“This is all that I took out of the mess,” I explained. There had been so much stuff that I was overwhelmed when I came home. The whole situation had been very overwhelming. My mother and I hadn’t been in touch very often but then my birthday had passed without a word from her. She had always sent a letter around that time—not always relating to me, but I had been glad that she seemed to remember the date. Then that year, I hadn’t received anything.
Coral walked over now and I looked at her in confusion as she rubbed her head against me. “What’s happening?” I whispered.
“She’s being affectionate,” Levi said. I cautiously petted her, and I heard her purr. She stayed and let me touch her for quite a while before she wandered toward the bedroom.
“What are you going to do with her stuff?” he asked, pointing to the box.
“I was just considering that. I know there’s at least one unpublished book in here because I remember when it was rejected, and there’s a lot of research into the blues singer I told you about.”
“If you’re considering the idea of giving it to that PhD candidate, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t give her the time of day,” he said. “Are you sitting there getting sad?”
“Yes. I always do when I think about my mother.”
“What are you looking for right now?”
I stared at the mess in the box. What was I trying to find? “I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s in here, anyway. I wish I hadn’t seen that Pandora yesterday because she made me think about it all over again, and I don’t want to.”
Levi held out his hands. “It’s a beautiful night. We should go for a walk and talk about Hernán.”
“What about him?” I asked as he pulled me to my feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, but he told me some news today. He’s going out on a date with his ex-wife.”
“What?” I clutched his hands in shock.
“He didn’t mention it to you or to his daughter because he thinks you’ll be upset, but he wanted to tell someone and he wanted my perspective.”
“Is your perspective that he shouldn’t go out with her? Because that’s the only one that makes sense. His heart was broken!He told me so many stories about missing her and being sad because he was alone.”
Levi carefully fitted the collar around Coral’s neck. “How does that feel?” he asked her, and she purred. “Need your shoes?” he asked me next.
“His ex-wife was the one who was insisting that Hernán stay away when she came to visit Lucía,” I said, and I took my shoes from him. “Thank you.”
“Apparently, she wanted to avoid him because she still had feelings. They saw each other two weeks ago and sparks flew again.”
“But she left him,” I reminded Levi and Coral. They were heading out of the front door, and he was tugging me along. “He was heartbroken.”
“Remember that we were only hearing half of the story,” he told me. “Yes, Hernán was heartbroken but maybe his ex-wife was, too. He said over and over that it was his fault, and he didn’t deserve her.”
“He was only being a gentleman.”
“Maybe she was at fault but now she’s changed her mind, or maybe he really was the problem.” He grinned. “Don’t give me that look! I’m offering it as a possibility. People tend to misread and rewrite reality when they break up.”
“You’re right.”
“Am I? A first for me,” he mused.
“You were wrong.”
“I’m a walking contradiction.”
“I mean that you were correct about how people misinterpret their relationship failures,” I said, “and you were wrong about why yours didn’t work. Mary Evelyn couldn’t have thought that you were clueless—"
“Did I say that?”
“You sister did,” I answered. “But you told me yourself that Mary Evelyn didn’t love you, and both of those things are crazy. Maybe she was actually crazy, if she was cheating on you.” She must have been totally out of her mind to let him go.
“I’m a different person than I was a year ago when things were going south between us,” he said. “I’m living on my own, I’m working at a steady job, and I’m walking a cat the size of a mountain lion on a leash. Have you noticed the neighbors coming to their windows? Mary Evelyn and I weren’t good together, but maybe Hernán and María del Carmen are. He sounds happy about things.”
