Chapter Twenty-Six

“DO YOU MISS being a nurse, Olivia?” Ellie’s father collected the dinner plates. Thick fingers, scarred from a lifetime of welding, handled each dish with a deceptive grace, nestling them on top of one another.

“I miss the patients, but not the hours. What I do now is easier on my schedule, which helps with Ben.” It had been decades since Olivia’s last meet-the-family dance, and it was all the stranger as a parent herself. The night seemed to be going well, although the mood was subdued with Abuela’s absence still keen.

“Isabella says you climb rocks?” Alberto had been a gem throughout, asking questions at the right moment and filling the silences with funny stories about his sister.

“I climb in a gym. They line the walls with holds shaped like rocks. It’s great exercise.”

“You should see it,” Ellie added. “At the top, she’s six stories up.”

“You pay to climb fake rocks? Why not the real thing?” Juan had spent most of dinner in sullen silence, which, according to Ellie, was the best-case scenario where her oldest brother was concerned.

“I would, but Chicago’s pretty flat, and it’s hard to get away with Ben’s schedule.”

“Americans are ridiculous with their exercise. Who needs it if you do real work?”

“Juan, help me with the café,” Ellie’s mother said. He dismissed her with a curt wave.

“What do you do?” Olivia forced a bland smile.

“I manage a bodega.” His broad face mirrored Ellie’s, but without her sparkling warmth. It was eerie, this cold, bitter reflection of a woman she adored.

“Which one? There’s a few I hit on my way home from the hospital.”

“Nowhere a pretty white woman would shop.” He sneered. “Solamente la gente.”

“Juan.” Ellie’s sharp voice cut through the awkward silence.

He was picking around the edges, looking for a fight. Olivia slapped on a thin smile, determined to let his insults shoot past her.

“Tu hijo, he goes to Ellie’s work for help?”

Olivia’s pulse whooshed in her ears. Juan could dig at her all night, but he didn’t want to get any closer to Ben.

“He’s one of these, yes?” He flapped in a grim parody of an autistic kid, and a cold rage poured through her.

“Juan!” Ellie shouted.

Indignant Spanish drummed across the table.

“¿Qué?” he shouted at Ellie, then whipped to Olivia. “Did she tell you if she had a son like yours, she would kill herself?” He sat back, smug, splaying his hands across the table. “Saint Isabella, helping the poor fucking retards.”

Thud! The steak knife bristled in the wood an inch from Juan’s hand, Olivia’s fingers wrapped around the handle.

“Fuck!” He recoiled. “You could have stabbed me!”

She lashed him with a flat, icy tone. “If you ever refer to my son in ANY fashion, if his name even begins to cross your lips, this knife will be the least of your problems. Do you understand?” Pinning him with a glare, she released the knife. It vibrated as she pushed away from the table, the scrape of her chair shredding the silence.

She stalked through the front door, then sank to the porch step. Rage boiled up from her gut, hot and sour on her tongue. Rage at Juan and rage at herself. She hadn’t lost control like that in years, but Juan’s cruel dismissal of Ben… Her only thought had been to rip the belligerent satisfaction off his face. Her fists clenched and unclenched as his last words ricocheted around her brain.

Spanish exploded from the front door as it opened. She fixed her gaze on the street, not ready to meet Ellie’s eyes. The door closed with a click, muffling the tumult of voices.

“Olivia, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Juan can be…but even for him it was…”

The anguish in Ellie’s voice cracked her. Anger drained away, exposing a raw insecurity that had flared at Juan’s cruel words. She patted the space next to her. Ellie’s feet scraped on the porch, then a loose floorboard creaked as she settled by Olivia’s hip.

“I don’t care about your asshole brother, but what he said about you and kids…”

Now, Ellie was the one to stare across the street, the flush on her neck betraying her. Juan’s words had hit home.

“I wouldn’t blame you, being an OT, if you didn’t want this in your personal life. But Ben, he’s—” Olivia’s heart thudded dully. She had avoided this conversation for too long.

“I would never have asked you out if I wasn’t comfortable with Ben.” Ellie laced their fingers together and squeezed hard. “Never.”

“But something about what Juan said bothered you.”

