“What is it?” Jorge asks gruffly. “Your health?”
“No, no.” Mami waves the idea away like a bad smell. She glances again at Papi, who slices aggressively into his sausage. “Es la tienda.”
Dread settles like a fist behind Lore’s ribs.
“Mami, no,” Marta gasps.
“What?” Pablo looks between them all, as if he’s missing something. “Is the store in trouble? That much trouble, I mean?”
Papi’s knife clatters to his plate, startling Lore. “Mijo, what did you think? All people want to do is sell their shit, not buy any. It is what it is.”
“You’re not closing?” Beto says. “The store’s been around for seventy years!”
“Seventy-two, but who’s counting?” Papi says bitterly.
“What about a loan?” Lore asks, though banks are under more pressure than ever to ensure their loans can be repaid, and clearly her parents are in no position to do so.
“Ay, Lore.” Mami’s bare face reddens with irritation. “Don’t you think we tried that?”
“And?” Lore asks.
Papi lifts his chin. “The bank said no. So we found another solution. A . . . private lender.”
Oh, God. While banks are heavily regulated, there are dozens of fast-cash places scattered around the city, sketchy lenders offering quick turnaround loans in exchange for collateral, with interest rates rivaling credit cards, fleecing struggling customers with up to 30 percent interest.
“You’re not behind on payments, are you?” Lore asks evenly.
Her parents don’t answer.
“How many months?”
Mami glances at Papi, bites her lip. “Three.”
“Ay, Mami.” Marta puts a hand over their mother’s. “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have helped you!” She turns to Lore. “What does this mean?”
“Did you put up collateral?” Lore asks. “The car? The house?” She knows her parents have nearly finished paying it off.
Papi sits up straighter. He and Mami look at each other, and Lore can imagine the sleepless nights, panic mounting. The store folding anyway. Why? Why didn’t they come to her?
“The house,” Papi says, and Lore can hear in the flint of his voice how hard this is, admitting his struggles, his mistakes, to his children.
“What’s going to happen now?” Marta asks Lore, her voice rising. “They won’t—I mean, they can’t—foreclose, can they?”
They can and they will. Those private lenders are little more than loan sharks, and in times like these, they smell blood.
“It depends on the terms,” Lore says. “Do you have the loan doc?”
By the time Marta brings out the red velvet cake she baked for Mami, they’ve formed a plan: all the siblings will pitch in to help repay the loan, which is no small sacrifice. Pablo is worried the restaurant he manages will go under soon, which would leave them with only Lisa’s teaching income. Beto and Melissa are both real estate agents. Jorge is a school principal, but Christie isn’t getting her yearly bonus at the law firm where she’s a secretary. Marta only works part-time, and there are industry rumors that despite recent deregulation, a savings and loan crisis is on the horizon, which doesn’t bode well for Sergio’s job. Only her parents and Fabian work directly in retail, and yet the heavy hand of the peso devaluation has struck each of them. They are all wobbling.
Then there’s the issue of her parents’ retirement. How much have they saved? Next year Papi will be eligible for 75 percent of his social security benefits, though how much can that be? Mami won’t be eligible for another four years. Papi is on 60 percent disability, but Lore doesn’t know what he receives for his monthly VA check. Her parents are private people, and proud. It’s always felt unseemly to pry into their finances. Now she has no choice.
As they’re getting set to leave, Lore suddenly remembers her trip to DF on Friday. Her nail beds tingle with a nervous current of electricity.
“Oh, hey,” she says to Marta as they collect purses and Ziploc bags filled with meat. “Would you be able to pick up the cuates from school on Friday and keep them overnight? Work trip. I’ll be back Saturday evening.”
Marta’s face brightens. “Of course! If the weather’s nice, we can take them to the ranch.”
“They’d love that.” Lore smiles gratefully. There is nothing better than someone you love loving your children, and Marta loves them generously and unconditionally. If anything ever happened to Lore and Fabian, she’d want the twins with Marta. The thought comes complete and unbidden, and Lore shakes it off with a chill.
Cassie, 2017
It was almost six, and I had a four-hour drive back to Austin ahead of me. In Lore’s driveway, we stood hugging-distance apart, arms at our sides. It was like coming out of a trance. So much between us, so much left to say. The scope of this project felt vast, unfathomable from end to end.
“So.” Lore shielded her eyes from the sun, casting her face into shadow. “?Ahora qué? What happens next?”
In an ideal world—that is, if I had money—I would rent a place in Laredo for a few weeks, spend several hours a day with Lore. Let the stories unfurl in a continuous dream. But there was no way to make that happen.
“Well, I can come down again in a few weeks,” I said, though even that was probably a stretch unless I made it a day trip. “In the meantime, I’d love to continue our conversations over the phone.”
Lore shrugged. “You just tell me when you’ll be calling, and I’ll answer.”
“How’s six o’clock in the evenings?”
“Fine.”
Then, to my surprise, she stepped close and traced what felt like a t—the sign of the cross, I realized—on my forehead. I could smell her rose-scented body lotion, see every gray hair layered like tinsel above a bottom layer of black. She murmured something in Spanish, her breath soft on my face, followed by “May God bless you and keep you safe.” Then, with a brisk squeeze of my shoulders, she walked away.
I was still standing there, unexpectedly moved, when Lore shut the front door.
The Austin skyline was sequined silver against the velvet night, welcoming me home.
Duke and I ate a late dinner of grilled cheese and brisket sandwiches, talked about Lore over nearly two bottles of wine. I’d barely touched alcohol in college. I couldn’t separate it from the dread of seeing my father pour his first glass, the rage at what it had done to my family. I was afraid of whatever parts of him might lie dormant in me. But with Duke, I’d discovered the way wine softened my harsh edges, made the world feel more inhabitable. Sometimes I wondered if this was how it had started for my father. If everything that becomes too much starts out as just enough.
Like Dolores and Andres. Entire lives destroyed because of one dance.
After dinner, Duke pulled me into the bedroom, pushed me playfully onto the unmade bed. I laughed, reached for him, let him pin my wrists over my head. He kissed me, and my body responded, even though my mind was still on Lore.
Before I could change my mind, I mumbled against Duke’s mouth, “Do you think it’s weird that you’ve never met my family?”
His lips stilled, his weight heavy before he shifted to brace himself on his elbows. Outside, the neighbor’s German shepherd emitted a throaty, staccato series of barks, and a car’s headlights swept across our tangled miniblinds, illuminating the frown between his eyebrows.
“No,” Duke said. “Well, I mean, maybe at first. For a long time, I thought it was just me. Like maybe you weren’t sure about us.” He shrugged, a motion I could feel more than see, the flicker of a faded hurt.
“Really? I didn’t know that.”
He rolled off, facing me in the darkness. “I didn’t want to pressure you.”
“And now?” I asked, fingers in his hair, tracing the landscape of his skull.
“Now what?”
“Is it weird?”