"So," she said, settling into the chair across from me. "How are you?" Her warm brown eyes showed genuine concern.
"I will be better when this is all over with."
"Yes." Carmen nodded. "We all will be." Her gaze traveled to the window as two birds danced on the windowsill ledge. She looked lost in thought for a moment then returned her attention to me. "I'm pregnant."
"What?" I said, nearly choking on my eggs. She had never been known for subtleness. "You're pregnant?"
"I am." She nodded, her mouth curving into a small smile.
"Have you told Ritchie?" I asked. Her smile faded as she nodded. "How did he take it?"
"He thinks he's too old for more children."
Ritchie was in his early forties. It was hardly old in my opinion.
"How are you handling it?"
"I'm happy." She smiled, though the smile didn't reach her eyes. "I never thought I would have children and I was okay with that, but now..." She paused. "I don't think I want to raise a child here. Ritchie loves this place. How could I make him choose?" It was true. Santicero had become his home.
"Where would you go?"
"I don't know. Somewhere with better schools. Less gangs. I already worry about Bash, and I couldn't bear adding another child to that." Santicero had slowly changed from a sleepy, hidden village to a vacation destination and a place of retirement for expats. Such economic growth also meant more crime. My father refused to see it was no longer the safe haven of his youth.
"You have to talk to Ritchie." I reached out and squeezed her hand.
Suddenly I remembered when we sat at this same table, with news to tell my father. Only I was the one who was pregnant.
****
After the incident with the unloaded shotgun, Miguel had moved to Guadalajara. Miguel said he was working as a private security guard for a wealthy businessman. The job paid well enough for him to afford a luxury apartment. He would pamper me with spa treatments, take me shopping and to the kind of restaurants where you had to make reservations. At seventeen, I was naive and didn't ask a lot of questions. Being bad had been fun. My absences a
t school were almost equal to my days of attendance. Miguel and I would spend the day in his apartment doing things that would have launched Ritchie's head into space. Then he would bring me home before Ritchie could get suspicious. The fancy private school I'd been attending never said a word. I'd been blinded by first love and attracted to the idea of defying my father a little, too. It all came to a head eight weeks before graduation when I found out I was pregnant.
I hid my secret from everyone, even from Miguel. My mind had switched to auto-pilot. None of it was real. What about the big deal university in the States I had planned to go to in the fall? My life was about to begin. I had plans. So, I chose to ignore my condition, as if seeing the blue lines on the pregnancy test had been some bad dream. It even worked for a while. There was no sickness or weird physical changes to report. I didn't feel anything...until I started showing. My jeans no longer buttoned and the little T-shirts I loved to wear stopped falling flat against my stomach. It was as if the little alien bump grew overnight. Carmen was the first to notice. I had no choice but to confess and brace myself for the disappointment on her face, except there was only love. She gave me the biggest hug, and through tears, she told me it was all going to be okay. She even held my hand tightly as I came clean to my father. Saying he didn't take it well would have been an understatement. I didn't even have time to tell Miguel, because Ritchie put me in the car and drove like a bat out of hell to Guadalajara to make the announcement himself.
Miguel sat blank-faced on his own couch occasionally nodding while Ritchie tore him a new asshole for knocking up his daughter. What I didn't know then was how incapable Miguel was of processing it all. Nevertheless, I chose to play house with him in Guadalajara. It wasn't long before I had learned the cold, hard truth.
****
Bash bounded into the kitchen with adorable bed head and his sweet face still groggy from sleep. I gave him kisses as he climbed into my lap and rested his head against my chest. Carmen was staring down lovingly at Bash. The tiny smile had returned to her face.
"Don't worry." I reached over and patted her hand. "It will all be okay. You'll see." I repeated the words she'd spoken to me years earlier.
****
"So tell me something good that has happened to you." Carmen lifted her floppy sun hat and looked over at me.
"What do you mean?" I sat up in my lounge chair and returned her gaze.
"Tell me about something that has made you smile."
"I don't know."
"Carina, your son is safe and loved." She nodded to the pool. Ritchie was swimming with Bash's arms around his neck. "Very soon, you'll be mami loca again." She teased, reminding me of the nickname she and Ritchie had given me during a time when I'd been a little too obsessed with being the perfect mother. Bash was splashing and laughing. He was living in the only home he knew surrounded by people who loved him. The situation wasn't ideal by any means, but it wasn't bad. I looked up at the sky and thought about Carmen's question.
"Something that has made me smile," I repeated, watching the clouds pass. The ice shifted in Carmen's glass as she sipped water and I was reminded of Brando's sketches. I looked down at my wrist. The lines of his name were barely there, but I could still see them. I ran my thumb over it and for the first time I allowed myself to talk about him.
"There's this guy..." I paused and slid a sideways glance to gauge her reaction. Carmen set down her glass with a thunk, then curled her hand under her chin.