"She's in New York for two weeks."
I nod, looking toward the kitchen doors like my older sister might still step through them at any moment. I'm disappointed I won't get to see her this visit. The dynamic in my family is different when she's around. While my parents tend to criticize their children's every move, Cassandra has a way of dealing with them that keeps them from messing with her too much. They don't question her the way they do Lola and me. When Cassandra decides something, everyone better get on board or jump ship.
The kitchen doors do swing open, but my father is the one who walks in. All of our eyes snap in his direction and my stomach sinks just slightly, worried about our first interaction since our big fight.
Our gazes intersect and I'm instantly reminded of how intimidating my father is. It's not only because he's the highest-ranking cop in the entire city, or because he's a war veteran and recipient of a purple heart after nearly losing his life to save twelve others in an ambush over twenty-five years ago. I'm convinced it goes further back than all those things. I'm convinced it wasn't the military or police service that hardened my father, but something much earlier in life.
A lifetime of being his daughter will never prepare me for just how crushing a simple look of disappointment from him can be. And that's the last expression I saw on his face.
But his expression is quite different as he comes my way now. He holds a cup of coffee in one hand and a brown paper bag in the other. There's an almost timid energy about him that I've never before witnessed.
"This is for you," he says, giving me the cup.
It's not coffee. I can smell the cinnamon and somehow know it's hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon on top. My favorite.
It's just so unexpected, and my voice is smaller than I mean for it to be when I say, "Gracias, Papi."
"And this," he says, handing me the paper bag.
I recognize the logo on it at a glance. It's the Rolling Pin, a bakery that my father and I would pass whenever he drove me home from softball practice. Some of my favorite memories with him involve stopping there to get treats. It was one of the only things we did together, just him and me. And it was those bakery dates that taught me my father communicates in a different way than other people do. He doesn't know how to string words together when it comes to feelings, so he speaks through his actions.
To some people this would not be enough. Some people would demand for his explicit apology, spelled out, word for word. People that don't know my father, that wouldn't understand the complicated gears of his inner workings. A man who's endured his share of scars and erected walls rooted deep in the ground, many decades before I was even born. And even though there have been many times throughout my life that I wished for a different father--a more nurturing one, a sweeter one--this is the one life dealt me. He loves my sisters and me more than anything in the world. He never meant to hurt me in his anger. I know that, deep in my bones.
I'm old enough now to realize that to ask for him to be someone he isn't would just be a demand of my ego. And the ego doesn't care about anything but itself. As for me? I just want my father back. I'm willing to lay pride aside, if that's what it takes.
This simple, almost childlike gesture of bringing me treats is his apology. It's his way of telling me he knows he was wrong. Might sound ridiculous to anyone else, but to me...
There's little time to bask in the moment because Lola pipes in, "Okay, but where's my coffee, though?"
"You have to be gone for me to miss you, Lola," my father says, lips twitching a bit at their corners. He's looking at me when he says it because that...that's his way of telling me he's missed me.
I hug him, hot chocolate in one hand, bag of pastries in the other. He hugs me back and I swear I feel his shoulders sag under an outward breath.
Lola takes the opportunity to snatch the bag of pastries. And something about this silly, mundane moment manages to break any ice that encased my family, or me, or our relationship, or whatever it was. In our own, weird, dysfunctional way, we've made amends.
We all sit around the table to eat the pastries. When the doorbell rings, Lola mumbles something about it probably being one of our aunts who said she'd come early to help set up. She goes to answer it, while the rest of us continue eating, and my mother resumes her long-winded story about the nightmare, drama queen of a neighbor next door.
Lola's approaching voice sounds out from beyond the door.
"Julia, you have a visitor."
The words jar me, but there's something about the singsong way she says it that confuses me. The kitchen door opens and in walks Lola.
Followed closely by Giles.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Giles
JULIA INTRODUCES ME LIKE SHE expected me to come all along. Her knitted eyebrows and fidgety hands tell the real story.
Her mother instantly greets me with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She's delighted when I hand her a box of chocolate truffles. It's an unopened box I grabbed from the kitchen counter on my way out of the house, knowing I shouldn't come empty-handed to a birthday party but not having time for anything else. The chocolates belong to Ava, who will more than likely be pissed when she realizes they're missing. Julia must recognize them because she shakes her head at me and her strained smile suggests she's holding back laughter.
While all of this is happening, I'm well aware of the tall, broad shouldered man with peppered hair watching me. I turn to him, and Julia introduces him as her father.
"You're Julia's friend?"
"Yes, sir."
I keep eye contact, but don't feel the need to elaborate on such a direct question. Beside me, Julia shifts her footing, as her father's dark eyes consider me for a few seconds longer, his jaw working a subtle chewing motion as though he's literally biting back his words.
Julia cuts into the brief silence to introduce me to her sister, who I already met at the door and who invited me into the house the moment I told her I was a friend of Julia's. With a warmth and friendliness that I didn't expect from a stranger.
Julia's father continues to look right at me, he starts to say something but his wife intervenes, setting a hand on his chest as though in a gentle reminder, before ushering me to the table and asking if I'm hungry. I am, but she doesn't wait for my answer, and prepares a plate of scrambled eggs with a side of what looks like potato cakes with slivers of avocado. It takes her all of ten minutes and as she sets the food in front of me, she says something to her husband in Spanish. I know a few Spanish words, but hers slip past me so quickly I can't make sense of them.