“You must think I’m an idiot,” I say, holding on to her legs the way I’ve seen my nieces do so many times.
“I just wish you would’ve trusted us to help you from the start,” she says, gently stroking the curvature of my ear. “I wish you would’ve let us in.”
I turn my head to face her. Immediately, I’m hit with a pang of grief. Carola inherited Papi’s high cheekbones, his thick eyelashes, and the amber highlights in his irises. As is always the case when I think of him, I’m torn inside. I hate what he did to us, and yet I miss him so much. Mostly, I hate that I never got to be angry with him—or forgive him.
Holly’s rebuke comes back to me, cutting me to the core:Just because your father left you half a lifetime ago, doesn’t mean the whole world will let you down.
Is she right? Am I stuck? Pushing away everything good in my life as a result?
My thoughts turn to those fateful days, more than fourteen years ago. Carola and I came home from school like we had every other Friday, heavy backpacks hanging from our shoulders, eager to shed our hideous polyester tartan uniforms. Papi and I had big plans for the weekend. I had just gotten my learner’s permit, and he’d promised to take me out for driving lessons.
Carola and I headed straight for the kitchen in search of an after-school snack. We had yet to put away all the decorations left over from my quinceañera, and there were storage bins stacked beside the kitchen table. Carola was telling me about this guy she had a crush on. He’d caught her leering at him, and she was so embarrassed that she’d tripped, missed three steps, then face-planted on the concrete. He came to her aid, but she was so mortified that she couldn’t even thank him. We were laughing over grilled cheese sandwiches when Abuela came into the kitchen to break the news. Our papi was dead.
“Do you remember the night before Papi’s funeral?” I ask quietly.
Carola nods. “Mami was obsessed with cleaning the floors in the kitchen.”
“I was so worn out, I just wanted to go to bed,” I say. “But she made me carry those bins with all my quinceañera decorations to the storage shed.”
“I remember.” She takes a strand of my hair, curling it between her fingers. “Mami and I almost got into a fight. She kept yelling, holding up the mop in one hand, shoving the bucket with her foot in my direction.” Carola drops my hair. She gestures with her hands, mocking Mami’s shrill voice as she says, “I want to be able to eat off these floors!”
We burst into a full belly laugh, booming and uncontrolled. It feels so good to laugh with my sister.
“She was kinda unhinged, to be honest,” Carola says, catching her breath.
“I stayed up and helped you clean,” I remind her.
“You were so brave,” she says, her voice dropping above a whisper. “You didn’t get angry. You didn’t cry once. I kept expecting you to fall apart, but you never did.”
“I wanted to,” I admit for the first time.
“Why didn’t you, Luisa?”
I shrug on her lap, tears stinging my eyes. “Mami said…” The rest of the sentence gets caught in the back of my throat, too tight to utter another syllable.
My mother’s words echo in my mind:Don’t you dare cry,Luisa.I was fifteen, my father was inexplicably gone from our lives, and his second family would soon make themselves known. There were funeral arrangements to make, a coffin to buy, friends and family to notify, flowers and catering to order, a message to write for those littleEn Memoriacards the funeral home insisted on. We had to be strong for Mami.
“We couldn’t cry,” I whisper. “Not in front of Mami, anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Luisa,” Carola whispers back. She slides down on the bed until her head is resting on my pillow and we are facing each other under the low light of my bedside lamp. “I love Mami and Papi so much, but they really fucked things up for us.” She takes my hands, holds them in hers.
“Can I ask you something, and will you tell me the truth?” I ask, squeezing her hand in mine.
“Always.”
“Do you think I push people away?”
Carola sighs. “Amor, you’ve designed your life to keep everyone at bay.” I open my mouth to protest, but she doesn’t let me speak. “Luisa,” she says in that mommy tone she usually reserves for her girls, “you moved out the day after you graduated high school. You chose a career where you succeed by being distant and uninvolved. You’re always working. You have zero friends. And you find fault with every guy you date.”
I roll my eyes at this. “Not everyone is Augusto, Carola. You got lucky.”
“Augusto is a good man, the best dad. And the love of my life,” she says, her voice growing thick with emotion. “But he’s not perfect. Not by a long shot. Love is an act of faith, Luisa.” She holds my chin in her hands, forces me to look her in the eyes as she says, “It’s okay to be vulnerable. Life is gonna suck at times, regardless of whether you’re ready, shielded, protected, or whatever it is that you are trying to do. So why not try to be happy along the way? Love with all you’ve got,” she says. “And let us love you back.”
Carola’s words, the kindness in her gaze, peel back the scab of a deep injury. I’m too tired to fight it. Suddenly, every part of me feels exposed and raw, as if she’s pouring antiseptic on a long-festering wound. It hurts like hell.
A deep sob, fifteen years in the making, rips through my chest and bursts out of me. I’m crying and shaking, releasing my grief into my sister’s chest. She pulls me into her, kissing the top of my head, telling me everything is going to be all right.
We stay like this for a while, and in that time, I venture a hard look at my choices. Carola is right. And so is Holly, for that matter. I’ve built a life devised to keep people away, so that I never again have to feel the kind of loss, or pain, that turns your world upside down.
