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“What is this, Edier?” I ask softly. “Is it a prelude to you breaking my heart, or is it something more?”
“You know I can’t give you more.” I close my eyes in frustration. “But I can’t fucking breathe without you, either. I’m asking you to be still with me in the present. If we’re careful, we can find another ocean right here in this city.”
For how long? Hours? Days? And then you’ll be gone again.
“You can’t be still in the present, Edier,” I say, feeling depressed suddenly. “It’s in constant motion, the same as the tide.”
There’s the sound of a car door slamming in the background, and then I hear Sam’s voice.
“I have to go,” he snaps, slipping into ‘brutal businessman mode’ again before muttering his parting words to me in Spanish, “Debes saber que las sombras no existen sin la luz.”
“Just know that shadows can’t exist without their sunshine.”
* * *
We reachUmaiat nine p.m.
People on the busy sidewalks stop and stare as I’m escorted from the black SUV and into the restaurant by Eduardo and Dominic, with Antonio and the others trailing behind. It’s like I’m an A-list celebrity being flanked by a posse of hot bodyguards tonight.
I can just imagine Ivy’s scathing response if she ever saw me like this. Even my mother looks faintly embarrassed on my behalf as she stands to greet me. As the wife of Dante Santiago, she’s one of the most heavily guarded women on the planet. Half the men in the restaurant are my father’ssicarios, but at least they’re acting discreetly and pretending to study their menus, instead of storming in here like they’re the National Army of Colombia.
“Sweetheart, has something happened?” she murmurs, enveloping me in her embrace as my bodyguards sit down, uninvited, at the nearbykaitenzushi.
“Edier decided my gift this year would be to embarrass the heck out of me,” I say, beaming brightly to dissuade her concerns. No good will come from telling her about the dress. She’ll only worry, and I trust Edier to keep me safe. Besides, I promised her something before I moved here, and I can’t fulfill it if my father is hauling me back to island jail. “I think it’s his idea of a joke.”
“Sounds most unlike my son,” says a wry voice to my left asTíaAnna leans in next to hug me tight. My mother’s best friend is as beautiful as she is kind, and as tough as she once was shattered. After being trafficked in her twenties, she’s dedicated the rest of her life to helping others with similar experiences.
El Refugiowas her first middle finger to all those who hurt her.
Unleashing her husband on them was her second.
Despite what Edier said, I don’t believe their family connection is irretrievably broken. Nothing is certain in this life, and nothing is set in stone. Earthquakes happen all the time and they have the propensity to reshape all our worlds.
“He also bought me this dress.”
My announcement brings the conversation to a crashing halt, and I catch the looks zigzagging across the table.
“That was very thoughtful of him,” says Thalia, biting back a grin as she’s the final one to pull me in for a hug. “I love the asymmetric style. It really suits you. I didn’t realize you two were talking again?”
“We’re not really… Just suspending hostilities, temporarily.”
Well, it’s not a total lie.
“How is he?” asksTíaAnna curiously, but we all hear the note of grief in her voice.
Pig-headed, dogmatic, rude, bossy, infuriating, enigmatic, obstinate…
Everything.
“Busy,” I blurt out, hoping the word goes partway to explaining why he’s ghosting her the same way he’s usually ghosting me.
“Of course,” she says, accepting my reply as the tactful side-step that it is, taking her seat again as my mother motions for me to do the same.
“Elephant?” she murmurs, sitting down next to me. “I’ll only ask it this one time, I swear.”
This is her cue for enquiring about my health, aka the so-called ‘elephant with aching joints in the room’.
“I’m well,” I lie, picking up the menu, so I don’t have to face her laser-beam scrutiny.
