“Who is this Maya?”Rio echoes.“A past romance?”
Dex gives me a sympathetic look.“She was a friend of Zach’s.The pair of them would always be sneaking off somewhere together.”
“Is that right?”Raquel asks, eyes widening.
“We were teenagers,” I explain.
“Teenagers who liked one another, a lot, as I remember,” Jett says.
“She was thehousekeeper’sdaughter?”Enzo asks.“You had a housekeeper?”
“We had many housekeepers,” Dex replies, casually.“We grew up on a sprawling estate, but it felt more like a home then, when Mom was around.Once she passed away, it was nothing like that, and we were left with just the old man.”He stops short and looks at me because he always refers to Dad as the old man.He knows I don’t like it.
“He’s not well.Try and be nice when you talk about him,” I push back.
“Hot damn,” Rio gasps, after a while.“We never had any housekeepers or help.Mama took care of us all.”
“Then you had something priceless.You were lucky,” I say, swallowing the knot that forms in my throat.Everyone falls silent then.
“We had a good life,” Enzo says, quietly.“We were happy, we still are.”
Rio scratches his beard.“Yeah.That’s true.”Raquel looks up at him and pouts, and he drops a kiss on her lips.“Mamá’s happy, and so are we.At least, I am.”
“I’d give anything to have what you have,” I tell them.“I’d give anything to have Mom with us here now.”
More silence.I don’t want to leave this evening on a heavy, sinking note.Talking about mom not being here always leaves me feeling adrift.And right now, I feel the void in my life more painfully than ever.
“You and the housekeeper’s daughter became friends?”Enzo prompts.
“They lived on the estate, in the staff annex.”
“Dude.You had an annex?”Rio cries.
“Meu Deus!”Raquel moans.She hates all this rich guy poor guy divide.I imagine it must cut deep, what with her growing up in a favela and seeing all that poverty and injustice.She’s talked about it a few times.
“It was called the Knight Estate,” Jett says, joining in the reverie.
“We had a lot of staff to help with the running of the place,” Dex says, oblivious to how this is being perceived by others.“And Zach here struck up a friendship with the Maya who was the daughter of one of the housekeepers.”
“Oneof the housekeepers?Caraca,” Raquel mumbles, shaking her head.Dani is quiet.She grew up in wealth.
“How did that work out?”Enzo asks.“How did that work out?”This dude has never shown this much interest, or spoken this much before.I’m not sure if it’s my story that interests him so much, or whether he’s starting to chill a bit more now that the two sets of brothers are mingling more and getting to know one another better.
It’s all so different to the years of Knight family dinners Dad’s been holding at his penthouse.There, the Italian Knights and us would eye one another suspiciously.There was no brotherly love, because there were no familial feelings.Though Dex and Rio seemed to have forged a friendship, but this has only happened recently.I see now that we’re not so different after all, and there is more that binds us together than divides us.
“But then one day Maya and her mom disappeared, without warning,” Dex says.
I shove my hands deeper into my pockets and stare at the floor, because my interaction with Maya hasn’t brought me any closer to finding out what happened that day.When I look up all eyes are on me.
I shrug.“That’s what happened.They just upped and left.”
“But why?”Cari asks, intrigued.
I shrug again, because what’s to say?I tried to ask Maya, but I haven’t come away any wiser.“I don’t know why.”
“Did you get her number?”Dex asks.
It didn’t even occur to me.I intended to, but she disappeared, just like she did all those years ago.“I didn’t get the opportunity.”
