Far from the Tree(73)

“But?” Joaquin asked.

“But,” she continued, “I don’t think that’s actually what you want. I think you think that’s what Mark and Linda want instead. I think you’re afraid of disappointing them, and afraid that they’ll disappoint you, so you shut it down before you could take a chance and get hurt.”

“I’m not worried about getting hurt,” Joaquin insisted. “I’m worried about them getting hurt. I don’t know how I’m going to react, so I . . .” He moved his hands farther apart in front of him.

“Distance yourself?” Ana guessed.

Joaquin just took his straw and pounded it on the table until the wrapper was crinkled up at the bottom. He felt like picking a fight with her, and he didn’t know why. “You want to know what I did last weekend?” he said.

“Of course,” Ana said, smooth as glass as always.

“I saw Grace and Maya. We met for coffee, and while we were there, some guy Grace knew came up to her and started calling her a slut.” Joaquin jammed his straw into his drink with more force than necessary.

Now Ana really did look surprised. “Why?” she asked.

“Dunno. I guess I didn’t really get a chance to ask before I slammed the guy against the wall.” Joaquin could still feel the pulse against his forearm, how good it had felt to scare Adam as badly as he had scared Grace. “We didn’t get in a fight. I just told him to leave my sister alone, and he and his friend ran away.”

Ana sipped at her lemonade. “Did you use the word sister?”

Joaquin nodded.

“And then what did you do?”

“I . . .” Under the table, Joaquin started to bounce his leg, a nervous habit that he had never been able to break. “I ran.”

“Where did you run?”

“Into the parking lot.”

“And Grace and Maya?”

“They followed me into the park next to the mall. I was . . . my hands kept shaking. I couldn’t stop them.”

“Joaquin.” Ana’s voice was too soft for the noise of the diner, but Joaquin heard her loud and clear. “Did you scare yourself?”

Joaquin nodded. He had wanted to tell Ana the story so he could shake her up, make her realize that he was beyond saving, that she was better off having salads and lemonade with a kid who could actually be fixed, but her eyes were so gentle, so sad, that it just made him want to cry.

“I told . . . I told them.”

Ana frowned a little. “Told who what?”

“Grace and Maya. About Natalie.”

Ana reached over, placed her hand on top of his, and didn’t say anything.

“They said . . .” Joaquin bit his lip, blinked his eyes. “They said that I was just a kid, you know? They said it wasn’t my fault.”

“And did you believe them?”

Joaquin shook his head as his lower lip began to wobble.

“Did you want to?”

This time, he nodded, and Ana squeezed his hand and stood up. “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

They walked outside until Joaquin felt like he could breathe again. “I’m really proud of you, you know,” Ana said as they walked down the main drag. “That’s a huge step in your relationship with Grace and Maya. The last time we talked about them, you said you would never tell them about it.”

Joaquin shrugged. “It just sort of happened. I didn’t plan it.”

“Did you hurt the guy who called Grace a slut?”

“No, he just ran off. I just felt so . . .” Joaquin held up his hands in front of him, miming squeezing something. “It was the look on her face, you know? When he said that. She just looked so sad.”

“And that made you sad, too?”

“No. It made me angry.”

Ana grinned up at him. “Anger is a very—”

“—very valid emotion,” Joaquin singsonged. He had heard her say that phrase at least a million times. “I know, I know. It just feels fucking awful.”

“And how did it feel when your sisters weren’t angry with you for hurting Natalie?”

Joaquin didn’t know that there was a word to express that feeling. It wasn’t happiness, or relief, or bewilderment. It wasn’t confusion, either, or pity for them being stupid enough to trust him. None of those were right.

“In one of the homes when I was six,” he said instead, “everyone got bikes for Christmas. Even the foster kids, so that was a big deal. But mine was a two-wheeler and I didn’t know how to ride, so the foster dad put training wheels on mine. And I would ride up and down the street, and every time I thought I was going to fall, the wheels stopped me.”

Ana had stopped walking and was looking up at Joaquin. He didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

“And I finally learned to ride, but I wouldn’t let them take the wheels off because I liked that feeling, you know? They caught me every time. That’s what it felt like with Grace and Maya. Like I was falling, but then I didn’t. They were there.”

And then Joaquin watched as—to his absolute horror—a tear slipped down Ana’s cheek.

“Oh, shit,” he said before he could stop himself. Joaquin wasn’t sure what happened when you made your therapist cry, but it probably wasn’t good. “I’m sorry. I am so—”