Page 72 of Play With Me
“So, what about you, Anders? How did you meet our little girl?” Papi asks, like he’s talking to a high school boyfriend instead of a nearly forty-year-old man.
Anders takes a careful pause before a smile stretches over his face. “At a restaurant. She tried getting me to order oysters instead of steak.”
Mami’s eyebrows draw together. “Oysters? Carmelita, you hate seafood.”
Anders blanches as Maya frowns at Mami. “Why do you call her Carmelita?” she asks.
“Because that’s her name.” Maya gets a stern look, which I know all too well. “Not the nonsense that good for nothing–”
“Mami!” I interrupt her, jolting forward slightly in my chair. Maya doesn’t know how long Mick hasbeen my boss, or why I changed my name. I’ll be damned if this is how she finds out.
“Maya, why don’t we let your mom talk to your grandparents alone for a little bit?” Anders suggests, already standing from his chair.
Maya looks like she’s about to argue, but when she sees the look on my face, she rolls her eyes and stands as well. “Fine. Wanna play online chess?”
I watch them go through the living room to thesolarium Papi added onto the house so they could enjoy the backyard in the winter. Anders throws me a wink when the doors shut before occupying Maya’s attention.
“She doesn’t know Mick is her father. I’d like to keep it that way,” I inform my parents.
Mami makes a disapproving sound. “He forces you to change your name. Isolates you from your family. And then doesn’t even have the nerve to claim her as his child?”
“Lettie, love, let her speak,” Papi soothes.
I shoot him a grateful look. Papi was always the one breaking up the fights Mami and I used to have—always the voice of reason. “We changed my name to keep you from being embarrassed, should any word of what happened get out. And he may not have wanted to meet you, butyoumade it very clear that I was no longer welcome at home.”
“That is not true, Carmelita!” Mami cries indignantly. “We said as long as he was in the picture, we wanted nothing to do with the situation. You were hismistress,” she spits the word like it’s an evil thing, capable of physical harm. I don’t deny her accusation because it’s the truth.
But I won’t let her make me feel small for it.
“He took care of his child in the ways that mattered. And I run two very successful businesses thanks to him.” My words are like acid, burning my tongue to say them. I’ve worked my ass off sinceMaya was born, but all my doors opened because of Mick’s name and reach. As much as I would love to say I did it all on my own, I have the lifestyle I do because of him.
“So why come home now? What’s changed? Is he finally out of the picture?” Papi asks.
“Look at her, Geo.” Mami gestures to my body. “Even if he’s gone, he’s still here. He’s turned her into someone I don’t even recognize.”
I blink away the angry tears that prick my eyes. “Why, Mami? Because I wear nice clothes? Because I chose to have a nice home with security? To be able to afford to send my daughter to a good school? You always looked down on people who had money. As a little girl, I never understood why, but as an adult, I know it’s because we didn’t have much of it. Is that why you’re so upset? You think I chose money over family?”
“Didn’t you, mijita?” she asks sadly. “You jumped into bed with a rich man who sold you pretty lies and let him use you. Did you tell yourself it was okay to let your child grow up fatherless, because you had a nice, big home and a private education for her? We may not have had much extra when you were growing up, but we did just fine for ourselves. We gave you everything we could, Carmelita.”
This time, I let my tears fall as my parents regard me with sad eyes. Papi reaches over to grasp Mami’shand that’s bunched in her dress to stop her from further wrinkling the fabric.
“You never pushed for him to meet us, and we’ve been waiting for you to come home all this time. We thought you were ashamed of us, Lita,” Papi says sadly, using the nickname he gave me as a child:Lettie and Lita, my lovely Latina ladies, he used to call Mami and me.
Shock spears through me. “Waiting for me to come home? I thought you didn’t want to see me? Why didn’t you come looking for me if that wasn’t the case?”
“How could we? You changed your number. Changed your name. Carmelita Cabrera vanished into thin air. We even sucked up our pride and reached out to that menacing man, but all our attempts to reach him were turned away,” Mami explains sourly.
I blink. Does Mick know they reached out to him? He knew how much my family meant to me, if he knew they were trying to reach me, and he actively kept me from them…
My blood boils in my veins, fingers itching to reach for my phone to call him and demand answers. But I quell my ire because yelling at Mick can wait. I need to make the most of this time with my parents.
“I was never ashamed of you. I didn’t know you tried to find me. Honestly, I thought you wanted nothing to do with me, and I didn’t want to embarrassyou. If I would have known, I would never have stayed away.” I hastily wipe the fresh wave of tears that fall down my cheeks.
Papi springs from his chair, pulling me from mine to wrap me in a hug. “It’s okay, Lita. You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
I squeeze him tightly, locking watery eyes with Mami as she stands and embraces both of us. We stay like that for what seems like forever before moving back to our seats. “Thereisa reason I’ve come back now, though. I need someone to take care of Maya for a little while.”
“Is everything okay? What’s wrong?” Mami demands.