Sometimes, Ellen had let herself think up fantasies about meeting Rafa again, and they’d all involved Ellen being put-together and well-off, someone confident and proud. None of them had involved it being nearly midnight with Ellen exhausted, harried, and carrying a toddler.
“You should say sorry,” Gabi said before Ellen could answer Rafaela’s question.
“What?” Rafa asked blankly.
“You bumped into her, so you should say sorry,” Gabi said sensibly, a tiny line between her bushy brows.
Ellen felt herself melt. Gabi was such a good kid. Such good manners!
“Sorry,” Rafa said evenly, then turned back to Ellen with wide, pointed eyes. “She’s, uh, adorable. Sorry if my question offended you, God, the last thing I wanted to do when I finally found you again was fuck it up somehow—ah, crap. I mean—shoot. Sorry.” She rubbed at her face. “It’s very late.”
“It’s fine,” Ellen said awkwardly. Gabi narrowed her eyes and started to chew on some fingers, but didn’t repeat any of the curses. “She’s a distant cousin, actually. She is adorable.”
“I’m not cute,” Gabi said firmly, then started swinging her legs. “Ellen, down.”
“No, you have to stay with me,” Ellen repeated, images of Gabi letting go of her hand to dash straight into traffic flashing through her mind. “You’ll stay in my arms and I’ll only put you down once we’re home.”
She instantly settled, resting her chubby cheek against Ellen’s shoulder.
“You’re taking care of her,” Rafa said slowly, as if figuring something out, her tone of voice thoughtfully pissed. Ellen recognized it fondly. “Because someone dumped her on you.”
“Two days ago,” Ellen said, her smile becoming strained.
“Exactly like people did to you,” Rafa said flatly.
Ellen looked down at Gabi and didn’t reply. Her eyes were wide and very dark, staring up at Ellen, but she looked almost angelic with her thumb in her mouth and her halo of brown curls messy around her head. Ellen couldn’t fathom anyone passing her on to another relative after holding her. She couldn’t imagine how anyone would have the heart.
“That’s the biggest dick move—ah, crap!” Rafa exclaimed.
Ellen blinked up—Rafa was glaring at a bus that had just pulled up. It wasn’t her bus: she wasn’t late after all. She sighed in relief. The last thing she wanted was to end up getting home at two in the morning after a shit day skipping class to buy toddler stuff then rushing here to try and pick up the assignments and lessons she’d just missed. At least the cafeteria had some cheap food for Gabi.
“That’s my bus,” Rafa said, sounding miserable for no reason Ellen could understand.
“That’s fine,” Ellen said, then smiled blandly. “It was nice seeing you.”
Rafa glared at her flatly, then scrambled to grab a pen and paper from her bag. “Here, take my number,” she ordered.
“Rafa…” Ellen said tiredly.
Truth was, she didn’t even know what she was feeling about seeing Rafa again. The last thing she wanted was to burden Rafa with her problems. She could meet Rafa later, when her life was settled and she didn’t have to be afraid of anything.
But:
“Take my number,” Rafa stressed, shoving the paper at her.
Something in Ellen’s chest ached at how she could recognize the expression on Rafa’s face: the pursed lips, the wide eyes, the furrowed brows. She looked angry and intent, but Ellen could read the distress in the corner of her eyes.
She accepted the paper. Rafa immediately relaxed.
“Call me,” Rafa said, then finally dashed to the bus and threw herself in right before the doors closer.
“Ellen? Down,” Gabi asked, tugging at her short hair.
“You’ll stay with me and I’ll put you down when we’re home,” Ellen repeated with a sigh.
“Okay,” Gabi said, snuggling closer to her side.
***
Gabi passed out as soon as they got home. Ellen changed her into pajamas, tucked her in, and passed out beside her on the pull-out couch they shared, fully clothed and with her boots still on.
Ellen woke up five hours later, blinking groggily and tiredly. She pulled herself up on an elbow, wondering what had woken her up.
Gabi was crying.
She felt it like a slap and woke up at once. She wrestled her panic in half a second, tying it down securely and keeping her face and voice even.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Ellen asked, combing her fingers through her dark curls.
Gabi burst into loud sobbing. I just pat her hair, how was that wrong? Ellen asked herself despairingly.
“Sorry,” Gabi sobbed, then kept saying it: “Sorry, sorry, sorry—”
“What are you sorry for?” Ellen sat up and pulled her to her lap. She went easily, limp like a doll. Did she have a nightmare? Did she have a fever?
“Sorry,” Gabi wailed, then calmed down slightly when she realized she was in Ellen’s lap. She looked up at her, eyes wide. Her face was bright red and crumpled, like whatever had happened was the worst thing in the world. “Tummy ache,” she admitted finally.
