Page 46 of No Greater Oblivion

I nod. Unsure of what to say next, I await his reply with trembling hands I tuck under the desk. Rian walks over and sits across from me, eyes startlingly blue and lost deep in thought. Fleetingly, I’m reminded of Diego and how his eyes are equally as striking in color. His are darker, more oceanic in color while Rian’s reflect the brightness of the sky.

After what feels like an eternity, he finally speaks.

“You need to be absolutely sure.”

I’m not sure what he means at first.

“You don’t know Narvaez the way I do. You don’t know him as an enemy. I saw the way he looked at you—the way you looked at each other,” he says. “I’m not going to put the future of my family on the line if this isn’t real. Because he’s going to fight for you with everything he’s got, and I need to know if I’m fighting back.”

“What are you asking?”

“I’m asking if you want this.”

“I already told you. We broke⁠—”

“A year is nothing, Dahlia. Nothing. He’ll wait a lifetime for you if he thinks he has a chance; it’s who he is. Narvaez won’t give up.”

“Alejandro had his chance to fight for me and he didn’t.”

I just don’t have the capacity for this right now.

The memory runs through me like a curved blade, piercing every vital organ in pursuit of the heart. But I don’t let it reach that far.

“He gave up on me a long time ago. He just hasn’t realized it yet.”

Alejandro

Mom and Dad’s place is just as I remember.

A little overgrown, a little unkempt, but such is to be expected when it hasn’t been visited in over a decade.

I dust off their bench and almost sit down when I remember their names should be carved into the wood somewhere. I drag my fingers along the top and feel the engraving buried under layers of green paint. Removing my keys from my pocket, I chip away at each lacquered layer until I get to the wood underneath. Once their names reappear, I tuck the keys into my pocket and sit down, satisfied with my handiwork.

My childhood was spent all over the place but the early years we spent in New York before Lettie was born still live at the forefront of my memory, as vibrant and ephemeral as the day they happened. We never had much cause to come all the way out to Queens, especially as deep as Middle Village, but for the years we lived here, Mom and Dad made the trip every spring.

They met Mom’s freshman year of college. Dad was a sophomore guide during freshman orientation and always said that the earth moved beneath his feet the moment he laid eyes on her. In that moment, he said he knew she was the one. Except, she already had a boyfriend.

Mom could never get through the story of their first year together without dissolving into a puddle of giggles so intense Dad would usually have to stop halfway to give her a glass of water and some ice. She’d laugh herself into a dizzy spell that turned her cheeks red and made her short of breath. I’m not sure how much the ice and water helped but it never deterred Dad from telling the whole story.

He played the long game. Frank, Mom’s boyfriend at the time, had become Dad’s mortal enemy. He’d done all sort of underhanded things to sabotage him. Frank was a sophomore transfer and an honor’s student so they were in most of the same classes. Dad would wait to be the last one to hand in his assignment so he could switch out Frank’s papers with something absurd and illiterate which got him reprimanded by professors on more than one occasion. Frank was also a track runner so Dad paid his roommate to put staples in the soles of his sneakers. Not too many just enough for there to be an uncomfortable, prickling pain whenever he ran.

Mom’s favorite was what she’d called the Dulcolax Dilemma of ’86. Frank was obsessed with Dr Pepper but was the only person in their friend group who drank it. So at parties, someone always made sure to have a bottle just for him.

Well, Dad had had enough of waiting around for Mom to dump Frank so he took matters into his own hands.

By dumping an entire bottle of Dulcolax into the Dr Pepper.

And his plan worked for the most part. Until the party ran out of Coca-Cola and Frank, ever the generous fellow, offered to share his Dr Pepper with everyone. Within a half hour, the situation had become dire. Explosive was Mom’s favorite word. Dad eventually had to fess up to what he’d done when Mom went to take a sip of the soda and he slapped the cup out of her hand.

I never minded that he was a little crazy, Mom had said once. In fact, it was flattering. No one had ever gone to such extreme lengths for me before.

By spring of her freshman year, Mom had already decided she was going to break up with Frank but was insistent on not dating again for a while. When Dad found out, he invited her to a friend’s party out in Brooklyn, convinced that if they spent an evening alone together, he could win her over. The party was a ploy—they’d show up, spend an hour there, before Dad would claim he “wasn’t in the mood” to be around crowds and suggest they get something to eat before heading home.

Only problem? They got lost.

Deeply and catastrophically lost. They ended up on the wrong train going in the wrong direction and took the wrong transfer which took them all the way to the heart of suburban Queens where they thought a bus heading west might bring them back to Brooklyn. Eventually, they gave up and Mom, determined to get out of her sky-high heels, took a break and sat on a park bench.

They stayed here talking until the sun rose. And years later after they had already been married, Mom brought Dad here to tell him she was pregnant with me. Deciding enough time had passed since his escapades in college, he told her all about the grief he caused poor Frank and Mom laughed until she couldn’t anymore.