Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. “Thank you.”
“Do you think he’s in it for the long run?”
“It seems that way,” I replied. “He wants me to meet his long-lost best friend tonight.”
“That sounds like a story,” he said.
“It is. Why don’t you join us? We’re meeting here after my shift is over.”
Before he could reply, someone knocked on my door. “Hold on, Al, someone’s at my office door.” I covered the mic and called out, “Come in.”
Fiona, the front desk receptionist, poked her head in. “Hey, Miguel, there’s a woman here asking to see you. She says she’s your sister.”
“Isabella?” I asked in shock.
“That’s the name she gave,” Fiona replied.
I nodded and said, “Send her in.” To Albert, I said, “I have to go. Isabella’s here to see me.”
“Really?” He sounded as shocked as I was. “I hope she’s not there to lay into you again. I would have to have words with her.”
“I have no idea. I’ll let you know. Can you make it tonight?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll text you.”
“Sounds good.”
A knock sounded on my door right after I hung up with Albert. I got up to answer it, hoping my sister was there to talk, not to yell at me. The Isabella who walked into my office was a shadow of the woman I’d seen only a month before. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she looked like she’d lost weight.
“Bella?”
Me using her old nickname seemed to break something in her. She threw her arms around my neck and broke down sobbing. I held her and rocked her like she was one of her children while I made soothing sounds and rubbed her back. When she finally slowed down to sniffles, I guided her to one of the two chairs in front of my desk and got her to sit. I handed her the box of tissues from my desk and a bottle of water from the small fridge behind it.
I took the seat next to hers and turned it to face her. After she wiped her face and blew her nose, I asked, “What’s going on?”
“You know what happened at Easter dinner?” When I nodded, she went on. “After Carlos left, I thought he’d come back, and we could talk things out. But he never came back. I didn’t hear from him for a whole week. He wouldn’t answer his phone. I don’t even know where he was or if he went to work at all.”
“Okay. But obviously something happened,” I reasoned.
She nodded and tears came to her eyes again. “Last Saturday, he came to Mama and Papa’s place demanding to see me and the children. Then he told me he’d allow me to come home if I agreed not to see my parents or other family members unless he was there to supervise it.”
“What. The. Fuck?” I breathed.
A tear tracked down her cheek. “I got so angry. I told him I wanted a divorce.”
Inside, I was cheering and fist-pumping. On the outside, I just said, “Oh shit.”
“He lost it. He called me all kinds of names right in front of the children.” She twisted her fingers together. “Then he grabbed Diego’s arm and tried to leave with him. Diego was screaming and calling for me, and Carlos hit him and told him to shut the fuck up.”
“He hit his four-year-old son?” I was so angry I could barely speak. A burning rage settled in the pit of my stomach. But getting all ragey wouldn’t help Isabella. I took a deep breath to calm myself. “What happened next?”
“I went to pull Diego away from Carlos, and he slapped me. I’ve never seen Papa so angry before in my life. He grabbed the fireplace poker and told Carlos he’d beat him to death if he didn’t leave his house. I managed to get Diego away from him, and he left.”
“Just like that?”
She shook her head. “The police came to the house saying that Carlos called them and told them I had kidnapped our children and was keeping them from him. We showed them the bruises on Diego’s wrist and the marks on his and my faces. They said I could file a temporary restraining order. So, I went to the police station, and I did.” She started to cry again. “You were right about him. I should have seen it before this. I think I just wanted to have that happy family Mama talks about all the time. I thought I’d found it with Carlos. But I was wrong.”
I didn’t have much to say about that. My mother was so focused on us getting married and having babies that she’d lost sight of us as individuals. I figured that was why she had such a hard time with me being gay. In her mind, I’d never be able to fulfill my role of passing on the Ramirez name.
