“I know. It was terrible to hear your voice and be just on the other side of the kitchen wall this morning.”
“Yes, but now we are together. I’m so happy. How long do I get to keep you?”
Carolyn didn’t want to tell her mother how short this visit was going to be. She avoided giving a definitive answer. “Long enough for you and me to make every minute of every day count and enjoy it completely.”
Her mother’s brown eyes warmed, as she patted her clever daughter on the cheek. “Mi niña. Te amo.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
Carolyn kissed her mother and forced herself not to glance at Bryan as she slipped away from the table and wound her way back through the restaurant to the restroom located near the entrance. Most of the lunch crowd had cleared out, making for quieter conversations between those lingering at the tables at the front of the dining area that faced the ocean.
She found the restroom and was once again reminded that she was no longer in San Francisco. The restroom was very small and gave every indication that it had been used excessively during the busy lunch hour. At least she was able to figure out how to turn on the water. She held a damp paper towel to the back of her neck and let the cooling effect help to calm her as she exited the bathroom. Carolyn felt as if she could go back to the table and finish out the luncheon with more polite conversation with Bryan, and that would be that. She shouldn’t be this rattled. Bryan and all the memories connected with him belonged in the past.
Carolyn stepped out of the restroom and immediately saw Bryan standing a few feet away beside a potted plant. He seemed to be waiting for her. She coached herself to remain composed and to let him speak first.
Bryan rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, Carolyn, there’s something I’d like to say to you.”
She waited, feeling her heart speed up.
Coming closer to her and lowering his voice, he said, “I actually never thought I’d have the chance to say this to you face-to-face. But, Carolyn, I want to apologize.”
She opened her lips to reply. When no sound came out, she pressed them together and remained frozen in place.
“I know this might come out all wrong, but I’m going to try to say it anyway.” His voice quavered. “I didn’t treat you the way you deserved to be treated, and I want to apologize for that. I could say that I was young—we were both young—but I don’t want to use that as an excuse. What I did that last night on the beach, the way I treated you, wasn’t good. I hope you can forgive me.”
Carolyn felt so caught off-guard the only thing she could think to say was, “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I think I do.”
“Well, we both were making impulsive choices, and I apologize, too, for not … for being …” She didn’t know how to form the words.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything else, Carolyn. I think I should take the greater responsibility in what happened. I know that I wasn’t making very good choices at that time in my life. I think I’ll leave it at that. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve long regretted how things ended between you and me.”
“I do too.” She felt embarrassed to be talking about this. His words and posture were so sincere. Inwardly, she was trying to untangle the Bryan that stood in front of her from the daring, rebellious Bryan she had known so long ago. What made the situation even more convoluted was that, ever since the fiasco with Ellis less than a month ago, she had convinced herself she couldn’t trust any man, no matter how sincere he seemed to be.
“Well.” Bryan let out a breath and leaned back. “I won’t make this any more awkward than it is. I wish you the best, Carolyn, and I hope you have a nice visit with your mother.”
“Thank you. I hope the rest of your visit is good too.”
“Actually, I’m on my way home. My flight leaves in less than two hours. I need to get to the airport.”
“Oh. Well, then, I hope you have a safe trip home.”
“Thanks.” Bryan rubbed the back of his neck again. “Well, good-bye, Carolyn.”
Her throat tightened. At last the moment for closure had come. Now it was her turn to say her line. “Good-bye, Bryan.” Those were the two lines that had never been exchanged that summer so long ago.
He wavered, appearing to want to lean close and offer a traditional kiss on the cheek in their parting. Instead he gave her a final nod. “I hope you’ll tell that husband of yours that he’s a blessed man.”
“My husband?” Carolyn realized in the flow of their nervous conversation at the table she had said that she had married Jeff but then the focus had turned to Bryan. He didn’t know what had happened.
Bryan looked at her more closely and seemed to be quickly glancing again at her ring finger. “I thought you said you married Jeff.”