Cafeteria food, Ellen thought darkly.
“That sucks,” Ellen said tiredly, then stood up. “How about we eat some jello and watch two cat videos on my phone?”
“Okay,” Gabi murmured, winding her arms around her neck. “Down, Ellen.”
Ellen blinked at her. Gabi had just wrapped herself like an octopus around her, and now she wanted to be let down? But Ellen thought about the night before: every time Gabi asked to be let down, Ellen said she’d stay in her arms, and the baby settled down. Like what she wanted was to hear that Ellen would hold onto her.
It broke her heart.
“I’ll hold onto you for now,” she murmured, pressing her nose to Gabi’s thick hair.
“Okay,” Gabi said wetly, chubby toddler fingers curling around her shirt.
***
Gabi ate half a cup of jello and passed out. Ellen balanced her laptop precariously on the tips of her knees, held Gabi closely, and looked up easy meals for toddlers. If she was awake, then she could do something useful with this extra time, even if her entire body was wailing to be allowed a nap.
She drank a full mug of black coffee and got to work.
This was the third day Gabi was with her. She locked away panicked thoughts about her family or the long-term and focused on practical things: meals, childproofing this place, some toys. She’d gotten clothes yesterday, but winter would come sooner than later and she needed sturdier things.
Ellen couldn’t skip all her classes and she had burned through favors her manager owed already. Ellen had to find someone to take care of Gabi while she was out. She started looking up daycares, panicked about prices and waiting lists and remembered her university had a daycare for students and staff.
She found their website. Bingo. She quickly took in their schedule, their available spots, and the list of documents she would need. Would the fact she had no official custody of this kid be a problem? She would talk to them. By God, she prayed they’d listen.
The cost was still a bit too high for her. She bit her bottom lip. She’d have to eat instant noodles for dinner and give up morning coffee altogether, but she could do it. She sighed deeply and relaxed against the cushions. She could do this.
Gabi snuffled against her chest. Ellen kissed the top of her head. She could deal with no morning coffee for her.
Maybe Ellen could talk to Miry.
Ellen stared blankly at her ceiling. No. She couldn’t ask her family for a single thing. She had already taken so much—they had taken care of her for years—she was already using their car. Though maybe she could just call, ask for advice—?
Ellen shook her head firmly at herself. Even if she kept Miry from helping, it’d take Uncle a day to know about it if Ellen told her, and…
Ellen remembered how he and Aunt Gloria fought not to take her in. How they sent her along the first time she went to them and only kept her the second time because the rest of the family firmly pressured them into it.
Ellen would hide Gabriela from them for as long as possible.
It wouldn’t be hard, with how little she saw them.
“We’ll deal on our own,” Ellen murmured.
Rafa’s phone number was crumpled in the back pocket of her jeans, forgotten. (Ellen couldn’t think about Rafa, about how she’d met her again after so long, how Rafa said when I finally found you again, when not if, like she had been searching—because she would break down in sobs, and that wasn’t useful for anybody.)
***
She had to skip class again to go see about the daycare, which was all right because during work Gabi had sat in the breakroom and doodled a lot and only created a small number of problems, so Ellen figured the universe was in balance.
“Hi,” she said, a bit breathless, at the front counter. Gabi was holding her hand and looking curiously around. “I want to enroll my kid for the daycare.”
“All right,” the woman said with a distinctive end-of-shift exhaustion about her.
Ellen picked Gabi up and sat her on top of the counter. “She’s four,” she added. “I checked the website and from what I saw you guys still have spots open for her age-group in this unit.” Which was on the other side of the campus from where she had her classes. But at least there were spots at all!
The woman confirmed that information and asked for Gabi and Ellen’s documents. She nodded to herself from time to time as she checked things like Gabi’s vaccine card and exact age and previous schooling. After a moment, she started to frown.
“You’re her…” she started.
“Cousin,” Ellen told her, then grimaced lightly. “Her parents died, her grandmother has custody but can’t take care of her, so I’m… here. But I have classes and work. Please tell me this is all right.”
The woman looked at Ellen, then at Gabi. She pursed her lips. She looked down at the documents in her hands. Ellen could see her rereading the names: Ellen Rose DeLuca and Gabriela Andrade Anderson. If only they had shared a surname, at least.
“All right,” the woman said. “You have her vaccine card, which is the most important thing. “You said you’re taking care of her for her grandmother?”
“Baba fell and she can’t walk,” Gabi told her, swinging her legs. “She said I go to Aunty because she’s old and she can’t walk.” She shrugged minutely. “Lots of Aunties.”
