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“It’s a special dish. I think Puebla is the place to go formole.”
“But what’s in it? This sauce is delicious.”
“Dad, you wanna take this one?”
“Let’s see,” Dad said and started checking off fingers. “It has four different kinds of dried chilies that are lightly fried, and tomatoes.” Sara nodded, and he continued listing ingredients. “Fried peanuts. Fried raisins. Toasted bread crumbs, Toasted sesame seeds—”
“Raisins?Bread?In a sauce?” Sara asked as she placed a hand on her stomach. Her face twisted a little, and I urged Dad to go on.
“Yes. It also has lard, cinnamon, sugar, a bunch of spices,” when he saidlardandcinnamon,Sara’s hand went to cover her mouth. “What else am I missing? Oh, if the cook is really good and it’s traditionalmole,they always burn a tortilla and put the blackened tortilla in the sauce. It’s what gives it its color. They also use chicken broth.”
“Dad,” I said with my eyes on Sara, “you are missing the most important ingredient.”
“What?” He looked up at me and scratched his head, thinking. “Oh. Yes! How did I forget the main ingredient? Chocolate!”
Dad’s smile was triumphant, and Sara’s cheeks filled with air like a blowfish. She ran to the bathroom, and we clearly heard her yell through the door. “Chocolate?”
I burst into laughter, and Dad glared at me. “You did that on purpose,” he said.
“I couldn’t help it. Most people who don’t know whatmoleis love it when they try it but can’t handle knowing it’s chicken in chocolate sauce.”
“That wasn’t very nice.”
“Consider it payback for when I wasn’t warned baked beans were sweet, and I spat them out in the school cafeteria.”
Sara glared at me when she joined us back at the table. “You didn’t have to ruin it for me,” she hissed.
“I’m sorry. It was too tempting.”
We all burst out laughing then, and I hated to bring down the levity of our dinner. We were all so busy, it was hard to get together like this, but I knew they wouldn’t forgive me if I met Hector the next day and didn’t tell them about it.
“What’s wrong?” asked my perceptive father.
“I have something to tell you.”
Both Sara and Dad grew quiet and focused on me. I swallowed. “I saw Hector in California.”
Sara’s jaw dropped.
“How could you do this?” Dad asked. “After everything he did to you—”
“Dad, I didn’t do anything. He showed up at my lecture. I had no idea he was there until the end when he asked a question.”
He seemed to relax a little when I said that. I winced as I went on. “He wants to see me tomorrow.”
“No, Carolina,” he said. “I forbid it.”
“I think I’m going to go home now,” Sara said. She never liked upsetting my dad. “I’ll talk with you later, Caro.”
“Yeah. Talk later.”
Chicken,I thought.
I started loading the dishwasher as I listened to Dad go on.
“You can’t seriously be considering seeing him.”
“I am, Dad. I need some answers—”