“I did. We were … but we’re not … he’s …” Carolyn really didn’t want to answer any questions about Jeff at the moment.
Bryan’s expression changed from surprised to a tender sadness. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize …” He glanced at his watch and looked back at Carolyn. “I hate to say this, but if I don’t leave now, I’m going to miss my flight. I have to go. I wish I didn’t have to leave like this.”
“No, it’s fine.” Carolyn found a staid sort of smile coming to her face as soon as she capped her emotions. The last thing she wanted was to be in that horrible place where she tried to explain the details of Jeff’s death, and Bryan, the stunned listener, would flounder for the right thing to say. It was better to leave that topic unexplored.
He leaned in, this time giving her a gentlemanly cheek-brushing-cheek sort of farewell, which she interpreted as an expression of sympathy. There was no mistaking, though, that the closeness even for that brief moment was enough to cause Carolyn to blush. She glanced away, aware that she must be beet red.
She heard Bryan hoarsely speak the parting blessing Carolyn had heard many times from her mother and lots of other relatives on the islands. “Dios le bendiga.”
“God bless you too.” Carolyn looked up and watched him turn and disappear around the corner of the restaurant entrance. With numb steps she returned to the restroom and grabbed a long string of rough toilet paper to dry the tears that had come rolling down her cheeks.
What was that? I don’t even know where to put that encounter and how it affected me.
The close-quartered restroom wasn’t an enjoyable place to be for very long. Probing her deepest feelings was an even less enjoyable place for her to be, and a place she rarely let herself visit. This encounter felt too volatile to cram into the “To Be Figured Out Later” file, where she usually put all the life experiences she had been unable to explain or resolve.
Dabbing away the smudges of mascara from the small amount that still clung to her eyelashes, Carolyn returned to the table. She was determined to hold her feelings inside and make sure the rest of this day was about her mother. That’s why she had come, after all.
Most of the guests were standing, as if they had started to make their departure but then remembered one more thing they wanted to tell someone. Rosa spotted Carolyn and motioned for her to come over.
“Your mom and Isobel want you to ride back to the apartment with them. I’ll come in my car and help to move all the gifts to your mother’s apartment. I can help you with your suitcases too.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Rosa looked closer. “Are you all right? Your eyes are red.”
“Oh, are they? I’m pretty tired.”
“It must be the jet drag,” Rosa said.
“Yes, I think you’re right.” Once again Carolyn didn’t have the heart to correct Rosa.
“This will be good then. You can go to your mother’s place and relax.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Carolyn felt as if she had switched on to automatic pilot. All she wanted was to find a quiet spot to be alone and sleep.
It would be awhile before that happened, though, because every relative had a final
hug, a kiss, and a word of affection and good-bye. Both Carolyn and her mother were showered with sweet words. Then it fell to Carolyn, Isobel, and Rosa to consolidate and carry the many gifts to Isobel’s little white car, which was fortunately parked close to the restaurant. If Carolyn had told the cabdriver to take her to La Marinera instead of to Las Canteras, she would have ended up at this side of the bay much sooner. But she didn’t regret her walk to the restaurant. She wished she could walk the same path again now, and let her thoughts sort themselves out.
Climbing into the backseat of the gift-loaded automobile, Carolyn rolled down the window and welcomed the cooling breeze on her face. In the front seat the two sisters conversed in Spanish. Carolyn didn’t even try to pick up what her mother and Isobel were saying until she heard her name in Spanish followed by the name “Bryan.” His wasn’t a name that translated easily into Spanish and therefore stuck out in the conversation even more.
Abuela Teresa turned to face Carolyn with a winsome expression. “We are talking about you.”
“Yes, I noticed.”
“Isobel wanted to know how you know Bryan. I told her about how you met when you were a teen.”
Oh, dear. This is not good. Once any of my aunts has inside information, she delights in sharing it all around.
