I’m trying to fight the pull of exhaustion, but I want to give in and let go. “Fine…I promise. Now let me sleep, Lani…please. We can…talk later…okay?”
“Okay…”
46
Bash
The house looks the same. Same white lights strung along the porch rail. Same Christmas wreath that my mom’s been using since I was a kid. Same front door that’s been painted the same teal green my entire life. I stand out on the porch for a second, trying to prolong the inevitable. The longer I wait, the less ready I feel to knock—
The door swings open before I can decide.
“Sebastian, baby!”
Mom’s smile is big and genuine, and her eyes go all warm when she sees me, making me feel like I’m a kid again that excited to be home with my mom. She pulls me into a hug that last so long I feel the hurt under it. The guilt quickly hits me—for barely coming around anymore when I’m less than a four-hour drive away at college.
She pulls me into the house, and there’s just something about being back in this place that always sits heavy on my chest. Maybe it’s the smells that easily take me back to the simplest times and the hardest times all at thesametime. Maybe it’s the memories that linger on the walls, or the rooms that used to be filled with loud, carefree laughter that aren’t anymore…or maybe it’s just the constant reminder that this house will never be as full as it should be.
I feel suffocated when I’m here, and sometimes I almost resent this place for all the memories it can’t help but hold. For every corner that used to be filled with us running around and getting into trouble together…now replaced with this overwhelming and sad emptiness.
My dad walks up behind me, slapping a hand on my shoulder. “Good to see you, son.”
After putting all of my bags into my old room, which has now been turned into a guest room, I walk back out into the hallway, stopping and placing a hand on the doorway of the third bedroom in the house, the one that hasn’t been touched in four years, like she’ll be back any day now, laying in that bed, reading one of her favorite thriller books, music blasting so loud that my mom has to come and physically turn it down because she can’t yell loud enough over it.
I feel a hand touch my back, and it pulls me from the memories playing like a movie in my head. “Come on, Bash. Your mom wants your help in the kitchen.”
I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat, and push off the door frame.
Mom has traditional Puerto Rican Christmas music playing in the kitchen, swaying as she kneads the biscuit dough and humming along to the songs. I can’t help but smile at her. She’s always been a ray of sunshine in this family. Isabel was so much like her, her little mini-me. I can still see them together in the kitchen, coming up with insane, extravagant dinners just for the four of us on a random weeknight. They would go all out and make it a whole thing. No special occasion needed. Just a fun time and good food together.
I cross my arms, laughing.“Ma! You’ve been playing this music every Christmas for how many years now, and you still don’t know a single word to any of the songs?”
She waves me off, still dancing. “It’s about the vibes, Sebastian. This is how your father won me, you know? You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for a little Spanish Christmas music, boy.”
My dad walks up behind her, wrapping a hand around her waist and moving with her to the music. “I still remember her walking into my tía’s bakery that day with her friend…en medio del revolú de Navidad. It was so busy that I had to help them out at the shop that year. She looked so out of place just standing there while her friend was placing some huge order for the holiday. I rounded the counter, took her hand, kissed the back of it, and said, ‘Con una sonrisa así mami, no puedo dejarte ir sin invitarte a bailar conmigo.’ She looked at me like I had two heads and said—”
My mom cuts him off, smiling, throwing her arms around his neck. “I said,‘I have no clue what you just said, but if you keep talking to me like that, you’re going to have to clock out right now and take me home.’He turned so red, and then he told me that he was asking me to dance with him. I looked around the packed shop, confused, and whispered to him that we’re in a bakery, not a club.”
My dad takes her hand and pulls back, spinning her. “I took her just like this and told her it wouldn’t matter if we were in a club, a bakery, or the middle of the street; I wouldn’t be able to resist the need to hold her in my arms and dance with her like she was mine.”
He dips her, and she grabs onto his shoulder, leaving flour all over his shirt.
“Okay, love birds, enough.”
My dad lifts her back up and slaps her butt as she turns around to wash her hands at the sink. I roll my eyes, smiling at them. Some things never change, and those two have been obsessed with each other my entire life. I used to dream about finding a love like theirs, finding someone I was excited to see every day. Until I found out what it felt like to lose anyone you loved, the hole it leaves, the way you don’t really come back from it. I couldn’t imagine choosing to spend the rest of my life with someone I would more than likely lose eventually and be left empty in an entirely new and terrifying way.
“Come help me shred this chicken, baby. I gotta start the broth in a minute, and I need it ready to throw in there.”
“Yeah, I got you, ma.”
I walk over, placing a hand on her shoulder and kissing her cheek. “Thank you for always making my favorite meal when I come.”
She leans into the kiss, wiping her hands off on a hand towel. “If my baby is coming home to visit, chicken and dumplings will be on that table.”
We both laugh, and I scoot by her to wash my hands. I hate how little I’ve come home lately. How much I know it hurts my mom. How I can’t seem to move past the grief to give her the time with the only child she has left. The guilt of thinking about failing her too eats at me. I think back to how much stress she was under after Isabel died, how she declined so much, how she became a shell of herself for so long after, how she clung to me like holding on tight enough…would prevent me from slipping away, too. Just remembering what all that stress and grief did to her makes me hate myself a little right now for being so selfish.
Dinner is filled with easy conversation and surface-level topics that are safe—school, clinical work that’s coming up, the drive here, and how long I’m staying, even though the real stuff they want to talk about is always waiting right under the surface, and we all know it. We just tiptoe around it for as long as possible.
Never lasts as long as I want, though.
