by Ava Lore
I looked into his wide eyes, so like Manny’s. They’d sparkled with mischief on the porch this afternoon, and I felt that I could trust him. I could tell him what I knew. So I did.
Sirens were pulling up in front of the house by the time I’d managed to relate what Manny had told me about his family.
“He thought we were shaking him down?” Miguel looked appalled when I told him that Manny hid most of his money and kept some so that he could give Yago whatever he wanted.
“No wonder he hasn’t even bothered to ring us up,” Nando said ruefully. “I wouldn’t want to talk to me either, if that’s what I thought would happen.” He ran a hand over his face. “That...explains a lot. We knew Papi had control over his medical junk, but that expired when he was eighteen.” He frowned. “Didn’t it?”
Oh my god. “Manny was under the impression that it was still in effect,” I said dryly.
“Well he would, if it was Yago telling him that. He’s a fucking liar. We all know it. Manny knows it, too. Why would he believe him?”
“I think because Arturo backed him up,” I said.
Luis scowled. “If he did...” he said, and trailed off. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, I suppose. Papi’s so far gone he doesn’t even recognize us anymore.”
I nodded. “I know. He thought I was someone named Tiana.”
A strange look passed over Luis’ face. “Tiana?” he said, and his voice sounded odd.
Obviously that meant something. “His wife?” I asked. “When Yago was...was...” The words caught in my throat and for a moment I choked up.
Miguel’s hand on my back ceased its gentle circles and moved to my shoulders, pulling me close to him.
This is a family, I realized. The family Manny’s been missing. The family Manny’s been needing and wanting all these years. He thought they’d betrayed him... No wonder he ran so cold sometimes when asked about his family.
I had a wonderful family. I had Rebecca. I had a loving mother and father and fabulous brothers and sisters. Suddenly, sharply, I remembered the early morning hours after the after party where Manny and I had had our fatal encounter. I remembered him sitting across from me.
“You have family that loves you and cares about you. Not everyone has that, you know? You should lean on them when things get bad. That’s what family is supposed to be for...”
He still wanted his family. He yearned for it, longed for it.
Everything suddenly came into utter clarity then—Manny, sweet, kind Manny—had been testing me all this time on this island. He probably didn’t even know that he’d been doing it, but he had been poking and prodding me, desperately trying to bring me toward him, but all the while keeping me at a distance.
I had been right. He wanted his family back. He needed a family. He missed them fiercely, but couldn’t muster the courage to face them, to challenge them and risk their rejection again, a rejection that I now knew was almost entirely artificial, a lie made up by one or two self-serving individuals who had rejected him in favor of what he could do for them, and he sometimes kept me at arm’s length because he was afraid that I would reject him and use him, too.
In fact, I realized, he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone rejecting him. Everything about him—his causal demeanor, his lighthearted approach to everything, his easy generosity—all of it was designed to both attract and simultaneously keeping those he attracted at a distance while he struggled to let himself trust.
While he ached to open his heart to love.
He was like a beautiful bird flashing his brilliant feathers to draw people close to him, but deep down afraid that his bright colors would call only predators...
Then I realized that Luis was looking at me with a strange expression, while Nando and Miguel traded glances. I shook myself, trying to set my revelations aside.
“What’s wrong?” I said. “When, um, Yago was...” I still couldn’t say it, but a squeeze from Miguel’s hand on my shoulder told me that it was all right, so I took a deep breath. “Arturo thought I was Tiana, and he attacked Yago, trying to help me...” I shook my head. “He thought I was Tiana earlier, too, telling her he was sorry, I think. Or at least I think he said he was sorry. There were sientos and lamentos in there quite a bit...”
Luis and Miguel exchanged one last glance, then Luis turned his eyes to me.
“Tiana was Manny’s mother.”
Inside my head, everything went still.
I’m sorry, my love. I’m sorry, I’m sorry...
The blood drained from my face as I remembered Arturo’s words. Manny’s mother was his love? He had been in love with Manny’s mother?
Puzzle pieces were flying around my brain, rising and falling, almost fitting together. I turned to Miguel and grabbed his hand, startling him. “Miguel,” I said urgently, “were you named after your uncle? Manny’s father?”
He nodded. “Yes, but how did you—”
The tangled web of lies and deceit around Manny’s life were unraveling before my eyes. “I need to talk to Manny,” I said urgently, just as there was a knock on the door. Nando went to answer it, and I heard the lilting cadence of a Hawaiian accent couched in a harsh voice.
“We need to take a statement from a Miss Alton.”
The police, I thought with relief. Then I remembered.
“Oh shit!” I hissed.
Miguel glanced at me. “What?” he said.
I turned to him, my eyes so wide they felt as though they were going to pop out of their sockets. There was no other option than to be honest. “My purse is full of drugs!”
He blinked down at me, then grinned. “Holding out on us?”
I shook my head. “No! I’ll explain later, but please, you have to find some way to get rid of...of all this!”
I shoved my purse into his hands and he gave me an amused look. “Why do you think the police will suspect you have drugs?”