Isobel talked rapidly, glancing at Carolyn in the rearview mirror. Carolyn couldn’t catch any of it, so she waited for her mom to translate. The two sisters went back and forth in the front seat for a few minutes before her mom turned again with a well-how-about-that sort of expression.
“Isobel’s neighbor Maria cleans house for Bryan’s stepsister.”
Carolyn tried to make all the connections. “Wait. So, Maria is the one who has the baby, Gabby?”
“Sí,” Isobel chimed in.
“And Maria cleans house for Bryan’s stepsister. What’s her name?”
“Angelina.”
“Right. I remember. She’s a lot younger than he is, right? She was a toddler when I was here last. So now she’s married and Isobel’s neighbor Maria cleans house for her. Got it.”
“Sí, Angelina Esquierzo.” Isobel said the name with flair as if Carolyn should recognize it.
“Is Bryan’s stepsister famous or something?”
“She is married to a man who is, shall we say, high ranking in the local politics.” Abuela Teresa raised her eyebrows and went on. “Maria said that, when she was cleaning the other day, she overheard an argument with Angelina and her husband. It was about her mother’s will. Angelina assumed her mother would leave everything for her, but her mother left the house to Bryan. Isobel just made the connection now of who Bryan is. She didn’t know he was Angelina’s stepbrother.”
Abuela Teresa turned to her sister and asked something in Spanish. Isobel had a long, animated response.
With eyebrows raised once again, Carolyn’s mother said, “Well! This is getting interesting. Apparently the conclusion of the argument was that Angelina promised her husband she would offer Bryan a small amount of money if he would sell the house to her. Since he does not live here, it would be more difficult for him to clear all the paperwork on the land titles. While the house is old, the property is large enough to build four houses, and this is what Angelina’s husband plans to do.”
Carolyn felt sorry for Bryan. No thugs of any sort should be allowed to get away with such actions. A vivid sense of anger over failed justice rose up inside her. “What do you think he’s going to do?”
“I don’t know. He’ll probably have to stay here for some time to work it out.”
“But he left the island,” Carolyn said.
“He did?”
“Yes. I saw him as he was on his way out of the restaurant, and he told me his flight was leaving in less than two hours.”
Abuela Teresa and Isobel exchanged glances. Their expressions of shared surprise changed to a mix of concern and pity.
“That would be the answer then,” her mother said with an air of finality, as if it was clear that he had signed the papers, taken Angelina’s money, and left for the United States.
“Que lástima,” Isobel said.
“Yes, it is,” Abuela Teresa agreed. “Such a pity. If he left the island, we can be sure that was the last we’ll see of Bryan Spencer.”
The way her mother worded that last sentence, the finality of it all, hit the tender spot that had opened in Carolyn’s well-protected heart when Bryan had apologized.
Before she could stop the flow, a spring of tears pooled in her eyes. She turned to the open window and let the sympathetic island breeze disperse them quickly.
What are you doing? Why are you crying? Get a grip.
For some reason she thought of the woman she had met at the airport in Madrid and how the woman said that, every time she went to her mother’s house, she felt as if she turned into a twelve-year-old. Carolyn understood the feeling. From the moment she had looked across the table at lunch and saw Bryan’s blue-gray eyes that had rocked her world so long ago, she felt as if she had turned into an eighteen-year-old version of herself.
She had to find a place to put all these emotions so that she could return to her forty-five-year-old self. And the sooner the better.
“El amor es ciego.”
“Love is blind.”
BY THE TIME the women reached Isobel’s apartment, the day had nearly passed, and Carolyn was feeling “jet drag” as well as emotionally drained. She purposefully put away all thought of Bryan and ignored the confusion she had encountered in her spirit when she had seen him.
Carolyn’s mother lived in the same huge apartment complex as Aunt Isobel but in a separate building. This meant that they needed to go to Isobel’s apartment to retrieve Carolyn’s suitcases, return to the parking garage, drive around the block, and park in a different parking garage to take the elevator to her mom’s apartment.
