Secrets (Portentous Destiny Series Book 2)

by S. E. Rose

  “Force of habit,” she says. “My mom always did this, too.”

  Lance takes a bite of his pancake. “Delicioso!” he announces.

  We eat a somewhat normal breakfast considering the events of the week. Everyone is talking and discussing what we will do today. I think it will take some time for everyone to decompress and work through all the events from the past few days. We decide to go get my things from the orphanage first. Jack invites the two security guys in to eat with us and explains that John and Sebastian are going to be escorting us everywhere while we are here. They sit at the bar and are polite, but not overly chatty with us.

  I’m eating my pancakes slowly, savoring each bite. I’m only half-aware that Lance is watching me intently.

  “Enjoying those are you?” he asks smirking.

  I nod and grin and ignore him while I close my eyes and picture myself back in my childhood home with my dad and Nick at the breakfast bar while my mom made chocolate chip pancakes. All of a sudden, I look up and see everyone is looking at me, except the two security guys.

  “What?” I ask my mouth half full of pancake. They all start laughing and my mom just shakes her head and comes over to kiss me on my cheek. As I look around at my family, I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to see my grandparents and maybe even my uncle.

  “Uh, can I make a suggested change to our schedule?” I ask. Everyone stops and looks at me again. “I’d really like you all to meet Nick and my grandparents and possibly our uncle. Today.”

  “Sure, sweetie, you want to call them and see if they are around?” my mom asks.

  “I can go pick them up,” Lance suggests.

  “No, if it’s OK with you, Lance, I’d like just Nick and me to go get them,” I assert. Nick looks at me and nods.

  “Alright, love, whatever you like,” Jack says as he pats my arm. “I’ll run to Exito and get us some food and we can make a big party for dinner.”

  “Perfect,” I say. I can tell Lance is frowning. As everyone else begins chatting about the plans for the day, he leans over to me.

  “Lily, I really don’t like the idea of you guys going by yourselves,” he whispers.

  “We’ll be fine,” I say, and I squeeze his hand reassuringly, but I can tell he is not appeased. I sigh. “Fine, you can come with us, but I want you to wait in the car.”

  I can see him visibly relax and he nods and grips my hand tighter. After eating two more pancakes, I go and call my grandparents. My grandmother answers and sounds worried, asking why I haven’t called. I explain everything, and I hear her weeping on the other line. I plead with her not to cry. Eventually, she calms down. I tell her our plans for the day and I hear the joy in her voice for the first time in our conversation. She agrees to be ready at 1:00 p.m. I go sit out on the patio. Then I call the church and get ahold of my uncle Nicholas. He is hesitant to come over, but with some urging, he agrees. I give him the address and he says that he’ll take a cab.

  My mom comes out to the patio after I finished talking to everyone, and we sit in silence, my head leaning on her shoulder.

  “How are you, Lilypond?” she asks me after a few long minutes.

  I sigh. “I’m alright, Mom, truly.” I try to sound convincing.

  “I’m worried about you,” she admits. “So much has happened and I don’t know how I would cope with it.”

  “I’m not you and you went through quite an ordeal and you are just fine,” I point out to her.

  “Well, ‘just fine’ is sort of stretching it,” she says, playing with my hair.

  “Mom,” I start, but then stop myself. I breathe for a moment and continue. “I feel stronger now, more centered,” I try to explain.

  She nods toward the house. “Lance,” she states.

  I nod.

  “He centers you. I see it,” she says quietly, deep in thought. “You haven’t been like this since…” She trails off, but I know what she was about to say.

  “I know,” I answer.

  “You’ll be alright then,” she states more than asks.

  I nod again.

  “Well, I guess I should get in there and figure out what we need to get at the store,” she says as she stands and fixes her skirt.

