Chapter 24
Everyone except Eleanor woke early the next day thanks to the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. Eleanor had gone back to sleep in her room, but everyone else had crammed into the living room: Rob and Amelia on the sofas, and Vi, Josh, and Meredith lined up on the living room floor with some blankets and the throw pillows off the couches.
Always an early riser, Amelia had gotten up even earlier and prepared the coffee that Vi had thoughtfully brought the night before. Vi must have remembered the slim pickings from their first morning at Eleanor’s house.
Meredith made a trip to the hall bathroom and then beelined for the pot of coffee to make sure she’d get a cup without having to make more. Rob ended up with that irritating task, being a slower mover in the morning than the rest of them. Within twenty minutes, however, they were all gathered back on the sofas, chatting quietly and sipping their morning brew.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, Mere,” Amelia said. “About how we would feel if we were in Miguel’s parents’ shoes?”
“Yeah?”
“I would hate you, regardless of the truth,” Amelia said, looking Meredith in the eye. “But I would hate you more if you refused to talk to me at all.”
“So do you think I should go see them, after all?”
“I honestly don’t think that seeing them in person is going to change much; they’ll hate you either way. That said, I would understand if you did decide to go talk to them.”
Meredith nodded. “I just think it’s the right thing to do.”
Rob frowned and shifted in his seat, though he didn’t say anything. Meredith was sure he disagreed, and she hoped he kept his feelings to himself so they could avoid an argument.
“You’re not going alone,” Vi said firmly. “I’m coming with you.”
Meredith smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
After a quick breakfast of toast, Vi and Meredith drove Amelia’s CR-V to the hotel where Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez were staying. The aging hotel was shoehorned in between a drive-through liquor store and an outlet mall. Meredith pulled into the parking lot and drove past an empty fenced in pool, looking for a parking spot. The asphalt was cracked and faded, and Meredith could only guess at where the lines separating the spaces once were. She tucked the car in between an old VW Bus and a mid-nineties sedan.
“Man, I drive through this area all the time and I’ve never even noticed this place,” Vi observed.
“What, you mean that twelve inch sign over there didn’t catch your attention?” Meredith joked, pointing to a small sign for the hotel.
In the lobby, Meredith was impressed by the carefully maintained interior. It was like a perfect time capsule for the seventies, complete with orange carpeting and a heavy flagstone fireplace next to the bar. A bored looking receptionist stood behind the check-in counter, which was decorated with little paper ghosts and pumpkins in honor of Halloween.
Meredith walked up to the counter confidently, saying, “Hello, we are here to see the Alvarezes, please.”
“What room?” The receptionist was pretty, with long dark hair that fell to her waist in soft waves.
“I don’t know. Can you look it up?”
The receptionist typed a few things into her computer and then reached for the phone, dialing the room. She listened for a moment, and then said, “Hello, this is the front desk. There is someone here to see you, uh--” she looked up at Meredith questioningly.
Meredith quickly supplied her name.
“Meredith Carpenter,” the receptionist repeated into the phone. “Shall I give her your room number?”
“No,” Vi said hastily. “We’ll meet them down here by the bar.”
The receptionist relayed the instructions and hung up the phone, and Meredith and Vi went and settled themselves into a pair of lounge chairs in front of the fireplace. There was a low fire burning that gave the room a cozy atmosphere, and Meredith enjoyed the mild heat that radiated toward them.
Even though Meredith hadn’t asked, Vi explained, “I didn’t think it was a good idea to go to their room, with how upset they were yesterday. I hope that’s okay.”
“Yeah, of course. That was good thinking. If you weren’t here, I probably would have gone up to their room alone and ended up wrapped in a tarp in the trunk of their car!” Meredith chuckled, but she was only half joking. She really was relieved that Vi had come along.
Vi smiled and put her feet up on the coffee table in front of them. The grouping of furniture was ideal for talking to Miguel’s parents; a small sofa faced them on the other side of the coffee table. They didn’t have to stare at the empty seats for long, as Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez joined them a few minutes later.
Meredith stood up as Miguel’s parents approached them, not sure whether she should shake their hands or offer a consoling hug. She clasped her hands together tightly instead, deciding to wait and follow their lead.
The Alvarezes sat on the sofa in front of them without a word, so Meredith sat back down with a strained glance in Vi’s direction. The awkward silence stretched on for several seconds while Miguel’s parents just looked at her with hard eyes and clenched jaws.
Meredith’s discomfort mushroomed under their intense stares, to the point where she wanted to physically remove herself from their line of sight. Unable to stand it any longer, she said, “I’m so sorry about Miguel.”
“Don’t you say his name,” Mrs. Alvarez growled.
The silence resumed, and Meredith looked at Vi pleadingly.
Vi cleared her throat. “Um, Mrs. Alvarez, you told me yesterday that you wanted to talk to Meredith? So… here we are.” She shrugged lamely.
