Her next words come out on a sad sigh. “Yes, I know who he is.”
The get out of my house that was on the tip of my tongue dissolves and coats my mouth in a foul layer. “What?” I choke out in English.
“Please, mijo. Sit down and I will explain.”
Tremors of betrayal begin to quake through me. “Explain? Explain how you know him?”
My ever-steady grandmother appears almost ill at ease. “Yes. But stop saying it like that. I don’t know him, even if this isn’t the first time he’s come.”
My mind reels and I cross my arms over my chest in a protective gesture. “What are you saying?”
She pats the table, indicating I should sit in a chair that would leave them on either side of me. A sense of foreboding starts to build as I struggle with wanting to respect my grandmother’s wishes and needing to throw this presumptuous interloper out on his ass. In the end, trust in my grandmother and good manners win out. I sit.
“How the hell did you find me?” I demand in English, glaring at the man.
“Mijo!” she admonishes. “You will show proper respect. I raised you better than that. You owe him –”
“I owe him nothing.” Despite my grandmother’s Spanish, I stick with English so this guy understands I’m not going to sit back and let him ride roughshod over me in my own home. “And I’m asking again, how did you find me?”
The old man’s eyes dart to my grandmother’s before he faces me directly. “Well, I . . . my son,” he swallows hard, “. . . that is, your father . . . told me where to find you.”
Air discharges from my chest as if I’ve been punched. What? I was expecting something along the lines of a private investigator. Not this. For a good, solid minute, I sit there, gaping at the man and the shame he’s wearing like a second suit, trying to make sense of his statement.
“How would he know where to find me?” I finally manage, barely daring to think maybe my father was interested in knowing about me after all.
The old man’s pallor is decidedly green when he answers. “Well, he . . . he’s had some communication with your mother over the years.”
“Years?” I breathe, suddenly light-headed. “You’re saying my father knew about me . . . for years?”
He gives a solemn nod.
The implications jam in my brain like they’re caught in a bottle neck. “How long?” My voice hardens to granite over the course of the two syllables.
The grooves bracketing his mouth deepen as if to hold back something distasteful. “It appears that he’s always known.”
Always? I turn to my abuela, the one person who’s always been the center of my life. “Did you know?” I ask hoarsely, bracing myself for the other side of the sky to come crashing down.
“No, mijo. No al principio.”
The relief that accompanies the initial no fades. “What do you mean not in the beginning?”
Her shoulders sag by a degree, but her expression still glitters with her iron strength. “I found out that your mother knew who your father was when Javier was killed.”
Tilting my head back, I stare at the ceiling in an attempt to take in what she’s saying. “My uncle died when I was fourteen, Abuela.” There’s a ring of accusation in my tone that I know needs to be quashed, but searing indignation makes it impossible to temper my next words. “That was more than eight years ago.”
“Yes,” she says firmly. “And I will stand by my decision not to tell you about your father until the day I die.”
At a complete loss and drowning in betrayal, I can only stare at her.
Her chin tilts higher as she adds, “I refused to expose you to him. He is an awful man. He saw your mother and me as vermin, as blackmailers. If we hadn’t been so desperate in the months following Javier’s death, I would have told him to go straight to the devil.”
My brain registers all the Spanish words except one. Chantajistas? From chantaje? “Blackmail?” I sputter, my heart now thumping furiously. “He accused you of trying to blackmail him?”
Despite my English, Abuela answers me with an unyielding, “Sí.”
I turn to pin the man’s father, my grandfather, with a glower.
Visibly shaken, he says, “I didn’t know . . . about that.” He bows his head slightly in what I’m guessing is supposed to be an apology. “I only found out about the lump sum payment that happened almost ten years ago by going through the company records.”
“Wait. He paid?” My head swings back to my grandmother and I repeat the question in Spanish. “He paid? How much was I worth?”
Watching her lips purse, I feel everything I thought I knew start to slip away from beneath my feet.
Her voice is unsteady when she finally answers. “Your mother refused to tell me the precise amount, but I told her I wanted at least half, so I could provide for you kids. She gave me fifteen thousand.”
I shake my head. “What?” This keeps getting worse. “She kept half? For herself?” My disgust doesn’t stop me from doing some basic math. “So if half is fifteen, she got a total of thirty.” I turn to my grandfather and switch to English. “Thirty thousand, is that right?”
Dread compounds inside of me at his chagrinned expression. “No, the payment was for fifty.”
As if they’re poison, his words leak into my already strained relationship with my mother and contaminate it to the point of ruin. My stomach roils, the dread becoming nausea.
“Fifty?” My grandmother whispers in disbelief, her accent thick around the English number.
I know the two of us are trying to figure out the same things; the whys, the hows, and the whats of the money, money that we desperately needed at the time. I think back to all the uncertainty and upheaval of that year . . . and like the cocking of a gun to my head, it all falls into place. “Robbie. That son of a bitch.”
My grandmother doesn’t even scold my language, she just groans like she’s in pain because she knows I’m right. That’s what my mother did with the money. She used it for her dead-beat husband’s legal defense. A man who bullied this family both physically and emotionally after my uncle was no longer around to keep him in check. I’d always thought it was divine intervention that Robbie got collared for that robbery. I remember hearing predictions of his going away for life. The list of charges had been long and serious and it was his second strike. But he’d had a good lawyer who’d got him a deal. Jesus, he’s up for parole next year. Thanks to money meant for me and my family.
The old man shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and I don’t blame him. Our family drama can’t be of interest to him. “Why are you here?” I ask, feeling wrung out.
“I want to know you, Scott.”
“Why? If my own father wants nothing to do with me, why would you?”
“My son has acted deplorably. I want you to know that his actions don’t reflect the feelings of the rest of your family. Your brothers and I would very much like to get to know you.”
I rub the back of my neck, not liking how the phrases your family and your brothers make me squirm when I’m already feeling like I’ve gone ten rounds with a professional fighter in an octagon.