Say Yes (Something More) (20 page)

“Anyway,” he adds. “Your forgiveness means a lot to her, and making her happy makes me happy, too.”

Okay, now I’m really choked up, and damn, I’m all out of onions. “There was nothing to forgive.” I shrug and cut into a stick of celery. “She didn’t have a choice.”

“I know that, and I’m glad you do.” He heaves a sigh as he pushes his glasses up. “I wish she’d see it that way.”

“She’s still feeling guilty?” I thought after our first meeting, and I’d hugged her and called her mom, I made it clear I’d put the past behind me. I figured she would, too.

But I can tell by Doc’s grim expression my mom still hasn’t forgiven herself for giving me up.

“I’ll talk to her about it tonight,” I tell him.

He nods and smiles his thanks, and then he gets back to stuffing the turkey’s ass with spices. As I cut into another stick of celery, I think about what life would be like without my brothers, and I’m really glad Doc talked my mom into having kids. They are both a handful, but I’ve never felt more content than when they are settled in my arms, listening to me read them a story.   

Last I checked, they were both passed out on the den floor in front of Sponge Bob. Manny was snuggling his binkie while sucking on his thumb. Gio was sprawled on top of an oversized pillow, his head tipped back and his mouth hanging open. I already took pics of them and sent them to Andrés. I titled it “Cutest Brothers Ever.”

I wonder if Andrés has checked his texts and seen my pictures. Then I wonder why I bother sending him pictures when he doesn’t respond. I shake my head, and try, not for the first time to get Andrés out of my mind, but it’s hard, very hard, and it breaks my heart to know I may be the only one who wishes we were back together.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Mom finally comes into the kitchen. She’s dressed in black satin slippers, a long flowing emerald skirt, a simple black top, and an emerald shawl draped around her shoulders. Her hair is swept back into a simple bun, and hanging from her ears are the most dazzling set of diamond earrings with emerald centers.

I feel a little underdressed in jeans, a sweater, and flip-flops, but at least my shoes have rhinestone on them. My hairstyle also looks much like my mom’s, but what’s amazing is our earrings are so similar, although I’m pretty sure her diamonds are real. Andrés bought my rhinestone earrings along the boardwalk when we went on vacation this summer to Galveston. My heart lurches when I think of him, but I do my best to suppress my emotions. I will not let dark thoughts of him ruin my first holiday with my new family.

Mom comes over and gives me a hug. “You look beautiful,” she whispers into my ear. “Are we ready for Thanksgiving?” she asks as she releases me and clasps her hands together.

The boys squeal their excitement. They’ve been trapped in the kitchen since after naptime, and I’m pretty sure they’ve eaten more than their fair share of cookies.  

Mom laces her fingers through Doc’s and kisses him on the cheek. Then she turns to my brothers. “Boys, you lead Sissy into the dining room.”

They smile up at me as I grasp their hands, slightly sticky from cookie icing, and we walk toward the kitchen.

Gio tugs on my pants leg and winks up at me. “Wait till you see it. Mommy makes a magic house every year.”

I quirk a brow. “Magic?” I say as we walk into the dining room, and then my jaw practically hits the floor. “Magic,” I breathe.     

I swear the dining room, or what was left of the dining room, looks more like a page from a fairytale. Every wall, every corner, has been transformed into a little slice of my mom’s magical universe. Little paper lanterns hang at varying degrees from the ceiling, lattice woven with vines and silk flowers adorn the walls. There’s even a fountain with dancing cherubs in one corner. Manny squeals and releases my hand, dashing for the fountain. I call for him to come back, but then I see him playing with wooden toy boats floating in the water. Gio joins him, and they pretty much forget all about sitting down to dinner.

I walk to one wall, admiring the pictures hanging from the lattice. I didn’t notice them at first, as they were framed by ivy and flowers, but now I see Mom’s decorated the room in pictures. Some I recognize from this week. There’s one of me and the boys posing on their backyard slide, another of my kids when they were babies. My breath hitches when I see a faded photograph of a young girl holding a baby in a hospital bed.

Mom comes up beside me and slips her arm through mine. “This was right after you were born. It’s the only picture they let me take with you.”

