by Dana Corbit
Now a glass table was nestled between two muted-pattern deck chairs, and a flower box with still-blooming begonias shot their fuchsia color against the fading stained wood.
Rita Estes glanced up from one of the chairs where she was balancing a study guide across her knees. Her well-worn Bible rested near the chair leg.
“Good for you, querida. You are moving around well now.”
“Gracias, Mami. I feel better.” Pilar lowered herself into the other chair.
Rita stared down at Pilar’s feet and frowned.
“You shouldn’t be out here in bare feet. You’ll catch a cold.”
“I’ll be fine. Besides, it’s warm out today.” She didn’t even bother arguing about whether someone could catch a cold from being cold. At least some things stayed the same.
“It is good to get some food in you. I must start dinner.” Rita collected her Bible-study materials and lifted out of the chair.
Good old Mami. She believed every problem could be solved with a big bowl of caldo de pollo. If only all solutions could be found while sipping her chicken soup.
Pilar touched her mother’s arm. “Dinner can wait a few more minutes. Sit with me awhile. Please.”
Rita glanced anxiously toward the kitchen. Schedules were important to her. Finally, though, she sat again. “A few minutes.”
“Thanks for coming last night.”
“You needed only ask.”
Pilar tried to ignore her mother’s lifted eyebrow and her unspoken censure. Mami still hadn’t quite forgiven her for not coming to her first with her problems. Meg, Rachel and Anne would probably be angry when she told them, too, but she at least had a few days before she had to face them at Sunday brunch.
As it was, her mother’s disappointment was enough to handle for one day. Though Rita had been caring for her with the same gentleness she’d always used when Pilar was sick, her hurt feelings were evident in things she’d said and in those she didn’t say. All afternoon Rita had been referring to Zach as “the detective” although she knew his name perfectly well.
Her mother’s frustration was understandable. She probably didn’t want to face that Pilar wasn’t her little girl anymore. Did she feel betrayed because her daughter had confided in someone she barely knew instead of her? She had to understand, though, that sharing with Zach had been easier because they hadn’t been close, not despite it.
Was that really the reason? She had to wonder. Maybe at first she could have said it was easier to tell him since they were only acquaintances and weren’t invested in each other’s lives. If that were true, though, now that they’d become friends, she would no longer want to talk to him, and she’d been thinking about doing just that for hours.
“How did the detective know you were at the hospital?” Rita asked the question as if they’d been discussing the surgery all day instead of dancing around the topic with the grace of prima ballerinas.
Pilar shifted in her seat. “He said he was looking for me and asked around.”
Rita studied her daughter with the same direct gaze she’d used on Pilar whenever she’d been misbehaving. “He looked for you much lately. At the picnic also.”
Pilar nodded, not sure what to say to that. For whatever reason, Zach had been looking for her, and now she was glad he had. If not for him, she might have still been in the hospital, still stubbornly avoiding contacting the people who loved her most.
She was too busy trying to wrap her own thoughts around the answer to her mother’s question to notice more than a blur of color from a car passing on the street below them. But a door slam drew her attention to the road. The subject of her mother’s question had just shown up to answer it himself.
Chapter Ten
“Look, Mami, Zach has come to visit.”
Pilar tried to speak calmly, but her voice sounded strained. She hoped her mother hadn’t noticed. Already she was having enough trouble ignoring the nervous flutter in her midsection that had nothing to do with recent surgery. She didn’t need her mother’s questions to contribute to it.
“This I see” was Rita’s only response.
Zach waved at them and then reached back into the car, emerging again with two large white carryout bags. Crossing the street, he came to a stop in the front yard, just beneath the balcony.
Holding up the bags, he indicated one with a tip of his head. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous, but I thought you might be getting hungry, so I brought dinner.”
Out of her peripheral vision, Pilar caught sight of her mother and waited. Would Mami again react with jealousy that Zach had encroached on her territory—that of her youngest child? But Rita’s startled expression softened to a smile.
“So gracious from you, Zach. Come to the door, and I will buzz it for you.”
Pilar didn’t miss that her mother had used Zach’s given name instead of referring to him by his job title. She quirked an eyebrow, but her mother didn’t look back at her to catch her unspoken question about what had changed. At least she could relax now, knowing she wouldn’t have to smooth any tension between her mother and her friend.
“Come to eat, querida,” Rita called from inside the apartment a few minutes later. “Your novio has brought us Chinese.”
Her novio? Pilar jerked as she came out of the seat and squeezed her eyes shut at the quick stab of pain. Her cheeks and neck burned for entirely different reasons. Why had her mother referred to Zach as her anything, let alone novio, a term that could just as easily be translated “bridegroom” as “boyfriend”? Lord, please don’t let Zach have a good command of Spanish.
When she crossed through the slider, Rita was watching her, a strange, knowing expression on her face. Was she intentionally trying to embarrass her? If so, she was doing a great job of it.
