I wish I could speak words of comfort, too, but my body feels like a burning building without a drop of water in sight. Mr. Morales hasn’t only been a father figure to me—he’s been the model husband and father against whom I judge all others. But while I might be in shock, I don’t doubt what she’s shared. Instead, my mind scrambles to adjust my perceptions of a man I thought I knew until I’m left with two questions. How did I miss the fault lines when they ran deep enough to break everything apart—and just as importantly—why didn’t Sofia ever confide in me?
At this last selfish question, shame curls my shoulders forward. I know I shouldn’t make this about myself. Not when the family I love is hurting so badly. But there’s a kernel of hurt lodged beneath my ribs that wishes she had told me sooner.
Finally, I manage to say, “I’m here for whatever you need. I want to help in any way that I can.”
Mrs. Morales gives me a look filled with warmth. “Then eat with us. Keep loving us, Gracie, and know that we’ll always love you, too, no matter how the shape of this family changes.”
And so that’s what I do. We eat tostones, sancocho, and fragrant rice, and I will myself to keep my emotions in check. At least until I can get Sofia alone and beg her to help me understand how the unthinkable happened.
When we’ve done the dishes, said good night, and asked for Abuela’sbendición, Sofia and I leave the house, walking toward her car in the humid evening air. Neither of us speaks until the doors are shut and we’re safely out of hearing and viewing distance from the house.
“Sof—” I begin, hardly knowing how to articulate the snarled knot of feelings pulling tighter in my stomach with each breath.
“I know,” she says, looking up at the car ceiling and swiping beneath her eyes.
“How long have you known this was going on?” I ask, trying to keep the hurt from bleeding into my voice. I understand all too well what she’s going through. Navigating my own parents’ separation was one of the most difficult times of my life, and adding to her grief isn’t something I could forgive myself for.
But a smaller, more selfish part of me wants to ask if she was ever going to bother telling me if I hadn’t invited myself over for dinner. Even though, for most of my life, her family has been closer to me than my own.
I hear her swallow. “It’s been coming on slowly. Maybe for a year now?”
A year. I didn’t think it was possible to feel worse than I already did, but I was wrong. This time when I speak, I can’t hide the tremor in my voice, wobbly under the crushing weight of disillusionment.
“Do Luis and Dariel know? Does Marisol?”
“Of course they know,” she says off-handedly, and while I know I’m not her sibling—that ofcoursethey had to find out first—I can’t fully pretend that being left out doesn’t cut me to the quick.
Staring out at the dark, suburban street, I bite my lips together to stop the quiet cry threatening to escape. Iknowthis isn’t my family. But Mr. and Mrs. Morales took me under their wing when my own parents wanted nothing to do with me. Instead of locking me in spidery garden sheds or dumping out my carefully organized sewing box on the floor like my stepsiblings used to, Sofia and her siblings invited me to carve my name in their tree fort.Theyfelt like my real family. Which is why I can’t stop my next words.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask in a small voice as the sting of feeling like an outsider gets louder than all my best intentions.
Sofia looks at me from the driver’s seat, and in the moonlight, the lingering tears in her eyes shine bright. “I think I’ve been hoping it would all just… work out. But then Dad packed his things a few weeks ago, and—”
“A few weeks ago?” I cut her off, stunned. “Before the potluck?”
“Gracie—”
“You promised you weren’t keeping anything big from me,” I say, losing my grip on what I should be doing right now—comforting my friend. Before I can stop it, my selfish question ejects itself from the dark little box I tried stuffing it in. “When were you going to tell me any of this? Were you just hoping I’d never want to come over for dinner again?”
“I don’t know!” she shouts, pushing her curls back from her face.
“But you know how much your family means to me!” I say, feeling a dam break inside of my chest. I know I’m being unfair—I know she’s hurting—but pain and panic boil over until I’m too worked up to stop the words burning inside of me. “Why did you cut me out of this?”
“I didn’t cut you out, I was trying to shield you,” she says, wiping a frustrated hand beneath her glasses. “You’ve always put us on this pedestal, thinking we’re this perfect sitcom family when the truth is, there havealwaysbeen problems.”
“What problems?” I cry. “Up until tonight, your parents’ marriage is what made me believe that true love and supportive partnerships actually exist!”
Sofia makes an exasperated sound. “Gracie, I love my dad, but he is anarcissist. He loves playing the family man and treating you like his second daughter when you visit because it makes him look good. But haven’t you ever noticed that he doesn’t listen to anything anyone says? How Mami fades into the background when he’s around?” She wipes more tears away as anger suffuses her face. “Maybe you can’t see it because he was always performing for you. All his stories, the jokes, the big smiles… hewantedyou to see him as father of the year. But the truth is…” She takes a stilted breath. “The truth that we’ve all been coming to terms with is that he’s emotionally abusive—especially to Mami.”
The world is upside-down and inside-out. “But you’ve never saidanything,” I protest weakly, loathing myself for being unable, or unwilling, to see the truth, when the signs were always there.
“I used to try,” she says in a strained voice. “But nothing compared to the situation you grew up in, did it? HowcouldI complain to you, when your own family treated you like a burden they couldn’t wait to get rid of every chance they got? I know how much you’ve relied on us for love and support. You’d get so shaken if I even hinted that something was amiss that eventually, I just stopped.”
Shame opens up inside of me, deep enough to swallow me whole.Did I really do that?Overlook her pain in the face of my own, and make her feel like she couldn’t confide in me?
“And lately—really, ever since Calvin broke up with you—I’ve been afraid to tell you anything,” she goes on. “You said at the potluck that you want me to share what’s going on in my life, but you’ve been so fragile and afraid of leaving your little hobbit hole that I honestly didn’t think you could handle it!”
Hurt steals my breath from me, and I’m left rigid and humiliated. “Well, I’m sorry my life is such a fucking mess that you feel like you have to treat me like a six-year-old,” I say eventually.
