“Look, I don’t know all the details and I especially don’t need any of the mushy ones,” she told him matter-of-factly. “But when I look at your photographs with her, I am blown away. Emotionally, artistically. When you talk about her, you’re like some guy in one of those romantic comedies my girlfriends have given up trying to convince me to watch with them.”
The kind Anamaría had always dragged him to when they were kids. The kind they had started watching at her place last Friday. Until Movie Night turned into Make Out Night on her couch. In her bedroom. Later, in her shower.
“So.” Natalia pushed the leather office chair back and stood. Not that doing so increased her height by much. Although the intensity of her piercing stare could cut anyone down to size when she wanted. “I’m not sure I believe in all that happily-ever-after crap, but if you feel that way about her . . . and have since freaking high school, that’s either pathetic or as real as it gets. Por favor, no seas estúpido, do something about it.”
Coño, she had that arched-brow, you-know-I’m-right expression down to perfection.
Don’t be stupid. Do something about it.
Once again, he found himself unable to argue with her observation.
That meant he had to find Anamaría, make sure she was okay, and finally admit the truth. While he hated the rift between his parents, his father’s inability to accept him could no longer force Alejandro to put distance between him and the woman he loved.
“You’re right,” he told Natalia,
“Of course, I am.” She grinned and sank onto the desk chair, her attention moving to the paperwork detailing the evening’s sales figures “Fine, go on, get out of here. I’ll stay and be my usual brilliant self. You can thank me later.”
Alejandro pulled open the office door at the same time the black curtain covering the entrance to the Mi Cuba display across the hallway fluttered aside. His father loomed in the opening, and Alejandro reared back in surprised shock.
They froze and stared at each other in silence.
A son’s keen disappointment and resulting anger flooded Alejandro’s chest. Why was his papi here? The man had made it glaringly clear to everyone in their familia, and more than likely a few neighbors who overheard him bellowing, that he would set foot in Bellísima the day he added hot dogs to the menu at Miranda’s.
Translation: never.
“Victor, salte del medio.”
Despite his wife’s bid for him to move out of the way, Alejandro’s dad stayed rooted to his spot, and she wound up squeezing past him. As soon as his mom spotted Alejandro in the office doorway, she joined them in the game of freeze tag.
Do something about it.
Natalia’s no-nonsense advice played back in his mind.
The only “something” Alejandro had done in this battle of wills with his father was leave. His home. His familia. The woman he would always crave and need.
Not anymore.
Alejandro closed the office door, giving him and his parents more privacy. “Hola, Papi, I appreciate you coming.”
His mouth a grim line, his dad dipped his head, accepting Alejandro’s olive branch. “Sí, pues, I am grateful to have a friend who does not take no for an answer.”
He jabbed a beefy hand toward Anamaría’s parents, who stood at the end of the short hallway near the Cultures around the Globe collection. Lydia Navarro looked on, her face creased with motherly concern. Her husband exuded his usual air of quiet authority and calm acceptance, the latter something Alejandro had always wanted from his own father.
An indecipherable look passed between the two older men; then Anamaría’s dad put his arm around his wife and led her away.
“I’m surprised—”
“I want to—”
Alejandro and his father spoke in unison, each breaking off and gesturing for the other to go first. A strained silence fell between them.
Alejandro crooked a finger and tugged at his shirt collar, the fastened top button suddenly making him feel constricted and hot.
He cleared his throat and motioned to the dark curtained area. “If the Mi Cuba space is empty, why don’t we step back inside? The art consultant is finishing some business in the office.”
“Elena, por favor, give us a few minutes to speak alone.”
Alejandro’s mami’s worried gaze skipped back and forth between him and her husband.
“I will not cause a scene,” his old man grumbled.
“¿Me lo prometes?”
“Sí, vieja, I promise.” Gently, he cupped his wife’s shoulder, lips curved below his mustache in the first smile Alejandro had seen from his father in weeks. “Our son and I have an overdue conversation. Déjanos.”
After patting Alejandro’s cheek with a murmured I’m proud of you, hijo, his mami did as requested, leaving them and hurrying down the hall to join their friends.
Alejandro followed his father inside the private room. There, surrounded by the photographs that had felt like Alejandro’s one true connection to his abuelo’s legacy, the weight of familia responsibility settled on his shoulders.
His father’s footsteps slowed in front of the Operación Pedro Pan cluster before he crossed to the group commemorating their familia’s ties to the beloved island many had fled.
Alejandro’s heart hammered in his chest. His papi had accused him of turning his back on his familia, the legacy his abuelo had sacrificed so much for. Would his father view Alejandro’s photographs as irreverent? Or as the homage a grateful grandson intended them to be?
Apprehension tightening his gut, Alejandro waited respectfully for his father to take the lead. Seconds ticked by like a bomb counting down to detonation.
“I have not seen this building since I was four years old,” his father said in a gruff whisper. He cleared his throat before continuing. “The night before your tío Juan and I had to leave.”
“I know.” Alejandro had heard the story countless times over the years. It’d been a gauntlet thrown at his feet during their epic fight. Foolishly, Alejandro had reacted by cursing the restaurant, goading his father, who responded by ordering him to leave and never come back.
The bitter taste of shame rose in Alejandro’s throat at the memory.
“These photographs.” His papi’s work-roughened hand pointed toward the original Miranda’s, then looped in a circle indicating the smaller images surrounding it. “Todas son—”
His deep, gravelly voice shook, then cracked before he broke off, leaving Alejandro wondering, They are all what?
Not within his right to claim as part of his history? Not after disavowing it?
Regret burned in a hot flush down the back of Alejandro’s neck as the words he’d yelled at his father all those years ago played through his head, ringing a death knell for their relationship.
I want more than this place!
Dios, if he could only take back those words.
Exert his independence without demeaning those who had sacrificed for him to have the very options laid out before him.
His father stared at their familia photographs, shoulders slack, his throat working to swallow words or emotions Alejandro could only guess his papi didn’t want to share. That left it up to him to take the first steps to bridge the distance between them. He had to try because whether he succeeded or not, he wasn’t leaving again. At least not for good.