Shelter (17 page)

Be cool,
Alma told herself. She didn’t let her smile falter. Kept her tone light. “We’re splitting time between our places, but we’ve been at my house a good bit.”

“Oh,” she said again. “Does that mean you want the milk?”

“I’d love some.”

Silence fell between them. With Carlos, silence was full of tender looks, light touches, questions that could wait until later, smiles, thoughtful frowns. But with her mother, the armor was in place, guarding the woman beneath, keeping Alma from a true understanding. Most of the time that frustrated her, pissed her off, but now, it saddened her. She had no idea if she could ever get to a good place with Diane. And she wanted to, she realized, her hand finding her stomach. She wanted little Sam to have a grandmother. She
had no idea which move to make; an argumentative approach had never worked, but Alma was no saleswoman. She wasn’t that persuasive. So she did all she could think to do.

“I’m naming it Sam. Samuel or Samantha. Whichever,” she said, keeping her hand on her belly.

Diane’s eyes came back to hers.

“And that’s about all I know.” Emotion welled up in her throat, and she let it bleed through, let her mom see how this new phase of her life was effecting her. “We looked at cribs and car seats and, holy shit, that stuff’s expensive.” She breathed a sad laugh. “And Carlos wants to help me, God bless him
, though I have no idea why he’s not running the other direction.”

“He, um, he…” Diane took a deep breath that jacked her shoulders up and down. The hand holding the milk carton slumped to her side. “He was always more thoughtful than his cousin. He always took his boots off when he came in the house.”

It was the moment of concession Alma had been looking for. “Mom,” she took a step and was encouraged when Diane didn’t back away. So she took another step. The ultrasound photo was tucked in the pocket of her cardigan, and she pulled it out, smoothed the corner that was curling up. “I have no idea what I’m doing, or how I can afford any of this. But,” she extended the black and white picture. “I figure I’ve got no choice but to figure it all out.”

Diane’s hand shook as she accepted the ultrasound. “Oh.” She blinked rapid-fire. “Oh wow.”

Alma followed her as she moved toward the butcher block table in the corner of the kitchen and sat down across from her when she all but collapsed in the closest chair. The milk was set down on the floor at her feet.

“My grandbaby.”

Alma felt tears threatening at the backs of her eyes. “Yeah, your grandbaby.”

“He’s beautiful. Or she,” she corrected. “It’s just…perfect, Alma.”

Her eyes glittered with moisture and Alma swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I know you never liked Sam. He couldn’t give me much financially, but I loved him, Mom. So, so much.”

Diane sighed, but nodded, wiped at her eyes.

“And he gave me this.” She reached out and touched the edge of the photo. Diane set in on the table, equidistant from both of them in the very middle. “And I really want my baby to know its grandparents.”

“We want to know it too.”

“Then why are we fighting all the time?”

“Because,” Diane’s shoulders sagged, utterly defeated. All former beauty queen pretenses left her, all her self-righteous bullshit
got stowed away somewhere for the time being. Without her façade, she looked as exhausted as Alma felt. “Because,” she repeated, “your father and I worked our whole lives to create a home and a life and a future for you. And then we watched you put all your dreams on hold for Sam.”

“We’ve been over this.”

She shook her head in a regretful agreement. “But you’re so talented,” she said. “And smart. And whoever you married, I wanted him to appreciate that. To support your talents.”

“He…” Alma started to defend her late husband, to say that he’d been just as supportive of her writing endeavors as her parents. But really, he’d never asked her about it.
“Why would you wanna do that?”
he’d asked once when she was sitting in front of her laptop, and his hands had slid over her shoulders and he’d groped her through her shirt, distracting her completely. She chewed at her lip, wishing she had something positive to say. She didn’t get the chance, however, as footfalls came into the kitchen from the dining room entrance.

It was Carlos, and he lingered over by the center island, a hand resting on the granite countertop, a firm presence, but not threatening. “She has support,” he said, and Diane’s head swiveled in his direction. “She’s a fantastic writer and she should keep at it.”

Alma wanted to launch herself out of her chair and hug the breath out of him, but remained seated, content with the warm and fuzzy feeling that bloomed inside her at his words.

Diane blinked, seemingly dumbstruck. “You think that?” she asked him.

“Yes, ma’am. Always have.”

She put her hand in front of her mouth and put one perfectly French tipped nail between he
r teeth. Alma was a bit stunned; how many times had Diane scolded her for the same vice? “So…you two are just
together
together now?”

It was question Alma had dreaded, and it was tinged with enough doubt to remind her that, though this might indeed be some sort of breakthrough for the two of them, this was still her mother they were dealing with.

Carlos saved her again; she was going to owe him the sex of his freaking life when they got home that evening. “We’re figuring that out,” he said. “But we’re not going to pretend to be just friends while we do that.”

Diane exhaled in a loud rush, flattening both palms over the table. Her eyes came back to Alma. “You could never just like a nice boy, could you?”

“Mom, Carlos
is
a nice boy.” She withheld a grin thinking he probably didn’t approve of being called “boy.” “Nice has got nothing to do with what kind of car he drives or where he lives, how much money he makes.”

“I know that,” Diane frowned. “But you don’t exactly have discerning
taste when it comes to picking apart the nice boys from the bad boys.”

