“Um, Evie, we were not saying anything you didn’t already know, and we weren’t exactly trying to keep that from you.” Adrian chuckles, placing the truck into drive.
No, but what else are you keeping from me, cousin?
I roll down the window as we take off toward our uncle’s house, the only consistent home I've ever had and filled with many good memories. I stare out the window, wondering at the possibilities.
We are barely settled in at the house and are about to have lunch when our conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Eduardo. My uncle heads to his office, and Mateo, Adrian, and I all run toward him, following like children to eavesdrop when he takes the call.
My uncle ushers us in, as he shuts the door when I slip in last, taking my seat. The emotions on my face quickly decline as my mind turns into a downward spiral of what-ifs. Mateo tucks me into his embrace, standing by my side as always while we wait to hear what Eduardo has to say. He places the call on the speaker and places his finger to his mouth, a gesture letting us know to be quiet.
“Eduardo. To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”
The urgency in Eduardo’s voice makes me want to run back to Houston to see if my sister is okay for myself. Mateo squeezes my arm, trying to comfort me.
“I just spoke to Emma, and she informed me that Mr. Martinez, Julian’s father, was at the gala last week, and he cornered her outside of the bathroom. She just told me after a week. A whole fucking week, Andrés!”
He sounds upset. My shoulders relax as Mateo and I saw this account firsthand. I know he didn’t have time to tell her anything, but he does know where she is now. Unfortunately, that’s the least of our concerns at the moment. After our brief,but informative visit with Mr. Martinez, we now see much more is going on, which is more unsettling than today’s news. After all, that is why we are here visiting our uncle.
Uncle Andrés knows this too, and judging by his expression, there’s more. They discuss strategy, and he lets Eduardo know that he is coming up with a plan but has an emergency he needs to take care of at the moment. They disconnect the call and Tió points to the chairs that he would like for us to take a seat at. I’m already sitting, but before Adrian joins us, he decides we might need a different approach.
Adrian walks over to his dad’s cabinet and pulls out a bottle of scotch. He grabs four glasses, pours some Buchanan’s into each glass, giving one to each of us. I, for one, don’t waste a minute before I throw back the entire contents in one go, smacking my lips in the process. Adrian wrinkles his nose as he looks at me like I am a disgrace to the family.
“Pfft, please.” He wouldn’t be incorrect, but there’s a lot of ‘disgrace’ going on in this family. I place my glass on the table before smacking my lips at the flavors assaulting my taste buds. My uncle looks at me with a slight quirk on his lip. “Something you wanted to say, Uncle?”
He steeples his hands, observing us, and Mateo’s knees bounce in anticipation of what he will say. I look him up and down. Maybe he should have drank the scotch in one go also. Bro looks like he can use about one or twelve.
I frown, looking his way, but he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t notice anything except the person sitting at that desk about to make his worst nightmare come true. He is focused on anything that may leave our uncle’s mouth. I turn back to him, and then he confirms what we feared.
“Mr. Martinez is your father.”
Mateo blinks a few times before he drops his head down, and I move my chair over to offer my brother some emotionalsupport. To be told that that monster is your father is the worst news that anyone can get.
Tió continues, “Julian is your half-brother.”
And I think I lied to myself because it definitely did get worse. Mattie shakes his head in disbelief, but he knows it’s true. He just doesn’t want to admit it, and I second that.
“How?” he says. “When?” He shakes his head in disbelief, but he knows it’s true. He just doesn’t want to admit it.
“Your mother dated Julian’s father during her first year of college. She was on her own, like father and son, he had a similar infatuation with your mom as Julian did with Emma. She found out she was pregnant with you and came home one weekend to speak with us about it. She explained that she had been sexually active with Mr. Martinez in a consensual way, but when she told him she was leaving college to return home, he wanted her to take time off and have her stay there with him. He was very insistent, and she was wary of his intentions. She swears he must have tampered with the condom, but before she could end the relationship, she found out she was pregnant with you. She was in her first trimester, and we discussed various options.”
Mateo visibly tenses with this, and I know immediately what he is referring to by this. I hold onto Mattie’s hand out of instinct, and he leans into me, unsure if he wants to hear anything further. Tió holds his hand up to let him continue with what he is saying.
“I want to be clear. She always wanted to keep you, and anything else than not having you wasn’t an option for her, but she also knew that if she told him about you that he wouldn’t let her leave and his controlling behavior would just get worse. He would hold you over her forever, so she left the beach of South Padre, which she loved so much, and lived here with us.”
“I did believe her when she told us that Mr. Martinez had tampered with the contraception. This wasn’t what shehad planned. Our parents were pissed, but they supported her decisions, when she came back home to have Mateo. She also discovered that her best friend and dorm mate was now sleeping with Mateo’s biological father, so she felt he would soon forget about her.”
“But he didn’t forget about her, did he?” Mateo mutters under his breath.
“Our father thought it was best for her to go to another college farther away, and they decided to raise Mateo along with my wife and me.”
“So, why didn’t she give me up for adoption?” I look over at my brother and selfishly thank my mother for keeping him close. He saved me, too, so there’s that. If it wasn’t for him, who knows what would have happened to me, but I do know. He would have broken me, and then I’d be dead, too—like my parents.
“She couldn’t possibly let him get to you, and I think she wanted to keep you close because she couldn’t let go. Anyway, later, she received a letter forwarded from the PO Box we had on file at the school containing a wedding invitation from her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend. We thought that was the end of it, and for a long time, it was.
“When your mom went to this new college, she met a man there and fell in love with him—your father, Evie. She wanted to come back and be closer to you, but we all decided that you could never know about her, Mateo, and that she was your mother. She begged and pleaded with us, but we were insistent and wouldn’t hear of it. You were safer that way. We all were.”
He takes a big gulp of his drink before placing it down. “She eventually moved back to the town she loved so much after she had you girls, which was still close to us. She wanted her kids to be born in the US, and her husband was a US citizen. They had you girls and came to visit frequently, but then Eduardo and Emma became close.”
He left that to simmer for a bit. “He seemed almost obsessed with her, and he came from another mafia family. Your mom didn’t want that life for Emma.”