In the picture she’s teary-eyed as she looks down at me, and I can tell she doesn’t want to give me up. I feel bad for that younger version of Mom, and I want to reach into that photograph and steal them both away.

“You’re so young,” I say as I shake my head. “You look younger than eighteen.”

Much younger than eighteen. 

“I had that baby face for a while,” she says with a sigh.

I frown and clutch my stomach. It sickens me to think what a pervert my dad was, and I wonder how many other girls he raped.

As if Mom senses my distress, she pulls me to the next wall, and I see the baby and kindergarten pictures she’d asked me to paint for her. She points toward the ceiling. Every inch is covered in vines and flowers. I get a good look at the lamps which are dangling from the hanging vines, and I can see words stenciled on the bottom of each lamp: love, family, reunited, together, and thankful. She points to a cluster of five lamps hanging above the dining table. Each lamp is strung together with our names written on them.  

But what literally takes my breath away is the collage at the center of the table. It’s a large wicker basket with silk flowers and vines extending out of it, but the center flower is much larger, and stitched across the petals are the words, “Welcome to our family, Christina. We will always love you.”

I’m too choked up to say anything, so I turn to her and practically knock her down with the strength of my hug. “I love you too, Mom.”

I’m about to start bawling when I feel myself being pulled and look down to see Gio and Manny tugging on my jeans.

Gio puffs up his chest and gives me his best little man expression. “You’re not supposed to cry on Thanksgiving, Sissy.”

Manny is much more direct. “Can we eat now?”

Mom and I look at each other and laugh. We scoop up my brothers and sit down while Doc finishes setting food on the table. We say grace together as a family, holding hands and giving thanks.

I smile down at my brothers’ heads and squeeze my mom’s hand tight. Even though I feel as if my life with Andrés is fading into nothing more than a dream, I’ve got a lot to be thankful for today. 

* * *

It’s late, and I’ve just finished a hot bath in my garden tub. Yes, I’ve got my own en suite bathroom. My mom’s house is pretty awesome. The kids have already been tucked in bed, and even though I’m physically exhausted, I know I can’t sleep yet. I’ve got too much on my mind. Besides, I told Doc I would talk to her tonight, and I still have to make good on my promise. Although, truthfully, I’m a bit reluctant to bring up the past. Talking about our past brings up a whole new set of issues that, so far, I’ve been able to avoid, namely, my abusive childhood.

I hear a noise coming from the dining room, so I pad down the spiral staircase to check it out. I gasp when I see my mom hunched over on the floor. It’s hard to tell what she’s doing because we’ve extinguished most of the lanterns, and the only light seems to be coming from a lantern sitting on the nearby dining table. 

I cautiously walk up to her. If she’s meditating, I don’t want to disturb her. And then I hear it, a strangled sob that makes my limbs freeze. She’s crying.

“Mom?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

She looks up at me with wide, watery eyes. I can see now she’s holding the picture of us together right after I was born. “I held you in my arms for a moment,” she says as she looks back down at the picture, “and then they pried you away. I swear a part of me died when they took you from me.”

I sit on the floor and wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Mom, please don’t cry,” I beg. “I don’t blame you for any of this.”

She pulls back and looks at me. “Christina, why aren’t you talking to your mother?”

My throat constricts as I do my best to keep an impassive face. I don’t like where this conversation is going. Not at all. “She’s not my mother. You are.”

But she inches closer to me and grasps my hand. She’s got a determined look in her eyes. “What did she do to make you hate her?”

“Does it matter?” I ask as I look down at our joined hands. Now I wish I’d stayed in my room.

She cups my chin in her hand, forcing me to look at her, but her face is blurred by my stupid tears.

“It does to me,” she says. “I’ve always wondered if I made the right decision leaving you with them. I could have given you up for adoption to someone else.” Her voice cracks as she drops her hands. “I thought you’d be better off with a blood relative.”

“Mom, quit beating yourself up over this. You were young and scared.” My limbs go limp, and I freeze with fear. It’s as if the blood pumping through my veins slows to a near trickle.

Please don’t make me bring up the rape.
 

She wipes her eyes with the corner of her shawl. “You believe my story that he forced me so easily. You don’t even defend your father.”

