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With heavy steps, he had made his way to the bathroom, and I could have sworn I could hear him crying once he closed the door.
Later, he took a shower and climbed into bed. Instead of rolling over and wrapping his arm around me, I could feel him next to me, wide awake, thinking.
I’d asked him what was wrong and he hadn’t answered. He’d just told me not to worry about it and to get some sleep because it was late.
His voice, I remember, had sounded so sad, almost as if he were lost.
Could his mannerisms and actions that night have anything to do with what Dario had said?
I didn’t want to find out, but on the other hand, I needed to know. I needed to find out. I had to find Dario to ask him what exactly was going on.
The problem was, I didn’t know where Dario was. He’d disappeared after leaving yesterday. I just needed a phone. I’d been putting it off for so long, but I desperately needed to talk to Luis.
He would know better than anyone else what had happened to Jason. I just didn’t know if involving him would be something I would later regret.
My phone rang next to me, and I reached for it. It was Dario. Speak of the devil…
“Hello.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” Why was he calling? Did he want me to yell at him again?
“Are you sure?”
“After being flown across continents, almost being burned alive in a house, and sitting here waiting for you to come back from God knows where, I’m fine, Dario, just dandy.”
He was silent for a long time, and I had to look at the phone to see if he was still there. He was.
Finally, he let out a long sigh and said, “I’ll be home in two minutes. Try not to throw anything else at me.”
He hung up without another word.
Good.I didn’t care, I told myself as I tossed myself on the bed. The locket flew up and smacked me on my chin.
I grabbed it in between my fingers and twisted it, back and forth. I was able to open it but nothing was inside of it, not a picture of my mother, nothing. It was an empty locket, a family heirloom that I sincerely doubted actually was one.
I think my mother just wanted me to have something that I would feel connected to when she was no longer with me. She’d probably gotten it from one of her favorite thrift stores.
I tried not to think of her too much. It was still painful. I’d lost her too soon, and the mistakes I made after she was gone still haunted me today.
It shamed me now that I had let grief color my behavior. For a while, I lost myself. I felt a tear drop down my face. I rolled over and let myself cry for my mother and the life I couldn’t forgive that I’d led after her death.
The drinking. The meaningless sex. The string of bad choices that had led to an overnight stay in jail. I should have gone straight to college. I should have done something great to recognize all that she had sacrificed for me.
How could I have tarnished her memory by being so rash and stupid? I let myself think that my youth had been an excuse, but yet, I’d traveled the same reckless path after losing Jason.
I was being kind by calling myself reckless. I hadn’t been reckless. I’d been on the brink of ruining my life and taking down another person with me.
When I let myself think about it, my anger had disappeared a long time ago. It disappeared when I saw those two little lines that told me that I was going to be a mother. But I held on to my anger because there was comfort in having an emotion that I could control, that I could feed.
It gave me the time to focus on something, on anything, other than the fact that I was seeking revenge at a time when I needed to learn to just breathe again.
I promised myself that for my child, I would be different. I would be better. But first, I needed to talk to Luis.
As promised, Dario walked into the house exactly two minutes later.
He shrugged off his coat, not saying a word to me. I wondered where he’d been. He looked nice. And I could smell a hint of cologne in the air.