Ellie pressed her lips to the back of Olivia’s hand and sighed through her nose, her breath a warm gush. “My first job was in a residential setting, which was always my goal. I’d been there a year when Jill and I broke up. I buried myself in work. We were always short-staffed, so I’d take extra shifts, do whatever they asked. I told myself it was because I was the newest therapist. I needed to show my dedication.

“I realize now I wanted to prove I’d made the right decision with Jill. If I could make a difference, it’d be worth it, you know?” Her shoulders heaved with a rough sigh. “One day, I took four kids to the play yard, as part of their OT. They liked a chance to be outside. But on our way back in, one boy slammed his head against the wall. It was intentional. He just whipped his head sideways and…” A shudder ran through her. “Jesus, there was so much blood…”

“Head wounds can be—”

Ellie dismissed her consolation. “He needed stitches. We sent him to the ER. The whole time we waited for the ambulance, I kept replaying it, searching for the sign I had missed. It was my job to help him, my job to keep him safe. As they drove away, I thought, ‘I failed him.’

“I came to my parents’ house after work a complete mess. I don’t even remember Juan being there. I broke down, talking about how I couldn’t take it anymore. I said something like the job was making me not want to have kids because if I failed my own child like I failed that boy…it would kill me.”

Olivia released Ellie’s hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. There was resistance, and then Ellie leaned into the contact.

“I gave my notice the next day. I still feel guilty I didn’t stay, but I was so burned out. Which is no excuse for thinking such horrible things.”

“All parents think horrible things.” She and Sophia had breathed those dark, sticky thoughts to each other in bed, hoping confession could soothe the shame at their existence. “And all parents torture themselves with ‘What if I’ and ‘Why didn’t I’. The good news is there are always positive thoughts waiting to drown all of it out.” She kissed Ellie’s temple. “I wish you had told me sooner. I hate the idea of this causing you stress.”

“I was afraid you’d have too many doubts. About me. About me and Ben. I mean, how do you tell a parent of an autistic child you cracked in your first job with autistic children?”

“You didn’t crack.”

“I did. I was completely overwhelmed at the end.”

“It was your first job, and in a really demanding setting. Patient care is tough, full stop. And if they have communication challenges as well… People who haven’t done it can’t really understand. Have you experienced a similar level of crisis since?”

“No, not even close. Honestly, after the shock, the hardest part was accepting I wouldn’t be doing the work I originally planned, that I didn’t want to do that work.” Ellie tipped her head until it rested against Olivia’s. “I’m sorry. I should have told you earlier, when I talked about Jill.”

“We all have stories that are hard to share.” A thread of guilt spun into the recesses of her mind. She wasn’t ready to follow where it led. “Since we’re here, can I ask…” Olivia wrestled with the question that had always hovered over their relationship. Either answer would bring its own struggle. “Do you want to be a parent? At all? Because I know Ben has always been part of the deal but—”

“Ben is wonderful. Challenging at times, but wonderful. I haven’t brought him up before because…how do you even start the conversation? Ben is your son, and Sophia’s, but yes, I’m willing to be more to him, eventually. If you and he will let me.”

The bravery in Ellie’s words, and the acceptance beneath them, untangled the dread knotting Olivia’s chest. “You amaze me.” There were other fears—shadowed, shapeless—but she forced them aside and kissed Ellie tenderly, putting all her gratitude into it.

In the distance a door slammed. The sound broke them apart.

Ellie rolled her eyes. “There goes Juan storming out the back door, per usual.”

“Is it this dramatic with every girlfriend you bring home?”

“Jill never got the full brunt because Mamá didn’t take my relationships as seriously then. I brought Angie once, and she never returned.” Ellie nudged her with an elbow. “Your move with the knife was much cooler. Now Abuela won’t be the only one with a knife story.”

“I didn’t even know what I’d done until the knife was in the table. I’m so embarrassed.”

“The one who should be embarrassed is my son.” Ellie’s mother appeared behind them like an apparition.

“Jesus, Mamá!” Ellie said. “Make a sound, something.”

Somber creases painted Rosa’s thin features. “I need to speak to Olivia.”

Ellie’s eyes slid to hers, and Olivia nodded. “Good luck.” Ellie brushed a quick peck against her cheek and scrambled inside.

