Yours to Keep (14 page)

“We talked a lot.” Ana’s face got hot.

“Hmm, I bet.”

“Really.”

“Did you tell him you don’t have papers?”

The question caught Ana off guard and twisted in her stomach. “No.”

“¡Ana!”

“There wasn’t a right moment for it.” She couldn’t meet her sister’s gaze.

“In all that talking, no time to tell him that little detail?” Cara’s voice was weighted with disbelief and sarcasm.

Ana felt a flare of self-defensive anger. “You know it’s not that easy. What if he decides he doesn’t want me to work for him anymore? What if he
tells
someone?”

That silenced Cara momentarily. She came and sat on the edge of Ana’s bed, so Ana could smell the coconut scent of the expensive product that Cara used to keep her braids shiny—the one perk of her salon job. As if her own thoughts were following a similar path, Cara reached down to touch Ana’s hair. “God, I wish I had your hair,” she said, as she had a thousand times in their lives.

“I
like
your braids,” Ana said, but she knew that in hair texture, as in everything else, she’d drawn the easier lot.

Cara shrugged. “Does he seem like the kind of guy who would tell someone?”

“No,” Ana admitted.

“If you wait, you’re just going to make it worse,” Cara said. “If he’s going to freak out, better now than after you’ve fallen for him, right?”

Too late.

“Right? I mean, it can only be harder once there’s more at stake. Tell him.”

Cara made it sound so easy. It seemed so doable, lying here in the little bedroom with the ancient, peeling flowered wallpaper and the web of cracks in the yellowing paint of the ceiling, opening her mouth and explaining it all to Ethan. And if there had ever been a man
who could accept her for who she was, he was it. He’d taken everything about her at face value so far, had never flinched or even shown shock.

“Okay, I’ll tell him. Saturday night we have a date, and we’ll be alone and I’ll tell him.”

Now that she’d said it, she could already feel the minutes ticking away, slipping off like the numbers peeling away on the face of an old-fashioned flip clock. Countdown to the moment of truth.

And, depending on how Ethan reacted, to the end of something she was not at all ready to let go of.

Ana had turned Ethan back into a teenager. He’d be minding his own business, straightening the house or doing laundry, and he’d picture her lining up a pool shot, pink and rhinestones disappearing into her low-rise jeans, and
whoosh
! The blood would rush out of his head so fast he’d feel light-headed.

When he wasn’t remembering how she looked, he thought of things she’d said (“
At the moment, you could cook
on
me
”) or sounds she’d made (that last moan a moment before his mouth covered hers). Either way, it all had the same effect on him.

Between bouts of contemplating Ana, he struggled to think of a way to bring up Theo’s secret guitar playing in a way that wouldn’t sound accusatory, bossy, or parental. The last thing he wanted to do was reactivate Theo’s rebelliousness. It wouldn’t do him any good if Theo renounced guitar and took up pot smoking. Although, who knew? Maybe Theo was already a pothead. If Ethan had missed Theo’s musical talent, he might also have missed an entire pot habit.

Saturday, as he and Theo did housework—or, really, as he did housework and hounded Theo, to little effect, about cleaning up his clutter and getting a jump on his homework—Ethan began sentences in his mind.
Anything you want to tell me?
Sunday, as they shopped together at the farmers’ market—well, more accurately, as Ethan shopped at the farmers’ market and Theo slunk sulkily behind—as they watched football, ate chili, watched more football, he’d sifted through possibilities, rejecting one, then the next:
Anything you want to share with me? Any particular talents you’ve been holding out on me about?

All too coy.

Ana tells me you’re quite the guitar player.

Disingenuous. Theo had been holding out deliberately. Ethan was hurt. Playing games about it felt wrong.

Why haven’t you played guitar for me before?

Accusatory. And Ethan didn’t actually want to know the answer.

Have you been teaching yourself guitar all this time?

Would you want to take guitar lessons again?

Then on Sunday night, as they were finishing up the last of the cashew chicken and green beans with ginger and garlic, after all that hard work and deep thought, he turned to Theo and blurted out, “Would you play guitar for me?”

