“She doesn’t love you back?”
He thought about how Rachel was downstairs right now, letting Matt Abbott touch her like they were still together. “I don’t know what she feels. I don’t think she knows either. But I’m not sure I can wait around while she figures it out.”
“That’s understandable.” Beto tapped his chest, over his heart. “It hurts though, right? Thinking about letting go.”
Nathan nodded. He tried to remember whether Beto had ever been this insightful before, but kept coming back to one memory, so old and worn that he could barely trust the details anymore. Beto loved cocoa and used to make oversized marshmallows from scratch. It was always strange to discover his father in shirtsleeves, studying a candy thermometer like a chemist. Once, when Nathan was six, Beto had caught him watching and beckoned him closer, inviting him in. Nathan had run away. For years he wasn’t sure why, but now he realized it was unnerving to see your parents as more than the caricatures you’d created in your mind.
He was always running. But what if this time he stayed?
Beto drained his glass and set it on the table. “You boys are like me.”
Nathan stilled. “Excuse me?”
“I know what you’re thinking. Our history. We butt heads, but it’s because we’re too much alike. I knew that. I’ve always known, but you make it hard to—” He shook his head and mumbled something under his breath. “What I mean is you’re very passionate, mijo. You and your brother. You love like…” He paused. “Like it’s who you are. It’s not simply a feeling. Losing this love will mean—”
“Losing myself,” Nathan finished.
“Give her time,” he said, with a bittersweet smile. His voice was filled with decades of regret. “That’s what we all need to get it right sometimes. A little more time.”
Beto’s phone rang, and the extra-large font setting made it easy for Nathan to see Joe’s name pop up. “This boy never slows down, does he?” He waved at the door. “Let’s finish talking another time.”
Nathan left but stood for a moment at the closed door, still reeling at one of the softest conversations he’d ever had with his father. There had been kindness and mutual respect. The exchange was so different from what they’d always been, it felt like a waking dream.
The foyer was empty when he finally walked downstairs. Nathan stopped to look at his mother’s favorite piece of art, a framed textile piece by a local artist influenced by Feliciano Centurión. A small print by the same artist hung in his apartment. He should have told Sofia that. He should have thanked her for raising him in a house filled with inspiration. He should have looked up. But every day he’d kept his eyes stubbornly fixed to the ground, as if he had all the time in the world to appreciate what he’d been given.
Nathan left without anyone noticing. By the time he got home, he was so keyed up and itching to work, he almost tripped on his way up the stairs. He opened Abuelita’s album and started to sketch. Once he had a rough idea, he pulled out a larger canvas and laid it on the floor.
He used every tool he could think of—pencils, charcoal, his fingers, the different positions of his body—to create light and smoke, heavy lines and whisper-thin shading. And then he’d move to another canvas, and start again, like a machine. He turned his music up so loud the table beneath the speaker started trembling. “Y Llegaste Tú” played on a loop, while the memory of her spilled from his fingers.
Nathan only stopped when someone knocked on the door. He turned off the music, and the sudden silence made his ears ring. There was another knock, softer this time. Like an apology. That’s when he knew who was on the other side. But he still didn’t move. Not yet. Every second he waited was another second they weren’t broken. Loving her felt like holding the pin of a grenade.
He finally let Rachel in. The red lipstick was still there, perfect lines of deep red that made her mouth look like acrylic on canvas. She’d ditched the pearls, but this was a stranger. The mayor’s wife. Someone who would pass him without a second glance.
Asking for water wasn’t technically stalling. Rachel didn’t want her voice to crack as she explained how broke she really was, that over the past few months, she’d barely scraped together enough money for her lawyer’s retainer. Her voice was steady as she admitted the truth, so at least she had that. Because the way Nathan looked at her—like her confession was the plot of a horror movie he was forced to watch—was worse than Matt’s sneering contempt.
“You asked for money to stay with him?” His question was drenched in judgment, like she’d traded her silence for Bitcoin.
“One million—plus the house.” She found a loose thread in her skirt and wrapped it around her finger. “Herman offered me more. A lot more. But he wants me to stay until the Democratic primary is over. That article Alesha wrote isn’t going over well. Add a messy divorce to all that and they might pass him over for the nomination.”
“Good. They should.” Nathan paused. “What did they say when you turned them down?”
She should have started the conversation differently. She should have pointed to the art supplies littering his floor and asked what he was working on since the gala was only three weeks away. Or she should have kissed him. She should have peeled off her clothes and pretended that she wasn’t trying to imprint his memory on her skin.
“I haven’t answered him yet,” Rachel said, and omitted the rest. He wouldn’t care about how she’d filled her schedule with donor lunches and gala committee meetings to anesthetize his absence. He wouldn’t care that she’d failed completely.
Nathan’s irritation slipped briefly into confusion before darkening into anger. “Why the hell not?”
“It’s complicated.”
“He’s treating you like a—”
“Prostitute?”
His confirmation was a brief tightening around the eyes. “I wasn’t going to say that.”
She knew he couldn’t accept her motivations because he didn’t understand them. With his background, she doubted he ever would. “And it was my idea,” she continued, pushing harder, because neither of them deserved to get off that easily. “It must be nice to have the luxury of a moral high ground sitting on a pile of your grandmother’s money.”
Nathan’s jaw clenched. “This isn’t about me.”
“No, it isn’t.” Fury strained her voice. Rachel gouged her nails into her palm, using the pain to stay focused. “You’ve never been desperate. You’ve never had your entire life snatched away by things you couldn’t control. We’ve both made bad choices, but you’ve always had better options. I’d love to walk away, buy a building, and wipe my slate clean, but I can’t. I have to live with my mistakes. But Faith doesn’t. And I owe her this.”
“She wouldn’t want it this way!” Nathan spoke in a rush, one word tripping over the next.