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“Bad word, Mama. Where’s my monies?” She stuck her hand out for a quarter.
“Put it on my tab, bug. Did you just wake up?”
“Nonnie said no waking you up.” She wagged her finger authoritatively as she mimicked my mother.
I chuckled. “Did you get the iPad?”
She was on her feet and jumping on my bed again. “Yes, yes, yes,” she said, bouncing. “We see Daddy today?”
The knot in my chest tightened. “I’ll see if he’s busy,” I said with a false smile.
“We can go swimming! Abuela gives me pokkacicles and Daddy be’s the dolphin and he throws me in the air!” She spread her arms and flew backward onto the bed with a flump. Almost instantly, she scrambled off the bed and ran for the door. “Nonnieeeeee, where’s my swim bag?”
“Oh, are you going to see Daddy?” Mom said from the living room.
“We can go swimming!”
“If he’s not busy,” I added, trading my sleep shorts for the denim variety. Anxiety crackled over my skin as I reached for my phone.
No texts. No calls. He hadn’t tried to get in touch. But neither had I.
I opened up my messages, my throat squeezing shut on seeing the happy levity of our “before” messages. One afternoon, and I’d lost all that. Truth was, it might never have been mine at all.
For a second, my mind blurred through what to say, finally landing on the simplest, most straightforward approach.
Cilla wanted to know if she could come see you today.
I held onto my phone, fighting the desire to put the electronic brick away and the sick longing to hear from him. I was just about to put it down when three little dots appeared. I didn’t breathe for the seconds it took him to type.
Sure. I’m here.
That was it. He was here. For now, at least.
I’ll bring her by in an hour or so, if it’s okay.
It’s fine.
But it wasn’t. Nothing was fine.
I couldn’t respond again. So I tossed my phone onto the bed and made my way out of my room to find Mom sitting at the breakfast table with a cup of coffee and a crossword in front of her. Priscilla was in the other room packing her bag. And making a huge mess, by the sound of it.
Mom watched me walk to the coffee pot and pour myself a cup. “Get any sleep?”
“Nope.”
A pause. “Are you going to talk to him when you go over there?”
“Is there any way to avoid it?”
“I mean talk-talk to him.”
I didn’t answer until I’d stirred in my milk. “I don’t know what’s left to say.”
“Maybe what’s going to happen with Cilla, for starters.”
“Well, we’re going to leave for California, and he’s going to get on a plane and fly five-thousand miles away. What’s there to discuss?”
When I turned for the table, she was giving me a pointed look.
“What? It seems pretty simple, Mom.”
“What about his mom and grandmother?”
I sighed and sat. “What about them? We’re leaving, and he won’t be here. What am I supposed to do? Plan to custody share with her grandmother? Cilla is four. I can’t put her on a plane by herself. I can’t even afford to fly her anywhere.”
“No, but they can.”
“We’ll figure it out, but it doesn’t need to be decided on right now.”
Her judgmental look deepened. “No, you don’t want to decide anything right now, do you? You’d rather run away.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Neither is you running off like this. You’ve been running away forever, all the way back to when you found out you were pregnant.”
“Mom—”
“Am I wrong?”
I was too mad to answer.
“No, I’m not. You’ve been running away from your feelings for him, and why? Because you want to be noble? Frankly? Fuck that. You’re afraid, and you’re gonna miss the chance for happiness because of it.”
“Don’t you want to go home?”
“Don’t you change the subject. Of course I miss home, but I love it here too. I told you I’ll go wherever you go, and I meant it. But don’t you dare make that decision because you’re afraid. Can’t you do the job from here? Ship everything to Olivia?”
“Sure, but it won’t be the same.” I can’t be here if he’s not. I took a breath to fortify myself and repeated my mantra. “This is everything I’ve wanted, everything I’ve worked for. We can go home. I can work with Olivia. We can be taken care of on our terms. I don’t understand the problem.”
“The problem is, this isn’t everything you want, is it?”
“It’s everything I want that I can actually have.”
She sighed a long, tired sound.
“What? What else am I supposed to do?” I sort of whisper-yelled, since I couldn’t raise my voice without alerting my nosy preschooler. “Am I supposed to stay here in Lindenbach where everything reminds me of him? Working two jobs, mooching off our family? Waiting tables and running myself into the ground trying to start a business? And for what? So Cilla can swim in the Vargas pool and pick flowers here on the farm? It doesn’t make any sense to stay, and you know it.”