Pilar sneaked a glance at Zach. Either he hadn’t understood the Spanish or he’d been too busy unloading little white cartons to notice, but he finished what he was doing at the small dinette before he even looked up. Relief flooding her mind, Pilar glanced at her mother again. Rita only smiled.
“Zach, thank you.” Pilar paused as she took her time getting into the dinette chair. “This was so nice of you.”
“You’ll join us, sí?” Rita asked, already setting three place settings on the table.
“If you think there’ll be enough.” There was laughter behind his smile as he scanned the collection of boxes.
“For Salvador and Ramon, as well, I think.”
Zach chuckled as he took a seat between Pilar and her mother. “I guess I did overdo it. I’m used to ordering just for one.”
Though the aromas of Mongolian beef, sweet-and-sour pork and cashew chicken were enough to make her mouth water, Pilar couldn’t focus on food when what he’d said kept filtering through her mind. Ordering for one. She couldn’t even imagine what that was like. Though she lived in her own apartment, with only a few calls, she could have the place crammed with friends and family.
What was it like for Zach having no relatives around to drop by too early on Saturday mornings and to remind him not to go out with wet hair? As much as she sometimes felt smothered by all that caring, she appreciated her support system.
Did Zach even have a system of people who cared about him? Did his family stay in close contact even if they didn’t live nearby? Sure, he probably had friends at the police department, but she wondered if his apartment stayed empty even when he was sick of aloneness.
It wasn’t until Zach cleared his throat that Pilar realized she’d been staring into an open container of white rice, her thoughts not so much on the dinner but on her fellow diner. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Did I choose wrong?” He pointed to the food.
“Maybe I should have brought the menu by.”
“No, you picked fine.” She busied herself by tucking a stray strand from her braid behind her ear. “I was just trying to figure out how to ask you two if you’d mind me eating your shares, too.”
“You sure were concentra
ting on it.” Zach’s smile was kind instead of knowing. “All you had to do was ask.”
But Rita shook her head. “Too much food. That is not good—”
Pilar interrupted her with a wave of her hand. “Just kidding, Mami.”
Her mother responded with a curt nod. Though she’d been speaking English since she and Salvador had moved from the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico right after they were married, Rita still preferred the language of her birth and hadn’t mastered all of the intricacies of humor in her second language. She was often embarrassed when she didn’t understand jokes.
Pilar floundered for a way to ease the awkward moment and decided to offer the blessing, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, a warm hand curled around hers. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart beat so loudly in her ears that everyone in the room—and maybe even in the apartment across the hall—must have heard.
Confusion rolled through her thoughts. Why had he chosen this moment to finally hold her hand? She didn’t even have to ask herself if she liked it. Her skin positively thrummed at the point of contact, and already she mourned the moment he would release her fingers.
But Zach seemed oblivious to the storm crashing through her thoughts. He only closed his eyes and lowered his head. To pray. Too late, Pilar noticed that Zach held her mother’s fine-fingered hand with his other one. Her face had to be so red that she was as thankful for the closed-eyed act of praying as much as the food.
“Lord, thank You for Your promise to always be with us,” Zach began. “Thank You for blessings we acknowledge and the many we take for granted. Please bless this food and provide healing in this home. Amen.”
“Amen,” Rita repeated as the three of them released hands.
Rita smiled at Zach for so long that Pilar became embarrassed all over again. Zach nodded before turning his attention back to the food. He doled out small servings from a few containers and passed them around.
While he took his first bite with his left hand, he slipped his other one, the one with which he’d touched Pilar, under the table to wipe on his pants leg. The hand that had held her sweaty palm. So now he either had problems with his sweat glands or he recognized how nervous she was.
“You’re left-handed,” Pilar blurted before she could stop herself. She couldn’t have made it more obvious that she’d been watching him. She wondered if she would die of embarrassment before they even ate their fortune cookies.
“Aren’t all creative-thinking people?”
“No,” Pilar and Rita chorused and then laughed. At least something had lightened the mood.
“Probably some are,” Pilar conceded.
“Thank you.” He returned to his food, swishing a piece of deep-fried pork in sweet-and-sour sauce.
“Speaking of creative thinking, were there any new developments in the case today?”
He shook his head. “No breaks.” He stared down at his plate for several seconds before looking back at her, his frustrated frown replaced with a grin. “I did drop by to see Gabriel today at lunch. He’s being a real trooper about all this.”
Zach must have noticed her questioning expression because he rushed on. “He’s already looking bigger. Some of those crinkled baby folds are smoothing out, and those eyes— He’s really sharp. I can tell.”
“Police talk to a bebé, sí?”
Pilar and Zach both turned back to Rita, who looked as confused as Pilar felt. Of course, her mother didn’t understand why a detective would spend valuable investigation time talking to a newborn.
He turned to Rita and shook his head, losing his battle not to smile at the question. “Oh, no. It was just a visit on my lunch hour.”
But his expression was serious when he turned back to Pilar. “I didn’t want him to get too lonely since he didn’t have his regular lunch visitor.”
