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“They’re your family, Taavi,” I said softly.
He caught his lower lip between his teeth, looking back at theofrendaagain.
I knew what he was thinking. He’d gone most of his life—all of his adult life—not really knowing what had happened to either of his parents, but assuming the worst. After all, if they were alive, either of them, then that meant they’d stopped writing to him, stopped trying to contact him, much less find him again.
On the one hand, he didn’t want them to be dead. On the other, if theywerealive, that meant that they didn’t care enough about him to find him or speak to him, and that would be heartbreaking. I didn’t want them to be dead, either, but that was what he’d believed since he was eighteen, and, for his sake, I’d rather he got closure than find out that his parents had abandoned him, instead.
I could see the conflict, so I pushed myself to my feet and walked up behind him, setting my hands on his shoulders. He reached up and covered one of my hands with his. “Okay,” he whispered, looking at Ward.
The medium smiled, his grey eyes kind. “What are their names?”
Taavi swallowed, and I could feel the tension in his shoulders. “Zuma Camal and Pakal Torres,” he whispered. Taavi had his mother’s last name. Good on his dad for giving him that.
Ward nodded once, closing his eyes, then he smiled, and I knew he’d found them. I also knew my boss well enough to know that he’d make sure that they weren’t total dicks before he let Taavi talk to them.
And then they materialized, a tiny woman who had Taavi’s bone structure and wide eyes, and the medium-height, thin man from the photograph, his hair cut exactly the same way Taavi wore his.
I felt Taavi shake against my chest, and I squeezed his shoulders, trying to give him what strength and support I had.
“Mijo?”The woman stepped forward, her hands over her mouth and oddly opalescent tears shining on her translucent cheeks.
“Mamá?” I felt as much as heard the soft sob behind the words.
I had no idea what anybody said for the entire conversation. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need to understand anything. All I needed to do was be there, to stay with my hands on his shoulders and then, after Ward released Zuma Camal and Pakal Torres to cross back over, to wait for everyone else to leave before Taavi came and buried his face in my chest, sobs shaking his slim shoulders.
* * *
I stayedup with Taavi until dawn, listening to him talk about his parents, about the things his father had told him about their people, and about what he knew of the traditions of the Maya. It wasDía de Muertos, meant to be celebrated by remembering family, keeping alive the memories of those who had died, and celebrating the lives they had lived and the life you would live because of them.
Taavi made hisenmoladaswithmole negroand fried plantains, and thepan de muertosturned out exactly as I’d hoped. Around two in the morning, he got up and made hot chocolate, then toasted some of thepanand spread Nutella over it.
“Chocolate craving?” I asked him, as he cautiously snuggled up against me, the plate of coco-and-hazelnut smeared bread on his lap, each of us with a mug of cocoa he’d spiced with cinnamon.
“It’s thematic,” he told me.
“Because chocolate is Mexican?”
“It is.”
It was true.
I took a sip from my mug. The cocoa he’d made was a lot darker than what I was used to. “What is this?”
He took a sip of his own. “Cacao, sugar, cinnamon. Mexican chocolate, not that Swiss Miss shit.”
I laughed, then took another sip. “It’s good.”
“Of course it is,” he replied, and I smiled into his hair.
We went through another couple of mugs and one viewing of the movieCocoby the time the sky outside lightened with the rising sun.
“You always stay up all night? ForDía de Muertos?” I asked him.
“Mmmhmm.” We’d switched places again, and I was mostly lying in his lap, one of his legs bent up against the back of the couch, my head on his stomach.
“Do you sleep after, then? Like, today?”
“Not really. Sometimes I take a nap.”