It was an argument she couldn’t fight, because as she was slowly admitting to herself, Sam had been more bad than nice. And though his edge had never been what attracted her – okay, maybe physically – but it had been about a connection she hadn’t been able to describe. A magical sense of fitting together. And Diane had never believed in magic. Her mother was running scared now, and Carlos’s sweetness and outspoken dedication might not amount to much in her book.

Carlos moved away from the island and came to the table, sat down at Alma’s side. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him so serious and focused save for the times lately when he’d made her promises. “Mrs. Harris,” apparently old habits died hard, “I promise you that I’m not my cousin.”

             
It wasn’t much of a declaration, but Diane sat back in her chair, eyes clearly weighing him as they skipped across his face. It was a handsome face, though not by textbook definitions. An honest, open face. Alma knew it was hard to resist.

             
“Well, it’s not like I can stop the two of you,” Diane said after a moment. She stood and went back to the sink, the way she set her shoulders a sure signal that the conversation was over.

             
Alma felt Carlos’s hand close over hers. His big eyes were wide with apology. “I tried.”

             
She twitched him a smile. “You were great,” and withdrew her hand. “We can go,” she whispered. “Meet you at the car.”

             
He seemed relieved to slip away, but she was so proud of him. He’d come into her home, into enemy territory, and had put away all his weapons, using his words instead. Sam had never figured that out.

             
Though she was scrubbing the pots again with gusto, Alma wasn’t nervous as she approached her mother from behind. She had felt, at the table, the ice between them thawing. Diane didn’t know how to handle the wet, melted remnants of their feud, but Alma did.

             
“Thank you, Mom.” She rested her head against her mother’s shoulder and gave her a sideways hug.

             
Diane didn’t speak, but her hands stilled, and then she lifted one from the water, droplets running down her arm and wetting her sweater, so she could stroke Alma’s hair. She closed her eyes a moment, nodded.

             
“I really would like to try some of that milk.”

             
“I – I’ll bring it by.”

             
Things were far from fixed, but it was a step in the right direction.

16

              “I can’t believe that went so well,” Alma said as she clicked her seatbelt into place.

             
Behind the wheel, Carlos had been thinking the exact opposite. Sure, things had gone okay with Diane there at the end, which was surprising, but while Alma had been working on her mother, he’d been left at the mercy of the men of the family. Tom may not have been frightening, but he could make Carlos’s life miserable if he wanted to, and he did want to.

             
“Carlos is a landscaper,” he’d told his brother-in-law and nephew. “He used to work for us when he was in high school.”

             
And none of the other guys, in their Ralph Lauren sweaters and pressed khakis, were landscapers. Or part-time bartenders. None of them drove 1999 Firebirds with brakes that squealed.

             
“You’re into cigarettes, right? You don’t know anything about cigars,” Tom had said. And: “Have you thought about retirement yet? Or, wait, I guess Good & Green doesn’t offer a 401K plan, do they?”

             
Carlos had taken the abuse without a fuss, puffing on his cigar and muttering responses to direct questions. And then, Greg – at least he thought it had been Greg, the douche in the turtleneck – had snapped his fingers and pointed at him. “I remember you! You were the garden boy. You and that other one.” He had to give Tom
some
credit; the guy may have hated him, but he at least acknowledged that he was a threat and didn’t just think of him as the garden boy.

             
Tom had halted him with a look on his way back into the house. “I thought we had a conversation.”

             
Carlos had shrugged. “’Fraid I don’t remember that.”

             
Now, as he checked the street for traffic and backed out of the Harris drive, his palms felt clammy, and not because he was suddenly afraid of Alma’s former-football-playing dad.

             
He was walking a line so thin, he couldn’t see it anymore. Trying to prove himself the loving, supportive, grown up garden boy at her family’s home would have been easier if he wasn’t already contemplating the next step in Sean’s manhunt for Sam’s killer. If anyone, Alma included, knew how Sam had truly died, or how Carlos was still neck-deep in the industry that had led to his demise…well, he didn’t like to consider the possibilities. He was in too deep with Alma now, was invested – head and heart – and he knew that somehow, he had to figure out how to settle things with Sean, lay Sam’s ghost to rest, and be there for the girl he’d loved since his senior year of high school.

             
“Don’t you think so?” she asked, pulling him out of his mental quandary.

             
He forced a smile and let his hand slide off the gearshift and onto her thigh to give her a quick squeeze. “Absolutely.”

**

Alma was a wordsmith – she had to be if she ever wanted to write professionally – but for some reason, the word
pensive
had always gotten under her skin. It seemed to have been grossly overused in Romantic poetry, all that self-reflection and deep soul searching. But the following week, she had no better way to explain her frame of mind. She was pensive.

             
As she jotted orders, refilled coffee and passed out bagel sandwiches like they were going out of style, she reflected on the conversation she’d had with her mother. Dissected it and over-analyzed every single word, searched for any hidden meanings. What continued to dominate her thoughts was the question about her relationship status with Carlos. And then she’d remember the way he’d come into the kitchen, promising to support her. It had felt like a promise, partly because he’d said it was, but also because he’d been so intense and serious, there was no way to blame his sense of commitment on the moment or on her own wishful thinking.

             
Well, he’d said he loved her, hadn’t he?