“Why did you tell Miguel not to have the surgery?” Mr. Alvarez asked.
Meredith considered how to answer. She’d been expecting this question and had thought about it since she had left Eleanor’s, but was still unsure what to say. The truth was so outlandish, and Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez so volatile in their grief, that Meredith didn’t know how they would react. She would have to ease into the story carefully.
“I have the same thing that Miguel had,” she said gently. “And my… medical provider told me that the surgery would do more harm than good. I thought that having the surgery would kill Miguel.”
Mr. Alvarez narrowed his eyes. “His doctors told him that he would die without the surgery. Were they lying?”
“Obviously not,” Mrs. Alvarez said coldly. “I think Meredith is the one who lied.”
“Meredith doesn’t lie,” Vi said, coming to her defense.
Meredith licked her lips nervously. Earlier, she had been convinced that Mr. and Mrs. Alvarez deserved to know that Miguel was murdered, but now that she sat before them, seeing their grief firsthand, she wasn’t so sure. There was nothing that she could say to ease the pain of losing their only son, and telling them a story about a bloodthirsty magician would just insult them. Meredith’s shoulders slumped sadly.
“I didn’t lie,” Meredith affirmed. “But I was wrong. I thought that since I was okay, he would be, too.” Tears filled her eyes. “Believe me when I say that I never would have told him not to have the surgery if I had thought he needed it.”
Mrs. Alvarez’s expression softened slightly. She reached out and took her husband’s hand as she thought about what Meredith had said. After a few seconds, she asked, “Did you love him?”
Taken aback, Meredith didn’t answer right away. She bit her lip and looked at her hands. “No,” she said quietly. She looked up and met Mrs. Alvarez’s eyes. “But I was finally on my way to loving him. I don’t know why I waited so long to let myself open up to him, but then I did, and I thought everything was going to be perfect. I could see a future with him, I really could. Looking back, my hesitation seems so stupid--”
“Mere,” Vi broke her off with a warning glance.
Mrs. Alvarez pursed her lips. “I’m so relieved that you were finally able to convince yourself to value my son,” sh
e said.
“That’s not what I meant,” Meredith protested.
Mrs. Alvarez held up a hand to quiet her. “I think I’ve heard enough. I know girls like you. Miguel’s heart was just your plaything, but he loved you, so he would do anything you asked him to. I’m sure it felt good to have such blind devotion, huh? A nice ego stroke for you, I’m sure.”
“It wasn’t--”
Mrs. Alvarez plowed on. “So when you got tired of playing with his heart, you moved on to playing with his life. A silly, arrogant girl playing doctor for a boy that she could barely even bring herself to care about.”
Meredith’s jaw dropped, unable to speak. How had she managed to be so misunderstood?
“I think we should go,” Vi said firmly. She stood and pulled Meredith up out of her chair.
“I think that’s a real good idea,” Mr. Alvarez agreed with a frown.
Remaining seated, Mrs. Alvarez glared up at Meredith. “Get out of my sight, you stupid girl.”
Meredith almost tripped over her own feet in her haste to get away. Thankfully, Vi held a steady grip on her arm as they crossed the lobby and pushed through the door to the parking lot.
Once they were out in the sunshine, Vi exclaimed, “Jesus, Mere! Do you always have to be so freaking honest?”
Meredith turned in surprise. “You’re the one who told them that I don’t lie!”
“Well obviously that was the lie! Why couldn’t you just have said yes?” Vi spoke in a higher pitched voice, imitating Meredith, “‘Yes, I loved him with all my heart. I’ll miss him just as much as you will.’ How hard is that?”
As they continued walking toward the car, Meredith retorted, “I didn’t want to lie!”
They reached the CR-V and climbed inside, buckling their seatbelts. Then Vi said, “Meredith, sometimes lying is just easier for everyone. It wouldn’t have hurt them to think that Miguel had known love from a woman before he died.”
Meredith gripped the steering wheel and was quiet for a moment. “You’re right,” she said. “I should have lied.”
“Thank you.”
Meredith backed out of the space and drove slowly out of the parking lot. She wasn’t ready to go back to Eleanor’s house and describe the painful scene they had just endured. “Would it bug you if we didn’t go straight back?”
“What do you want to do?”
“I need to clear my head. Wanna hike up South Mountain?”
“Ew, no,” Vi said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Why can’t you just want to get drunk like a normal person?”
“It’s ten in the morning!”
“So we go to the casino. Nobody ever knows what time it is there.” Vi grinned impishly. “Come on, Mere. If there was ever a time you needed a drink…”
Still shaken up by the confrontation, and hurt by Mrs. Alvarez’s assessment of her character, Meredith felt like doing something out of the norm--something unlike her. “Okay, okay,” she said slowly. “Let’s go.”