“Is Ellen your Aunty, then?” the woman asked, expression softening.
“Ellen is Ellen,” Gabi told her as if explaining to her a very simple concept.
“And Gabi is a baby,” Ellen said, charmed.
“I’m not a baby,” Gabi complained lowly, kicking her foot forward and connecting it solidly to Ellen’s kidney.
Ellen caught her foot and laughed. “I don’t know, I think you’re a baby.” She pulled Gabi to her arms and swung her up. She shrieked with joy. “Unless you’re a little bunny instead? Oh, is that it? Did I get it wrong, have you been a bunny all along?”
“I’m not a bunny!” Gabi shouted, kicking her legs wildly. “Again!”
“You’re doing this on purpose,” the woman at the counter muttered, but dutifully typed in their information and registered Gabi in their database. Then she confirmed what the fee was, and it was twice as expensive as what Ellen remembered.
Ellen sat Gabi down on the counter again.
“Can you repeat that?” she asked faintly.
The woman did, looking vaguely worried.
Ellen nodded, then nodded again. “All right,” she said, and nodded again. “Thank you. Can we… pause this and continue tomorrow? I need to… go home. And budget. Again. I need to budget again.”
The woman acquired three lines between her brows. “You already have a student discount but I can try to see if there’s anything else…”
There wasn’t. Ellen nodded again and repeated that she’d be back the next day. Then she powerwalked toward the bus stop, not even thinking about the classes she’d told herself she’d attend after skipping the first, because her mind was too busy wondering if she could survive without morning coffee, instant noodles for dinner, and only a sandwich. Or she could cut her internet? Libraries had internet, right? Thank God Uncle was still paying for her phone, since it was in the family plan.
She froze when she caught sight of Rafaela marching in her direction with a pissed-off expression on her face.
“Oh, you,” Gabi said.
“I’ve been texting you,” Rafa said loudly when she was still far away.
“Phone’s out of battery,” Ellen said meekly.
“I’ve been texting you but you didn’t see because your phone is out of battery so I had to resort to stalking around campus looking for you like a lunatic,” Rafaela said darkly.
“It’s been one day,” Ellen said reasonably.
“It’s been ten years,” Rafa countered, finally close enough to touch. She pulled Ellen harshly into a hug.
She was shorter than Ellen by half a head (a delightful detail Ellen hadn’t noticed the day before) so Ellen was bent very uncomfortably. She held herself very carefully and held onto Gabi so she’d have an excuse for not returning the hug. Because if she returned the hug, she was going to start sobbing, and Ellen, she thought firmly, was not in the business of doing that kind of thing.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Rafa asked, pulling away and crossing her arms.
“Daycare,” Gabi said easily.
“You were picking her up?” Rafa asked. “Why did you pick her up before class, though? Aren’t there daycare schedules for people who study at night?”
“Who are you?” Gabi asked directly into Ellen’s ear.
“This is Rafaela, a childhood friend. We met her yesterday,” Ellen told her. “I was going to enroll her, but the fee is too much for me,” she admitted. “I’ll… think of something.”
Rafa’s scowl reached thundercloud proportions. She looked from Ellen to Gabi back to Ellen.
“I’ll pay it for you.”
“Absolutely not,” Ellen said immediately.
“Yes,” Rafa countered firmly. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m offering as a favor for a beloved friend. It’d be rude as fuck to refuse me. I’ll be offended. I’ll cry. You’ll be doing me a favor by letting me do this.”
Ellen glared at her. Now Ellen would feel like shit whether she refused or accepted. She couldn’t just depend on Rafa! It’d been so long, they were basically strangers! Why would she even offer? (Beloved? a delighter part of her brain piped up. Ellen mercilessly squashed it down.)
“You can’t pay for it forever,” she argued.
“I can pay for now,” Rafa said, crossing her arms. “Please. As a huge favor for me.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” Ellen muttered crossly. But if Rafa wanted to be kind… maybe she could accept it this one time. Surely Rafa couldn’t resent her if she only accepted it once? “All right,” she said with a sigh.
Rafa’s face split into a victorious grin, just like when she sneakily backed Ellen against the pond then evilly pushed her right in.
Ellen, who had been successfully suppressing the fact that this was Rafaela, who was here, after ten years, her friend, who gave her the earrings—felt her heart break clean in two. Longing burst out like egg yolk, sunny-yellow and gross.
“Let’s go back right now and I’ll do it,” Rafa said.
“All right,” Ellen said softly. “You want to—want to come back to mine for dinner, as thanks?”
Rafa suddenly looked too flustered to keep arguing about how her twisted awful favor logic worked.
“All right,” she said, a blush rising to her dark cheeks.