As Mom studied Diego across the table, her fingers twitched, itching for a cigarette. She regarded him the way a battle--hardened general regards the enemy on the other side of a blood-soaked battlefield, which was weird since she was the one who’d invited him to dinner.
The whole thing had happened suddenly. Charlie and Zooey were arguing over paint colors for the baby’s room while Diego and I played video games on the couch. Then Mom burst into the house and herded us all into the car for a surprise family dinner at Neptune’s.
“So, Diego, where in Colorado are you from?”
Diego’s mouth was full of a tomato wedge from his salad. His eyes grew wide, and he chewed quickly while everyone watched him, before spitting out, “Brighton.”
“How’s the renovation coming, Charlie?” I was trying to rescue Diego—I’d never seen him so adorably flustered—but my mother was not easily deterred.
“What brought you to Calypso?”
Diego set down his fork. Unlike at the barbecue, he had impeccable manners. He kept his elbows off the table, didn’t talk with his mouth full, and used his napkin frequently. “I got into some trouble, so I came to live with my sister, Viviana.”
“What kind of trouble?” My mother, the Grand Inquisitor.
“This isn’t an interrogation,” I said. As mortified as I was at her merciless prying, I was as anxious to hear the answers as she was. Only, I didn’t want Diego to know that.
“Sounds like one to me,” Charlie said. Zooey elbowed him in the ribs. She couldn’t scoot all the way up to the table because of her bulging belly, but she didn’t let that stop her from eating everything within reach—her salad, all the bread, Charlie’s salad. Zooey’s pregnancy was turning into a great diet for my brother.
“I’m only trying to get to know your boyfriend, sweetheart.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Diego blushed. “We’re just friends—”
“That make out,” Charlie added. Diego blushed redder than ketchup, and I flashed my brother a death stare. “What? Don’t leave your door open if you don’t want me to record video of it and post it to SnowFlake.”
“Henry, if you’re going to have a friend you sometimes make out with, I have to get to know him.” I couldn’t believe we were discussing my nonrelationship with Diego in a restaurant on Christmas Eve. How could I explain my feelings for Diego to them when I didn’t understand them myself? Not that Mom gave me the chance. “You were saying, Diego?”
Diego managed to remain calm, though I have no idea how. When he spoke, his voice was even, flat almost, and barely rose above the background noises of the restaurant. “I spent two years in a juvenile detention center for breaking my father’s arm. Both arms, actually. And his nose. He also had a fractured skull, but that probably wasn’t entirely my fault.”
And the table descended into silence. Even my brother, who had a smartass remark for everything, was struck dumb. After Diego told me he spent time in juvenile detention, I’d tried to imagine what he’d been put away for. Nearly killing his father never made the list.
“My father believed in Jesus,” Diego said quietly, “but he believed in meth more. He’d go on binges, spend weeks high and crazy, beating up my mom and sister. When he sobered up, he’d find the Lord and beg forgiveness, and we were supposed to accept that. My sister kept me out of -trouble when she was home, but the day she turned eighteen, she packed a bag, boarded the first bus out of Brighton, and left. I was ten.
“For my thirteenth birthday, my mom fried up fresh fish for dinner and baked me a cake. Carrot, because it was my favorite. My dad came home, tweaking, and laid into my mom. Sometimes he used his fists, but that night he grabbed the dirty skillet off the stove. It was one of those heavy, cast-iron skillets that my mom had gotten from her mom who’d gotten it from her mom.” Diego clenched his jaw, shook his head. “I don’t actually remember what happened after that. My court-appointed shrink said that I’d been suppressing my anger for years and that I might have experienced a psychotic break.
“I pled to a lesser charge on my lawyer’s advice, but my one condition was that I be allowed to live with Viviana after my release. So here I am.”
No one ate a single bite during Diego’s explanation. Charlie was still holding a loaded fork, but had forgotten it entirely. Based on what Diego had told me, I knew his father was abusive, but I wasn’t prepared for the truth. Here I’d been whining about my life, and Diego had lost a chunk of his for protecting his mother from his bastard dad. If anyone should have wanted to not press the button, it was Diego.
“Jesus Christ, Henry, you sure know how to pick ’em.” Charlie chuckled like this was a joke.