Page 85 of The Bronze Garza

As she lowers the phone from her ear, she stabs me an accusive glare. “Itoldyou to tell him you were coming with us.”

Yikes. “I...forgot.”

“Youforgot?!” she bellows at me. “You know your life is in danger and you ‘forgot’ to inform the people you hired to protect you? Are youinsane?”

“I—”

“Those men had agunto my daughter’sfucking head!”

“Mom...” Tripp strides over to her and takes her in his arms. “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down! What if something happened to you out there?”

Tripp smiles in a manner that conveys he thinks she’s cute. “This is what I do for a living, Mom, remember?”

“I’m really,reallysorry,” I say, guilt and shame gnawing at my bones. “I didn’t think... I’ve underestimated the level of danger I’m in...I don’t know why I’m even...” I expel a breath, feeling drained all of a sudden, as if all strength, will, and life has been vacuumed out of me. “I’m sorry. I really, truly am. You can sue me for emotional distress, I’ll pay whatever. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you fight?” Tillie pulls her attention from her phone to ask me. In contrast to Monica, she looks wholly unbothered. Bored, even.

“What?”

“You just went with them,” she expounds. “You didn’t resist or even scream.”

“Because that man had a gun to your head, Tillie,” I tell her. “They were there forme, and if I resisted and something happened to you because of it, your brother would never be able to live with himself. He brought me around you. He would blame himself for the rest of his life. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I’m really not worth it.”

“So wait, you didn’t fight because of me, but forTor?” Tillie asks, looking affronted. “Ugh. And here I thought we had a nice bond going.”

“Told you she’s a narcissist,” Tripp comments.

“Oh, go to hell, golden boy,” she fires back.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Tripp asks me.

I nod, because I’m starting to feel nauseous and lightheaded. “Just water.”

“A coke for me,” Tillie tells him.

“You just sent me to hell,” Tripp retorts as he heads toward the two-story house. “There’s no coke in hell.”

“I hate youuuu,” she calls after him.

Feeling out of place, guilt-ridden, and downright awful, I cross my arms and glance around. I spot a small bench under a leafy tree. It’s far enough away from Monica and Tillie—I suspect she wants me nowhere near her or her daughter right now—so I jaunt across the yard to it and plop down.

The withering look she daggers me with before she whirls and stomps off to the house, grumbling in her Jamaican dialect, tells me I made the right choice.

“She’ll calm down,” Tillie mutters without looking up from her phone. “She’s been in denial for so long that I think it’s just finally starting to sink in how dangerous her sons’ jobs are. She wants to believe they’re just normal P.I.s hiding out in bushes taking pictures of cheating spouses.”

“How are you so chill about everything?” I ask her.

“Because I’m not in denial,” she says simply. “That’s why I live the way I do, enjoying life without abandon. Because one Sunday afternoon I could be sitting in a grocery store parking lot and a scumbag could just walk up and blow my brains out. Today it’s you that the trouble followed. But another day, that gun to my head could be from someone who has a vendetta against my brothers, or the other dark side of our family. I’m a Garza. Anything can happen at any time. And I’d rather spend my time having fun than being afraid. Hashtag fun over fear, baby.”

Tripp returns a few moments later with a bottled water and a coke. He drops the coke in Tillie’s lap and playfully shoves her head before striding across to me under the tree.

When he hands me the water, I don’t hesitate to screw the cap off and gulp down two-thirds of it in one go, hoping it’ll help with this awful lightheadedness. I feel so cold on the inside and burning hot on the outside.

“You good?” Tripp asks me, forehead creasing.

“He shouldn’t have brought me around them,” I say quietly.