by Nina Moreno
I slapped my hand against his. “I returned in one piece and even found a treasure.”
Mike laughed. “Hopefully it doesn’t belong to the dance team come morning.” He waved good-bye and I walked the last few feet home. Across the street, Malcolm’s car pulled into his driveway. I headed his way.
“Long day at the office?” I asked.
He straightened and offered me a tired smile as he loosened his tie. “Not every student is as motivated and organized as you.”
“Ah, you just say that because I’m your favorite.” Malcolm was very cool and scholarly but was a total mother hen. He helped me through all the new rules and requirements that popped up when I decided to pursue dual enrollment. And reminded me I was capable when it got overwhelming.
“How’s everything going?” He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against his car.
“Good,” I said, meaning it.
Malcolm studied me like he might a disorganized bookshelf. “Just checking in. I heard about study abroad, so I was wondering how you were.”
“Oh, right. Of course I’m super bummed. I meant to tell you about it all but got sort of distracted by all this festival and wedding stuff.”
“That can be a good thing. Are you still planning on Charleston?”
“I’m not sure. I’m taking a moment to evaluate all of my options.” I crossed my arms and shrugged. “But I’m good. Super good.”
“Right,” he said, sounding like he didn’t believe it but didn’t intend to press. “Well, I saw your mom by her mural earlier. She looked a little stressed-out.”
“That’s how she always looks.”
“Is she still here?”
He didn’t mean anything by it. I knew this. Malcolm was someone who always checked in after Mom left, and distracted me with new books when I was a kid, and new books with bonus stationery now that I was older, but the still in that question stung. “Yeah, she’s home. We should all do dinner tomorrow or something.”
“Sounds like a plan. Have a good night, Rosa.”
“You too. Hopefully Penny lets you guys sleep.”
His laugh sounded a little delirious as he headed up his front walk.
I crossed the street. Our porch light flickered, and I made a mental note as I opened the front door to buy bulbs. In the living room my mother and grandmother stood at odds, their faces tight, and last sharp words were swallowed by my arrival.
Mom’s bags were at her feet.
“What’s going on?”
“Your mother is leaving,” Mimi announced. My face still burned from the cold, the same face all over social media right now holding up a long-lost treasure while wearing a very bright life jacket. An ache gnawed inside me where possibility had just bloomed. Mimi began begging the saints and ancestors in Spanish for patience.
“I’ll be back soon,” Mom said, sounding anxious. Those were always her first words. It was a promise and a curse.
“Why tonight?” I asked, hating the shake in my voice. “Why does it have to be right now? What about your mural?” What about me?
“There’s this painting I sold and I need to go and—” Her face tightened, distracted by Mimi still wailing about the darkness my mother carried inside. “I got an order, and I need to—” Mom tried to focus on me, but her breaths rumbled like thunder. “Enough!” Mom finally burst out and whipped around to Mimi. “I am trying my best. And I’m sorry that it’s so disappointing.”
“What are you looking for, mija?” Mimi implored. “And why isn’t it here? Why is this not enough for you?”
Mom froze, shocked and angry. Her chest rose and fell. This fight was building into something too big. “Because it was never enough for you.”
Mimi blinked. “How can you say that to me?”
Mom’s head fell back, a bitter laugh escaping her. Her dark hair was wild and loose, her eyes bright with unraveling emotion. “Your story is a tragedy, but somehow in mine, I’m the villain,” she snapped. “We both lost, Mom. I’m trying. I left Rosa in the place she loved that never loved me back.”
“You’re not leaving because of a painting.” I tugged my backpack off and dropped it at my feet. “At this point I deserve better than that. We have breakfast, we laugh and make plans, and I stupidly think, ‘Hey, maybe this time, we’ve figured this out,’ but you were already gone, weren’t you? Were you already packed?”
Her eyes watered. She said nothing.
We made no sense. Love wasn’t supposed to be like this. I looked at Mimi. “You tell me, then. Why does she leave? Why do you refuse to talk about Cuba? Why are we like this?”
