But she wasn’t done. “My parents made sure I’d be taken care of—set for life—if anything ever happened to them. I’m sorry you can’t say the same, but don’t put that on us.”
“Hm.” I clenched my jaw, reining in the emotions building in my chest before I revealed how hard that hit had landed. “Guess you don’t know everything, V. You only think you do.”
I stood up and walked off, angry that I’d let her get under my skin. Furious her dig at my parents struck a nerve. And pissed at my lame comeback because I’d had nothing else to say.
Storming off and stomping out onto the back patio didn’t make me feel better, either.I got angrier as I reached the lake.
It wasn’t my parents’ fault that I’d had nothing since they died. Vivian’s statement reeked of privilege. Her family came from a long line of money, so of course, she equated inherited wealth with love. She never saw anything different.
My parents hadn’t had wealth, but they’d had love. Maybe that was it, but I’d seen the value in it.
They’d had each other and me.
Neither of them had come from a world like Vivian’s. My dad had lost his parents when he was young, and my mom…
I racked my brain trying to remember her family, but I’d never met them. She talked about them all the time, though. Especially when she was cooking.ThatI remembered. Mostly because her culinary gifts hadnotpassed down to me.
She’d shared countless recipes her grandma, Abuela, had taught her. While I later learned that was just my mom saying grandma in Spanish, not her name, I’d always called her that.
Because I didn’t know her grandmother’s real name.
The only time my mom talked about her family was in the kitchen, sharing old recipes. It was the only time she shared that part of her heritage, and mine. I’d been born here, like her, and while I’d inherited half of her Hispanic blood, she hadn’t passed down the culture she’d grown up with. She’d guarded that part of herself from everyone—even me.
And yes, in hindsight, I’d picked up on how weird that was.
But after she died, it joined the long list of questions I tried not to think about at all.
My dad would’ve shared with me, but I never asked. I never wanted answers. I’d just wanted her. And I’d been hellbent on not thinking about that. Not thinking about all the things I’d never get to learn fromandabout her. All the moments we’d shared that I’d never get to have with her again. And all the things we’d both miss out on as I grew up.
Because life wasn’t a fairytale, and good things didn’t happen to good people.
Then, life took my dad from me, too.
Now, in my new era of thinking about shit that made me terribly sad, there it was.
I had her skin tone and dark features, her hips, and her love of dancing. But I’d always been my father’s daughter—hismini me—especially in her eyes. That was what she’d always calledme, and while I lost her when I was twelve, he’d been there my whole life.
After he died, I couldn’t touch the thought of her guarded past with a ten-foot pole. Not without thinking about him. Not without thinking of everything I’d lost and would miss out on because he was gone.
So, I blocked it all out.
What good would thinking about it do, anyway?
The chance to change my mind, to get those answers about her past, was taken from me as swiftly as he was.
Vivian’s comment brought it all up, and for the first time, I wondered if that tendency I always had to push away hard truths had been something else I’d gotten from her.
I’d never wondered that as a kid because they’d protected me. I’d never lost anything, or if I had, I hadn’t felt it. When she’d died, I dealt with my first experience of grief.Poorly.
By shutting it out completely.
The same way I had with my second.
Now, I couldn’t help but wonder…Maybe she never talked about them because we never saw them. Or maybe it was because they were gone.
Because it hurt too much to think about it.
And I’d never noticed.
