Page 3 of Mariposa (Queens Command #1)

VIOLET

“ M a…por favor . Habla conmigo .”

“No!”

“Please.”

“No! I lost your father to the same job you’re signing up for?” She glares disgustedly. “Now I get to worry about you, too?”

I try to grab her hand, but she pulls away like I’m a disease and my ambition is a poisonous infection.

“I just got back home from Basic Training. Please don’t do this to me. I was looking for you in the crowd, Ma, and you weren’t there!”

My mother’s youngest daughter wants to honor her father’s legacy, but she can’t accept it.

“Ma!”

“Why can’t you settle down here? In this town? Go to the local college? Focus on your relationship with Adam. Have his kids, be his wife, and stay home? Hold down the house while he works? Why are you going to do that job?”

I whip my head back like she slapped me in the face with her palm. She might as well have. Tears cling to my lashes, and my shoulders slump in defeat.

“I want more…” I murmur. My face drops when I play with my father’s dog tags in my pocket. If my father were still alive, he would have been my number one supporter. He would convince my mom to stop overreacting because I’d be fine.

I meet her stern gaze, but she doesn’t waver.

I search for my father’s ghost, wishing he were standing before me, telling her to let me go, but when my mother continues to deny me with flinty eyes and curled lips in the living room right by our family portrait, he’s nowhere to be found.

He’s not here because he’s dead, and I’m still struggling to accept it years later.

“I want to do more,” I concede. “I want to be just like Papa .”

“You’re small.” She points to me like she’s been holding back her true feelings. “ You’re short and little . You’re slower. You’re not as strong as the men. You. Are. My. Little. Girl.”

My nose scrunches.

“But I am also my father’s daughter ,” I point out. My brow raises, and I meet her stressed gaze. Her nostrils flare, and she clicks her tongue, pissed off.

She knows exactly what I’m talking about.

I turn to the picture of my father on the wall.

He’s in his uniform. A photo from one of his deployments shows him holding his rifle in one hand.

He was the most successful sniper in the world until someone named Daegan Hannibal came along and surpassed his record.

“ Mija … por favor . You’re going to get hurt! There has never been a woman from our family in that specific field! It’s always been the men.”

“I know! I’ll be the first. I promise you that,” I declare.

She scoffs. “Okay. Say you make it.” She spills out the scenario as if it’s a delusion.

“What happens when you go to war?” She exhales like the thought is too much to bear.

She tightens her dark brown eyes at me, and a tear falls down her cheek.

“I can’t lose you! You are my oldest, Violet.

” She waves her hands in front of me as she makes her argument.

“Mom…I’ll be okay.”

“You don’t know that! And if something happens to you, I don’t want to be the one who says, I told you so!”

“ Mama !” I pull back as her words stab my heart. “Then don’t.” I stifle the gasp that wants to pour out of me. How could she say that?

She continues to disconnect from me. She turns away from me and grips her elbows for self-comfort over her black cardigan. She has a very unfair mentality. It’s her way or no way.

“Please, Mom. I will do this whether you approve of it or not.” I let go of my father’s dog tags in my pocket.

I try to get my ‘see you soon’ hug from her with my arms stretched out, but she walks away and denies me with a shake of her head.

She holds the rosary in her hand until her knuckles turn white.

My vision blurs until my lashes can’t hold the tears anymore. I quickly wipe them away, not wanting to show her weakness—no skips in my determination.

“Write me letters?” I offer gently while sniffling, my tone full of hope. “I won’t be able to have my cell on, but I can get letters. I’m sure I’ll be able to have phone calls sometimes. As soon as I get there, I’ll call you, and?—”

“Don’t bother. Salte de mi casa .” She keeps her gaze pinned to my father’s portrait as she points to the front door behind me.

“ Ma ?” I cry out. I place my hand on my chest, aching to hug her. She hasn’t held me since he died…since the funeral.

Finally, our eyes meet, but hers are no longer the eyes of a mother. They only hold dark resentment. She plays with the ends of her peppered, curly black hair like she’s trying to refrain from saying more things she may regret.

I don’t recognize this side of my mother.

She’s talking to me like I’m a stranger in the home she raised me in for the past twenty years. I look around the cream-colored walls and stare at the furniture, at the television I used to watch my favorite horror movies on while she yelled at me to change it to her favorite novellas .

I gaze at the kitchen, where I used to help my mom bake flan every other month whenever she felt stressed, or on special occasions.

Then I stare at my cross necklace that hangs down my neck.

