Javier, who has been quiet, asks softly, “How does it make you feel to imagine a different life?”
I consider it for a moment and take a deep breath, one of the easiest I’ve taken in a long time. “Free.”
He kisses my forehead. “Good. You deserve it.”
Gael leads us to a cute mini-SUV. I whistle. “Where did you get this from?”
“Your friends,” he says, holding out his hands. “You’ll like what they did with Abuela’s house too.”
“Are they okay to see me?” I ask, thinking about my grandparents’ advanced age. “I know this is last minute…”
Javier shakes his head, holding up his hands. “They can’t wait to see you. They’re thrilled you’re here. Your grandmother made your favorite soup.”
“Posole?” I ask, pulling on Erik’s arm.
Javier grins. “Yes.”
“Oh my God! Erik, have you ever had posole before?”
“I’m not—”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say, talking over him. “My grandmother makes the best posole, and you’re going to love it!”
As discreetly as a six-and-a-half-foot man can do anything, he pulls me to the side. “This isn’t the one made with cow stomach, right?”
“No, that’s menudo. Same soup base, but posole usually has pork in it. Regular pork meat. You’ll love it, I promise.”
He makes a big deal of wiping off his forehead. “Don’t forget, I’m Norwegian, and not all your spices settle well with me.”
“This is flavorful spicy, not heat spicy, especially not the way she makes it. Promise.”
“Okay, I trust you.”
Gael hops into the driver’s seat and pats the passenger seat. “Sit here. You’re with your boyfriend all the time. He can sit in the back with Javier while you sit up here and tell me everything.”
Erik doesn’t protest being called my boyfriend and instead kisses my temple before joining Javier.
I grin as the two taller men fold themselves into the microscopic back seat, and Gael and I chat a mile a minute, catching up on everything during the short drive. They go quiet when I describe the way I froze up around New Orleans and what it felt like to be back on the island, but mostly they are just happy to see me.
As I look out the window at the scenery flying by, I’m surprised by how much the landscape affects me. I had forgotten how green and beautiful and left in peace this part of Guanajuato is. When we turn on the familiar side road that takes us to the little township where my grandparents built a family and a business, I smile when I see the same small shops are still open and that the neighbor with the big house painted it blue, even though I remember it being yellow.
When we roll into my grandparents’ neighborhood, I gasp.
“Everything is so new,” I say, pointing. “New paint, new buildings, and the church…it’s been renovated.”
Erik explains, “It started because the runway chews up my tires. Since I was going back and forth so frequently, Wimberley renovated the airfield. I then pointed out the town could use a little sprucing, and it would cost relatively very little. They approved it, and Gael helped manage the updates.”
I turned to my cousin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugs. “I thought it would be a nice surprise for whenever you came to visit.”
Looking into the rearview mirror, I send a smile to Erik, who has a proud little flush on his cheeks. Already this place is sweeping away the awful feeling I had on the island.
We turn onto my grandparents’ street, where there are more renovations. The houses I remember having crumbling brick have been shored up, and my abuelos’ house…
“They expanded it!”
I love the way it looks.
