Big Chicas Don't Cry(89)

Chris got up from his chair and walked over to me. “I guess I always knew that. But a guy can hope, right?”

I was about to turn to leave when a thought occurred to me. “How is he with you now?”

“We start proceedings next month to sever the business.”

“Oh, Chris, I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he said with a shrug. “I did this to him. And even though you say the divorce isn’t about me, I know I’m to blame for how he is with you, too, right now. I should’ve stayed out of it. I’m so sorry for ever saying anything. I wish I could do something to make things right.”

“Thank you. Sadly, I don’t think either of us can do anything. Esteban is too hurt right now to listen. He’s going to believe the worst until he’s ready to hear the truth.”

“That’s so sad,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s obvious you don’t want things to be bad between you two. But how can either of you start over when he refuses to accept there were other reasons for doing what you did? Holding on to the past doesn’t always help you in the future.”

A realization struck me so hard that I gasped.

“I’m sorry, Chris. I have to go,” I said and headed to the door.

“Where are you going?” I heard him ask.

“To start my future!” I yelled.



You could still leave. They haven’t opened the door yet. Back away and jump in your car and go . . .

Except it was time to stop running away.

Esteban and I were getting a divorce, and I had finally drawn the line between Chris and me. It was time to start thinking of my new future. But to do that, I had to face my past.

Before coming to my dad’s house, I’d called my mom. As soon as she’d heard I was divorcing Esteban, she’d started talking about alimony and asked how much money I’d get from selling the house. And when I tried to bring up what Espy had told me at the funeral, she told me to never believe a word that “whore” said.

Maybe she was right? This had been a mistake.

The door finally opened, and my half sister Araceli was holding it. I couldn’t run away now.

“Is your dad home?” I asked.

Espy appeared and answered, “He is. Come inside.”

For the first time, I noticed the gray hairs that framed her face and the deep lines that curved around her mouth. These days she looked more soccer mom than the evil home-wrecker I’d imagined her to be all these years.

Their house wasn’t big, but it was a decent size. I knew she worked as a bank teller at the local credit union, and my dad still worked in a warehouse with my tío Carlos, Gracie and Selena’s father. They were middle class all the way—not rich by any means, but still better off than I had been growing up.

I tried to swallow the bile of bitterness. I needed answers before I got the hell out of here.

Espy returned with my dad. He asked me to take a seat at their dining room table, and I did.

“Thank you for visiting,” he began. “Espy says you want to ask me questions about, you know, before.”

I willed my heart to stop beating so fast and tried to control the tone of my voice. “Yes, I do. I’m trying to make changes in my life, and I think it would help if I could finally get some closure. Obviously, we don’t have a regular father-daughter relationship, which is fine, but I need to know what happened when you and Mom divorced.”

He looked at Espy, who nodded. “Go ahead, Ricardo. Tell her the truth.”

He sat down at the table across from me. “First, I need to say that this has nothing to do with your mom. This has to do with me and you, okay? I know now there are things you don’t know. And, honestly, I never wanted you to know because you were just a kid back then. But things are different, and I’m hoping you can handle it.”

“Just tell me what you want to tell me.”

He began at the end—the end of my parents’ marriage.

“After I lost my job, my drinking got worse. And I don’t blame Vangie for wanting a divorce. I was so ashamed of what I’d turned into that I thought I was doing you a favor by not fighting for custody. Besides, you were a girl. I figured you were better off with her.”

“I already know this.”

“Right. Of course. Well, as soon as you guys moved away, I went into rehab. Your grandparents and my sisters confronted me one day and told me that if I didn’t get help, I would lose you too. So I agreed.”

My body froze. “What? How long were you in there?”

“I did the full ninety days.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said with a shake of my head. “I visited you at Abuela and Abuelo’s on the weekends during the first few months.”

He bowed his head. “You don’t remember.”

“Remember what?”

My dad looked at me again. “You didn’t visit me those first thirty days. I called you and said I had to work weekends for a while, so I couldn’t see you. Afterward, the treatment center let me go home on Fridays and come back Sunday nights. I didn’t tell you because it was too embarrassing.”

My fingers dug into my knees in an attempt to center myself. All this was almost too much already. “Fine. You got help. But what about the other stuff? Why didn’t you send money or child support?”