  “I love you, Mom,” I say to her as I look up into her eyes. I can see her eyes mist over and she blows me a kiss as she walks back inside. I stay there for a little while. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy my alone time. I close my eyes and lean my head back on the outdoor sofa and let the sun beat down on my face. I place my feet up on the coffee table, and I just lie there in peace and quiet. I’m not sure how long I’m there, but I eventually realize Lance is sitting across from me, just watching me.

  “Hello,” I say without opening my eyes. I can sense him.

  “How do you know it’s me?” he asks.

  I shrug. “I just know,” I say as I finally let my eyelids slowly open and I fix my gaze on him.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” he says, placing a hand on my foot.

  “I just needed a moment to collect my thoughts,” I explain.

  Lance comes around and sits down next to me. “Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks as he wraps his arm around me. I curl up against him, tucking my legs underneath me and leaning my head on his chest.

  “I think so,” I whisper, but I’m sure he can hear the uncertainty in my voice. “Just processing.”

  “You have a lot to process,” he acknowledges.

  I let out a deep breath. “I want to go somewhere before lunch,” I say to him. I contemplate my next statement for a moment. “I need to ask Nick something first. Will you wait here for a moment?”

  “Sure, gorgeous, anything for you,” he says, smiling down at me. I get up and head inside. I find Nick in one of the guest rooms. He’s on his laptop and I can hear the clickity-clack of the keys before I even see him. I still can’t believe his computer survived the crash. I roll my eyes at my brother’s good luck.

  “Nick?” I ask as I pop my head in the doorway.

  “Hey, Lil, just a second,” he says, holding up one finger while continuing to type with the other. I lean against the door and wait as patiently as I can. Finally, after what seems like three minutes, he turns around.

  “What’s up?” he asks.

  “I want to go somewhere, and I need to know if you want to come with me or not,” I start. Nick gives me his “curious look” with an arched eyebrow.

  “I want to go see if I can find our mother’s grave,” I say quietly trying to maintain eye contact with him, which is hard for me at times. Nick can be such an intense ball of positive energy.

  I see the muscles of his face tighten a bit. “You don’t have to go. I just didn’t want to go and not offer to have you come along.”

  “No, I understand,” he says. He stands and hobbles over to me and pulls me into a big Nick bear hug. “How did our lives get so crazy?” he asks rhetorically, I think.

  I sigh. “Honestly, Nick, I think we were conceived into crazy lives,” I say truthfully to him. I feel him nod against the top of my head.

  “You go,” he says finally as he pulls back to look at me. “I just…this is all a lot to process and I’d rather keep this trip more about positive things. I mean…” He seems to lose his thought.

  “I understand,” I say suddenly feeling like the strong one, which is a strange feeling for me. “I’ll have Lance take me. I’ll take a photo if I find it, OK?”

  “Sure,” he says as he limps back to his computer. “And, Lilypond?” he asks as I start to turn to leave, “thanks.”

  “You’re welcome,” I say softly to him as my head turns back so our eyes lock. We exchange a whole conversation with just that one look. I nod to him and head back downstairs to Lance. I slide open the back door and motion for him. Lance walks over and wraps his arms around me.

  “I’m at your service, gorgeous.”

  “I want to go find our mother’s grave,” I say, and I pull back, so I can see Lance’s face.
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  I watch as Lance’s eyes widen. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Nick doesn’t want to go. Will you take me?”

  “Of course,” he says and kisses me quickly.

  Jack sends Sebastian in a car behind us and we head out to find my mother’s grave. We drive around near the hospital and church for a while before I yell at Lance to stop the car. The graveyard is hidden somewhat. I catch a glimpse of it between two buildings as we drive by, and before Lance has fully parked the car, I’m opening the door and walking back to the gap between the buildings.

  “Lily, wait up,” Lance calls after me as he locks the car doors. I hear him running up behind me. My focus is on getting inside the graveyard. It is exactly two blocks from the hospital, just as Dr. Garcia’s note had specified. I walk between the buildings and into a park-like space of about half an acre. It’s small and the gravestones are a mix of old and new. I begin methodically walking the rows. Lance starts in the opposite corner. We work in silence for about two minutes and then I hear Lance call out my name.