Argh! “Because I threw a handful of heroin in Yago’s eyes to get away from him!”
Miguel stared at me some more as Nando came into the room. “Rose?” he said. “Are you feeling up to making a statement?”
Luis, who had been watching this exchange, snickered. “Tell them she needs a few minutes, Nando.” Nando shrugged and went back to the front door, where I heard him talking to the cops while Luis continued to laugh at me.
“This isn’t funny!” I almost cried. “I could get in huge trouble for this!”
He nodded, still giggling. “I know. Here, here, hand it over.” I passed my purse over to him and he opened it and peered inside. “Yup,” he said with a grin. “That’s a lot of heroin. And other stuff. I can get rid of the other stuff, but your story should be you found it hidden in my dad’s room and were concerned or something. You were still drunk so that sort of thing kind of makes sense. Like you thought maybe my dad was dying of an overdose and you wanted to show us the evidence. Sound good?”
It made as much sense as anything else, so I nodded. “Yes, that’s...that’s fine.”
“That explains why it was in your purse, and also why you were so willing to use it as a weapon. No junkie would willingly throw all that smack away.” He laughed again, then reached inside my purse and grabbed the rest of the drugs, getting heroin all over his hands. He flashed me a wink. “See you on the flipside,” he said and beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.
Miguel, still sitting next to me, was giving me a bemused look. “Why is your purse full of drugs?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I...it’s a long story. I’ll tell you guys afterwards. Do I look okay?”
He tilted his head. “You look like you just survived a rape attempt,” he said.
I gave a watery laugh. “Well, I guess that’s good enough for me. I’ll give my statement...”
“Nando!” Miguel called. “She’s ready.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I tried to joke, but to my shock he suddenly pulled me into a tight embrace.
“Don’t worr
y, mija,” he said. “I’ll go get Manny. Sit tight.” Releasing me, he stood and darted across the room just as two uniformed cops came in.
Suddenly I felt very alone and vulnerable. There was no one here but me and two strangers, in a strange house, in a strange land, and I felt as though I were shrinking inside my skin. My limbs, so exposed in my trashy get-up, burst into goose bumps and I began to shiver.
Blankets, I thought dimly as the cops walked toward me. I’m cold. I looked down at the blankets that had covered me as I recovered from the shock, but I couldn’t quite remember how to pull them around me.
The two men stopped in front of the couch, towering over me, and my teeth began to chatter.
One of them tilted his head, and he may have been concerned or annoyed, I couldn’t tell. “Miss Alton?” he said. “May we have a few words with you?”
Don’t talk to police, I thought to myself. That was always the sort of advice I would give people. Never talk to the police. But now they stood in front of me, tall and solid and intimidating, and my whole body shuddered and shivered...
“Rosalita.”
My head snapped up, and there was Manny, coming in from the entryway, his golden eyes ablaze with concern, his handsome face open and warm, and when he reached me it was all I could do not to fall into him once more.
Manny, I thought, and just his name thawed me a little.
“I’m here, bonita, I’m here,” he said, and then he was wrapping blankets around me, his scent filling my head, and it felt just like coming home. Strong fingers stroked my hair and he cradled me to his chest, warming me from the inside out.
For a long moment I just turned into him, letting his strength hold me up. Me, Rose Alton, who never told anyone her problems, leaned on a man she had only known for a week. Me, Rose Alton, who never did anything without planning it out, had fallen in love.
It made me free.
I looked up at the cops and blinked away tears. “I’m ready now,” I said.
I glanced at Manny. No more plans. No more grasping for control. As long as you are with me, I am ready for anything.
Chapter Nineteen
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” I asked Manny as we stood outside the door of his uncle’s room. His strong hand was wrapped around mine, and he looked down at me and grinned.
“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Still distant. I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Sonya would be a better person to do this with you.” Sonya and Carter, alerted to problems by my neglect of my cell phone and also by looking out the window of their van to see Manny zipping past them in his ridiculous little car, had shown up at the house just as Manny had attempted to get a couple of years for assault and battery. Now, after being filled in on the lies and crossed wires that had lead to the last few years of Manny’s life, they were all drinking Alejandro’s brew and getting happy.
It was a little strange. Carter I understood. Carter was the sort of guy who lived and let live. It was Sonya who surprised me by, upon getting the whole story, proceeding to hug all six of Manny’s cousins. Minus Yago, of course, who was currently in jail on sexual assault and possession charges.
“I thought you hated them?” I said to her in a low voice.
She shrugged. “New information leads to new opinions,” she told me airily. “Plus as far as I can tell they helped you out of a sticky spot and that counts for a lot in my book.”
Pulling my thoughts away from Sonya, I shook my head. “Anyway, you guys have been friends for a long time, I just thought you might want her support.”
Manny looked down at me and squeezed my hand. “I don’t want Sonya to come with me. I want you.”
My chest felt as though it was about to burst, but somehow I managed to keep myself from painting the walls with my guts as we opened the door and walked in.
