Let Me (O'Brien Family, #2)(7)
Her lips move fast, muttering the Lord’s Prayer, her eyes rammed tight enough to deepen every wrinkle along her beautiful face.
“Mami?” I say again. “Mami, please open your eyes. I need to see your pretty eyes, okay?”
Like I did with Zorina, the young woman at the counseling center who played the invisible cello, I gently touch my mother’s shoulder. “Mami?”
Tears drip down her face, “You weren’t supposed to die, Laurita,” she tells me in Spanish. “You weren’t supposed to leave me.”
I bow my head, briefly. She thinks I’m her sister, the one who killed herself. “It’s me, Sol. Your daughter. Please open your eyes.”
I’m sure she won’t when she resumes he prayer, but then something shifts in her tight expression. Very slowly she opens her eyes. “Oi!” she says when she sees me.
Terror quickly replaces her sadness, and I realize we’re both in trouble. I speak fast, doing my best to keep my voice soft. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”
“You’re dead,” she tells me.
Se?ora Estefan hitches her breath. Good for her, I can’t even breathe. “Mami,” I say. “Laurita died a long time ago. I’m Sol, you’re little girl.”
Her stare grows cold. “You’re a liar. I don’t have a child.”
Her words shouldn’t hurt me. After all, they’re coming from a woman who’s very sick. I know this, but that doesn’t stop my pain. “Mami, I’m Sol. You’re daughter.”
As I watch, my mother’s expression crumbles. “You’re dead,” she says again.
She lifts her fists, bringing them down like hammers against my shoulders. The movement is so fast, I barely catch it. Agony shoots across my chest as I go down with my mother on top of me. Her fingers grip the lapels of my red coat, using them to shake me hard. “Why did you leave me, Laurita? Why did you leave me?” she screams.
I clutch her arms, digging my nails into her skin. “Mami, stop. Mami, listen to me―you have to listen to me.”
I’m not sure if she hears me, not above Se?ora Estefan’s screams, not over Mr. Toleman’s frantic yells, and not with the encroaching sirens blasting down the row of homes.
My mother isn’t well. My mother is very sick. But I have to make her better.
.
CHAPTER 4
Finn
My legs burn as I reach my last of six miles. I slow to a swift walk, using the last two blocks to cool down. My reward for getting up at five to run? A four egg white omelet with cheese and spinach at Suvio’s Diner. It doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re cutting weight and you feel like shit, you take what you can get.
The cowbell above the door rings when I shove it open. That thing has hung there for as long as I can remember. It wouldn’t be Suvio’s without that familiar clang.
“Hey, Finnie,” Suvio calls from the back. “You want the usual, champ?”
I grin. It also wouldn’t be the same without the Philly hospitality, the kind that comes from people who’ve known you forever. “Yeah, Suv. Thanks.”
“Have a seat. I’ll be right with you,” he says.
I’m about to slide into a spot at the front counter when I notice Sol sitting in the booth in the back. The diner is a local favorite so I’m somewhat surprised I haven’t seen her here before. Then again, she’s been in school, trying to make something of herself. Can’t say I’m not glad to see her, though.
Sunlight trickles in from the window, lighting the strands of her hair brushing against her cheeks and her large gray-blue eyes. She smiles when she notices me standing there, adding an extra glimmer to her pretty stare. For a second, I think she’s going to wave me over, but then she glances back down to whatever she’s typing on her iPad. She probably doesn’t want to assume I’ll sit with her. And maybe she’s a little shy about asking.
Good thing for both of us, the last thing I am is shy.
I march forward. She’s wearing a lavender sweater and a pink scarf. The colors soften her further, not that she needs it. Sol has that whole angelic face thing going on, with an underlying sensuality that no heterosexual man in his right mind could resist.
When I saw her the other day, despite all that she was friendly and sweet, she didn’t exactly melt against me. I thought maybe she was seeing someone. When I asked Sofia about it, she told me Sol doesn’t date much which shocks me. Someone like Sol can have her pick of guys, so I’m not quite sure she hasn’t done more picking. More than once I’ve had guys mention how hot they think she is, not that I liked them noticing.
“Hey,” I say, sliding into the seat across from her. “Mind if I join you?”
She laughs a little, flipping her iPad closed and placing it into her big purse. “Looks like you already have.”
She adjusts the scarf she’s wearing, the fringed ends brushing just above her breasts. Ordinarily, my attention would fixate to her curves a little longer, but instead it returns to her smile. Like at the clinic, it lacks that extreme gleam I used to always see. It doesn’t seem right for her to be without it, so I decide it’s my duty to draw a little sunshine back into that smile. What can I say, just call me a hero.
I motion her way. “I take it you’re a morning person? Up to conquer the day and all that shit.”