“Sus?” she says skeptically.
“Yes. It means suspicious. Anyways, don’t ever say you’re a bad mom, Isa. Junior is always respectful and kind to me and everyone he meets. I know that’s from you. You’re doing the best you can, and I’m here for both of you.”
Junior has become as much a part of my life as she had once been. I promised him that night that I would take care of him, and I would. Just like I promised Isa the day she asked me to baptize him. I didn’t say it then, but Isa was very much a part of that pact, too.
5
ISABEL
Doña Candy dropping bombs
Raising a teenage boy is hard. While Juan Carlos was involved financially when it came to Junior, he was always too burnt out from work to make time for our son. After a few years, he just completely checked out of our family, leaving the difficult conversations for me to navigate. The day Junior came home in the fourth grade with a permission slip to watch some puberty video, I was petrified.
I didn’t want to be like my parents and never talk about sex or make it this uncomfortable thing. As a teen mom, I had to educate him on the possible outcome of a heated moment and make sure he understood, while cultivating a safe place for him to ask questions. I knew the day would come. I just didn’t expect it to come that early.
So, before he got home from school, I watched every single YouTube video on how to bring the conversation up. To calm my nerves, I drank a glass of wine. My first mistake. A good cry and a half a bottle later, I thought I was ready to give himthe talk.
Only the wine didn’t calm my nerves, it just made me forget the entire speech I prepared. There should have been a warning label: Don’t talk to your child about reproductionafter drinking this product. It was too late, by the time Junior got home, the false confidence from the wine had set in.
“Junior, we need to talk about the changes that are going to happen in your body,” I say, starting off strong.
My wide-eyed ten-year-old son looked at me in puro pinche horror. No wonder my parents never talked to me about sex. This was nerve-wracking.
I started pacing around the kitchen, folding my hands over each other as I tried to remember the speech I had prepared.
“Junior. Remember how I told you babies come from La cigüeña? Well, they don’t.”
I start rambling about two people loving each other, taking a detour that you don’t have to be in love, then circling back to marriage. The words were falling out, and I was tripping all over them. The next thing you know, I’m curling the fingers of my left hand to make an O and pushing it toward my index finger to demonstrate how sex works. Needless to say, after the end of the talk, we were both traumatized.
It didn’t help matters when I found out the movie was just an introduction to their bodies changing, not anything to do with the actual act of intercourse. I failed to read the rest of the form and description. All the traumatizing was for nothing. The obscene hand gesture haunting us both.
It was one of many failures I had made, and here I was again, trying to figure out this parenting thing alone. I had all weekend to practice what I was going to say to Junior. I ditched the wine and any cringey hand gestures, though. By five o’clock Sunday, I was ready. I was just going to get straight to it and say, “Junior, why didn’t you tell me your dad wasn’t picking you up?”
And I had every intention of doing that when I got ready this morning. I practiced it twice in the mirror and three times on the way to Manny’s house. Sometimes I would even go Socorro-level dramatic, yelling that lying was bad, how God was watching, and how could he lie to hisown mother! Those times, I’d shake my head. I needed to avoid acting like my mother as much as possible in this situation.
The GPS lets me know I’m close to the house, and I find it right away when I see Manny outside, shirtless, working out in his garage. Something heightens in me at the sight of him, with the ripple of muscles and tattoos on full display, and the sweat glistening on his abs and traveling down to... other places. Places I should not be thinking of.
“Isa,” he says, walking up to meet me. “I thought Desmond was coming to get Junior?”
“Oh. No. I just figured I’d come this time.” It’s then that I realize I’m staring at his pecs.What the hell is wrong with me?
“Junior went with my mom and Dolly to the grocery store. Do you want to come inside?” He offers, looking back to the house. I nod and follow him.
It’s a simple home, one level, much like my mother’s house, and nothing like the bachelor pad I was imagining. You walk into a small kitchen and living room with minimal decoration. A brown sofa, a coffee table, a big screen TV hung on the wall, and there are even matching curtains. Manny goes to the fridge and grabs two canned Micheladas.
“This is what Desmond usually drinks,” he says, offering me one.
“Thanks,” I say, still taking in the house and making sure my eyes don’t wander over his nakedness.
“Junior has sort of taken over the far back room when he comes over. Last door on the right, if you want to check it out. I’m gonna clean up real quick,” he says, nodding to another door before exiting.
I take in the small details of the kitchen as I pass by. Glancing at the fridge, I see pictures of him and his siblings, a few of Junior and him at the fair, pizza coupons, and business card magnets, but what takes me by surprise is the card. It’s a Father’s Day card. Did he have kids? I don’t open the cardand instead move to the back two rooms, hoping I’d get the answer.
The first room I walk into is an office, and the one at the end of the hall is where I assume Junior sleeps. When I open the door, I’m half expecting to find some type of guest bedroom, but I’m surprised to find how much it looks like it belongs to my son.
Posters of all his favorite baseball players and jerseys line the wall. There is a large bed and a dresser. Nothing fancy, but it did look new. More space than he had at my mom’s house, that’s for sure. A TV mounted on the wall, complete with his Xbox and games on mounted shelves.
“Sorry, I told Junior to clean up in here before he left,” Manny says from behind me. I turn to see him looking down at all the dirty clothes Junior has lying on the floor.
