to make Byron sell this house when so much of him is clearly still there.”
“That’s for Byron to decide, isn’t it?”
He’d been with her until that moment, but he didn’t know what to say. Or rather, he felt frustrated—almost as frustrated as she clearly was—but for different reasons.
She couldn’t give up now—now that she was close.
What difference did it make to him—to them? If she made the sale on the townhouse, she was still selling the garden—or someone else would take it up if not her.