Everyone reintroduces themselves, most likely understanding that I needed a minute to really grasp their names and their relation to my mother.
I look back to thank the two people responsible for this miracle, only to catch Luke giving his sister a bear hug, his eyes shut tightly as he embraces her, his lips mouthing “thank you so much” repeatedly.
Carla squeezes my hand and pulls a thick photo album off my coffee table. “Are you ready, Daisy?” Her voice wobbles on my name, and I think I’m going to need an entire box of tissues to get through the night.
I nod. “I’m ready, but first I’m going to need to call my brother, Nick. He deserves to be here for this.”
Everyone brightens and nods with enthusiasm.
After a tearful call I’m sure made absolutely no sense whatsoever, Nick bursts into my apartment with Luisa hot on his heels.
He looks perplexed as he takes in the scene before him. And this time, I get to be the person that helps another remain upright, with the help of Luke of course, after he was introduced to our guests.
He excuses himself before we get started, and when he walks back into the room with red, but smiling eyes, we all act as if we didn’t hear the anguished cry coming from my guest bathroom.
Luke silently hands him a glass of the scotch I always keep on hand for him, and we all shuffle around so Nick and I are seated side by side, hands clasped tightly, when Carla opens the first photo album.
And finally, I’m introduced to my mom.
forty-four
It’s nearing midnight, andwe can’t stop laughing.
And no one’s showing any signs of leaving.
The first hour was filled with more hugs and tears than I could count. But then the night took a turn for more lighthearted stories.
Like how Marlene, my mom’s childhood neighbor, once caught her own daughter and my mother trying to sneak out early one Sunday morning to walk to the local bakery with large cups because apparently, they would get free frosting from the lady in charge of decorating the cakes if they came prepared with their own to-go containers.
Or how my mom and Monica, her old law school friend and coworker, once studied well into the night, only to pass out and end up locked inside their school library. Apparently, they had to wiggle out a tiny window on the second floor and landed onprickly bushes, almost breaking a limb each, though they were too deliriously tired to care.
“Damn, how was our mother way cooler than either of us?” Nick grouses from beside me as he picks up a photo of her in a cut-off grunge T-shirt and shorts.
“Seriously, like how badass was she?” I lift the photo in my hand, showing her zip-lining somewhere in the Dominican Republic as a teen.
“Well, actually, up until her parents passed away, she was mostly a people pleaser,” Amaury, her cousin, says.
“What?” The cider in my hand almost slides out of my grip.
Carla nods. “It’s true. She was definitely a daredevil.” She nods at a photo of my mother swinging on a rope before jumping into the ocean from a dock. “But she had this constant worry about making sure everyone around her was happy. Bending over backward for random people in her life whenever she felt like she was letting them down. No matter how absurd the circumstances. It wasn’t until her father passed that she changed into the fierce woman we all knew her to be as an adult. She was her mother’s protector when vultures descended, trying to pressure her to sell her family home, since the property was quickly rising in value. But then her mother fell ill and passed away the same year her father died. Your mother ended up inheriting the home. Once her parents were gone, she decided it was her time to leave the nest and discover the world. She had a full ride scholarship to law school in London and took the opportunity without a second thought.”
Monica cuts in. “Only when faced with protecting the ones she loved did her claws come out, and then she never put them away.” She chuckles as she takes a sip of scotch. “And used that fire to become an incredible barrister who lived in the UK.”
It looks like I do have things in common with my mother after all.
Nick clears his throat, wiping his hands of crumbs and failing to meet anyone’s gaze as he asks, “Why didn’t any of you come forward after she passed?” Silence falls upon the room. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to meet you all, and I won’t hold what you say against you. I’m only curious.”
His eyes lift and he doesn’t bother hiding the vulnerability behind them.
Everyone seems to shift around us, eyes volleying between them all before Carla takes the lead. “We did,” she says slowly. “We all did.”
Both Nick and I lean back, but he speaks first. “What do you mean? There was no one at her service. No one called us or visited, even when we moved to the States, closer to the Dominican Republic.” There’s an edge to his voice, but he manages to reel it in at the end.
“Well, I won’t pussyfoot around it,” Monica states. “It was your bloody father. He never informed us of her funeral. I only found out about her passing three days after the fact when she didn’t show up for work.”
Carla bristles next to me as she turns to us, pure fury on her face. “She was my best friend. Our kids were supposed to be cousins. You guys were my niece and nephew in my heart. Back then, we were both single mothers struggling financially, getting our lives off the ground. But we spoke on the phone constantly. I helped her plan Nick’s Pokémon-themed tenth birthday party and had a massive Pikachu shipped over, even though it cost almost as much as my rent in shipping alone. And I picked out the outfit Daisy wore home from the hospital the day after she was born. It was created by a local Dominican designer. During that last year, she was doing well at work and finally establishing herself. She was planning on flying down with you two to visit us. We had the entire itinerary planned for a whole month’s stay. My best friend was finally coming back home and she wasbringing the two little humans who had me wrapped around their pinky fingers. But when she passed away? Ripped away from us far too soon and unfairly? Your father decided to do the same with you two.”
I swallow audibly, my skin vibrating with dread. “Explain.”
