“I bet you’ll have men lining up once your new show opens,” her mom said, smiling proudly, and the vise over Jules’s stomach tightened.
She set down her wineglass, desperately searching for a change of topic.
“I’m going to get morecoquito,” her grandma announced, rising from her seat.
The spiced eggnog was one of Jules’s holiday favorites. “I’ll get it, Abuelita,” she told her grandma. “You stay here.”
“No seas ridícula,” her grandma said, stubborn as ever. “I said I’d get it.”
Jules lifted her hands in defeat, fighting a smile. She loved her grandma so much and couldn’t wait to spend a week with her and her mom when they came up for the show. How would her grandma react to Jules’s news?
Her time with Sophie in Brooklyn felt a million miles away as Jules sat here in her childhood home in Miami, facing the reality of coming out to a woman who kept a framed photo of the pope on the table beside her bed. She reached for her wine and took a fortifying sip.
A crash echoed from the direction of the kitchen, the sound of glass breaking followed by another thump. All the heads at the table swiveled toward the doorway Beatriz had walked through moments before.
“You okay in there, Mami?” Jules’s mom called, rolling her eyes playfully in anticipation of Beatriz’s response to whatever she’d dropped…probably the bowl ofcoquito.
But there was no response.
“Mami?” Paula said again, already rising from her chair.
Jules watched her go, waiting for her grandma to yell at her for overreacting, but when Paula reached the doorway to the kitchen, she let out something between a gasp and a scream that stole all the air from Jules’s lungs.
She lurched to her feet, knocking over her wineglass in her haste. It spilled bloodred across the white tablecloth. Everyone was on their feet, rushing toward the kitchen, and they were all in Jules’s way. She pushed forward, legs oddly numb as she wedged herself in the doorway beside Rob.
Her grandmother lay on the floor beside the broken bowl of coquito, red blood mixing with the white liquid spreading across the tile. Jules heard the cry that escaped her lips as if she was outside herself, looking down at the chaotic scene in the kitchen. Already, Beatriz was surrounded by people, obscuring Jules’s view.
Where is she bleeding? What happened? Oh God…
Through the din of concerned family members and her own thoughts, Jules heard her mother’s sharp cry. “Someone dial 911.”
15
Jules spent Christmas day in the hospital. After a while, the rhythmic beeping of the machinery seemed to blend with the holiday music playing softly from the portable speaker Alex had left beside Beatriz’s bed. After several festive hours, opening gifts and celebrating with an endless parade of friends and family through her room, Jules’s grandma had finally fallen asleep.
Two small stitches near her hairline were surrounded by a large purple bruise where she’d hit her head on the edge of the kitchen counter as she fell. She’d also twisted her left ankle, which was wrapped in a thick bandage. In a word, she was lucky. Due to a mild concussion and her age, the hospital had insisted that she stay for observation, but she was going to be okay. In fact, she had spent most of the day fussing about wanting to go home.
“I think this is our cue to leave,” Paula said quietly from the other side of the hospital bed. The rest of the family had come and gone throughout the day, but Jules and her mom had been here since her grandma was admitted last night.
Between them, Beatriz began to snore.
“Yeah.” Jules smiled as she stood from her chair. She leaned over to kiss her grandmother’s cheek before gathering her purse and the gifts she’d received from family members while she was at her grandma’s bedside today.
She and her mom didn’t say much as they walked outside to the car, both of them exhausted by the last twenty-four hours. Neither of them had managed much sleep last night. They loaded their gifts into the backseat and exchanged a long hug beside the car.
“She can’t fly to New York next week,” Jules whispered, tears stinging her eyes.
“I know,” her mom agreed.
“She’ll fight us on it, even if the doctor forbids her to fly.”
“You leave her to me,” Paula said, patting Jules’s arm before they got into the car.
It was a pretty drive home, Christmas lights twinkling from houses and businesses as they passed and the Miami skyline glittering behind them. The lights softened and blurred before Jules’s eyes. Suddenly, she was so tired, she could hardly hold her eyes open.
Her mom parked in the driveway, and they walked into the house together, surprised and yet not surprised to find that the family had cleaned up after their chaotic departure to the hospital last night. The kitchen was pristine, no sign of Beatriz’s fall or the food that had covered the countertops at the time.
In silent agreement, Jules and her mom went to the fridge and pulled out various containers of leftovers, fixing themselves a late dinner. They filled plates with roast pork, black beans and rice, and mashed yucca, then finished it off with a couple of thepastelitosJules had made with her grandma yesterday morning.
