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“I keep thinking that I should go and visit him.” I frowned. “That I should pay my respects properly, and apologize but… I wasn’t the one who abandoned us, y’know?”
Vitoria only nodded.
We’d talked about it ad nauseam, and she’d learned to accept that a part of me hated my father for dying on us. For leaving us destitute.
“Mia,” she said carefully, and I turned to look at the screen. “Is coming home really that bad?”
My shoulders dropped and I let out a shaky breath.
Yes, I thought. It would mean facing a life I thought I’d never have to think about again. A life I’d conceded to all so that my family could make it from one meal to the next.
A life that I wasn’t exactly proud of, even if I didn’t regret it.
I plastered a smile onto my face, tucking a few curls behind my ear. “Of course not,” I told her. “I might even be home in time for Carnival and we can go and make fun of the tourists together like we used to.”
Vitoria threw her head back, her peals of laughter young and unburdened.
That was what I’d worked so hard for; so that my sister wouldneverface the same choices I had.
“There are so many of them here already.” She giggled. There was a noise somewhere in the back and she turned her attention away for a moment. “Que? Ah, Mom says she misses you.”
“I miss her, too,” I said. “I miss her cooking. Six years here and you’d think I’d get used to the food but no, I still miss Mom’s feijoada.”
“Well, when you come back, you can eat as much as you want.”
“I spoke to Julio,” I said a little hesitantly.
Vitoria stared at me through the screen, her face a mixture of concern and awe.
“He’s… expensive,” she murmured, leaving out the sometimes not-so-legal aspects of his services. “Wouldn’t it just be safer to come home and reapply?”
I shook my head. There was too much on the line, too many years of hard work, too many lives that would be affected by it. “Not if there’s a chance I won’t be able to reapply.”
Chapter 4
A Little White Lie
REID
Istaredatthecaller ID flashing on my phone screen, the pit of my stomach dropping.
“Guess I can’t really ignore this,” I murmured to no one in particular, and answered the call. “Hi, Mom.”
“You could sound a little more enthusiastic to hear from me. Don’t you miss me?” she quipped, her voice as haughty as the last time she’d called.
Which happened to be last week.
And if this call was anything like that one, I knew exactly what she wanted to talk about.
“It’s been less than a week since the last time we spoke.” I sighed, sitting back in my chair and resting my eyes. “You don’t exactly give me time to miss you.”
“You’re as cheerful as usual.”
“How are you?” I asked, wanting to steer the conversation as far from my personal life as I could.
“Oh, you know, Ron has his little hobbies so I’ve been pottering about the house,” she hummed. “I visited the country club last weekend and you’ll never guess who I ran into!”
“I bet I could,” I mumbled under my breath.