Theo looked surprised, but not terribly. “Ana told you, huh?” He popped a cashew into his mouth and watched Ethan steadily.

Ethan did his best to stay calm. He twisted his paper napkin in his lap, instead of yelling. “She says you’re good. I didn’t even know you were still playing.”

Theo stared at his plate. “How could you know?” It held a note of accusation.

He was going to make this about Ethan, then. About Ethan’s not being there, somehow. Ethan felt anger rise in him, against his will, against his better judgment. “I couldn’t, obviously. I couldn’t, if you didn’t want me to know about it.”

“You never asked!” Theo set his chopsticks down on his plate.

Ethan dropped the napkin. “How could I ask? What would I have asked? ‘Is there anything you want to tell me that you haven’t?’ ‘Are you keeping any secrets from me?’ ”

There he went again. He’d never learn to be the grown-up.

But how many times had he asked Theo how he’d spent his afternoon? What he’d learned or what he was working on?

The truth was, too few. Until this past week, when he had the pleasure of seeing Theo nearly every afternoon, he almost never laid eyes on him between breakfast and dinner. And when he asked Theo what he’d been up to during those times apart it was usually a non-question, an accusation:
What were you wasting your time on all afternoon?
Not in those words, necessarily, but he and Theo could hear the translation.

He remembered what Ana had said, about how her brother and her nephew pushed each other’s buttons, too. It was the way the world was, the way fathers and sons were.

Ana had told him that he was doing great. It had meant so damn much. His pursuits were so solitary. Being a father, being a doctor. Here and there, a patient, like Nicole Freyer, gave him a real compliment. But mostly? Mostly he worked alone, and any sense of accomplishment had to come from him.

It had felt so good, Ana’s praise.

It gave him a nudge now, a boost. He could do this. He
was
doing this. Look at how well the “punishment” was turning out. Theo’s hostility wasn’t an indictment of his parenting; it was the way fathers and sons got under each other’s skin.

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said quietly. “I should have paid more attention. I
will
pay more attention.”

Theo’s eyes widened. It made him look vulnerable in a way that Ethan was coming to realize was the real Theo, under the tough-guy façade.

His face shut down again. “Yeah, well. Whatever.”

But Ethan had seen the surprise, the openness. And he knew that he’d see it again. He was starting to find his way back to his son, and each time it was like having his newborn placed in his arms again for the first time—a revelation of his capacity for love.

Ethan hid a smile, picked up his napkin, and began clearing the table.

Now he desperately wanted to tell Ana all about it.

Ethan cooked while she tutored Theo on Monday night. She sneaked looks at him as he worked, the way the muscles in his forearms defined themselves as he chopped onions (goggles on), the way his shirt strained across his back and shoulders, and the drape of his khakis over his fine hard butt. By the time they finished, the smell of his spaghetti sauce was like a fourth presence in the kitchen, and she easily gave in to the idea of staying for dinner.

She had no regrets about having decided to stay.

She twirled up the last bite of spaghetti and ate it, then set her fork down. Theo had eaten fast and gone upstairs already. “In D.R., we eat
espaguetis.
”

He repeated the unfamiliar word thoughtfully.

“
Espaguetis
is overcooked and mushy, and it has peppers and tomato sauce and chopped-up salami or pepperoni. I had a love-hate relationship with it.”

Ethan laughed.

“I used to always try to get asked over my friend Kay’s house when her family made real spaghetti. I probably ate more dinners at Kay’s house than at my own.” It was Kay’s house that the fragrance of beef and tomato had conjured up in its entirety: cramped but impeccably neat kitchen, debates at the dinner table over politics and social issues, an attentive and loving mother and a father. When Ana imagined the life she wanted for herself, it was Kay’s kitchen that she still saw in her mind’s eye.

Ethan poured another inch of wine into each of their glasses. “I had a friend like that growing up. His mom let him eat sugary cereals and Kraft mac and cheese, and my mom made me eat shredded wheat and whole-wheat pasta with butter and Parmesan, so I figured out a way to always be at Pete’s house at mealtimes so I’d be invited to stay.”

