As he spoke, I felt myself withering, burning, turning to ashes. How could this be possible? Andres, poor Andres, who had done nothing wrong except trust me, dead, with a bullet hole in the chest I had kissed and touched, the chest that contained his beautiful heart. I wanted to race back to the hotel, to prove Gabriel wrong, to turn back time. But the stages of grief are a luxury of the innocent. I had to protect my son.
Gabriel, with his hair too long in the back. The barest hint of a mustache. Un ni?o nomás. Pero al mismo tiempo, no longer the child I recognized. He was someone new, reborn in blood, and I shuddered to think of what would become of him if he went to prison, surrounded by men who were already hard when he was still soft. A boy like Mateo, maybe he’d be able to keep himself whole. But Gabriel would shatter, then rebuild into something terrible. I couldn’t let that happen.
“Give me what you’re wearing,” I said. “Los dos. Y traéme la ropa sucia from your bathroom tambíen.”
Obediently, they stripped off their shirts and shorts, kicked off their shoes and handed me their socks, damp with rain and sweat. They changed and collected the rest of their dirty clothes, bringing everything wrapped in a towel, so neat and modest.
We’re all going to need alibis, I thought as I started the wash. Gabriel said his friends, Rudy and Wayo—a brief flicker of recognition at those names, no time to dwell on it—would say he’d been with them at the park. I wondered how many other instances they’d covered for him, and what he’d done to need their protection. I wondered what he’d done for them in return.
I took the cuates to Wendy’s for Frosties, made small talk with the cashier. Y luego straight to the mall, where I sat between them en el cine, my stomach doing a vuelta each time Gabriel’s shoulder brushed mine.
For the first time in his life, I hated my son. But not more than I loved him.
I put a hand to my heart, as if I might still be able to feel the heat of Andres’s palm. The last time he’d touched me. And that was when I realized: my necklace, the locket I always wore. It was gone.
Cassie, 2017
With the white trellises beside him and the lights in the trees, Mateo was an oddly romantic sight in my doorway. He could be extending a hand with flowers, instead of the phone I’d left at Lore’s.
“Thank you so much,” I said, slipping it into my pocket. I was flustered, my heart still pounding after I’d come to my realization about Gabriel. And now, as Mateo’s eyes crinkled slightly, more generous with smiles than his mouth, I was overly aware I wasn’t wearing a bra, my nipples hard in the air-conditioning.
“No problem.” Mateo slipped his foot against the door, holding it ajar as I crossed my arms. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Great. Why don’t we go to the bar? Let me grab a sweater.”
Mateo glanced behind him at the pool area as I zipped up my hoodie. “I think it’s closed.”
“Oh.” I looked at the stool pulled up to the built-in desk. “Well, come in, then. Sorry, tight space.”
Our shoulders brushed as I hurriedly closed my laptop. If he’d seen the street view image of his childhood home before sitting down, he didn’t acknowledge it. He was frowning, taking in the faded floral wallpaper and venetian blinds, the fake fern and heavy, scarred wooden furniture.
“Why are you staying here?” His voice was neutral, stripped of inflection, which only made the judgment more obvious.
“Research,” I said, embarrassed. I sat on the edge of the bed. Our knees were almost touching. “So. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“I wanted to apologize,” Mateo said, “for Gabriel. He was out of line tonight.”
My knee accidentally grazed his. I saw him notice the contact. He didn’t pull away. He had that fresh-lit match smell, as if he’d driven over with the windows down. I liked that idea of him, enjoying a piece of the night by himself.
“You’re not your brother’s keeper,” I said.
Then I wondered: How much did he know? That bribe when we first met—maybe it had been about more than protecting his family’s privacy. Maybe it had been to protect his family’s secret. And the late-night email exchange, the way he’d suddenly been willing to talk on the phone. Maybe he’d only wanted to get a sense of what I was learning. He could be here for the same reason. The idea saddened me, though what had I hoped? That maybe he wanted to talk to me not as the writer of his mother’s story, but as myself?
“Okay, my own apology, then. You’re obviously not someone who can be bought off,” he added, as if reading my mind. “Plus, the shitty things I said about your abilities when we first met.” He winced, sheepish. “I pulled out all the stops, didn’t I?”
I laughed. “It’s okay. I’d probably do the same in your position.”
Mateo tilted his head, a curious, attentive gesture. I could see him doing this in exam rooms, stethoscope to his ear, listening to the gurgles and whooshes inside animals that couldn’t speak for themselves.
“Does that mean—are you reconsidering the book?” he asked.
The question surprised me, made me want to clutch my laptop to my chest, protecting the months of interview transcripts and notes, the sample chapters and book proposal, the sense of purpose it had all given me, the sense of promise. No. I wasn’t reconsidering the book. The book was everything to me.
“No,” I said, gentle but immovable.
Mateo sighed, slumping forward with his elbows on his thighs. “Not that I expected you to say yes, but I’m disappointed to hear that.” He looked up at me, something complicated in his brown eyes, and I realized—ridiculously, belatedly—how vulnerable I was, alone in this tiny hotel room with a man I hardly knew, a man who might be here to protect his family’s secret. I pulled my phone from my pocket.
“Actually, that reminds me,” I said. “I need to text my agent. She’s expecting an update from me tonight.”
I pressed the home button. Nothing happened.
“Sorry,” Mateo said. “Your battery must have died.”
His tone hadn’t changed, but my breath hitched. An instinct, a learned fear—my dad retreating to his chair, hand on his drink—or one bred into us: a dark parking lot, keys between our fingers; dusk falling on a run, the sudden beat of footsteps close behind. I pulled my charger from my duffel and backed toward the nightstand, where I plugged in my phone without taking my eyes off Mateo.
Mom’s invited you here like you’re part of the family, Gabriel had said. But you’re just a leech.
Maybe I was a leech. But I was a leech who was going to find out the truth, finally.
“Mateo,” I said carefully, “your mother told me something tonight. She told me it wasn’t your father who killed Andres.”
Mateo stood, taking two slow paces toward the door, then back. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”
My hands trembled. “Go on.”
Mateo placed a palm on the TV console. “The kitchen window was open. I heard her confess. Cassie, you can’t write that.”
I startled at the sound of my name in his mouth. Familiar, almost intimate.
“Why not?” I glanced at my phone, waiting for it to light up with charge.
“Because it’s not what happened!” He began pacing again, four large strides from the door to the bathroom, tense and fast. The room tightened around the space he was claiming, back and forth, back and forth.
“It wasn’t your mother, either, was it?” I stabbed the home button on my phone. Nothing.
Mateo didn’t answer.
“When did you find out?” I asked, almost dizzy.
Suddenly, too suddenly, Mateo stopped moving. He reminded me of an animal you’d encounter in the wild, something elegant and strong, eyes fixed to yours, muscles twitching. Antlers that could take you apart if it was cornered.
“About what?” he asked, low.
About Gabriel, I meant to say. But something in the way he was staring at me. It clicked, a final understanding. Can you even imagine what it was like, he’d said in our first conversation, opening the door to someone who tells you that everything you believe about someone you love is a lie? His voice tight with outrage. As if he’d been there. As if he’d heard it.
“Oh, God,” I said. “You were there, when Andres came to the house.”