Aish was thrown when he realized that Sofia and her troop were headed straight toward him.
Sofia looked over his shoulder and Mateo shot him death-ray glares. But they were still coming. Aish almost took a step back in surprise before Devonte stopped him with a hand at his back.
With the bland grin of a dinner hostess, Sofia said, “Aish, you remember my brother and sister-in-law?”
“Yeah,” Aish said, stupidly. Roxanne, in a floral red dress and leather boots, was woman incarnate as she leaned against her golden husband. He held her possessively close with one arm and carried his son in the other.
Aish was suddenly, blindingly jealous.
“I would also like to introduce you to my niece and nephew,” Sofia said, her smile growing real as she looked at her niece in her arms. Aish couldn’t believe this was happening. “This is Liliana and Gabriel Esperanza y Medina.”
She said their names solemnly.
The little girl held out her hand. Multicolored wisps peeked out from her ball cap. She had the same hair color as her aunt.
“Should I bow?” he asked Sofia. He really had no idea how to greet the three-year-old princess of a kingdom.
But the girl giggled. “No, you just shake my hand,” she said, her words high and lispy. “Like this...” She took one baby-chunky hand in the other and then shook them up and down.
Aish was mesmerized. “Like this?” he asked, holding both of his hands together and pumping them.
And everything wrong with the last week evaporated with the kids’ squeals of laughter.
“You gotta hold hands with me,” Liliana cried, her aunt wincing at the volume.
Aish took her hot and tiny hand in his and allowed her to shake it. “Thank you,” he said solemnly, looking into her black sunglasses, their lenses the size of quarters. “You have a very good handshake.”
“¡Prueba el mío. El mío también es bueno!” shouted the boy from his dad’s arms, waving his hand around.
Aish remembered to look questioningly at Mateo. “He wants you to try his handshake,” Mateo said gruffly. He looked uncomfortable having to move closer to Aish. “He’s decided he doesn’t like English. Won’t speak it no matter how much we bribe him.”
Aish shook the little boy’s hand. He had brown curls, dark as his mom’s, erupting from his cap. “English is for the birds,” he told the boy. “You stick to your guns, buddy. Your aunt used to tease me for not speaking more languages.”
As the boy tried to choke the life out of his hand, Aish remembered. “Oh yeah, you’ve got a good handshake, too.”
The boy beamed. “Me gusta tu canción.”
“We like your map song,” Liliana said, excited from her aunt’s arms. “Can you sing it?”
Sofia’s eyes went saucer wide, and she whipped to glare at her brother. He promptly nudged his head and threw his wife under the bus.
Roxanne looked gorgeous even when she was caught out. “I have a couple of their albums. I didn’t know! A few of the songs are okay for the kids to listen to.”
Most of Young Son’s songs, about sex and love and loss, weren’t okay for three-year-old ears, but he’d recorded “Make a Map,” the last song on their first album, like a lullaby, sweet and sad over his simple piano playing.
It was the second song he’d written for her. The first one he’d played for her. And the lip-gripped set of her mouth told him she remembered.
“Maybe I can sing it for you later,” he said to the kids. “You’ve got a lot of people excited to meet you and—”
Their twin groans were in as much harmony as his and John’s ever were; they had matching pushed-out lips.
“It’s fine,” Sofia said, her eyes on his chest and her niece on her hip. “You can sing it.”
She’d asked him to do better. He couldn’t have scripted this better to benefit him. But he was trying to peer through a decade’s worth of desires to see what this was doing to her.
With the cameras and the interns and the two baby faces all focused on him, all he could do was open his mouth.
“Make a map and show me, where you want to be...”
He was singing in her kingdom, in front of her, in front of her family and the world. He kept his eyes on her niece and nephew, on their rapt faces, who watched him like there was magic coming out of his mouth.
For the first time in a week, he focused on not looking at Sofia.
He drew it to a close after the first chorus, wrapping up as quick as he could. For a moment, there was no other sound than the quiet clucking of the chickens the workers let loose in the vine rows every morning.
Then the kids and the interns and even the media began clapping. The toddlers whooped and bounced.
This time, he did bow when the prince and princess thanked him for their song, which set them to laughing and squealing even more. He didn’t know how the adults’ arms were going to survive meeting nineteen more people.
He caught Sofia’s eye as her group began to move away and a grower stood beside Aish to lead him into the field. Carmen Louisa had shed Aish as her intern, now working regularly with Manon.
For once, Sofia looked back. Without a word, he tried to say sorry. He tried to say, “Not like this. Not in front of so many people.”
And, for once, Sofia gave him honest sadness from her dark honey eyes. With a nod, she gave him forgiveness.
As the group moved on to the next intern, Aish pushed past the grower and Devonte to head into the vineyard rows, wanting to get out of the camera’s sights before he knuckled at his eyes.
September 10
Two
