“You passed out at the quince,” I begin, and his eyes shift. “What were you even doing there?”
He lets out a sigh and runs his fingers through his hair. Juan Carlos is an attractive man. Attraction was never the problem in our relationship. Communication, on the other hand, was lacking. I almost expect him to get angry at my accusations as he normally does, but he surprises me when he follows me into the kitchen and takes a seat across from me.
“Junior gave my mom an invite. She told me I needed to go and make things right with him.” His voice is calm, one with which I can reason. “I walked in and saw you dancing with Manny. I didn’t think anything of it and then, as time dragged on and a few beers later, I guess I let my jealousy get the best of me.”
There’s this need inside me to scream at him about the concept of jealousy. To bring up Mildred and throw everything he’s done to me back in his face, but I’m tired. I avoidedhim this last year because I wasn’t capable of talking about it. But if he can talk calmly, then so can I.
I bite down on my lip and think about how we can discuss this further. Grabbing a mug and filling it with coffee, I set it in front of him.
“Was there something between you and Manny?” he asks when I take the seat across from him.
“There was, or I thought there was,” I confess. “Would that be such a bad thing, Juan Carlos? For me to be happy?”
“He was my best friend, Isa.” His voice strains.
“And he was my best friend before you even showed up to Corpus. Did you know he liked me then?”
“No,” Juan Carlos says begrudgingly. “But I always suspected it.”
There’s a thick silence that forms its way between us. Where do we go from here?
“Look, it was never my intention to hurt you. I know what that’s like, but you have not been there for Junior. Not the way he needs you.”
“I don’t know how to do this, Isa. I’m trying. Last week I got a raise at work, I was going to ask you if he needed anything.”
“He needs you, Juan Carlos. Not your money. He needsyouto follow through with your promises to pick him up. I need you too. I need to be able to talk to you about these things. A direct line of communication. We need to put shit aside and work together for him. He needs us. He needs his father.”
“I don’t know how,” Juan Carlos replies.
He wasn’t alone. Millions of brown men in my community were lacking a father in their lives. When the time came for them to step up as fathers themselves, it wasn’t always easy. I could sympathize with the reality of our situation, but I didn’t want to settle for excuses anymore.
“I don’t know what I’m doing either, but you can’t avoid it.We have to work together, and we have to try. He deserves two parents to love him and guide him.”
I put my hand on his. My olive branch. It’s not a full resolution, but it’s a start. It’s an opportunity for us to figure this out and do right by Junior.
18
MANNY
The Hillcrest Car Show
I feel like I’m wandering through a fog. My vision is blurred as I crawl on the floor to the fridge. Since Junior stopped coming over, the house feels too quiet. The type of quiet that brought your loneliness to the surface. The realization that you took for granted someone so valuable.Someones. Isabel and Junior.
That’s what has me searching at three in the morning to find a way to numb it. Eventually, I give up and lie there in front of the fridge. Too tired to crawl back into my room and too drunk to deal with the room spinning around me, I close my eyes and fall asleep on the kitchen floor.
Cold water splashes onto me and jolts me from a deep sleep. I open my eyes to find Junior standing over me.
“You look pathetic.” He shakes his head at me, and I groan as I try to push myself up from the ground.
“What time is it?” I ask, looking around.
The truth is, I wasn’t sure what day it was either. I didn’t have a client at the gym until Tuesday, and I started drinking Friday night. Junior isn’t at school, so it had to be the weekend. I narrow my eyes on the kitchen clock. Twelve fifty-two. Moving to the couch, I sit down and try to gather a semblance of coherence.
“You okay? Did you need to grab something? I haven’t touched anything from your room.” I finally say to break the tension lingering between us.
“We need to talk about Dolly’s Quinceañera,” Junior says, and I drop my head.
“Junior, I’m sorry. I should have told you about me and your mom.”
