The hex remained unbroken. For what seemed like the hundredth time, I’d fallen short of orgasm. For the first time, I didn’t care.
That isn’t strictly accurate. I actually cared quite a bit. But not in my normal, frustrated, why-the-fuck-can’t-I-get-there way. I was curious, intrigued. Even a little scared. Because although I hadn’t come, I’d felt more deeply touched and more completely spent than I ever had before.
I lay in bed and pondered. More than once during the prior day’s encounter with Javier, I’d tottered on the brink of a sensation I could barely identify, glimpsed a shattering light that went far beyond the orgasms I remembered. It had beckoned to me, promised me unspeakable bliss if only I would… Would what? Get over Tonio? Forgive myself for his death? Risk feeling something real for a man again?
All of the above, I suspected. And none were going to be easy. But when I thought about the expression in Javier’s eyes when he said he’d always wanted me—that odd mix of fiery desire and fear of rejection—my heart flipped over and a lump rose to my throat. Flashes of long-forgotten memory began to crystallize in my mind. A college-age Javier patiently aiming a blindfolded young niece back toward the piñata, proudly showing his first semester grades to his mother, gently helping a great-great-uncle down the stairs. He’d been a good man, even when he was young. As far as I could tell, he’d only improved with time. Putting the past behind me was going to hurt but I’d never met a man more worth the pain.
I bathed and dressed, lost in thought, then walked slowly down the steps to the sunroom.
“Mama, do you still have my high school yearbooks?”
She glanced at me over her coffee cup, one perfect eyebrow arched in surprise. “Of course I do, dear. You don’t think I’d throw out a thing like that?”
Actually, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had, though I didn’t want to say it out loud.
Apparently she knew me better than I’d ever realized. Hurt flared in her eyes and her lips tightened for a moment. “I see. Well, I didn’t. They’re in the library where they’ve always been.”
I started to speak, but she waved me away. I went, partly because I didn’t know what to say and partly because I didn’t want to get in a fight when we were doing so well. I had enough to take on without battling my mother too. My bare feet sank into the thick plush of the library carpet and I was reminded, as always, of my father. I could almost see him in his big leather chair, his glasses low on his nose and some giant tome resting open on his lap. But he was always glad to set his book aside and pull me onto his knee for a story instead, even in the midst of his most important cases. And he was always willing to let me sit on the floor while he worked. I spent a lot of childhood evenings playing dolls and reading Dr. Seuss while he labored over judicial summaries and writs of attainder. Often, Mama would bring us lemonade or hot chocolate and stay to read or knit in her own much more comfortable chair.
I let myself miss him for a moment, then went to the first bookshelf on the right, the one that had always been mine. My yearbooks were exactly where I’d left them—nestled between Hop on Pop and Where the Sidewalk Ends.
I was sitting on my usual spot on the carpet, the books spread out around me, when a knock at the doorframe startled me. I looked over my shoulder to see Mama juggling an oversized cup of coffee and a chocolate chip scone.
“I thought you might be hungry, “she said, stepping hesitantly into the room.
She glanced around her and I started to rise, knowing she’d avoided the library like the plague for the past twenty years. But she shook her head and walked quickly to me, handing over the cup and plate with a shaky smile. She looked down at the book in my lap, open to a remarkably awkward picture of my girlfriends and me at the sophomore dance.
“You were beautiful, you know. Bubbly and smart and alive. Confident. Open. Unafraid. I always marveled at how you managed to grow up so put together when I spent so much of your childhood falling apart.” I looked at her in shock but she only nodded her head. “Oh yes, I did. I didn’t know how to cope without your father. I did the best I could, but…”
Her eyes begged me to understand, and suddenly I did. Mama’d been passionately, devotedly in love with Daddy. She courted him all through high school, married him, made a child and a home and a life. And then he was snatched away, as senselessly and violently as my Tonio a few years later. What would it have been like to try to raise a child after that? To get up every morning and pour orange juice as though your heart wasn’t breaking, to walk into PTA meetings amid pitying glances? All these years, I’d been too preoccupied with my own heartbreak to understand or acknowledge hers. Tears pricked at my eyelids and guilt tore at my heart.
“You did fine, Mama. You did perfect.”
She laughed, a warm, genuine sound I remembered from before Daddy died. “Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but you turned out all right. For the most part.” She cleared her throat and looked around the room again. “This really is a lovely space. I forget sometimes.”
I watched memories flit across her face. “You could go get your coffee and keep me company for a while,” I offered hopefully, surprised at how much I wanted her to agree.
She smiled down at me once more, brushing my hair from my forehead like she used to. “So I could.” She strode from the room, returning with her knitting bag and a cup. A moment’s hesitation, then she settled into her old place, took a sip of coffee and pulled out a half-finished baby blanket.
“Still making them for the children’s home on Route Nine?” I asked.
“Mm-hmm.”
The click of her needles was homey and soothing and somehow I felt more able to tackle the difficult task before me. I sneaked a quick peek at Javier’s picture, just one class ahead of mine, then closed the covers on sophomore year. I took a fortifying bite of scone and reached for the next book in the series. This would be where it got tough.
I’d met Tonio the first day of junior year. I forced myself to turn to his formal picture, somehow surprised that he looked so young. I held my breath, waiting for the pain, but it didn’t come. I touched the photo, wondering if the tenuous connection would change things. I felt nothing but affection. It flowed through me as I flipped pages slowly, pausing to study images of us in drama club, at a pep rally, at the junior prom. I remembered how I’d felt when I was with him—as though I could do anything. And how I felt around his family—warm and included.