Mimi’s eyes closed. One hand went to her brow, the other to the saint medal she always wore. Anger over hurting her swept through me. This is what happened when Mom came home. I became an accomplice to this.
“Tell her what you said to me,” Mom said to Mimi, her voice rough.
Mimi stilled. Her eyes opened and narrowed on Mom.
“Everyone remembers me screaming at the docks for him, but tell her what happened right before that.”
“You understand nothing,” Mimi said, quiet. “You run and believe it’s only you who has been hurt.”
“Tell her that my love killed him,” Mom continued, loud and relentless. “I loved him too much, so the sea took him. When this whole town cried for the lost boy at sea, you looked at your own daughter and her growing middle and said it was the curse. That it was me.”
The last word rang like the toll of a bell that stirred our ghosts. The room grew colder.
“You don’t know what it’s like to return. To bite my tongue and live with looks like I’m bad luck walking. To hear him around every corner. I crawl out of my skin, but I come back for my daughter, because after everything, this is the place she loves. That’s my curse, not your stupid sea.”
Where Mom was unraveling, Mimi was throwing sparks. I’d seen her and Mom fight, but never like this. “I understand,” Mimi whispered.
“You don’t, if—”
My abuela snapped. “I climbed out of that broken boat with you in my arms knowing every step I took was a step away from him.” The words were rough with rust, but Mimi dug them up with gritted teeth. “I watched him sink. I watched him drown knowing there was nothing I could do. I pulled myself out of the sea and stepped onto land for you. I bit my tongue over and over as I learned a language for us, and every time I looked out at the sea I mourned him, and then I watched it happen again to you, and I stayed. For you.” She looked at me. “And for her. I understand, but yet I am your villain, Liliana.”
“You pushed me away,” Mom whispered.
“And what are you doing to her right now?” Mimi shot back.
Their gazes turned to me at once. It was too much. I stood at the crossroads of all their pain and love, and I couldn’t carry it all.
“I keep trying to fix this.” I laughed, edgy and vulnerable. “Because maybe then Mom will come home and her mother will tell her she loves her and maybe, maybe, maybe.”
“Rosa—” Mom started.
“No,” I interrupted. “It’s my turn. Because in a few minutes you’re going to walk out that door and Mimi is going to disappear into her room and I’ll be left alone.” I gestured to the three of us, and the triangle we made. “Something is broken here. It is sad and tired, and we keep breaking it more.”
I bent and opened my backpack. I slipped Mimi’s notebook out and handed it back to her. “I was looking for ways to cleanse myself of bad energy. I burned one of your roots and threw pennies into the sea. No one tells me anything, so I tried to find it myself.”
Mimi took the notebook. “No one tells you anything? Okay. Come with me.” She turned and went to her garden room. I followed and watched my usually calm abuela shove bowls and mortars and pestles from her table and spill a bowlful of dirt. She lit a candle and slammed it into the center of the dirt. I watched, fascinated and confused. I wasn’t sure what she was doing, because I hardly ever saw Mimi do this kind of
magic.
“How many pennies did you throw?”
“What?”
In a flash of motion, she snatched up the candle, turned it upside down, and extinguished it in the dirt. I started at the impact.
“How many?” she asked again, louder.
“Seven,” I blurted. “I got them from your pile.”
“Bueno,” she said, relieved.
Mom stood in the doorway. “I act like a borracha when I’m sad, but you’re acting como una bruja.”
“Y dicendo verdades,” Mimi returned. They were mirrors of each other. Mimi, alone in a new land, had buried all of her pain, and from it an angry daughter had grown.
“Who’s Nela?” I asked suddenly.
Shadows curled and warnings whispered along my skin. The surprise in Mimi’s vulnerable gaze broke my heart. “Why do you ask me all of these questions?”
“Because you’re still not telling me anything.”
“I teach you everything, but you are impatient. It is you who tells me nothing.” Before I could argue, she snapped, “You search for all my secrets while you keep so many. College, Havana, y qué más? ¿Tienes novio?”
“What? No, I don’t have a boyfriend.” Icy panic cracked in my chest.
Mom barked a bitter laugh. “What’s the point of romance when we have to live with your curse?”
