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Me: Where are you?
My message sends and delivers but the checkmarks remain gray.
I send another one.
Me: Santos where are you?
Again delivery, but that’s it.
Dad takes the phone from me before I can stop him. He’s sitting between us in the backseat. “It’s not the time for texting.” He tucks the phone into his pocket. “Glad it’s not raining. She hated the rain,” he says, and I wonder if he misses her. If he thinks about her. If he loved her. But then I smell whiskey on his breath—or maybe it’s just coming out of his pores because he drinks so much—and I think I’m probably giving him too much credit.
“Why are the Averys here?” I ask.
“Everyone who wants to remember your mother is welcome.”
“They didn’t know Mom.”
He gives me a nasty look and shifts his gaze out the front window as the car slows once we pass through the cemetery gates. Once we arrive at the grave site, Val comes to stand at my side, ignoring my father entirely as he tries to step between us.
“Santos will meet you at the house,” Val says.
“Where is he?”
“Something came up.”
“For God’s sake, this is your mother we’re talking about,” Dad finally says, taking my arm forcefully and leading me to the grave, gripping the flowers the driver handed him in his other hand. He’s holding them so tightly the stems are smashed.
I don’t like coming here with him, but I know the drill. I just have to get through this.
We will leave the flowers, have a few moments of silence, then go back to the house, where he’ll pour himself a whiskey. I hate that part most because it requires socializing. I was hoping to get out of it or at least have Santos at my side. I’m disappointed he’s not here, but Odin needs me, and I won’t let him down.
In less than half an hour, we’re pulling up to the house. I haven’t been here in a long time, but it looks the same as it used to. The grounds are pristinely maintained, the house grand and looming. It smells the same, too, I think when we enter. Even with all these people already here, the subtle scent of wood polish mixed with whiskey sends me back in time.
People come to greet us, reminding me that we don’t have relatives left apart from us. Odin is the last De Léon. What will happen to our name? Will the line end with him? Maybe it should.
A few minutes after we’re in the house, the front door opens. Val slips inside and, after locating me, he stands against the wall. My father notices too, and I don’t miss his nod to a man I don’t recognize. I guess he hired security. I don’t know. But Val can manage himself.
Robotically, I assume my role as the porcelain doll with the glass eyes. I stand between Odin and my father and, with my arms at my sides, I accept people’s hugs, ignoring their pitying eyes, their empty words. I try to remember if my mom had friends, but I was too young to know that. She and I were together a lot, and we were mostly on our own. Odin and Uncle Jax were the only two people I remember being around.
Uncle Jax.
Another wave of sadness steals over me, and I wish again that Santos was here. He’d know how I was feeling. He’d be the rock at my side. But irritation creeps along that thought as I wonder what could have been so important that he abandoned me like he has once before.
“Excuse me,” I say. My father halts his conversation momentarily, but I slip out of reach before he can stop me walking away. Odin, too, watches as I hurry through the crowd in the living room toward the stairs. I just need a few minutes alone, so I head to my room.
Voices carry, following me up. The lights are out up here though—my father’s subtle sign for guests to keep to the ground floor. I’m grateful for it.
My room is at the far end, just past Odin’s. I hurry to it, open the door, and slip inside. As soon as I’ve closed it, the sound of voices dies down to a murmur, and I take a moment to exhale.
Except that even before I’ve released that single breath, I hear the sound of water running and turn to find the bathroom door opening. I realize then the room isn’t pitch black. The light on the nightstand is on. And I watch in disbelief as Camilla Avery steps out of my bathroom, not startled to see me, or hiding it well if she is. She smiles, carelessly tosses the towel she was wiping her hands on to the floor, and steps into my bedroom.
“I hope you don’t mind. I had to use the little girl’s room.” She winks at me like we’re old friends, her gaze remaining on me a beat too long before it scans my bedroom.
“What are you doing in here?”
She cocks her head and crosses the room to meet me. “I just told you. The line for the bathroom was so long downstairs. Don’t you hate that?” She picks up my braid, studies it, then drops it again. She walks toward the window and looks out over our back garden. “It’s not a bad room. But didn’t you take anything with you when you moved in with Santos?” she asks, planting herself on the edge of my bed and picking up a tube of lip balm. She opens it, sniffs at it, and for a minute I wonder if she’s going to use it.
Recovering myself, I walk to her and snatch the lip balm out of her hand. “Get out of my room!”
