She chewed slowly. It looked like it took effort.
“You know,” she said between bites, “they have me doing stretches now. Some woman with a ponytail comes in, makes me sit up straighter. Says it’s to help with circulation.”
“That’s good,” I said. “Ponytail woman sounds pushy.”
“She is.” My mom laughed, and it made me ache. “But nice.”
That word—nice—landed in my chest like a bruise. Because she said it with warmth, no bitterness. And here I was, her daughter, sitting across from her with my heart stuck in my throat and nothing to show for it but guilt and a plastic fork.
I shifted in the chair. “Do they still bring you the yellow blanket? The one from home?”
“They wash it every other day and bring it to me warm.” She nodded. “Your sister makes them.”
That sounded like Isa.
I stared at my hands. At the tiny crease in my skirt where my knee was bent. At anything that wasn’t her. Because the thing no one told you about showing up late was that when you finally did, everyone had already softened around your absence. They’d adapted. Moved on. Learned to be okay without you. And you just had to sit there smiling, pretending the time you lost wasn’t echoing off every word.
This wasn’t how I wanted to feel. I wanted to make up for the time I’d missed, even if it was impossible.
So I stayed an hour.
Then two.
I told her more about Lucia’s obsession with ducks, and about the new nurse with the tattoo she disapproved of, and Marco.
Well. Sort of.
I told her I was staying with someone, and I said it fast, like if I said it quickly enough she wouldn’t be able to ask questions or make a face or dothe thingshe always did when she knew I was hiding something—which was, you know, like, 90 percent of the time.
Mama didn’t say anything right away. She just looked at me with the same suspicious squint she used to give me in high school when I’d come home “from the library” smelling like tequila and someone else’s cologne. Like she already knew and was just letting me embarrass myself first.
“Un amigo?” she asked, voice all innocent, which wasbullshit, because my mother hadneverbeen innocent a day in her life.
“Kind of,” I said, which wasn’t an answer, and we both knew it.
She took another bite of mango and chewed slowly, watching me like I was a telenovela she already knew the ending to but kept watching anyway.
I stared at the floor. At the corner of her blanket. At the peeling label on the water bottle in my hand.
“It’s not like that,” I said. “It’s not ...serious. It’s ... complicated.”
“Complicated,” she repeated.
I nodded. “Very complicated.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is he handsome at least?”
I groaned. “Oh my God, Mama?—”
“I’m dying—I get to ask.”
“You said you’re better!”
“Dyingslowerthen,” she corrected, waving her hand like I was being dramatic. “So? Is he?”
I hesitated. I smiled. “He’s very handsome.”
“Tell me more.”
