“But she didn’t leave you,hah?” Tita Gloria says quietly. “She came back right away.”
“Yeah, but?—”
“And you’re telling me you’re going to stay miserable and be a hermit for the rest of your life, shutting yourself and your daughter away on an isolated island, all because Lina madeone mistake?”
Mistake, mistake.
“How unfair those expectations are, Domy. Reminds me of your parents,” she sniffs.
I freeze.
“Always expecting perfection. No room for error.”
With that, Tita Gloria reads me and pokes the last hole in the thin fabric of my excuses, rendering the entire thing useless.
Because putting it like that, fuck. How many times have I reminded myself to not be the same way with Frankie? And now, instead, I’m doing it towards my partners, really the only partner I’ve had in years?
“And doesn’t all her good outweigh the one thing she’s done wrong? And wouldn’t it, regardless of how many mistakes she makes? Because no one is perfect Dom. But she seems to be perfectly flawed.”
I put my head in my hands. “I’m tired of fighting.”
“Fighting what?”
“I don’t know. This, it, that. Myself. Her. Everything.”
“Loveisa fight, Dom. Love is worth the fight.”
But Frankie?Frankie, Frankie, Frankie. But Lina, with Frankie. Her support of my daughter in productive and positive ways, her bold, brilliant brightness. Her ‘good.’ Taking care of everyone around her, putting herself last. Teaching Frankie how to be strong, how to be kind, how to be brave. Making sure we all get out and have fun, pushing us out of our comfort zones. Is it too late? I think about the bits and pieces of longing, of apology she’s sent my way over the past few weeks.
“It’s not wrong to want happiness for yourself, Dom. You’re a good father already.”
Take for yourself.
I let out a slow, measured breath. “You give Yoda a run for his money.”
She waves her hand, dismissing me. “Who needs a Yoda when you have a Lola?” She stands up, reading my mind. “Let’s go get Frankie.”
We move downstairs, where Frankie is already elbow-deep in a large mixing bowl of raw pork.
“Frankie, do you know what Lina’s doing for Thanksgiving?” I ask her.
“Depends,” she says shrewdly. “Are you gonna go say you’re sorry?”
I wonder in this moment if there’s some sort of Flores-women-specific gene that prevents them from taking any sort of shit from men.
“Yeah, actually. I am.”
“Great,” she says, clapping her hands together like Tita Gloria, bits of pork flying around the kitchen. “I’m coming.”
“Where are we going?”
“Lina’s staying home with her mom. She’s being kind to herself and relaxing and not cooking. They’re ordering Chinese food.” Frankie shivers in disgust at this last part, unable to fathom a holiday withoutlumpiamade from scratch. She hops down from her chair and begins washing her hands with the diligence of a surgeon, and I am pretty proud of her. She eyes me afterwards. “You look bad. You need a better apology outfit.”
I look down at what is absolutely not my depression outfit—t-shirt and sweatpants, both originally black but now a faded gray and riddled with holes. The elastic is long gone from the sweatpants. My big toe is fully sticking out of a hole in my sock. “I’ll go change.”
“And maybe shower,” she throws in.
“And shave,” Tita Gloria adds.
