by Lea Santos
If life were different.
If she were free.
If, if, if.
God, she yearned for that closeness again.
Torien shook off the what-ifs and peered at her sister. “You were talking to her earlier, no?”
“I was,” Madeira said.
“Did you praise her?”
Madeira frowned. “Of course I did, but she should hear it from you. She needs to hear it from you. You’re the foreman.”
For a moment Torien let the sounds of the life around them and the smell of the soil consume her, then her eyes lifted toward Iris again of their own volition. “Are the workers getting too familiar with her?” she asked, with feigned nonchalance she knew her sister wouldn’t buy, not for a split second.
“What do you care?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Torien snapped.
A long sigh emptied Madeira’s lungs. “She’s happy working here, Toro. She likes them. They like her.”
“That’s what I am afraid of,” Torien murmured gravely. “I don’t want anyone to treat her badly. Take advantage.”
“Since when did our socios become a pack of animals in your eyes?” Madeira asked. “Or are you just marking territory in your mind? Ridiculous, since you refuse to claim it in the real world anyway.”
Torien closed her eyes and exhaled through clenched teeth. She and Madeira had been snapping at each other like wild dogs ever since Iris had begun working with them. Torien hadn’t yet figured out why, but now was not the time to explore it, whether Madeira goaded her or not. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m not in the mood for this.”
Madeira swore and shook her head. “Of course you aren���t. But let me ease your back-breaking worry, hermana. Iris is fine.” Sarcasm laced her words. She lowered to her knees and set about helping with the sweet william they had procured at the nursery earlier that day, both of their movements jerky and impatient. “Not only that, but Iris is not your responsibility. She can take care of herself.”
“My baby sister”—Torien snorted—“the goddamned expert of everything.”
Madeira grabbed her arm, eyes serious. “That’s not it, Toro. Damn! You treat her like she might break into a million pieces. She isn’t made of glass, you know. She is flesh and blood and all woman. Can’t you see how much she wishes you realized that?”
Torien’s stomach tightened; she shrugged off Madeira’s grip. If anyone knew Iris was pure flesh and blood, it was she. And, she didn’t need schooling from her cocksure little sister. “I do realize it. I am only trying to protect her.” From myself. From this.
“Wake up!” Madeira pierced the soil bed with a vehement stab of the trowel. “She doesn’t want or need your protection. She wants you to care about her, woman to woman. She wants you. How can you be so blind?” Madeira smacked away a trickle of sweat with the back of her hand. “I am seven years younger, Toro, and I have to spell this out? It’s pathetic.”
Madeira rarely gave in to anger, and the outburst snagged Torien’s attention. An answering frustration flared from a hidden place deep within her, but she fought to control it, to keep her tone steady. “I am not blind, Madeira. Don’t imagine you see things I do not. But your life and mine are different.” Indeed, Torien didn’t mark time with a series of red-lit trysts in various women’s beds, like her footloose little sister did. Torien had responsibilities, obligations, worries. “What would you have me do, since you know everything?” she rasped. “Turn my back on all of it for her?”
“Iris doesn’t want that!”
“As if you know.” Torien flicked her hand in disgust.
“Do you know? Have you even asked her?”
“I cannot concentrate on what she wants, Madeira. She is the guest of Señora Moreno. My employer. She is Iris Lujan, for God’s sake. Use your damn brain.” Torien scrambled to her feet and stalked to a trash bin, discarding an empty flat that had held the fledgling plants with a rough thrust.
“She is Iris Lujan, sí.” Madeira followed, unwilling to let the subject go. “And you are Torien Pacias. That squeaky guy in Disneyland with the big ears? He’s Mickey Mouse. So what? None of that matters. Follow your heart instead of your brain for once.”
Madeira snaked a hand around Torien’s arm again—the last straw. Torien twisted violently from her grasp, whirling to wad a fistful of Madeira’s shirt in her palm. She pulled her sister’s face close and lowered her tone so the others wouldn’t hear them. “And just what do you suggest, Mosquito, eh?” Torien asked. “That I handle her like you would? Lose myself in some romantic fantasy? Kiss her? Make love to her?”
