Marcos smiled. “I’m an idiot—?you know that, don’t you?”
Sam smiled back at him. “Yeah, I get that vibe from you.” But it didn’t come out mean or snarky, the way she said that. Well, a little snarky, but a little sweet too. She was trying.
Marcos looked at me and nodded. “Five years ago I left your dad. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I wanted you to know that. I wanted you to know that I hurt him once. You have no idea how much I regret that hurt. For the last five years, not a day has gone by when I didn’t think of Vicente. Not one day.”
Sam and I were just looking at each other. Marcos smiled at us. “You two are a pair, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, we are,” I said.
My father walked into the living room. Sometimes when Mima saw me, her face would glow. Sometimes. Because she loved me so much. That’s how my dad looked now.
Sam and I sat there looking at each other. Marcos and Dad walked toward the kitchen. And then Sam said, “Sometimes adults can be very cool.”
Marcos and Dad looked at her, and she flashed them a smile. “I said sometimes.”
Sam was washing the dishes. She’d come a long way with stuff like that. The first time she cleaned the bathroom, I swear the people in Juarez could hear her bitching. But now it was a normal thing with her.
Marcos was an engineer, so he was helping Fito with his math. I heard him explaining the concepts. I should’ve probably been paying attention, but I was so not about math. Nope.
Dad was sitting in his chair writing something on a yellow legal pad. Sam came into the living room. I watched her as she walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled at her. “What was that for?”
“Just because,” she said.
And I heard myself saying, “Oh, now we’re into just because kisses.”
“Yeah. And you’re so not getting one.”
I thought about how we all sat down tonight to eat my dad’s soup—?Dad and Marcos and Fito and Sam and me. We’d played a game, the one we didn’t finish at Sam’s house, the what’s-the-best-moment-in-my-life game.
Dad said the best moment in his life was the day I was born. “An emergency C-section. Your mother couldn’t hold you. I was the lucky guy. God, did you belt out a cry. Yeah, that was the most beautiful moment in my life.”
Marcos said the best moment in his life was the day he met my father. I thought that was a brave thing to say, but I also think it was the truth. Yeah, being brave and telling the truth went together. Whatever happened between them in the past, well, it was in the past. I know I was trying to find all the faults in the guy, but I wasn’t getting very far.
And Sam? The best moment in her life? “Well,” she said, “the day I came to live here. That was the best moment in my life. Even though I came to live here because my mom died, I feel safe. This feels like home.”
And Fito said, “Hell, you know, this is the best moment in my life. This moment. Right now.”
I thought Sam was going to cry—?but she didn’t.
And me? I said the best moment in my life was the day it rained yellow leaves, and I told them all about that afternoon with Mima. I had never told anyone about that. No one. “I don’t think Mima even remembers. But I do.”
Dad smiled. “Maybe I’ll paint that.” Yeah, I could see that painting in my head.
For the longest time our house had belonged to me and Dad. It was just the two of us. And life was good—?simple and uncomplicated. Or maybe that’s the way I saw it. If I stopped to think about it, the whole thing hadn’t been that uncomplicated—?not for Dad. I remembered him telling me that love was infinite. Infinity, that isn’t like the pi thing in math. Or maybe it is. Love has no end—?it just goes on and on.
It was a nice evening. A beautiful evening, really. Yeah, Mima was still dying and Sam’s mom was still dead and Fito was living in exile from his family, and I still wasn’t dealing with the stupid essay I needed to write to get into college, and I was still staying away from reading my mother’s letter, as if it had a snake in it or something. Still, it was a nice evening. Even if I was trying to figure out if Marcos was for real or if he was just playing it all up so he could get my dad back.
Me. Fito. Sam.
ON THE WEDNESDAY before Thanksgiving, Dad said, “Did you invite Fito over for Thanksgiving dinner at Mima’s?”
“No,” I said.
“No?” He looked at me as if I’d committed a crime. He shook his head. “What are you waiting for?”
I felt bad. I mean, yeah, I felt bad. Shit. Another little slip.
So Sam and I picked Fito up. We always said that. We’ll pick you up. We weren’t really picking him up. I mean, we walked to school. But Sam’s house was on the way, and I had always stopped by and we’d go to school.
Fito was waiting for us outside, and Sam and I waved. “Hey.”
Fito waved. “Hey.” And then Fito said he had had a bad dream.
“Bad dreams suck,” Sam said.
“Yeah. I have lots of them.”
We walked along, and I asked Fito, “So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“Well, this guy Ernie, he wants me to work for him at the K. So I’m probably gonna work.”
“Tell him no,” I said. “Tell him you have plans.”
“But I don’t.”
“You do now. You’re spending it with us.”
“Nah,” he says. “No can do. No bueno.”
“No bueno? What’s wrong with you?”
“You know, you and Sam, you show up and you’re kind of like these fuckin’ angels and you’re all, like, sweet and stuff and nice and shit, and I’m this guy who’s all messed up. I mean, what have I got? I gotta get my stuff together. I mean, why do you guys keep hanging out with me? I got nothin’ to offer.”
Sam got a fierce look on her face. “Oh, you think we just feel sorry for you. Is that it? You’re full of shit, you know that, Fito? Maybe when Sally looks at you, he thinks you’re worth something. Maybe when I look at you, maybe I think you’re worth something too. Just because you don’t like yourself doesn’t mean other people don’t like you. And if you ever say you don’t have anything to offer in my presence—?if you ever say that again—?then I’m going to kick your ass from here to Michoacán.”
“Michoacán?” I said. And then we got all goofy and laughing. And then Fito sort of hung his head and he was blinking his eyes, like he was trying to blink away all the tears that he’d held inside all his life. “I’m just, you know, I’m just not used to people being so nice to me.”
Sam leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Well, get used to it, Fito.”
And then we walked. Three friends walking to school. Fito was smiling, and Sam was smiling. And I was smiling. And I looked at her and whispered, “I like who you’re becoming.”
Sam. Eddie. Me.