A Moment (2 page)

The clock reads 2:32. Thirty minutes longer tonight.

The screaming-- it’s new. Something he’d started ten weeks ago. But it’s always something with Javier. He’s my special boy.

Getting out of bed, I wrap the green terry cloth robe around me and walk to his room. “Mama,” I call, her bedroom is across from mine.

“Mija? What’s wrong with Javi?”

She can’t walk anymore. Mom’s completely wheel chair bound, which is why when Javi screams, it makes her antsy. She’s grandma and feels the need to comfort, but can barely manage to even lift her arms.

“It’s okay, Mama, it’s the dreams. Go back to sleep.”

“You sure?” Her voice is reed thin through the door.

I nod, but remember she can’t see me, so I say, “Si.”

Saying a quick prayer for strength, I open the door.

Javi’s lying in the middle of his bed with his sheets kicked off, his transformers pajama pants are scrunched up around his knees. A loud, keening wail rings so loud through the room it makes my ears buzz. I jog to him and gently pick him up, bringing him to my lap.

It’s the only time he ever lets me hold him.

When he’s sleepy.

I cherish each moment, since they’re so precious and few.

“Javi, mijo.” I rub his forehead, twisting his dark curls gently around my fingers. He stills instantly. “Papi, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t talk. Just grunts. Mumbles and moans mostly.

“Ssshh, mommy’s here. I’m right here.”

It’s impossible to describe the feeling of holding him. Of both the elation and terrible pain I feel each time I do.

Javier had been diagnosed high functioning autistic four years ago.

Hard enough having a baby at fourteen, but that hadn’t been the worst. The worst is falling so in love with him only to discover he’ll never feel the same for me in return. The doctors said maybe someday he’d start talking, a nurse had even mentioned that sometimes (when they grew up) they’ll hug you back.

I’d hung every ounce of hope on those words, believing someday he would. That high functioning meant he was better than others. That it might take him time, but it would happen. Soon he’d be like any other seven year old.

But the hope had turned into a cancer as the weeks, months, and then years rolled by.

I learned to stop hoping, because it kills as surely as any disease.

Eventually his trembling’s cease and his breathing returns to a smooth even rhythm.

Kissing his warm brow, I ease his head back onto the pillows and run my finger along his cheek. “Goodnight, baby.”

Back in the hall, my mother stops me. “Come here, Lily.”

Sighing heavily, feet feeling heavy as steel, I open her door. “Si?”

Bathed in shadow, mom’s face turns toward mine. A tiny woman engulfed by pillows, blankets, and a giant mattress.

Dad had left us four years ago.

It’s just me, mom, Javi, and mom’s nurse- Adelida.

“Come here, sit beside me a second.”

Glancing at the clock on her bed stand I swallow my initial desire to decline. It’s well past three now. I have a math exam first thing in the morning, but I owe my mom a lot, and know in the end I’ll do whatever she asks.

So I sit, but can’t hide the loud yawn that overtakes me, trying as best I can to hide it behind the back of my hand.

Her smile is sad. “You’re working too hard, mija.”

I shrug. “Don’t have a choice, mama. Someone’s got to pay the bills.”

She looks up at the ceiling. I know what she’s thinking. The same thing she always thinks but never speaks about. How much dad sucks. How much she still loves him, needs him, wants him back even while cursing the day she’d ever met him. Because I feel the exact same way.

The night he’d left us, we talked about it. Crying and hugging. My world had literally shattered. Papa had bailed and I couldn’t.

Selfish thought, yes. And I regretted it the moment I’d thought it. Of course I never told her that, too ashamed to admit that for a moment I wanted to leave with him. Beg him to take me far away from all of it. From Mama, Javi, my life…

But I know the truth, the real reason he left, he did it because of me. Because of what I’d done, how I’d screwed up his plans for my life. He’d always said I’d make something of myself, bring pride and honor to the Delgado clan, until the day the doctor said Javi was coming, then dad stopped saying those things to me.

“You do have a choice. Lily, you’re gorgeous, and you’re only twenty-one, my God,” she brushes her cold fingers over my hand, “Life is more than school, work, and--”

“Mama, we’ve been over this.” I straighten my spine. “I’m a mom. I no longer have the luxury of pretending I’m not.”

Her face falls. “And I’m his Nana. I can take care of him.”

I shake my head. “I would never, in your condition… I…”

No clue how to continue I clamp my lips shut. There’s honesty and then theirs cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Mom knows she can’t watch him, can never be the type of grandma she’d always dreamed of one day becoming.

But instead of crying as I’d half expected, she smiles brightly. “I’ve asked Ade if she wants more hours and she’s agreed.”

“Mama, we can’t pay for that. I barely bring in enough to pay our bills each month.” Tears clog my throat.

Yes, it’s pitiful and wimpy of me, but I’m feeling pitiful and wimpy right now. I feel like a candle burning at both ends, too much more and I’m going to melt.

“I applied to my insurance, and it’s been approved. I need more help than eighteen hours a week. I need a live in. We have three rooms, Ade agreed she’d be willing to share my room.”