“¡No es mío!” Mimi shot back, her voice breaking. “It is not my curse. I died on that boat, too.” Mimi stepped back and did something she never did in the midst of a ritual: She blew out the candle instead of letting it burn down.
She passed me and I tried to reach for her, but she continued to her bedroom. Her door closed softly. It was worse than it slamming shut.
“Rosa,” Mom said.
“Just go.” I didn’t turn around. She hesitated, but she walked away from me like always. The house fell quiet. My mother was gone, and so was Mimi, but our ghosts remained.
Outside my bedroom window, past angry stone-gray clouds, the sun was missing. Swallowed by the impending storm. I was sure of it.
In the kitchen, Mimi stood at the stove, her back to me. We said nothing to each other, both too battered for fresh words. Her laundry room window stayed closed as she made a breakfast flavored and seasoned by her frustration. She made it every time my mother left, salting it with tears, heartbroken regrets, and angry prayers. My laptop whistled with news of the return of my Wi-Fi, but I gently closed it. I didn’t want the rest of the world today. I wanted an ugly daisy blanket and the consuming quiet that always crept into the space left by my mother.
My first lost love.
Maybe this was what the memory of home felt like for Mimi: the ache, loss, and stubborn love. Desperate to keep the soft memories, even as you counted new scars and mourned all the choices you never got to make.
I settled into the chair and lit the candle on my windowsill. There were three acorns in the grooves of my parents’ carved names. I pulled the yellow blanket around me, and like a lighthouse, I tracked the storm and kept watch over my harbor.
The rain eased, and the next morning revealed a low fog that wove a hazy cocoon through town. Mimi offered to make me a café con leche and prepared it like when I was younger: bringing the milk to a gentle boil and mixing it with the sweet coffee before pouring it from one mug to the other, back and forth, to create the froth. When she was done, she slid it across the counter. I didn’t ask her about Nela, and she didn’t tell me I couldn’t know. The conversation went up on the shelf like one more ghost to never talk about.
I packed my bag and prepared to head down to the Starfish. Alex had sent a text yesterday asking to go over the menu for the wedding. I had no business having a crush on him. I needed to focus on my next step. Acting like my mother would not break this cursed cycle. I needed to finish coordinating this wedding with Alex, and then the festival would save the harbor, and I’d be on my way out of here. Just like I planned. I slipped on my shoes, checked my lipstick in the mirror above my altar, and popped a strawberry candy. Life continued like always.
On my way to the boardwalk, I avoided the fire station, walked right past the bookshop without pausing to worry about broken ankles and angry seas. I headed down the stairs, all the way to the kitchen. No stumbling steps, clumsy tripping, or anxious reflections.
So maybe it wasn’t totally like always.
Inside, the restaurant was empty. It was early, but warm sugar was heavy in the air.
“Alex?”
The door behind the bar opened, and Alex leaned out. He spotted me and smiled. “Come on back.”
I followed and found a confectionary fantasy in the kitchen. The room smelled of citrus, bananas, and cinnamon, and every counter was covered with cakes and flaky pastries. Somewhere a radio played a blues song that sounded rough with age like one of Mimi’s records. I looked at Alex, shocked. “Is all of this for the wedding?” The overachiever in me was in awe. The rest of me wanted one of everything.
“Of course not.” He lifted a tray of various small delicate slices of cakes. “These are. Clara liked them all and asked for your opinion. The rest of this is just what I bake for the Starfish and el Mercado.” I couldn’t stop staring at him. He shrugged and set the tray down like he’d simply shown me his homework. “Everybody has to work, and this pays the bills for now.”
“It’s like hearing Mary Berry say her cherry cake is just a hobby.”
“Who?”
A man I didn’t know walked into the room. He looked like Alex but older, shorter, and with a softer, more open face. “He doesn’t watch a lot of TV,” he said, good-naturedly. He came forward and shook my hand. “I’m his older brother, Carlos. It’s nice to officially meet you, Rosa. You two are the big story of the docks. Alex talks to nobody, but here he is, all Chatty Cathy with you, sneaking out pontoon boats like he’s fifteen and got a secret hot date.”