Why he’d visited Gabriel suddenly made sense. He’d done it for her. Well, maybe not completely for her. He might have visited the Frasers’ in part as a reminder of the young life affected by his investigation’s outcome. He might even have gone out of guilt. But at least part of the reason he’d taken time out of his day was to stand in for Pilar with the baby she adored. Though he’d probably only intended it as a polite gesture, his action wrapped itself around her heart.
“I told Reverend Fraser and Naomi you were going to be busy for a few days.”
Once again he was taking care of her, making the situation easier for her, even if he couldn’t make it all go away. An image filtered into her thoughts then of that first day at Tiny Blessings where he’d wrapped his jacket around her shoulders and she’d given it back to him. Next, she felt the lightness of being carried in his arms, felt his kindness delivered in noodle soup and peanut butter. She hadn’t fought his care so hard that time.
This was so out of character for her. Giving, now she understood that. She was used to reaching out to friends and strangers alike and praying for God to use her to help those in need. But receiving? That was a whole different story.
She was an independent woman. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her. And yet it didn’t seem so unsuitable accepting when the hands reaching out to her were Zach’s. Why was it that accepting his help, even resting in his capable arms when the occasion called for it, made her feel safe and free at the same time?
“Thanks.” She said it for so many reasons, his sweet gesture only one of them.
He nodded but didn’t look away, as she’d expected. She knew she should, but Pilar couldn’t pull away her gaze, either. Her breath caught. Time stopped.
The sound of chair legs scraping over linoleum, though, dropped reality back into the center of the Formica tabletop. Pilar turned toward the sound of her mother pushing away from the table. Zach pushed back and stood, as well, his good manners ingrained.
Pilar realized she’d been wrong. She hadn’t had all the embarrassment a person could handle in one day. Her cheeks didn’t even bother to burn this time. Overuse had worn out their steam.
She shot a glance at Zach, who appeared as wide-eyed as she must have looked.
Rita didn’t glance at either of them but started clearing away the dishes and containers.
“Mami, I’ll get those.”
Pilar started to stand, but her mother waved her hand to stop her. “Nonsense. It takes little time.”
“Here, let me help.” Zach carried glasses to the sink, but Rita only took them out of his hands and shooed him from the kitchenette, insisting there wasn’t enough room there for two.
With the same efficiency that had always amazed Pilar while she was growing up, her mother was finished and was wiping her hands on a towel only minutes later. She gathered her Bible-study materials from the counter and headed to the slider.
“I must finish my lesson before it gets dark. I need quiet. You stay here.” With that she stepped out the door and closed it behind her.
“Do you think we’ve been dismissed?”
When Pilar turned back to Zach, he raised an eyebrow.
She shook her head, her insides shaky. “I’m not sure what that was about.”
She had an idea, but she wasn’t positive, and her guess wasn’t making any sense at all. Her mother had always made a point of not playing matchmaker. Why would she change that now?
“I could go, I guess.”
“Who would I talk to then?” It was easier to ask that question than to admit she didn’t want him to leave, so she went with it. “My mother said she needed quiet. I shouldn’t interrupt her.”
“No, shouldn’t do that.”
She was relieved the moment he settled back in the side chair and kicked off his shoes, signs that he was staying. Sure, it felt a little silly with her mother right outside the door as an official chaperone, but inside it was just the two of them. So for the second day in a row, Zach and Pilar discussed everything and nothing, laughing, talking and laughing some more, until the sun disappeared from Chestnut Grove.
A telephone ring Fri
day afternoon interrupted the silence that had reminded Pilar of the hollow sound inside an empty church sanctuary. Only she liked the church when it was empty because it always felt like having a private audience in God’s presence. Her apartment, though, felt empty and nothing more.
“Hello,” she called into the receiver, hoping and yet trying not to hope over the caller’s identity.
“Well, you sound okay.”
Pilar’s breath hitched at the sound of Zach’s voice, but a smile lifted her lips and her heart. She could hear the laughter in his voice and could easily picture him smiling, too. She’d seen it enough the last three days to perfect the memory in her mind.
“I sound okay because I am okay.” She sat down in a dining chair with barely more than a pinch in her belly.
“Then why weren’t you at the office today?”
She shrugged though he couldn’t see her. “Since I’d already taken off until Monday, I decided to wait.”
“Did you see Gabriel today?”
“Same reason.”
“Sounds sensible.”
“That’s me, Miss Sensible.”
He didn’t even debate her on it but instead asked, “Is your mom still there with you?”
“No, she went home this morning. She figured Papi had suffered from bachelorhood long enough.”
“Does the apartment feel empty now?”
You have no idea, she wanted to say. But she only answered, “A little.” Until this week, her apartment had felt like her own private retreat. She’d liked being alone in it. But something had changed. Everything had changed.
She wouldn’t lie to herself by suggesting her loneliness had only to do with her mother’s leaving. It was about an end to these last three horrible yet wonderful days that had taken place in a vacuum. It was about Zach and the unfortunate fact that she’d come to care for him too much.