“Because he was an asshole,” I say. Just the thought of what he did to my mom, and then to me, makes my brain seize with red hot anger.  

“Why?” she begs. “Did he hurt you, too?”

“W-what?” I stammer, forcing myself to meet her eyes. I will not crack. I will not let her know how badly he hurt me.

Though her lower lip trembles, her green eyes darken and her expression hardens. She reminds me of an enraged animal preparing to defend her young. “Did he rape you?”

It’s as if time has stopped, and the only sounds I hear are the soft splashing coming from the water fountain and my erratic heartbeat pounding in my ears.

Maybe I should lie, but I know somehow she’ll figure me out. Besides, she suspects too much. Even if I lie to her now, I won’t be able to for much longer. 

Finally, I exhale a heavy breath and force myself to look into her eyes. “Once, when I was fifteen. My adoptive mother knew about it and did nothing.”

My mom’s strangled cry isn’t reassuring. She hunches over and sobs into her hands.

“Mom, please don’t cry,” I beg as I lean over her, pressing my face against her shoulder. “I’ve put it behind me now. I have. It’s not your fault.”

But I don’t know if she hears me because she keeps murmuring, “What have I done?”

I refuse to let her do this to herself. To us. Despite the emotional wounds I’ve suffered these past few weeks, I feel like I’ve healed so much with my new family, and I won’t play the role of the broken-hearted victim any longer.   

“What have you done?” I rub her back. “You’ve given me a family when I had none. I came here to heal, not to keep hurting. My friend died last week, my boyfriend dumped me. You guys are the only good things I’ve got. I don’t want us to hurt anymore. Please.”  

Mom looks at me with a slack jaw, and then she cups my face with her hand. “Your friend died?”

“Mrs. Peterson.” I nod as the tears stinging the backs of my eyes rapidly turn into torrents. “You would have liked her. She looked after me when my parents were being assholes.”

“I’m so sorry she died.” Mom grabs me and pulls me to her chest.  

“Me, too.”

She kisses my cheek and whispers into my ear. “I’m sorry about Andrés, too.”

“I don’t know how it all fell apart.” I hate the note of desperation that slips into my voice. I clutch her tighter, hoping to draw from her strength. Thank God for my mom and my brothers, or else this emotional chasm of despair would have already swallowed me whole. I pull back and sit on my heels. “One minute we’re so in love, and the next he takes off and doesn’t return my calls. I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know is I can’t keep working for his family. I don’t think I can handle being with him but apart from him.”

Mom wipes my tears with the pad of her thumb and then hesitantly smiles. “Did you like the way I decorated the dining room today?”

“Yeah, I loved it.” I nod as my gaze sweeps the room. Though it’s dark in here, I still feel the magic from today. I know what she’s trying to do. She’s trying to change the subject so I don’t cry over Andrés. She’s a good mom.  

“Sorry I didn’t include you, but I wanted you to be surprised.”

“I was.” The way she centered her theme around welcoming me to the family means so much to me.

She heaves a sigh and then flashes another, wearier smile. “I’ve got seven designer furniture stores across four states. I’m so busy right now, but I’ve been thinking of expanding and decorating weddings and parties.” She pauses and bites her lip while eyeing me from beneath her lashes. “I need someone I can depend on, someone who’s artistic, to handle it. Would you be interested?”

I gasp as a trill of excitement sends a jolt right through me, and I practically jump off the floor. “Are you asking me to work for you?”

“Yes. I think you’d do an amazing job.”

The way her eyes sparkle when she looks at me sends a ripple of gooseflesh across my extremities.   

A thousand thoughts are racing through my mind. I get to decorate parties! I think of all the things I can do to make a wedding or  Sweet Sixteen memorable. I can paint murals, and I’d love to decorate a room with ivy and flowers, waterfalls, and paper lamps. My mind is racing with so many magical and creative ideas.

But then I remember my job back in Austin. Though I don’t want to work with Andrés anymore, his Tio has always been good to me. I know he’ll be upset if I quit, but I told them when I first started this might not be a forever gig. They had to know that once I graduated, I’d want to move on.

I throw my arms around my mom and practically knock us both on our backs. “I accept!”

Chapter Nineteen