  “I found her.”

  I rush over to where he stands, and I look down at a very small gravestone. It has my mother’s name and age and date of death. I smile as I see a rose engraved on the side of the inscription. It must have cost Dr. Garcia quite a bit of money to have her buried. I sink down to the ground, entranced by the fact that my mother’s body is beneath me, that we are essentially at the same spot for the first time since I was born. I run my fingers over the inscription. I feel Lance step back, giving me space.

  “Hola, Madre,” I whisper as I press my hand to her gravestone. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”

  The strength I felt a minute before vanishes and I suddenly just feel like a little girl at her mother’s grave. I crumble onto her stone and let myself weep. I cry for her loss, for her pain, for my pain and for all that could have been. I’m not sure how long I sit there with my upper body pressed against her gravestone, but eventually, I am aware of a hand on my back. It’s warm and makes soothing circles. My tears subside a bit and only the spasms shake my body as I try to calm myself down. I close my eyes and for a moment, a brief second, I swear I smell a rose. My eyes fly open and I sit up, looking around.

  “What, what’s wrong, Lily?” Lance asks. I realize he’s sitting next to me, his one hand on my back and his other on my leg.

  “I…I thought…” I sniff the air again, but the smell is gone. I shake my head. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”

  Lance pulls me against him and I press my face to his chest and wrap my arms around his waist. I’m curled into a tight ball and his arms wrap around my torso and my bent legs. I sit like this, cocooned in Lance’s embrace for a few minutes. Eventually, my tears completely subside and my body stills. I feel calm, very calm. As I let the calm take over my body, I sense something. Something bad. I sit up wide-eyed and look at Lance.

  “Something bad is going to happen,” I say out of nowhere.

  “What are you talking about?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I know this sounds crazy, but I…I just have a sudden feeling that something bad is going to happen,” I whisper frantically. My heart is thumping against my chest. I don’t understand what I am feeling. Lance places his hands on my cheeks and looks into my eyes.

  “Everything is going to be OK, Lily. I promise you. I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” he says.

  I take in his words and nod slightly. He holds me for another moment and then I turn back toward my mother’s grave and place my hand on it one last time. I take a photo of it for Nick and we head back to the car. As we drive to a local café for a coffee, I notice Lance glancing in his rearview mirror several times.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” he says curtly. He takes my hand in his and is silent as he parks the car. We drink our coffee and eat a few empanadas and arepas and then head back to the house. It’s nearly noon when we arrive.

  “Nick!” I yell as we walk through the front door.

  “What?” I hear from upstairs. I run up the stairs and into his room.

  “I found her,” I say with a smile and turn my phone around to show him the photo of her grave.

  He gets up from the desk chair and staggers over to me. He stares at the photo for a long time before sitting down on the edge of the bed and taking my phone in his hands. I sit down next to him and put my arm around his shoulder.

  “We should go soon,” I say quietly.

  “Sure.”

  “You OK, Nick?”

  “Yeah, processing,” he answers. I smile because he’s using my word.

  I leave him with my phone, sensing he needs a minute to himself and I head back downstairs in time to help my mom, Jesse, and Jack with groceries. Lance and Jesse strike up a conversation about their jobs and are busy discussing various aspects of the industry as Mom starts to prep food. At 12:30, Nick comes down and hands me the phone. I can tell he’s been crying, but I know that no one else will be able to tell. He keeps his head down and mumbles that we should get going. I pull Lance away from Jesse and the three of us head over to my grandparents’ home.

  I make Lance take the long way past the hospital and church, so Nick can see them. We pull up outside their home and I ask Lance to wait for us in the car. He nods.

