“Yeah.” He’s too close for me to see his smile, but I can hear it. “Always.”
It’ll be two weeks.Two weeks from yesterday, actually, and I think Javi is getting in the day before the wedding, so less than two weeks. Thirteen days. That’snothing, that’s less than a fortnight, that’s shorter than winter break at college.
I stand in Paloma’s yard for longer than necessary, more time than it takes for Javi and Thalia to drive away. It’s February, and February kind of sucks in this part of the South: the sky’s a blah gray occasionally mottled with different shades of blah gray, the trees are stark and bare like skeleton hands, the grass is dead and crunchy under my feet. It’s cold, but not an interesting cold, like the kind of cold that brings snow, just a shitty cold that feels bad for no reason.
I glance at the house, but I’ve got my keys in my pocket and I don’t really feel like reporting back to the observers about whether the pandas have fucked or not, so I start walking toward my own car.
I haven’t gotten ten feet when Paloma’s front door opens, shuts, and there are footsteps.
“Hey, kiddo,” my dad says, so I stop and turn. He’s not wearing a coat, just a button-down shirt and jeans. His hands are jammed into his pockets. It’s pretty obvious that he was watching us through a window, waiting for Javi to leave, but I don’t bring that up.
“Hey.”
“Big morning,” he says, which is an understatement. “You got any plans for the rest of today?”
He makes coffee,and then we sit in the breakfast nook he built when I was a kid. I don’t think he’d built anything before and I don’t think he’s built anything since, but he decided that breakfast needed a nook, so by god, he found plans, bought tools, and made a nook. I helped, mostly by holding tape measures, and I never fully understand what drove him to build a breakfast nook but also, on some level, I get it.
And he’s eaten oatmeal while reading the paper in it every morning for at least twenty years now, so obviously he was right about breakfast needing a nook.
“Listen, blueberry,” he starts. “I just wanted to talk to you a little without…outside help.”
I nod, my hands wrapped around a mug that isn’t quite as satisfying as a diner mug.
“Nothing bad,” he says quickly. “I admit I was pretty surprised at first when, ah, he was on the phone.”
I breathe deep and retain my composure, because while my dad has always striven to be open and chill about this kind of thing, he’s an awkward person at heart.
“We didn’t mean for him to…stay over,” I say, which is the most tactful way I can think of to sayOops, we fell asleep after fucking.
“Oh, I don’t care about that,” he says. “I mean, well, like I said, it was a surprise, but—now that I’ve thought about it some, I’m less surprised. You two always did seem to get along.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
That gets a scoff and a half smile. “I understand why you didn’t.”
“We really were going to, after the wedding,” I say, something I’m certain I’ve said twenty times this morning. I look down into my coffee. “We just needed to figure some things out first, and—I don’t know, we thought it could wait. It’s your big day. I didn’t want to steal your thunder.”
“I’d like to see you try.”
I raise one eyebrow. “What, you got something big planned? Live dove release? Fireworks display?”
“I’m thinking of throwing smoke bombs, then appearing at the altar as if by magic,” he says, with some jazz hands aroundmagic. I stare at him for a moment too long, making sure that he’s not serious because—on the one hand, I can’t imagine that,but on the other, if someone could pull together last-minute smoke bombs, it’d be my dad.
“Kidding,” he finally says, looking smug. “But I’m pretty excited. You’ll have to try a lot harder to ruin it.”
“Oh, decline,” I say. “Hard pass.”
“I talked to Paloma some, after the four of you went out.” He takes a very deliberate sip of coffee. “She told me some of her concerns.”
I wait, wondering what I’ll do if he saysAnd I agree that this is a bad idea. I’ve never gotten into a big fight with him before. I hold the coffee mug a little tighter.
“I don’t know Javier that well,” my dad starts, evenly and deliberately. “And I can’t speak to what he’s been through, but I know it wasn’t easy. But Idoknow he’s every inch as stubborn as his mother. Not a mystery where he gets it from.”
“To be fair, I’ve never met Raul Lopez,” I say.
My dad gives my coffee mug a solemn, understated littlecheers.
“She’s still dealing with the trauma, too, you know,” he says. “Her ex-husband kicked their son out of the house, and then he went missing for months. She’s always going to blame herself. And she’s always going to worry about Javier a little more than the other two. It would be bizarre if she didn’t. Everyone worries about their children. I worry about you all the time.”
