“Oliver, you cannot let this become like the ballistics tests. You can only take Felipe to the botanical gardens so many times before he becomes suspicious or you completely lose your nerve.”
“I know, I know, but it wasn’t me this time.”
Sighing, Oliver slumped onto the nearest stool and resisted the urge to run his hand through his pomaded hair. Instead, he cupped his face with his damp hands and stared at the dingy tile floor. It wasn’t his fault this time, not really, though he couldn’t help but blame himself for bringing the letter to Felipe’s attention. If he had just set the mail aside instead of being nosey, things wouldn’t have derailed. As he struggled to reign in his brain, Gwen rolled the other stool over and perched beside him. She asked if she could touch him before gingerly running a hand along his shoulders. For a long moment, they sat in companionable silence until the percolator began to chortle and Oliver finally managed to work the words free.
“When Felipe first came home, everything was fine, but then, I noticed there was a letter for him. It turned out that it was from his parents, and he got…,” Oliver searched for a word that wouldn’t make Felipe sound worse than he intended, “out of sorts about it. And then, I got upset because he was upset. Once we calmed down a bit, we went out as planned, but things still felt off. I think Felipe enjoyed the botanical gardens, I really do, but there were times when it felt like he wasn’t truly there, like he was in his head miles away. Dinner at Antonino’s was good too, and it did help Felipe’s mood somewhat. But—”
Oliver released a tired breath and sat up. He kept waiting for the right moment that never came. The entire night he couldn’t shake the feeling that Felipe was going through the motions of their outing forhim. “Then, when we got back to the apartment, I just couldn’t bring myself to propose. Felipe made that trip to Coney Island so good for me, and I want to do that for him. I would rather wait and try again when he’s in a better mood. That way, at least, he’ll remember it as a good day, and not the day I tried to salvage by proposing to him.”
“That’s fair. I don’t blame you for wanting to wait for when he’s in a better mood.” Giving Oliver’s shoulder a final squeeze, Gwen frowned thoughtfully. “What was in the letter?”
“I have no idea. I don’t think he ever opened it. Has he ever told you anything about his parents or family?”
“No, though he doesn’t really talk to me when you aren’t around unless it’s about you.” When Oliver’s lips broke into a smile, Gwen gave his arm a playful whack. “And the next time you postpone a proposal, you had better send a note to warn me! I saw Felipe in the hallway this morning and nearly congratulated him. Luckily, he was preoccupied and walked the other way.”
“I will, though hopefully there won’t be another postponement. Yesterday was just a stroke of bad luck.”
Or that’s what he told himself. Climbing to his feet, Oliver cranked open the nearest window just enough to let out the smell of organs and offal before Felipe came down for lunch. A rush of crisp, autumnal air zipped inside, sending a shiver down Oliver’s spine. He loved this time of year, even if it set some of the more superstitious members of the society on edge. Soon, the Paranormal Society would host its annual All Hallow’s Eve party, which Oliver would usually only attend for an hour or so before sneaking off to the basement, but maybe this year, he would want to stay longer if he had someone to dance with. As Oliver took the remaining cream from the empty mortuary cabinet, he pictured arriving arm-in-arm with Felipe in front of the whole society. People would see their closeness and the new rings on their fingers and understand in a way those outside never could. Oliverwouldtry again; the previous night had been a small setback and nothing more.
“Do you think Felipe knew you were going to propose last night?” Gwen asked, pouring them each a cup of coffee.
“No, I don’t think so. For once, I think I did a good job of hiding my intentions.”
***
Oliver had intended to propose the previous night, and Felipe had ruined it. Of that, he was certain. Letting himself into their apartment, Felipe tossed his keys into the bowl by the door and collapsed into his favorite armchair. Oliver and Gwen would be expecting him in the lab soon, but he needed a few minutes alone before he could face them. The moment he saw Oliver in his new suit and felt the uncertainty mixed with spangles of excitement coming across the tether, he should have known that was what he had been planning. Guilt welled up in Felipe’s chest even though Oliver hadn’t been cross with him at breakfast or said anything about the previous night. Perhaps that was what made it worse, that Oliver was so willing to let it go quietly. It was only a letter. Felipe should have been able to maintain his composure, yet when he saw it in Oliver’s hand, his mind rebelled so hard and fast that he could scarcely think. Those two worlds were never meant to touch.