  I knock on the door and our grandmother opens it cautiously until she sees it’s me and then she flings it open and embraces me. I kiss her cheek and introduce her to Nick who she pulls into a hug. She ushers us in and my grandfather hugs us both, too. Then we all sit while my grandmother brings over photos of various family members for us to look at. Nick’s already seen some of the photos as several are duplicates of what my grandmother gave to me, but he kindly listens and I can tell he’s actually very interested. I smile contently as I sit next to my grandmother and Nick sits on her other side. I look across at my grandfather who is just sitting and smiling at all of us. Our eyes meet and we both widen our smiles at one another. I can see myself in him. Once my grandmother finishes, I suggest we head out to the car since Lance is waiting for us. My grandmother scolds me for leaving Lance in the car and I laugh. Before we leave, I take a breath and tell them that our uncle Nicholas is coming. I explain things to them. They are a bit shocked, but eventually, agree to come and meet him.

  As we approach the car, my eyes meet Lance’s and I know something is wrong. I offer Nick the front seat and then slide into the middle to give my grandparents more room. We hardly have our seatbelts buckled, when Lance is gunning it down the street.

  “Slow down, where’s the fire?” I ask, reaching to touch his shoulder.

  I feel how tense he is. “Lance, what’s wrong?”

  “I think we’re being followed,” he says.

  “Yes, the security guys,” I say, reminding him that we should have a security guy in an unmarked car following us around.

  “No, not Sebastian,” he says. “Another car. I noticed it this morning and then it went by twice while you were inside. Same car. Same plates.”

  I frown. “Are you sure?”

  “Very.”

  I don’t want to alarm my grandparents, so I sit back and give them a reassuring smile and lie. I tell them Lance doesn’t feel well at the moment, food from lunch must not have set well with him. They nod, and my grandmother tells me he needs a good strong cup of coffee. If we weren’t in this insanely stressful predicament, I would likely start laughing.

  Lance weaves in and out of traffic and takes a wonky way back to the villa. He instructs the guard to not let in a car with a certain plate number and description. The guard nods. Just as we pull up, Sebastian pulls in behind us and jumps out of his car.

  “What the hell?” he asks in a heavy accent.

  Lance raises a hand as he gets out of the vehicle. “We were being followed, Sebastian.”

  Sebastian just shakes his head. “No, I would have seen this.”

  “Well, you didn’t,” Lance says curtly. He gives Sebastia
n the car details and heads inside. I usher my grandparents into the house, away from the conversation. Fortunately, they seem oblivious as they “oh” and “ah” at the villa.

  My mom comes out from behind the kitchen island and greets my grandparents. They all hug and there are more tears. Eventually, Jack comes in from the barbeque and introduces himself, in fluent Spanish. I stand shocked for a moment.

  “You speak Spanish,” I state.

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Well, surprise,” Jack says, smiling warmly at me. I internally wonder what else I don’t know about Jack. At that moment, the doorbell rings and I go to find my uncle Nicholas standing there. He is dressed more casually than I thought he’d be. I give him a quick hug and lead him toward the kitchen. I introduce everyone. Nick stares at him. And we all look from Nicholas to Nick. My mom is the one that breaks the silence.

  “Well, the resemblance is…yeah,” she says, words clearly failing her. Everyone bursts out laughing, mostly because they don’t know how else to respond. “Let’s go out back,” she says, regaining her composure.

  I bring my grandparents and uncle to a large table on the patio that my mother has set. She is a total Martha Stewart, down to the candles and flowers sitting on the table.

  I turn and through the doorway I see Lance grab Jack’s arm and they begin talking rapidly in hushed voices. Jack has a frown on his face. He has his phone out after Lance speaks for about twenty seconds. John and Sebastian are in the kitchen in another ten seconds. I try to focus back on my grandparents and uncle. My grandmother asks me to take out the box of photos. I walk inside to get them, and everyone freezes and looks at me.

  I stop and look back at them, placing my hands on my hips. “OK, what the hell is going on?”

  Lance looks at Jack nervously. Jack glances outside. I turn and see my mom and Nick sitting at the table outside chatting away happily with my grandparents and both uncles, somewhat oblivious to the danger we faced this afternoon.