“Of course not,” Madeira scoffed. “Not Toro, who is immune to the needs and desires of mortal women.”
“And then toss her aside? Lose my job?” Torien spat, unheeded, her yearning for Iris fueling her anger, making Madeira the target of her bitter words. “Lose this house? Leave Mamá in the lurch next month because a woman grabbed hold of my heart? Don’t be a fucking fool—”
“¡Basta, hermana!” This time Madeira wrenched away, then advanced on Torien again. Fists locked and loaded at her sides, eyes flashing. Fury quickened their breathing. “Enough of the family, your job, your reputation, your damned tiresome burden. If you are afraid or you have no interest in Iris, fine. Be a woman and admit it. But don’t use us as your excuse anymore.” Madeira pounded a fist on her chest. “I am a woman, too. Don’t discount my place in the family or what I contribute.”
Startled, Torien blinked. “I…I don’t discount you, Mo—”
“No?” Madeira huffed, her short laugh humorless. “You are not responsible for me. For the whole world.”
They stared, chests heaving, arms stiff and angry.
Madeira’s outburst and its resulting guilt left Torien mute and stunned. Did she truly make her sister feel useless? Did she hide behind the responsibilities of her family? Contrition tightened her throat and rushed in her ears like a train. She opened her mouth to respond, then closed it, hung her head, and ran the fingers of both hands slowly through her hair, interlocking them behind her neck. “Damnit.”
Life was spiraling out of her control. She felt as if she were sliding down the steep side of a mountain flailing for a finger hold or clump of grass—anything to slow her descent, all because she was falling for a woman. She wanted to let go and fall—God, how she wanted to. But just as her far too insightful sister had accused, she was afraid.
Afraid to fail.
Afraid not to.
Afraid to disappoint those who depended on her.
Too late. Clearly, she had already disappointed Madeira, though for a very different reason than she had imagined. “I never meant to belittle your contributions.”
Madeira’s palm closed on her shoulder and did not move away. “De nada. What do you want, Toro?” she asked softly.
Lips pursed, forehead wrinkled in consternation, Torien peered at her little sister, her sidekick. The person who claimed to know her better than she knew herself.
“What would you want?” Madeira implored. “If there were no job worries, no bills, no burden on your soul? What would be your big dream now?”
Torien and her big dreams. She snorted sardonically, but the sound was weak. She had given up on those big dreams when Papá died. Didn’t Madeira realize they weren’t carefree children anymore? The interminable nothingness stretched between them as their gazes locked. Sister to sister, silent communication so much clearer than muddled words.
“Tell me.”
I would want her, whispered Torien’s mind. She shook her head against the thought.
“Say it,” Madeira urged.
Say it, Toro. What could it hurt to verbalize the wish? “A chance with Iris,” was all she managed to say.
“There. Was that so hard?”
“Yes. Because I can’t have it.”
Acknowledgment settled dully in Madeira’s eyes along with a sad, pleading look. “Damnit, Toro, yes you can. Reach for your dr
eam before you lose your chance. No one ever asked you to sacrifice your whole life for la familia. You’ve done enough.”
The uncertainty she felt must have showed, because her sister added, “All those times we called you the dreamer? That wasn’t an insult.” Madeira let that sink in. “Did you think it was?”
Torien never broke the stare with Madeira.
“We looked up to you, Toro. We still do. You had us then, you will have us always, no matter what. We’re your family. We love you.”
“But Papá—”
“Forget Papá. You aren’t Papá. When he died, you gave us hope for something…greater with your big, exciting dreams. Especially me.” Madeira shook her head. “Don’t make me realize it was all empty talk, Toro. All that stuff about making our deepest wishes come true. Don’t give up on that now, when you finally have a chance for something amazing. For the chance to realize one of your big dreams.”
Torien watched her sister walk away, shoulders slumped with defeat. For a long time, she stood dumbfounded. Stunned.