“Exactly. I’d tell my brother I needed Kay’s help with homework and arrange to show up at Kay’s just in time to make it inevitable that I’d have to eat there.” Another memory came back to her, then, of the tightness on Ricky’s face at some of those moments. “He didn’t love it that I spent so much time there.”

“Why not?”

She hesitated. “I think—he felt like he was losing me to that family. Like I was becoming more American and less Dominican.” Once, in a fit of pique, he told Ana that Kay was turning her into a “brown Barbie”—by which he meant generic, white, despite the color of her skin and the vaguest remnant of her Dominican accent.

“And were you?”

“Yeah. To some extent, I guess I was.”

“Do you see yourself as more one than the other?”

This was treading dangerously close to a topic that she should be broaching with him. She’d promised Cara: Saturday. But it was only Monday. Surely she could steal another few days of peace before she had to blow everything wide open.

“Sorry. That’s a pretty personal question.”

She gave a shaky, relieved laugh. “Well, we’re getting pretty personal, I guess.”

He grinned at her, the biggest, least wary smile she’d ever seen on his face. “I guess we are.” He slid his chair away from the table. “Come sit with me in the living room? I’ll make some tea.”

They left the dishes and sat on the couch in the living room, their tea mugs clutched
between their palms. Close, but not touching.

Ana rested her mug on her thigh. “So, hey, I never got a chance to say that it was fun meeting your brother, whenever that was—last Monday? I kept meaning to ask you more about him on Saturday night and forgetting. He’s a character, huh?”

Ethan grinned. “Oh, he’s definitely a character. I apologize if he was—inappropriate.”

“No. He was fine. Flirtatious but not out of line. He asked me if I had a boyfriend.”

“I know. He fessed up about that afterward. I told him you’re off-limits.” He gave her a stern glance.

She smiled at him. She liked his possessiveness. And James—well, James was a slightly shorter, slightly bulkier, and slightly less good-looking version of Ethan. She had the real thing; who needed the pale imitation?

“He’s a player. A ladies’ man.”

“
Mujeriego.
I got the feeling he might be.”

“I used to reap the benefits of that, way back in the day. James’s conquests always had friends. That’s how I met Trish.”

He regarded her curiously for a moment, as if he were checking to make sure she wasn’t on the verge of flight.

“Will you tell me about Trish?” It was unsettling, hearing stuff about his late wife, but it was also a reality, and she didn’t want to make it a taboo topic. Plus, it was way easier than talking about herself and her identity.

“You sure?”

“I want to know. She was an important part of your lives.”

He looked at his watch. “I don’t want to lose track of time, which it’s easy for me to do around you, and not get you to Duarte for your class.”

“We could set a timer.”

“Clever woman.” He got up and came back with a kitchen timer, which he set down on the coffee table. “I’m looking forward to Saturday. And not having to get you somewhere before you turn into a pumpkin.”

The Cinderella reference skirted too close to her hardscrabble existence. “Well, tonight I have pumpkin constraints. So you’d better start talking.”

“We hadn’t known each other very long when she got pregnant with Theo. She talked
about ending the pregnancy, but we decided to get married. She was very ambitious, which worked out well at the time, because I was in med school and someone needed to work. She ended up working full-time and taking care of Theo when he wasn’t in day care. The deal was that, once I was a doctor, she’d go back to school and get her MBA and—” He stopped, pressed his lips together.

“But she got sick,” Ana whispered.

“I feel like I still owe her. She didn’t get her chance. I couldn’t have become a doctor if it hadn’t been for her, and I didn’t get a chance to pay her back.”

She set her tea down on the coffee table and put her hand on his arm. She could feel the muscle, warm and alive, shifting under her touch. “She sounds like the sort of person who would understand.”

He wasn’t looking at her but at a point nowhere in particular, remembering. “She didn’t want to admit that she was dying, so whenever I tried to bring stuff like that up she cut me off.”

“My mom was like that. She could barely lift a hand at the end, but she was still talking about how she’d teach me to put mascara on when I got older and watch me graduate from high school and cry at my wedding.”

She kept her voice steady with an effort. Cara had taught her how to use mascara; Ricky had watched her high-school graduation. And she hoped her whole family would be at her wedding, smiling for her. But who knew?