“That’s not quite how I’d phrase it,” she says, and for the first time since she got the phone call, I hear the smile in her voice. “I’d say I’m just after some information.”
“Twenty-eight,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she says, and she sounds relieved.
“Should I even ask how old you thought I was?” I tease. “It’s the glasses, isn’t it?”
“I like the glasses,” she says, not answering my question. “They’re your professor costume.”
“It’s not a costume.”
“You weren’t wearing them when we met,” she points out. “You don’t usually wear them to class, only the first two sessions. And you wore them tonight, to the banquet.”
I touch the bridge of the glasses with one finger, like I’m checking that they’re still there. I try not to read into the fact that she knows how many times I’ve worn my glasses to class.
“What else have you been taking notes on?” I ask, suddenly aware of the weight of my glasses on my face, the few tiny scratches on the lenses. “Have I worn any shirts twice?”
“I’m not the fashion police,” she says, as her phone dings softly and she looks down at it. “I just notice whether you’re Caleb or Professor Loveless on a given day.”
Which do you prefer? is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it. I adjust my glasses again, the solid frames against my face reminding me that tonight I’m Professor Loveless and she’s my student, that I’m giving her this ride because I’m a good Samaritan and nothing more.
“Any updates?” I ask, as she types something into her phone, then clicks it off again.
“She’s still in surgery,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Bastien’s been texting me, but there’s no news. Apparently my father’s been standing in front of a window and staring out of it without moving for twenty-six minutes. It’s just the two of them for now, none of my aunts and uncles are local. And me.”
“Your other brother’s not local either?” I ask.
No answer. I look over, and she’s flipping her phone around in her fingers, the rosary wound around one wrist.
“Didn’t you say you had two?” I ask, suddenly feeling unsteady, like I’ve wandered into the wrong territory.
“And you’re teasing me for remembering when you wear your glasses,” she says, but there’s something in her voice that makes me glance over at her. “Do you remember everything I said that night?”
She’s trying to smile but it’s not quite working, her lips not fully cooperating, the smile not reaching her eyes.
“I try,” I tell her, honestly. Too honestly, but Thalia has that effect on me. “I’m sorry, that was the wrong question.”
Thalia is silent for a long moment, thinking. I just drive and listen to the silence.
“I don’t think Javier is local,” she finally says. “But I don’t know, because I don’t know where he is.”
I stay quiet, respect her silence.
“I don’t think anyone knows,” she goes on, her eyes forward, watching the interstate as we rush toward it, white lines disappearing under my car. “Not my family, at least. The last time we heard from him was last March. He was sleeping in a car with a friend of a friend of a friend in Richmond, and he managed to borrow a phone to call my mom.”
She clears her throat.
“I don’t even know how to tell him about Mom’s accident,” she says, and now she’s whispering, her voice ragged again. “No one knows how to reach him, we don’t even know if he’s…”
I reach over and take her hand in mine. I do it without thinking, the movement automatic, the need to comfort her and protect her almost overwhelming even though I know I can’t.
“It’s a whole fucking mess,” she says, and she laces her fingers through mine, squeezing.
I squeeze back, hold her in my grip, the wooden rosary beads pressing into my wrist.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I say.
There’s a long, long silence, long enough that I think she’s chosen not to say anything, to take me up on my offer.
“He was a Marine,” she finally says.Chapter SixteenThaliaThis is a story that I don’t know how to tell because I never tell it. It’s our ugly family secret, our shame, a gaping hole that we’ve slapped a band-aid over so we can pretend that we’re all fine. We tell people that he’s in North Carolina or Washington, D.C., working some job, and then we change the subject because the truth is too much.
I don’t know what would happen if my father found out that I told a complete stranger. He’d be furious, for starters. Even my roommates don’t know the ugly details of it, just the broad strokes, because they’ve watched it go down.
“He didn’t really want to be,” I go on, trying to start at the beginning, not exactly sure where that is. “When we were kids he wanted to be an artist. The two of us used to watch Bob Ross on PBS for hours. You know, happy little trees and all that?”