Once all those steps were accomplished, they were met by Rosa, who helped them to tote all the birthday gifts. As they exited the elevator on the seventh floor on her mother’s side of the complex, they were met by the aroma of dinner cooking in a neighbor’s apartment.
The other women commented on how good it smelled even though they were still full. Carolyn didn’t have much of an appetite. Her mother searched for her key to open the door, and for the first time Carolyn observed that her mother had aged. At the party in her glowing glory, she didn’t look as if the years had played their usual havoc with her. But they had. Her energy was depleted, and her steps were slower.
Isobel offered to help, but Carolyn’s mother insisted on finding her own key and opening her own door. When she finally succeeded, they entered the apartment, and Carolyn felt a small smile rise up. She could be anywhere in the world, enter her mother’s abode, and know immediately that her mother lived there.
Tikki had once told Carolyn that she had her own sort of “soul art” that she expressed best in the way she decorated her home. Clearly her mother expressed her “soul art” in the decoration of her apartment, and what made Carolyn smile was being reminded of how different her mother’s art was from hers.
This is where Marilyn gets her love for bright colors, roses, calla lilies, and ornate lighting fixtures. I forgot that Mom liked so much red and lace. And look at all these knickknacks everywhere.
From an elaborate wire cage positioned between the double windows in the living room, a small yellow bird sang out a canary song, enthusiastically greeting them. That’s when Carolyn truly knew she was in her mother’s home. For as long as she could remember, her mother had kept a bird.
Carolyn put down her suitcase and went to the bird, peering into the well-maintained cage with a friendly smile. “Hello. Hola. And what is your name?”
“I call her Alma,” her mother replied, coming up beside Carolyn. “She is my Alma Gemela. Do you remember what that means?”
“Isn’t it heart something?”
“You’re close. Alma means ‘soul.’ Soul mate. She’s my little Alma Ge
mela.” Her mother gave a whistle, and the bird twittered back, hopping from the hanging swing to the branch affixed to the side of the cage and back to the swing.
Carolyn remembered the bird her mother had kept before moving to the islands. It was mostly green, and Tikki had named it “Tweetie.” A brush of sadness came with the thought that her mother was naming her bird her “soul mate.” Is that how she felt as a widow? Even with three of her sisters living so close? It made Carolyn wonder if her mother’s leanings at age seventy should be taken as hints of what Carolyn would be like when she reached that stage. She was already a widow, after all. How much longer would Tikki be her soul mate?
She felt a grab in her stomach at the thought.
“Carolyn, where do you want your suitcases to go?” Rosa called from the hallway.
“I’ll get them. You can leave them there for now.”
“Would you like something to eat?” Her mother headed for the kitchen, and Carolyn followed her.
“No, thanks,” Rosa replied. “I need to get going.”
Isobel needed to be on her way as well. With a few more hugs all around, Rosa and Isobel left. Carolyn took her suitcases and headed for the room she assumed would be the spare room. The floor plan of her mother’s apartment was the same as Isobel’s except she knew that her mom had only two bedrooms instead of three. A short entryway hall opened to the combined dining room and living room on the right. To the left was the compact kitchen. The hall, like the stem of a three-leaf clover, led to a bathroom straight ahead and a bedroom on either side.
Opening the door that had been the guest room at Isobel’s apartment, Carolyn found that instead of a guest bed waiting for her, the room had been turned into an overflow storage area. Boxes lined the wall where the bed had been at Isobel’s. An ironing board was set up in the middle of the room, and several large, framed paintings were stacked facing the other wall.
Without saying anything, Carolyn left her luggage beside the ironing board and closed the door. She would be content on the couch with little Alma to keep her company. Returning to the open area that encompassed the small living room and dining room, Carolyn paused by the dining room table and viewed the mound of gifts.