“Oh, it wasn’t anything like that,” I hurried to say.
Alex’s expression shuttered. The return of the surly fisherman. Or baker, rather.
Carlos’s grin got bigger. “Yeah, well, it’s a good move. It’s how I got my wife. Come to think of it, it’s how our sister got hers, too.” Carlos smacked Alex’s shoulder. “Like a big, silent tree, this kid. Listen, I’ve got a couple calls I need to make, but we’re running late.” He handed Alex some paperwork, and they both bent their heads over the order forms. I drifted away to peek in on all of the various ingredients scattered around the kitchen. Strawberries and lemons. Fresh cream. Dark chocolate shavings. I wondered how long until his mother came in and told him to clean up his mess. Was she the type? Mine wasn’t, but everyone always had funny stories about their Latina moms dragging them out of bed on Saturday mornings because no one helped them. Whenever I tried to join in and tell stories about mine, I inspired such sad looks.
Your mother leaves?
Yes, but she always comes back.
Poor baby Rosa.
I plucked a strawberry from the basket and bit into it. Juicy red sweetness rolled over my tongue. I snuck a glance back and found Alex—now alone—watching me. “Sorry,” I said, embarrassed. “They looked delicious.”
“That’s a good thing,” he said. He continued to study me. “You’re sad today.”
The last time he’d seen me I was celebrating finding the Golden Turtle.
I moved around the counter and felt his gaze follow me. “A little.” I hated what I had to say next and the reaction it always inspired. I didn’t want him to look at me like some lost kid. I was frustrated and tired, and wanted to complain and possibly cry, but I also wanted to defend my mother before anyone else could say a word about her.
“My mom left yesterday.”
“Why?”
It was always left to me to answer that question. “Because this town is stuck in a time loop for her, and she becomes seventeen and heartbroken all over again.”
I watched Alex’s gaze soften as a hint of golden sunlight sifted into the room, and around
us, sugar sparkled and caramel bubbled. He slid the tray of wedding cake samples closer to me.
In the dream-lit kitchen, I dipped a fork into the yellow one and took a bite. Sharp as a sudden memory, my eyes closed to capture the flavors. Gently tart, creamy lemon burst like fireworks, and I rushed to offer a bite to Alex before I finished the whole thing. Focused on me and my reaction, he dipped his head and took the bite. The room grew warmer. Alex swallowed, still staring at me.
I covered my mouth and worriedly asked, “What?”
“I just…” He shook his head like he was clearing it. “You make me remember things.”
That sounded both gentle and powerful. I liked it. “Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”
He leaned into the table between us and picked up the fork. He cut the corner off the chocolate cake. “Growing up, I spent every afternoon and summer at Tía Victoria’s. It was always so damn hot in that house. One window A/C, box fans everywhere, none of it able to cut through the heat, and still she was always cooking chiles, making my eyes sweat, too.”
“I reminded you of roasting chiles?” I teased. “If you call me spicy, I’m out of here.”
He finished the bite with a smile. “She’s the one who taught me how to do this.” He gestured to the desserts around us. “I was kind of a hyper kid. Surprising, I know. But to get me out of her hair, she taught me to make arroz con leche, then sopaipilla. Pan dulces were my favorite.”
I relaxed, melting against the counter, as the deep timbre of his voice—he smoothly rolled his r’s and had a soft, Southern flow—transported me to a too-hot Texas kitchen where a little scowling Alejandro leaned over a mixing bowl with determined focus.
“Seeing you enjoy something I made reminded me of the first time I baked something that tasted really good,” he admitted. He slid the tray of cakes even closer to me with a small but insistent nudge. “Now, what was your memory?”
I picked up the fork. “To celebrate my last day of fifth grade, Mimi made this ice cream with lemons she let me pick off her tree. That was a big deal, because my abuela does not play when it comes to her trees. The three of us sat on the front porch to eat the ice cream, and it was the best thing I’d ever had.” I finished the cake with a soft sigh. “Mom left later that summer. I don’t eat many lemon desserts anymore, but they’re still my favorite.”