She hadn’t understood the animosity crackling between her and Madeira before.
Now she knew. Madeira just wanted her to wake up. To see the light.
To live.
Damnit, the little mosquito was right, much as Torien hated to say it. But Torien was the oldest, and when Papá died, she didn’t think twice before taking over the role he’d never really fulfilled. But that decision had come from a place of bitterness, of resignation. Of disgust. Papá had died in that factory accident. Not Torien. Instead of slipping into their father’s role—working herself to death in jobs for which she held no passion, all for the sake of the family—Madeira simply wanted her big sister to define her own role. To enjoy life.
I will try, Mosquito. I will.
Torien released a short groan of laughter at the irony of it all, then glanced around the worksite for Iris. After a moment of confusion, she realized Iris was gone. Her gaze strayed to the street just as the little red Mercedes zipped around the corner and disappeared.
Finally awake, and still she had missed her chance.
Typical.
Humbled, Torien shook her head. She guessed she did have lessons to learn from her flashy hermanita after all.
*
Feeling stronger for having accepted the reality of their situation, Iris made her way down to Geraline’s gardens that evening, intent on apologizing to Torien. She hadn’t heard a word of the argument between Madeira and her at the worksite today, but everyone could see from their rigid stances and angry eyes that it had been vehement. And all Iris’s fault, she felt certain, which had shocked her into a painful realization. She had brought nothing but problems and pain into Torien’s peaceful world with her selfishness, and it had to stop.
She had left Círculo de Esperanza immediately, telling Rubén and Natán she had an appointment she had forgotten. Really, she needed to get away and pull her head together. After a long talk with Paloma and an intimate date with a Godiva chocolate bar (okay, two), she felt more settled. Resolute. She refused to come between sisters who were obviously so close, and she had no right to foist herself on Torien if the woman just plain didn’t want her. That had been her most egregious mistake, one for which she would make amends.
A cool, ominous wind lifted her hair, swirling it around her shoulders, left bare by her silk tank top. She was glad she’d chosen a pair of fitted jeans to go with it. The moon hid behind a thick layer of clouds, and she could tell from the way the cottonwood leaves had flipped that a rainstorm brewed. Still, the sweetness in the air reminded her poignantly of the night she’d first met Torien. The way Tori had soothed her with a calm gentleness, the deep love in her words when she spoke of her family.
Iris’s throat closed with desire she couldn’t act upon but wouldn’t deny, either. It hadn’t been so long ago that they’d met, but it felt like a lifetime. Three lifetimes. She had learned a lot from Torien over the weeks, lessons about life and choices, about risk and responsibility and missed opportunities. From here on out, she would make a conscious effort to change her life, though she hadn’t decided how she would execute that scary first step. But she had a goal. That was a start. She wasn’t sitting on the sidelines watching a practice match of her life anymore. Whatever it took, she would leap directly into the fray.
She paused at the gazebo, so ready to see Torien she could hardly breathe, but—Iris glanced around—Tori wasn’t there. She strained her eyes to search the quickly darkening gardens, goose bumps washing over her bare arms. Shivering, she rubbed the chilled skin with her palms. Callused palms, she noted with a smile. Baby calluses, still sore to the touch, but they were there nonetheless, and they were hers. She had earned them, and damn, that felt better than she’d ever imagined it would.
She strolled to the little grassy oasis hidden behind the lilac bushes where Torien had told her their lives didn’t mesh; no sign of her there, either. Torien probably hadn’t come to Geraline’s tonight, Iris admitted with a pang of sorrow, and how could she blame her? If she had met someone who brought nothing but trouble and turmoil and temptation to her otherwise peaceful life, she would steer clear, too.
Seized with disappointment, Iris turned back toward the house, but the melodic sounds of softly strummed guitar strings caught her attention. The eerie sound floated toward her from the cabaña, Torien’s erstwhile residence. Hope straightened Iris’s shoulders and fluttered beneath her breastbone.
Tori was here. Not working, but…here.