“Luck? Why does she need luck?” Rosa scolded her daughter’s retreating form. “What am I going to do? Nothing.” The door clicked shut, and they were alone. “Sit with me on the swing, please. My old bones cannot get down that far.” She patted the bench, and Olivia joined her.

“Rosa, I’m sorry about your table. I can have it refinished—”

“Our table has seen much worse. My son’s behavior, for one thing. I am the one to apologize. I am his mother. I told him tonight he is not welcome in my house until he can keep a tongue in his head.”

“I don’t want to come between—”

“No more excuses.” Rosa chopped the air with her hand, a gesture Olivia had seen from Ellie dozens of times. “I have forgiven him too much over the years. He is not the same since we left Mexico. He was a teenager and happy there. You have one child, yes, and you make decisions that are best for him alone. When you have five, a decision may be good for many, but not all.” She made the sign of the cross. “It’s not true, what he said about Isabella and your son. He twisted her words.”

“Ellie told me. We’re okay.”

“Isabella, she has gone through life…” Rosa held her palms up. “Light, empty. No, not empty—”

“Unencumbered?”

Rosa shook her head at the unfamiliar word.

“She’s not burdened.”

“Yes! She is always an open, happy girl. She loves easily and very much, but she has never carried many things at once. You carry many things. You have carried heavy things for a long time.” Rosa’s stare bored into her. “Now Isabella carries her love for you and your son. Love is a weight. A beautiful weight, but a weight just the same.”

Olivia creaked a stiff nod. Rosa’s eyes, and her words, froze her in place.

“Loving you comes with an extra weight. Isabella doesn’t see it, but I do. I fear she may be crushed by it.”

Dread tightened a band around Olivia’s chest. “I have no intention of hurting her.”

“You cannot promise her a life without pain. You of all people know this. You carry your own weight, and that of your son, but you also carry the weight of your wife. I ask, as Isabella’s mother, that if you find yourself drowning one day under the weight of all you carry, do not drag my daughter with you. Please, if you love her, release her before you both are lost.”

“Mamá!” Ellie threw open the front door. “What the hell is wrong with you? First, she gets attacked by Juan, and now this?”

“You do not protect yourself. You are too much of the heart—”

“Stop! Please go inside.”

Rosa threw up her hands, as though she had done all she could, and it was up to God now. The screen door bounced behind her.

Ellie dropped into the swing with a rueful grin. “You’re getting every intense family element in one night.” When their eyes met, the smile dropped. “Jesus, what did she say?”

“She looked right through me, talking about Sophia.”

“Hey, she does this to everyone.” Ellie cupped her cheeks, the gentle touch breaking the spell. “None of us take it seriously, so I forget how freaky it can be. Ask Manuel. His wife didn’t come back for weeks!”

“What?” With Rosa gone, the night air lost its thick, choking quality.

“It was all the same. ‘Don’t drag him into darkness. Promise me you’ll release him so he may live a happy life!’” Ellie’s impersonation spun humor through Olivia’s bleak fears. “I figured she’d leave you alone because of Sophia. Jesus, I could strangle her.”

Olivia stopped her with a kiss. That yielding, tender pressure blunted the sharp edges of her mind, and she deepened it until swallowed breaths and slick tongues dissolved every creeping thought.

When it ended, Ellie touched her forehead to Olivia’s. “What was that for?”

“I had to banish the last of the heebie-jeebies.”

“She really did get to you. I’m sorry.”

Alberto poked his head around the door. “I’m guessing Mamá did the bruja trick?”

“How did you know?” Olivia asked, trying to sound game.

“She had the face.” His brown eyes lingered on her. “Come inside and let Manuel tell you his story. We’ll push the ghosts away.”

“Can you take a bit more?” Ellie asked. “Mamá makes the best tres leches cake.”

“Besides, we can’t stop talking about how rudo you were with the knife! Que chévere!”

Olivia glanced at Ellie as the Spanish stretched past her abilities.

“They think you’re a badass.”

A voice drifted through the doorway. She couldn’t tell if it was Manuel or Hector. “It’s going to be leyenda in the village. Legend!”

Embarrassment pricked at Olivia again, but the siblings’ buoyant humor tempered it. She allowed a small grin to escape when Ellie slipped a hand into hers and led her back inside the house.