Pulling the now crumpled letter from his pocket, Felipe stared at his mother’s familiar handwriting. Every time he received a letter from her, he found himself caught between the desire to toss it into the fireplace and the urge to dutifully read every word and respond to it in the way his family expected. When he first left California with Louisa and set out to work for the Paranormal Society, he had clung to those letters. They were a reminder that, even though he betrayed his family’s trust, his mother still loved him and would keep the door open should he change his mind and return. Now, they were a mocking reminder of a life he didn’t want—that heneverwanted.
Felipe drew in a long, steeling breath. He told himself he wouldread the letter and clear the air—and his conscience—before having lunch with Oliver and Gwen, and that was what he was going to do. Cracking the seal, Felipe stared at the folded, script-covered paper for half a second before launching from his seat. His hands instinctually closed around the decanter of sherry. Pouring a full glass, he drank a mouthful and was about to down the rest when he caught himself. Felipe shut his eyes, ignoring the tremble of his hand as he forced himself to set the heavy glass down on the sideboard. Death had taken his ability to drink half a bottle of liquor in one go and bounce back, but in the months he and Oliver had been together, he found he reached for the decanter less and less. He didn’t know if it was because he was no longer taking stressful cross-country cases that almost always ended in an excess of violence or if it was due to Oliver’s constant, quiet support or both. But healthy doses of sherry and rum were the only way he knew how to get through his mother’s letters. Liquor took the sting out of the half-hidden barbs and loosened his pen to let the lies flow freely in his replies. Everything hurt less when he couldn’t feel it.
He wouldn’t get plastered before lunch, but one fortifying drink wouldn’t hurt. Settling into the chair, Felipe took a small sip and picked up the pages. He skimmed the beginning where his mother responded to his fictionalized life updates for anything he needed to reply to. The majority of the letter was about the rest of the family: who got married, who had more children, who got into trouble, who died, but after twenty years, Felipe could scarcely put faces to the names she mentioned. In his absence, the Galvan legacy had passed from his grandfather to his uncle and then to his cousin, for better or worse. He hoped, for all their sakes, that Alfonso wasn’t the same man he had been at twenty-one. On nights when his thoughts drifted back to California, Felipe wondered if he was still frozen at nineteen in their minds. A young man who never grew up, only left.
Years ago, he had attempted to piece together a family tree from the letters and photographs his mother sent to make sense of the people he would never meet, but after weeks of trying, he gave up. Listsof names would never make them real or help him gain back what he lost when he left. The little voice the sherry silenced whispered that he didn’t really want to know them. There was a reason he had left that world behind, and trying to hold tightly to people who would never truly know or love him was a pointless endeavor. Felipe’s eyes glazed over at the bits about Alfonso; he didn’t want to know any more about his cousin than he had to. At the very end, his mother finally wrote about his father. He was doing well and helping to train the young men, though his knee and hip acted up more and more in the winter and rainy season. Felipe quickly reread the entire letter a second time, but once again, there was nothing about his mother despite that he had pointedly asked about her health last time he wrote.
Felipe ran a tired hand over his face and swallowed another mouthful of sherry. Her letters were becoming more infrequent. He didn’t know if that was due to her being busy dealing with his sister’s brood of children, and probably grandchildren by now, along with the rest of the household or if her health was failing. Her handwriting looked strong and clear, but she was a healer too. He of all people knew how much they could endure before they faltered. Sometimes, he wondered if any of his cousins or his sister would have the decency to write and tell him she died or if he would only find out because the letters suddenly stopped. Felipe sighed and shuffled the pages back into a pile. He would compose a reply later when he could get sufficiently soused to stomach writing a story his family would want to hear, but at least reading the letter no longer hung over his head like the gallows.