Palms suddenly moist, Iris took a breath for courage and headed in that direction. She peered around the corner of the small house and saw Torien before Torien caught sight of her. Tori sat in a cane-backed chair, tipped so its front legs angled off the ground. Her broad, strong back rested against the house, and the guitar sat nestled in her lap, her fingers slowly finessing the strings, those deep, dark eyes at half mast. An open wine bottle sat on the floor next to the chair, along with a nearly empty glass.
Torien looked as if she had just showered, pulled clothes over her still-damp body. Iris’s yearning to touch her lips to Torien’s jawline nearly overpowered her, but she gripped a tree trunk, staving off the need. Intending to greet Torien as casually as possible, Iris opened her mouth, but the words would not come.
Right on cue, Iris froze. And snapped a branch off the tree.
All at once, Torien became aware she wasn’t alone. Her eyes flew open and met Iris’s. The legs of the chair hit the cement patio floor with a clunk; down went the guitar. Just like that, Torien stood in front of her. Eye to eye, mouth to mouth, heartbeat to heartbeat, as Iris had always known it would be. As if they were made to fit together.
How to start such a conversation, she wondered? Waiting wouldn’t make it any easier. She might as well jump into that fray…starting now. She cleared her throat, then said, her voice thin and papery, “You aren’t working.”
Torien shrugged, studying her. “I work too much, or so my hotheaded baby sister thinks.” One side of her mouth lifted.
“Madi’s smart, and she’s right.”
“Madi, huh? Maybe so,” Torien conceded.
Okay. Buck up. She could do this. “Is everything…okay?” She tucked her hair behind her ears, then crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “With Madeira, I mean?”
Torien’s eyes warmed with wry affection, seeing a picture somewhere inside. “We are hot-blooded Latina sisters. We argue. The anger never lasts.” Thunder rumbled fluorescent red in a black thunderhead hanging over the mountains. “A storm is on the way.”
“I noticed.”
“Can you smell the rain, Irisíta?”
She nodded. “It smells good.”
“Like new beginnings, no?”
She studied Torien’s face, trying not to read into her words, fighting not to allow her gaze to drop to—God—to those lips. “The…um…moisture will be good for the plants.”
“As long as it isn’t a downpour,” Torien said, worried
eyes tracking the far-off storm on the horizon. “Flowers are delicate when newly planted. Like ideas. Or dreams. They must be nourished gently. Slowly. Not drowned all at once.”
Torien had a poetic streak, but was she trying to tell Iris something this time? Did she dare hope Tori’d had a change of heart?
“Where did you go today?” Torien turned back. “I looked for you but you were gone.”
Iris sighed. “I…had to go. I should’ve told you, but…” Okay, so she wasn’t quite as ready as she’d thought. She couldn’t continue down this path of conversation, because she knew it eventually led to good-bye. Not ready yet. “I didn’t know you played the guitar.”
Torien shot a glance at the instrument, then leaned one shoulder against the front of the house. “I don’t play it well, but I enjoy it. Long ago, I dreamed of being a musician.”
“What happened?”
Torien pressed her lips together, the corners turning down in a thoughtful angle. “Life,” she said simply.
“I’m sorry,” Iris blurted, not referring to the music.
“For what?”
“For…causing problems. At the worksite. For the argument.”
“It isn’t you, mi ángel. You are doing a wonderful job there. Everyone loves you.” Torien ducked her chin, eyes smiling beneath the serious gaze. “Have I told you that?”
Iris realized she ached for Torien’s approval, soaking up her words like a thirsty plant. Her insides felt tender, so close to tears. She was falling in love with a woman she couldn’t have. A woman who didn’t want her love. How foolish was that? She shook her head. “No, you haven’t told me.”
“Then I have been an idiot, and it is my turn to apologize.” Torien reached up to stroke Iris’s cheekbone with the back of her hand. Down the slope of her cheek to her jawline, across to her chin. Her thumb smoothed over Iris’s bottom lip briefly, tugging her mouth slightly open and rattling Iris’s composure completely, before Torien turned her hand over and cupped the side of Iris’s face.
