Andrew’s walls were bright green, the color of toxic chemicals in cartoons, vintage Avengers posters thumbtacked to the walls. Each figure was set against a monochromatic background, the angles of their faces sharp and geometric. The male figures had narrow, slit-like eyes cut into their masks, while Black Widow was entirely featureless, red hair swirling around a blank white face. Figured.
I set my coffee on his messy corner desk. “Where do we start?”
Andrew stood in front of me, bare feet firmly planted on the carpet. “I’ll teach you some basic moves first.”
For the next twenty minutes, Andrew taught me how to maneuver away from the imaginary grips of men much larger than I, men who might grab my wrist at a bar or push a forearm to my throat from behind in a parking lot. Andrew already had a wiry strength that surprised me. As we practiced, I wondered if my mother had ever thrust up a forearm like this to block a blow. I’d never seen her defend herself, but there was a lot I hadn’t seen. Maybe she’d figured the easiest way through was to let it happen, knowing how quickly my father felt ashamed. If Lore had been threatened, she would have fought back. I knew it.
When Andrew determined I was ready to move on to crescent kicks and roundhouses, we went to the backyard. The house sat on half an acre, a thick tree line acting as a natural fence. The majestic bald cypress towered over the oaks and pecans. I used to wait all year for it to flame red in autumnal magic before dropping its lacy needles. Proof that things changed.
On the slightly rolling lawn, the lesson culminated in wild “flying kicks” that left us both laughing in the grass. We spread out as if making snow angels, cold dew dampening our jeans.
“See that?” I pointed to the low cloud hanging like a blindfold across the plaster-white sky. “That’s called a nimbostratus cloud. It’s going to rain later, but no thunder or lightning.”
Andrew peered at the sky. A slant of sunlight cut through his fair lashes. “How do you know that?”
“Mom taught me.”
I glanced at the old swing set. The metal chains gripped in my small hands, my father’s palm between my shoulders, my mother’s open arms in front of me, always prepared to catch me. They had tried to be good parents. For a while, they had been.
“Andrew,” I said quietly, “how long have you known Dad’s an alcoholic?”
He pulled a clump of grass from the lawn, staring at the exposed strip of earth. I thought of the crime scene photos—that line of skin between Andres’s sock and the hem of his jeans.
“I don’t know. A couple of years.” He ripped a blade of grass in half slowly, deliberately. “He’d go from not drinking at all to drinking all the time, being kind of a mess, then back to nothing. Doesn’t take a genius.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Andrew shrugged. “Why would I?”
The sting of my irrelevancy spread in my chest. “But this time . . .”
“He wasn’t stopping.” He dropped the blade of grass, picked up a rock. “And the other stuff. Not cooking dinner, forgetting to pay bills. I think he was probably drinking at work, too, because he already seemed drunk when he’d get home. That time he forgot me at karate and we found him passed out—after that, my sensei said he could call someone for me. But, like, who? CPS? I thought they were going to take me away. So I told him I’d call you.”
I had been a last resort. And even then, I hadn’t come through for him. I braced myself. “Andrew, on the phone—you said he was getting mean. Mean how?”
Andrew clenched the rock, then hurled it toward the trees. “He called me an ungrateful little shit when I asked about the internet.” His voice trembled. “I was just asking.”
A wave of relief crested through me. “That’s all?”
Andrew looked at me sharply. “What, that’s not bad enough?”
“Oh, Andrew.” I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “That’s not what I meant.”
He shrugged me away. “He’s better, though, right?” His eyes lifted to mine, and the anger had shifted to hope, guileless and open. I remembered how he used to look at me when I leaned over him in the bassinet—the grin when he recognized my face, the squirm of wanting to be lifted without knowing how to stretch his arms up for me. “He’s sober now?”
I hesitated. “You’ve seen how it goes. He’s better today. That doesn’t mean he’ll be better tomorrow. It’s something he’ll have to work at for the rest of his life.”
Andrew pulled his knees to his chest, encircling them with his arms. In profile, his face was all sharp angles, like it had been chiseled by someone who didn’t quite know when to stop. His baby softness almost gone.
Lore, 2017
After Thanksgiving lunch, everyone settled in to watch Home Alone. Gabriel and Mateo had been too old when the movie first came out, pero ahora con los ni?os we all laughed as Kevin set his traps for Marv and Harry. We promised we’d take Joseph and Michael to the striped Christmas tree tent on McPherson in the morning.
When the phone rang, I half expected it to be Cassie again. What had she wanted this morning, those three calls I’d missed? Normally we only spoke at six. Unsettled, I’d ignored them. Now my heart skipped; the caller ID said “Unknown.” Finally.
The automated spiel came on, and there was a brief delay after I accepted the call.
“Lore?”
I smiled. “Hola, mi amor. I’m putting you on speaker. Gabriel, pause it. Fabian, we’re all here. The boys, too.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!” Fabian injected his voice with cheer, the way he was always so good at doing for the cuates when he was in Austin.
Gabriel gestured for the phone and held it close to Michael and Joseph, who were lying on the floor beneath their Blaze and the Monster Machines blankets. “Say hi to Grandpa,” Gabriel said. Joseph waved half-heartedly, his eyes on the paused image of Marv in a doorway, wild-haired and wild-eyed. “He can’t see you, Joseph,” Gabriel said, laughing. “The boys say hi, Dad. How are you?”
“Fine, mijo, fine. Same old. Michael, Joseph, ?qué comieron?”
This question pulled them from their stupor, and they recounted all the dishes as I fought a wave of sorrow, imagining Fabian eating slices of dry turkey off a plastic tray. It wasn’t fair. On the couch beside Gabriel, Brenda pulled out her own phone, scrolling and scrolling. I wanted to slap it out of her hands. Show some respect, I wanted to say. Feeling Mateo’s gaze, I glanced at him, and he rolled his eyes toward Brenda. I smiled. I really did wish he would meet someone nice.
Michael was telling Fabian about our Christmas tree plans. “We’re going to get a big one, one that’s taller than Daddy, and I get to put the star on top!”
“No!” Joseph wailed, grabbing the phone. He searched the screen, still confused between FaceTime and speakerphone. “I want to put the star on top, Grandpa!”
It always amazed me, how, even with their perpetual whys, the boys just accepted that Fabian was in prison. As if prison were a city like Laredo, a place where people were born and sometimes stayed.
After a few minutes, I extended my hand. I wanted to talk to Fabian alone before our time ran out.
In my bedroom (now painted Cranberry Cocktail, beautiful with my gold damask comforter), I jumped straight to it: “Mi amor, has that reporter, Cassie, tried to schedule any more interviews with you?”
“Yes,” Fabian said, “and I keep saying no. Why?”
“She keeps asking about that night.”
Fabian was quiet. I pictured him standing at a phone bank. All our calls were recorded.
“Why?” he finally said. “?Ya! What happened happened.”
“I know, amor. I know. I’m sorry.”
“We agreed,” he said.
The line beeped. One minute left.
“I know.” I sighed. “But she won’t stop digging, y tengo miedo que if you don’t talk to her . . .”
“It could all be for nothing.”
“Exactly.” I stared outside at the gnarled branches of the oaks. Sometimes branches separated only to come back together, the leaves on one indistinguishable from leaves on another.
“Fine,” he said. “But, Lore.”
“Yes?”
Another beep. Thirty seconds.
“Ten cuidado,” he said.
Irritation poked like a splinter in my skin. I knew what I was doing.
And what I might have to do.
Cassie, 2017