“Ladies, I’m going to have to ask you to move your car now,” the police guy told us, and we put her bag in the trunk and took off. Near-hysteria on the sidewalk in front of the terminal hadn’t been a good idea.
We pulled up in front of the new house just as César’s family was getting out of his big car, and he hustled them inside and out of the icy rain that was falling.
“Ready?” I asked my sister, and waved at César.
“I’m going to slap him,” Ellie announced.
“What?” I turned to her, shocked. “Ellie, you can’t blame him for this!”
“Really? Whose fault is it?” she asked furiously.
“I’d say an even fifty-fifty! It takes a sperm and an egg and both of us had heavily indulged in tequila that night. Seriously, if you’re going to be mean to César, then stay in the car,” I told her. “He’s doing everything he can to be great about this—like, above and beyond. You can’t fight with him, especially in front of his family. Anyway, when have you ever slapped someone?”
She burst into tears again and I held up five fingers to César, signaling the number of minutes it would be until we were ready to come in. That turned out to be an underestimate, but finally Ellie had stopped both crying and threatening physical violence and we were ready to join everyone inside the new house.
I really looked at it for the first time when we got out of the car. I loved the outside—oddly, it reminded me being on vacation. César was still standing at the front door, stamping his feet and blowing on his hands, when we walked up.
“What do you think?” he asked me.
“It’s beautiful. Is it right on the water?”
He nodded and opened the front door.
“Oh…oh, wow.” All the windows looked out onto the grey waves washing onto the beach. “This is gorgeous!” I turned back to look at César. “I can’t believe how nice it is!”
“Well, you liked being on the ocean in Florida, so I figured you’d like this, too,” he said.
That was what it had reminded me of: his house in Florida that I had loved so much. I walked around, loving everything here, too, and the rest of the family joined us. We introduced Ellie to everyone and she didn’t say anything disparaging or engage in any slapping, and no one commented on the fact that both of us looked like we’d just had a death in the family with our red, swollen eyes and runny noses.
We went all through the house, inspecting everything. César’s family started designating bedrooms for themselves but he sent them outside.
“The guest house is your territory. Mamá, tell me what colors you want in there,” he said off-handedly, and they went downstairs to check it out.
“Have you really not been in here at all?” Ellie asked me. She pulled open yet another door in the big house. “Oh, this bedroom is beautiful.” It was clearly the master, and it had a gorgeous view of the water.
“This is César’s,” I explained. “I don’t mean just the bedroom, I mean the whole house. That’s why I wasn’t involved in looking at it or buying it. I’m just a renter. Or, I guess, a guest.”
César had a ferocious frown on his face. “She could barely afford to pay rent on a place due to the money that she’s been sending to your father. The one who didn’t acknowledge her,” he said to Ellie.
“That’s not her fault,” I told him, just as Ellie asked, “What money?”
“I’m paying him back what I owe him so we’re squared up,” I said. “I don’t want to be in his debt. You know, for my expenses, for what he spent on me before,” I continued, when Ellie shook her head like she didn’t get it. “The tuition for Red Pine School, for college.”
“For vacations, for clothes, for gifts, for everything,” César added. “She sends him money and Warren Wilde takes it. He’s a greedy bastard.”
It looked like Ellie was torn between defending Warren, like she always used to do, and anger at me for paying him. “Stop doing that,” she finally said. “I can’t believe he’s taking it, the jerk. He doesn’t need your money.”
“I know he doesn’t need it, but it’s for me, not him,” I told both of them. “I don’t like the feeling that we’re still connected, not in any way. I want a clean slate. I don’t want him and his lies touching me or her.” I put my hand over my tummy. “Or you, either,” I told César. “He stood up for me to Davis Blake over Warren and got in trouble about it with the owners and his coach,” I said to my sister. That was what Davis had said would happen. “That bastard is still messing with our lives.”
“I’m not in trouble.” César put his arm around me. “Don’t worry about Davis and the coaches, or anyone else. Let’s enjoy seeing the house and stop talking about Wilde. He’s not worth it.”
That was definitely true, but I could tell that Ellie was having a hard time not saying anything else. In fact, she started talking the moment we were in the car, and even though it made my blood boil some, I tried to stay calm and listen to what she had to say. That night, we went out to dinner as a huge group, because César took my suggestion and rented out a room in a restaurant for his giant family, all the relatives who had arrived that day and converged on our house. I may have mentioned to his mom how much