“When does she move in?”

Smile curving wider, my mother says, “Tomorrow.”

“Already?”

“Are you not happy? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Mama,” I shake my head, “you were never a burden for me.”

“Enough.” She puts on a determined face, the one she’d given me growing up, the one that says back down now, or face the consequences of my wrath. So I shut up. “I’ll not have my daughter become a martyr in my own home. Your life has barely begun, Lili. My mind is made up. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, you go out.”

There are a million ideas why this is such a bad idea, not the least of which is Javi.

“But, mom--”

Lifting her brows, she says, “Liliana, you’re my daughter. You think I don’t know how your mind works? You’re going to tell me that Javi can’t handle it. That’s not true. Javi knows Ade very well. He doesn’t scream or rage when she comes around, which means he likes her. You need breaks every once in a while. You don’t work tomorrow, so what’s your next excuse?”

“Homework?
Reading
?”

“It’s Friday.” She huffs. “I can come back with an answer every time. You’re going out, but whether you have fun or not, that’s entirely up to you.”

***

Ryan

Rolling over, I stare at the woman with her arms draped over my chest. I don’t know her. I never do anymore. And I like it like that, so much easier to kick them out in the morning.

I can’t sleep.

Why the hell did I come back to
Austin
?

Moving her arm away, I sit up. The silver dog tags around my neck wink from the sliver of moonlight spilling through my window. It’s too early. Running fingers through my hair I push aside the curtain and stare up at the sky.

It’s bursting with stars.

When I’d flown back to the states I knew I couldn’t live anywhere near my folks. In the four years I’d been away they’d never tried to contact me once. So when I’d returned I hadn’t felt the need to tell them so. Far as they know their wayward child is still a Marine and still fighting in
Afghanistan
.

There are no neighbors where I live, which is good, considering I’m not much of a fan of clothes in the house.

Texas
is quiet tonight-- only the low rumble of thunder in the distance and gentle hum of cicadas out my window disturb the peaceful night.

She snores and I glower.

I can’t think in here.

The room is hot and stifling; the AC froze up last night.

Walking toward the kitchen, I grab my skull and rub.
 
She has to leave, first second she wakes up. I can’t stand her in my house anymore, filling the rooms with her awful stench of smokes and sweat and beer.

Grabbing a mug out of the cabinet I put some water to boil and then look for the tea bags. A bedroom door opens. It’s my cousin, Alex.

We look nothing alike. I’m dark, he’s blond. Got it from his mom. Slimmer than me, but still athletic, he’s also taller by a good six inches, and the only member of my family I can still stand. He’s also my roommate.

Which, so far, no one knows about. Small miracle that.

Because though I’d been so sure I wouldn’t live anywhere near my parents, somehow I wound up only thirty minutes away from the home I’d grown up in. Thank God
Austin
’s so huge.

“Dude,” he rubs his eyes, “it’s four fucking thirty in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I wave him off.

When his eyes adjust he blinks and then grimaces. “Clothes, Ryan. Damn. First you wake me up, then you walk around buck assed naked in my house. Give’s a man nightmares.”

Snorting, I walk to the dryer in the laundry room and pull out a pair of track pants I’d washed but hadn’t yet folded. Putting them on, I hold my arms out. “Better?”

“Not really.” Walking up to the stove he glances at the kettle. “Making your wussy tea again?”

I don’t bother answering. Yeah, it’s not the most manly thing, but I like chamomile. It calms me, and right now I feel anything but. There’s a raging fire burning in my gut, beating in my skull. Tomorrow’s the day.

I fucking hate Valentine’s Day.

The kettle whistles and my hands tremble as I pour the water into my mug.

I feel his eyes on me.

He sees too much, knows almost everything.

Sometimes I think I was stupid to still keep him around. But no matter how much I try to shake him, Alex never leaves.

I swear he’d planted a beacon in my ass right before I left to the Marines, because fourteen hours after landing back in Texas, he’d found me. Told me I was stuck with him and we never talk about the rest.

Mostly.

Though sometimes he likes to push things a little too far.

“So tomorrow,” he says slowly.

Jaw clenching, I pretend not to hear him and drop the tea bag into my mug.

“Are we doing it again?”

“What the hell, dude?” I growl, shoving passed him as I walk to the kitchen table. “Can’t a man just drink his tea in peace?”

“We have to talk about this.”

“No the hell we don’t.” I take a sip even though I know the tea’s not ready.

The water’s so hot it burns my tongue immediately, but it barely fazes me. The throbbing helps me to stay centered and focused on the now. Not the past that haunts my every waking moment like some damn specter in a horror movie.

I turn to him the second he sits. His hair is poking up everywhere, his eyes still semi-swollen from sleep and glinting with worry.

“Man, how long we gonna keep pretending this never happened?”

Every muscle in my arm tenses. I want to hit him. To smash my fist through his nose, break it in half, crack his jaw the way his dad had done mine. I’d learned things in the Marines. How to fight, how to kill.