I open my mouth, trying to stabilize my trembling lips to wish her my final goodbye.

“Don’t do this. I’m going to need you. I’m always going to need you because I am your daughter. You’re the only family I have left. Please, Mama .”

“ No entiendes ? I’m disowning you. You’re not an Isla. You are no daughter of mine.”

Pure silence fills the room as I register what she means.

“Because I’m joining the military?”

“Yes!”

The wind and warmth knock me out as I process her denial. She’s denying her daughter. Because I want to honor my dad. I genuinely believe this is what my father would be so proud of. I won’t deter my decision for anyone.

All the emotions and stress from training and enlisting I’ve held within me spill through the cracks of the shield I’ve built.

I’ve learned to stay strong and handle anything that gets thrown my way ever since my father passed away because the man of the house was gone, and I needed to step up.

I’ve been the strength my mother needs on the days when the grief gets too much.

She blames me for his death. She’s never said it, but she doesn’t have to.

She says it in the way she hasn’t hugged me since the funeral.

She screams it with the way she’s been absent from all of my school graduations since joining the military.

I thought she needed more time. I hoped that she would stop seeing me as the girl who is responsible for her husband’s death and treat me like her daughter again… but I was wrong.

“You don’t believe I can do this?” I squeak out.

She shrugs with a blank stare as her chest rises and falls fast.

“I’m sorry, but you’re on your own now.”

A hot tear rolls down my cheek with broken hope that I’ll see her on my graduation day.

She’s supposed to be there.

My father was supposed to be there .

I don’t think I can do this without her.

When she walks away from me, back into the kitchen, I stiffen.

My throat tightens like I was punched. I quickly swipe my pained face with the palm of my hand, too ashamed to cry in front of her.

With one suitcase in one hand and my army-issued backpack in the other, I head out the front door of the house I’m no longer welcome in for the last time.

One goodbye done; on to the next.

I look at the time on my wrist, my watch reflecting that I only have about thirty minutes before I’m rushing to make sure I don’t miss my flight.

“I hate that you’re leaving me. I don’t want you to leave…are you sure you want to do this?” Adam has repeatedly questioned my decision to leave for the military.

“You promised you would be supportive,” I interject.

He frowns and continues to scroll on his phone. “Yeah. I did, but you also promised a lot of things.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I say as I slip on my pants and button them. He shrugs like he’s signaling the conversation is over.

“Who is texting you?”

“My dad. Looks like he’s back in the States after another year-long deployment,” he shakes his head. “He keeps trying to reach me. He doesn’t fucking get it. I don’t want a relationship with him after he abandoned my mother. I’ll never choose him.”

He shuts his phone off and tucks it into his pants.

Adam doesn’t open up about his parents’ divorce much.

All I know is that they were teenage parents, and their marriage didn’t last long.

He’s never doubted his mother’s side of the story, so he’s never asked for his father’s.

Ms. Lillington claims he didn’t want to be a family man anymore, only a soldier first. Adam’s avoided the conversation about his father like the plague, so I never pry to respect that boundary he’s set.

He even changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name a few years ago.

His bitter reactions stopped me from trying.

He shuts me out every time, shifting topics, but ever since my dad passed away, I feel like I have to say something.

I would do anything to be able to look at my phone and see a text from my father again.

I don’t know their history because Adam won’t let me in, but perhaps their estranged relationship is salvageable.

“Maybe you should try giving him a chance. I wish my father were still alive. I’d do anything to hear his voice—” I offer softly as I tie my hair back into a bun.

“Please, stop!” He cuts me off across the bed, causing me to jump.

I narrow my eyes at him while he places his hands on his waist. “Don’t ever try to influence my relationship with my father again.

He’s an asshole, a selfish prick who chose the military over us.

Leave it alone, for the last time,” he scolds me and shuts the conversation down as he stalks towards his bedroom door.

I furrow my brows and swallow his outburst.

He doesn’t mean it. He’s just stressed that I’m leaving…that’s all.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to overstep. I’m just trying to help.” I follow after him. “But please don’t talk to me like that,” I plead, searching for my best friend behind this version of Adam I don’t like. I need him more than ever right now.

His shoulders sag, thinning his lips.

“Yeah…I’m sorry. Let’s get going, okay?” He walks into the hallway, his step casual, and grabs my suitcase for me. It rolls as I stare at my green Converse.

I sigh and follow after. He’s been acting differently lately, but he’s reassured me that we’re fine.

We’re fine .