Far from the Tree(89)

“No, they passed away a few years ago. Heart attack and stroke, both within a year of each other. I don’t think our dad ever forgave himself after Melissa was killed. I think he regretted a lot of the decisions that he made. He would return all the letters that your parents would send to her.”

Maya reached into her back pocket and pulled out the envelope from the safe, sliding it toward Jessica. “Like this one?” she asked.

Jessica smiled sadly. “Like that one.”

“And there’s no one else?” Grace asked. “You don’t have any other brothers or sisters?”

“Just me,” Jessica said, smiling a little.

Maya felt her own eyes spill over. “You’re all alone?” she asked.

“Oh, sweetie, please, don’t,” Jessica said, then pushed the box of tissues toward Maya. “I’m not alone. I have a boyfriend, I have wonderful friends. I inherited this house when our parents died and remodeled it a little. I’m so not alone—please don’t be sad for me.”

Grace was crying now, too, and Maya pushed the tissue box toward her.

“And,” Jessica added, her mouth quivering a bit, “I’m an aunt. I’ve thought about all three of you every single day. I didn’t know how to find you, but I never forgot about you.”

Now even Joaquin had tears on his cheeks, and Maya steered the tissue box back in his direction.

“Having a new aunt would be very, very nice,” Maya said. “We could use one.”

Jessica stood up, then reached up to cradle each of their faces in her hands. She lingered on Joaquin for the longest. “She loved you,” she whispered to him again. “She loved your dad and she loved you like crazy. I know it may not seem that way, but she did. I promise you that, Joaquin. She wanted the world for you.”

Joaquin brought his hands up to hold on to Jessica’s wrists, and she ran her thumbs under his eyes and then kissed the top of his head. “Oh!” she suddenly gasped. “Oh my God, I can’t believe I forgot! I’ll be right back.”

She hurried out of the room, leaving the three of them tearstained and dazed. “You’re named after your dad,” Maya whispered to Joaquin. “How crazy is that?”

He just shook his head, then wiped his eyes on his shirt sleeve.

“Are you okay?” Maya asked him.

“I think so,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Just . . . it’s a lot.”

Next to them, Grace nodded. The photo of Peach was still looking up at her from her phone.

“Okay,” Jessica said as she came back into the room. “God, I can’t believe it took me this long to think of this, but this is for you, Joaquin.” She held out a key and he took it from her. “It’s a safe deposit box. Melissa set it up after you were born, and then after she died, I continued to make the payments on it. She always said it was for you, Joaquin. I never opened it up—I don’t know what’s in there. I figured that it was your business, not mine.”

Joaquin just blinked down at his palm, then back up at Jessica. “Melissa did this?” he asked.

“Yes. For you. She just said that it was for you.”

Maya felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

“So,” Jessica said. “Are you hungry? Talk a little, eat a little?”

Maya wasn’t sure if she could eat anything, but when she saw the look on Jessica’s face, she answered for all three of them.

“I like talking and eating,” she said.

And next to her, her brother and sister nodded.





JOAQUIN


Grace ended up driving them to the bank because Joaquin didn’t trust himself behind the wheel.

His hands were shaking too badly.

He had been okay at Jessica’s house, sitting in the same rooms where his mother had eaten dinner, watched TV, gone to sleep. They had sat in the backyard, had some sandwiches and potato chips; and Jessica was so nice. Her laugh sounded like Grace’s, high-pitched and free, and she had the same small dimple as Maya’s. A couple of times, she reached over and took his hand, simply holding on to it, and if Joaquin thought about it hard enough, it almost felt like he was holding his mother’s hand, that she was somewhere in the universe watching him.

Joaquin wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information.

They left Jessica’s house with hugs and promises to stay in contact, Jessica touching each of their faces as they got into Joaquin’s car, her number written on a piece of paper and tucked into Joaquin’s pocket next to the mysterious key.

“If you want to get going home—” Joaquin said as Grace started to pull away from the curb.

“No way,” Maya said from the backseat. (She hadn’t put up a single shotgun argument this time, which made Joaquin feel even weirder.) “You’re going to that bank.”

Joaquin couldn’t argue with that.

They rode in silence, then got out of the car and walked into the bank in a single-file line, Joaquin leading their pack. “Hi,” he said to the teller. “I, um, there’s a safe deposit box here? Jessica Taylor called and said . . .”

“Name, please?”

He swallowed hard, said his dad’s name, said his name. “Joaquin Gutierrez.”

The woman looked him up in the computer. “And do you have your key?”