Felipe was about to refold the papers and stuff them back into their envelope when he noticed ink peeking through the blank portion of the last page. As he flipped the page over, the breath died in his chest. In his twenty years away from home, his father hadneverwritten to him, yet he recognized his sharp hand as clearly as he would the lines of his profile or the crack of his voice.
I heard you were in San Francisco in January. Why did you not come and visit your family? Or have you forgotten you arestill a Galvan?
His hand tightened around the tumbler of sherry as he forced himself to exhale. Felipe looked around the silent apartment as if his father or his cousins lurked behind the curtains or bedroom door. He had crisscrossed the country numerous times, always taking care to avoid his family’s territory when he was sent to California. When cases forced him to get too close, he always made certain to tread lightly and stick to the shadows to keep from attracting their attention. There had never been any overt threats made, but Felipe didn’t want to test their tolerance for his or the society’s presence. He should have known his luck would eventually run out. Felipe tried to think of where they might have seen him or which of his cousins could have recognized him after so many years. Two years earlier, he had sent a copy of the family photograph he took with Louisa and Teresa before she went off to college. Was that how they had known his face?
Or had they been at the estate sale where he inadvertently purchased Salvio Galvan’s heart for the Paranormal Society? Felipe’s blood ran cold at the thought that they could know what he had done. They couldn’t. There was no way his father or Alfonso could possibly know that he had eaten the heart or anything that came before or after. No, if they had, neither of his parents would have written nor would his father have sent a backhanded invitation. Hell, there was a good chance he would have been dead-dead if they did know. Downing the remaining sherry, Felipe hurriedly shoved the letter back into its envelope and threw it onto the sideboard to deal with later. He would need to take care in how he worded his response since he didn’t know what his father already knew, but his reply could wait until he was in the right frame of mind to concoct a plausible enough story. Besides, Oliver was expecting him downstairs.
Oliver.
A wave of guilt washed over Felipe. He loved his life with Oliver. For the first time in years, he was truly content, and he couldn’t tell his mother or father about it. He wasn’t even certain he wanted to. Oliver was precious to him, and when he put precious things in his family’shands— Felipe’s fingers tightened around the cool glass as he eyed the decanter again. It was bad enough that he had to share Louisa and Teresa with them. Oliver was off limits for many reasons, even if the realization gnawed at him like his hunger pangs. Pushing away from the table with a sigh, Felipe hauled himself up. It would be fine. He had managed this delicate balancing act between truth and fiction for over half his life, and he would continue doing so until one of them stopped writing.
Glancing at his pocket watch, Felipe sighed and poured himself a cup of soda water to dilute the sherry on his breath. He had already apologized to Oliver for his mood the previous night, but he still wanted to make up for spoiling his plans, though he wasn’t sure how to do so without ruining what was supposed to be a surprise. He would have to figure that out later too. Felipe grabbed his keys from the bowl and was about to step into the hall when he nearly collided with one of the head inspector’s pages. The young man jerked back, his black eyes wide with alarm and his fist frozen at his nose as if he had been about to knock. Felipe recognized him from the training rooms. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, but every evening, without fail, he found him practicing his magic or perfecting his form in the gymnasium with the Brooklyn pack or some of the younger inspectors. DeSanto hadn’t worked up the nerve to ask Felipe for pointers or training, but he had caught him watching.
“My apologies, DeSanto, I didn’t see you there,” Felipe said with a smile that seemed to set the page at ease. “Were you looking for me or Dr. Barlow?”
“Both, sir.” Clearing his throat, he straightened. “The head inspector would like to see you, Dr. Barlow, and Miss Jones—the one who’s a librarian, not the other one—in his office at one-thirty. He said you would pass on the information to the others if I found you.”
“I will.” DeSanto turned on heel and was about to leave when Felipe called, already knowing the answer, “Do you know what this is about, DeSanto?”
“Probably about the case coming in from New Jersey. It’s all thehead inspector and Gale have been talking about, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
