“C’mon, Cor, you know I care. And of course I’ll…” He exhaled slowly and started punching the numbers on the screen.
“Well, you don’t need to be weird about it.”
He ran a hand over his cheeks, pulling the skin taut across his face. “I’m not trying to be weird. I’m just trying to be clear about…boundaries.”
“Right.” My insides tightened in frustration. I’d done nothing to Deck, not on purpose. It wasn’t my fault that seeing me reminded him of something he wanted to forget. He wasn’t the only one whose life changed that night.
But I supposed Deck had processed those events differently than I had.
I’d gone to therapy.
He’d gone to prison.
With that in mind, I tried a different tactic. Doing my best to understand where he was coming from.
“Look, Deck, I’m not going to pretend I don’t know what’s bugging you, that for whatever reason, you think everything that happened to me was your fault. To be honest, until I saw your face yesterday, I’d sort of thought that maybe you were mad at me, that you blamed me for going away—”
“Cori, you know I would never—”
I put up my hand. “We don’t need to hash it out. Not after everything we’ve been through with Johnny. Maybe not ever. But since I can’t force you to see it my way, how about I agree not to send you a text unless it’s important information. You don’t need to worry about me just trying to be friendly. I think I understand yourboundaries.”
My head spun. After everything, was our relationship truly going to come down to a limpI’ll only text you if it’s important? This was what Deck wanted when we were finally in the same room again? To be nothing to one another?
At his house yesterday, he’d been taciturn and closed off, words I never would have applied to teenaged Deck. That kid had been a bundle of energy and ideas, a natural leader people gravitated toward. Back then, he’d done everything to make me smile. Now, grown-up Arturo Decker remained stone-faced, careful and controlled as he held my phone.
After we exchanged numbers, he left. I decided to go home to shower and take a nap. It didn’t seem like anything was happening with Johnny. I went to the reception desk and let them know I’d be back in a few hours, making sure they had my number.
At home, I realized I still had on Deck’s hoodie. I placed it carefully on my dresser to wash later. After a quick shower, I stretched out on top of my bedspread and pulled a throw blanket over me. I set my alarm to chime at noon and fell into a fitful slumber, but I didn’t get to rest even that long. My ringing phone woke me up just after eleven.
I reached over and answered quickly, terrified it might be the hospital calling about Johnny. “Hello. This is Cori Raney.”
“¿Mija?” a familiar voice questioned over the line.
“Rosa?” I let out a relieved sigh.
She didn’t miss the tension in my voice. “Cori? ¿Qué pasó,nena?”
“Nothing. Sorry.” I woke up further as I realized this was the first time Rosa had called since we’d met up at the mall months ago. We’d texted and emailed, but the fact she was calling had me sitting up in bed. “Areyouokay?”
“Oh, my girl…” Her voice pitched higher before catching in her throat. She sniffed as she continued, “I’m going to be okay, but I need to be honest with you.” I heard muffled talking, like Rosa had a hand over the phone while someone spoke to her in the background. “Dios, I wanted to ease into this slowly. I’ve been thinking about it ever since we ran into each other outside Macy’s, something I was hoping to avoid, but I’ve run out of time.”
Instantly on alert, I put the phone on speaker as I began tugging my socks up. As long as I was awake, I might as well get back to the hospital. “Run out of time for what?”
“I’m calling because I need some help.” Her thick accent grew even more pronounced with the admission.
If it had been anyone else calling me out of the blue after barely speaking for six months, on top of not communicating for the dozen years before that, I might have been suspicious about their motives. But this was Rosa, the woman who’d helped raise me. A woman who had been a mother to all the kids in the neighborhood. I knew her pride. If she was asking for help, it was serious, and it was also a last resort.
“What’s the matter?”
I heard more indiscriminate arguing on her side, followed by Rosa speaking to someone else. “Está bien dejar que ella nos ayude. No eres una carga.” To me, she simply said, “Lupe is sick.”
The words hit me like a spear. Lupe had lived with Rosa for as long as I could recall. I didn’t know the specifics of their relationship since Rosa hadn’t gone around sharing her personallife with teenagers, but I’d always assumed they were partners or wives. “Sick?”
“Cancer. First in her breast ten years ago. We caught it then. She had a surgery. But about a year ago, it came back, and now it’s…aggressive. Spread to her brain and her lymph nodes.” Rosa’s voice quivered. “She has six months. Possibly a year.”
My movements stilled as I sat down heavily on the bed. “Oh. God. Rosa, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry.”
My mother had paid for her hard living with too many physical and mental scars to count, her body ravaged by addiction. But in the end, it was cancer that claimed her life. Pancreatic, mercifully quick. Three weeks from diagnosis to death. I could only imagine how devastating it was for Rosa to watch Lupe slowly fade away.