For a long moment Manny stared around the room, as though he couldn’t quite understand what he was seeing. “This looked...different when I was a kid,” he said at last. “A lot more organized.” The television was still on, displaying a soap opera of the most garish variety. Of course I couldn’t really judge—this past week had been so full of ups and downs and deceit and lies and drugs and alcohol and rock stars behaving weirdly that all we were missing was someone getting shot and a secret baby.
“I don’t think your uncle’s been getting proper care,” I said after a moment, and Manny shook himself.
“That’s right. He hasn’t,” he replied. His hand tightened around mine again, and I wondered just what he was thinking. He was somber now, a side of him I hadn’t quite seen before, and I felt the tiniest of thrills knowing that I was allowed to see something most people never did.
He turned his eyes to the bed and his face grew troubled. For a moment I thought he would turn around and leave, but with a sudden, deep breath, he stepped forward, pulling me after him.
We stopped at Arturo’s bedside and looked down at the old man who looked even worse now that I was sober. He may as well have been a hundred and twenty years old. Someone had sat him up and covered him with a blanket, and there was a fresh bandage on his face where Yago must have cut him somehow, but he didn’t even acknowledge our presence. Instead he stared straight ahead in the direction of the television, eyes vacant, jaw slackened.
I stole a look at Manny, but he just gazed at his uncle, and I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking. This was the monster he’d been afraid of all these years? This was what had become of the man who had sent him away to an institution?
“He looks awful,” Manny said suddenly. Then he raised a hand to his face and I realized that he was wiping away tears.
My heart broke for him, but also filled with such deep affection that it left a searing pain in my chest.
He continued: “Luis said that they’ve been trying to get him a home nurse, but none of them have enough money to pay for a good one. He said that Yago was always talking about how I didn’t care, how I had so much money and I wouldn’t give any of it to help the man that had taken me in.” He passed a hand over his face. “You’d think one of them would have said something at some point,” he said, “but they all believed Yago. Even though he’s a liar and we all know it. Ever since we were kids, we all knew it. No one liked him because he would just lie for the hell of it...”
I bit my lip. “Why do you think they believed him?” I asked quietly.
Manny smiled, and to my surprise it wasn’t bitter. “Probably because he was the only one willing to do the dirty work of ‘asking’ me for money. They thought I was an asshole, but they didn’t want to fight with me.” His hand left mine, but only to pull me against him, his strong arm around my shoulder. “We really were all like brothers back when we were kids on this island. We were so close...” He looked down at me and suddenly leaned in. “This trip has been so nostalgic. It would have been devastating to come back here by myself, but with you...” He trailed off as he pressed a hot, sweet kiss to my forehead.
I closed my eyes and tried not to cry as memories of our time here flashed in the darkness of my head.
I remembered his longing when he talked of how I had a family to lean on.
I remembered how he had always watched me intently as he showed me the island where he had grown up, hoping, somewhere deep inside, that if I understood where he came from then I would understand him, too.
I remembered the times we went walking when we could have driven, because he wanted to hold my hand but wasn’t willing to put himself out there by telling me that.
I remembered how he cooked spam and eggs and rice for his new family, striving for those old feelings, aching for us to be what he needed.
I remembered how he stared at me as I danced, wild and free, to the beat of his drum, when no other woman had done so before.
He’d asked me to be with him when we went back home. Whether he knew it or not, I had given him hope. Perhaps he didn’t even know what he hoped for—a new future, a new family, a n
ew life without fear—but maybe he’d seen it in me.
Nothing concrete. Not really. Not yet.
But he dreamed.
“I’m glad,” I said, though it was choked in my throat. “I’m glad I’ve been here with you. Especially now that the truth has been uncovered.”
I felt his chest rise and fall in a sigh. “I don’t know what happened. How did we become so distant that we could have all been fooled by someone none of us liked?”
“Fear,” I said.
Manny started and pulled back a little. “Fear?”
“Fear of ruining your relationship by asking for money. Fear of becoming just a cash cow for your uncle. Fear of Yago.” I shrugged. “People aren’t rational beings. They are scared, and tired, and frightened, and angry and jealous and greedy and all sorts of awful things, and you can’t do a thing about that.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s deep.”
Even talking about these things he made me laugh. I stifled a snicker and gave him a nudge with my shoulder. “No, it’s just human nature. It’s what makes it so easy for lawyers to manipulate the system to anyone’s advantage. You can’t change facts, but you can change people’s minds. Like how most computer hackers don’t sit there with giant supercomputers decrypting passwords, they just send emails telling you they are a Nigerian prince and people fall for it and just give that shit away, because emotion can and will override logic.”
“I suppose I never have been a very logical person,” Manny said, sounding amused. “Is that why you make plans ahead of time? So that you can act rationally even when your heart tells you to do something else?”
I sucked air through my teeth. “Yes,” I said. “I’ve never been one to give in to the passion of the moment or whatever. Until you.”
A thick silence descended, and suddenly I was intensely aware of his body, of his gentleness and warmth and humor. If I lifted my face, would he kiss me? I still had no idea what he thought of my hare-brained scheme to come here in the first place...