I realized with a shock that the intense rush of love I’d once felt when I thought of him hadn’t come. I’d always be fond of the boy in the picture, but he could never stir passion in my soul like his cousin. Partly because he’d be forever seventeen. But was there more to it than that? After all, we’d only been together a year and a half and were kids to boot. What would have happened if he’d gotten to finish school, go off to college? Would the puppy love have faded over time? Would he have grown up to be the kind of man who could hold my heart? Would he even have wanted to try?
Thanks to me, he didn’t get the chance to find out. The thought hit me at the same moment my eyes landed on the page I’d been dreading. The varsity team photo. Tonio, the star quarterback despite his underclassman status, grinned out at me with dark eyes full of hope. Above and to the right, pale-crystal-blue eyes glinted in hard faces, nearly identical from the surliness of their expressions to the mass of their frames to the tight clip of their buzz cuts. Mike and Matt Henry. Twin gods playing defense on the football field. Twin devils wielding baseball bats in a dark alley.
The pain came at last, bringing a hefty dose of guilt along for the ride. I wasn’t conscious of gasping, but I must have made some sound because Mama was on her knees beside me in a flash, pulling me to her, heedless of the carpet fuzz sticking to her cream pants and the black mascara I cried into her pink silk blouse. I don’t know how long I sobbed into her shoulder, or when she started crying with me, or which tears were for Tonio and which were for Daddy. I just knew she loved me and that we’d both been broken for a very long time.
When we both ran out of tears, she shifted to sit next to me and took a deep, shuddering breath. “There’s something I need to tell you. About those boys. I didn’t want to but I think you have to know.”
“Oh God! They made parole, didn’t they?”
“No! Those bastards are locked up tight and I will damned well make sure they stay there.”
The fury in her face frightened me and I’d never heard her curse before. “Mama!”
“Their father killed your daddy.”
“What?”
“Oh, yes. They didn’t get their hate from anywhere strange. Their father shot your father because he had the guts to rule against a white supremacy group. The son of a bitch died in jail, but not before he passed his twisted mindset down to his sons.”
Chills crept up my spine until the tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood at full attention. “So it wasn’t only that I was white and he was Mexican. They hated me because of Daddy, too. Oh God. It really was all because of me.” I struggled to stand, overwhelmed by the horror of this new knowledge, but she pulled me back down, forcing me to face her.
“It was not your fault!”
“How can you say that?”
“My John and your Tonio died because of ignorance and hate. They knew what they were doing, knew the risks and did it anyway. They weren’t the kind of men who’d let fear dictate their actions.”
“Tonio knew?”
“Everyone knew. I can’t imagine how you never found out.”
“Abuela?”
“Of course.”
“But she never tried to stop it.”
“She knew her grandson. Tonio loved you. No one was going to tell him he couldn’t, Rosa included. Besides, she saw how happy you made each other. She believed it was worth the risk, even…after. And her faith was always so much stronger than mine.”
Light dawned. “That’s why you didn’t want me to date him. I always thought it was because he was Mexican.”
She swallowed hard. “I know. Letting you think that was easier than telling you the truth. But I was so afraid. For both of you.” She tipped my chin and looked straight into my eyes. “Tonio was a fine boy. He was smart and handsome and kind. He went where his heart led him and he lived his short life with incredible enthusiasm. He did not deserve to die young, and certainly not that way. But it was not your fault and you didn’t die. Every day you refuse to live is an insult to his memory.”
“Mama!”
“I’m serious, Julia Jane. And it’s true of me too. Your daddy would not approve of the way I’ve spent the last twenty years. It’s about damned time we both stopped letting a family of vicious, hate-mongering trash rule our lives.”
Her words made sense but the guilt wasn’t so easy to shake off. My head pounded and my heart ached and my lungs burned from too many tears. “I hear you, Mama. But it might take me a little while to cope.”
She kissed my hair gently. “I know. And I’m sorry to spring this on you, but you seemed ready to make peace with the past and I figured you’d better deal with all of it at once.”
“You were right. Do you have any headache pills?”
“Of course. And something better I’ve been saving for the right moment.”
I shot her a questioning glance, but she just patted my hand and stood.
“Go wash your face and meet me in the kitchen.”
I obeyed like a good girl and a few minutes later I swallowed the two tiny tablets, washing them down with the water she’d poured. When I set down the glass, she pulled a small gold box from behind her back and slid it across the counter to me.
“Godiva?” That was a surprise and definitely better than pain pills. “What did you do, make a pilgrimage to Macon?”
“As soon as you said you were coming.” She sounded pleased with my reaction and I pulled off the lid expectantly.
“Coconut pyramids? My favorite!”
“Well of course, dear. I wasn’t going to drive all the way there for second best.”
I popped one in my mouth and crunched in bliss. Good chocolate might not make heartache disappear, but it sure makes it easier to bear. So does fresh air.
I set the counter on the box and gave her a hug. “I think I’ll go for a walk if that’s okay.”
“Of course it is. But take an umbrella. It looks like rain.”
“I love you, Mama.”
“I love you too, dear.”
At the kitchen door I turned, something she’d mentioned earlier ringing in my head. “Hey, when you said you meant to make sure the bastards stayed in jail, what did you mean?”
“It means I’ve been to every one of their parole hearings. Rosa and I used to go together. Now Javier goes in her place.”
“That’s why he calls you by your first name.”
“Common enemies have a way of bringing people together.” She shrugged, then eyed me intently. “He’s a good man, J.J. And he’s very much alive.”