At loose ends when Seb dropped him off, he’d found a salsa station on the TV and, with the music as backdrop, sat facing out to sea, thinking about home and his mother. He missed her. Mariposa Arteaga was his rock. Picking up the pieces of their broken life once his father, Manny, had left the island, she’d become both mother and father, getting him his first real bat and scraping up the money for a new glove when the old one no longer fit. If she had a dollar and he needed it, it was his and she went without. She’d done most of the repairs needed to rent out the room, giving up her privacy to make ends meet, and when her father fell ill and could no longer live by himself, she’d moved him in with them. She’d had to learn how to buy on the black market as every sector of socialist life became involved in it. The federation had still functioned as the control mechanism of the island, but its citizens had learned how to undermine its authority. With nothing available to buy with the ration card, things like hand soap or cooking oil, and with powdered milk costing a small fortune, they had no choice but to find other means of survival. In order to live, they all had to become enemies of the state. He’d known nothing else, hadn’t lived through the boom supplied by the Soviet Bloc, hadn’t been born until two years after it fell. He’d just accepted life for what it was and what it offered. It wasn’t until he traveled to other parts of the world, saw the merchandise available for sale that he began to believe that what his mother told him was true, that the West wasn’t decadent. And even if it was, he’d stopped caring. There was abundance there, something he’d begun to appreciate. He began to plan for his exodus as soon as he’d returned from his last international competition. And for hers.
He’d been riddled with guilt since his arrival, knowing that he could have gotten her out a couple of years ago and that she could be enjoying the fruits of his labor by now if only he’d defected sooner. He’d looked around the room, at the furniture and all the trappings, and compared it to what he’d left behind. It was where his mother still resided. Before he could sink deeper into remorse, Alicia had called. Her voice had taken him away from his sorrow, and as he poured the beer she’d asked for into a frosted glass, he smiled.
When he heard the key in the lock, he walked out of the kitchen to meet her.
She kicked the door closed with her foot, her hands laden down with bags and briefcase, and scrambled past him so she could set the bags down before he could offer to help.
“We’re eating in the kitchen?”
“The dining room is too big for two. We would have to yell to be heard.”
Her expression told him he was crazy, but she gave a curt nod and plunked the steaming bag on the counter.
“Let me change and then we can eat. I had to breathe in that batter smell all the way here, so excuse me if I’m salivating all over your floor.”
“I will unpack it so you can dig in when you’re ready.”
“I will be forever grateful.”
She hobbled down the hall as she pulled off one shoe and then the other before disappearing behind her bedroom door. It didn’t take long before she was back, her hair down, and wearing, from what he could tell, the same ripped jeans as yesterday, with a different sweater, the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. She was ready to dig in.
He’d put away the plates. The take-out had come in its own carboard containers, and as she leaned over the mound of succulent seafood, she breathed in the aroma.
“These are almost as good as what you’d find in Gloucester. Someday…” Her eyes flashed up at him as if she’d caught herself just in time.
“Maybe you will take me to eat there?”
She lifted the glass and took a long swallow.
“Maybe. After.”
He knew the after she was referring to, but for some reason, he needed confirmation.
“When we are no longer married.”
He had no intention of leaving her. If she wanted a divorce, she was going to have to file for it. He was going to do everything in his power to prevent that from happening. He’d been serious when he told her he wasn’t going to ignore what he believed was the universe’s contrivance.
She had a far away look on her face when she said, “When there’s no risk….”
She stopped herself again, lifted a clam, and popped it in her mouth. When she met his eyes she added, “When there’s no risk that our secret will come out.”
He placed his hand on her arm, leaned in, and asked, “Would it be so bad?”
Her eyes shone brightly with what he thought might be fear.
“For me? Yes. You know that. I’d like to be friends, Mateo. Friendship can last a lifetime. Marriage doesn’t always. But you know that, too. Better than I.”
She was referring to his father and the people he’d left behind. “I think it would depend on the man. Or woman. Not the union itself.”
She extricated her arm, freeing herself from his hold.
“You’re right and this woman doesn’t want to ever be that vulnerable again.”
He forked a shrimp and put it in his mouth, the coating flavorful, the shrimp moist and tasty. He’d be enjoying it a lot more if he wasn’t so consumed with finding a way into her heart.
As if wanting to shift the conversation to another vein, she asked, “Do you like the food?”
He nodded as he forked a piece of the whitefish into his mouth. He could definitely get used to eating this well.
“I do.”
She smacked her lips in satisfaction.
“It’s the one thing I miss about home.
