“Vales más que muchos gorriones.”
Dressed in a polo and jeans, hair damp from a shower, Cal returned to his house early one morning and set his keys on the counter, taking a seat at the small table near a window.
Even though Rosa stood several feet away by the stove, Cal could feel her gaze on him, on his dim appearance, his lackluster energy, on the sorrow he carried in his eyes that had become a permanent reminder of the choice he’d made several months ago.
Ignoring her concern, he put his glasses on and picked up the newspaper, refusing to look at the woman who’d known him since he was a small child, raised him as her own, loved him, supported him — the woman who would go to the ends of the earth to care for him.
He would not look at her.
Doing so meant he would have to acknowledge the hell he’d been existing in. Yet avoiding her much longer simply would not do.
Mumbling a few words in her native tongue, she proceeded to squeeze juice from several oranges, the buzz of the machine a welcome distraction from his thoughts.
“Where have you been?” Rosa asked as she set the full glass of OJ on the table a couple minutes later. Cal snapped the paper open. “You were working early today?”
“No.”
Rosa placed a finger on the top of the page and slowly pushed it down. “You’re neglecting your run, constantly now.” Their eyes met. One of her shoes tapped the floor. “For a woman?”
Cal raised the newspaper, covering his face as Rosa took a seat next to him.
“You have forgotten what it is to run?”
“I run,” he finally said, shifting his eyes between Rosa and the ink. But he lied. His mind had been too exhausted to engage in any other form of exercise, his libido spent.
“When? I have not seen you.”
“You are not always here.”
“Because you chase me away. I’ve told you I want to help you.”
“I don’t need help.” Cal glanced back at the paper, holding it between them, but he could still feel those onyx eyes burning every part of him.
“This woman”—Rosa cleared her throat—“isn’t enough to even come here”—she gingerly tapped the pages, and Cal lowered them—“to your home? Why have I not met her?”
After placing the paper aside, he pinched the back of his neck. His heart started to pound. His head felt light. “Rosa…”
“You look ill. You look not well.” She grabbed his chin. “You should see this face in the mirror.”
“I stopped looking in the mirror the day I met her.” Cal swallowed, met Rosa’s gaze. And in the deep, dark onyx of her eyes, he saw love — the kind of love he mistakenly thought he could always outrun.
Rosa patted his wrist, stood, and stepped behind him. “Vales más que muchos gorriones,” she recited in a beautiful whisper, her hands resting on Cal’s shoulders.
Then came the sound, the noise he knew all too well — her tongue clucking against the roof of her mouth.
“You must find someone else.” Rosa massaged his tense muscles.
“I don’t want anyone else.”
“And you want her? Esta mujer que pertenece a otro? This coming and going? This sneaking?”
“No.” He stiffened. “I don’t want anyone.”
Keeping one hand on him and the other on the chair, Rosa leaned down and looked at the side of Cal’s face. “You are a shadow of yourself. I don’t even recognize—”
“Rosa,” he barked, banging a fist against the table, causing the juice in the glass to slosh up the sides.
“Then you must move,” she said without wavering. “We must move.”
“What?”
“You must move, mi querido,” she repeated. “Your friend has been asking you for a while, yes?”
“LA is my home.”
“This is no home. A home is where there is love.”
“I can’t leave Constance.”
“Michelle is with your mother. They will be here, and you will visit. But if you stay, mi amor, you will lose much more. Your soul is lost.”
Cal peered at the table, the paper, the juice, but he couldn’t see a damn thing. He removed his glasses and pinched his thumb and first finger into the corners of his eyes.
“You’re dying faster than Constance now.” Rosa made circles over his back with her palm. “If you keep up this ... this tragedy.”
“I don’t want to continue this conversation.”
“Oh, Calvin...” She sighed. “I know you. I can say these things to you. You’re sick over this. You must—”
“I know what I must do.”
“Then why? What are you waiting for?”
Cal didn’t even know anymore. Maybe that was his quandary; he’d been waiting years for something that would never come.
He opened his mouth to speak, but at first, no words formed.
“How long have you known?” Cal finally asked, feeling like that little boy who’d been caught running barefoot in the rain through the tangerine fields.
“Too long, mi hijo.” Rosa squeezed one of his shoulders. “Too long.”