funerary anniversary
They’d barely known each other two weeks, but Rose had already guessed where Luisa kept her spare key – not under the welcome mat, as so many others might, and not under the plant pot itself, but buried in the dirt just inside of the pot, far enough away from the plant base that it would not rust and the roots would not be harmed if someone needed to dig it out of the earth. Rose brushed the dirt from her hands as she laid the key on the nearby counter, locking the door behind her.
Luisa’s apartment was quiet – not as she expected it to be. Luisa was loud and lively, so she’d imagined her apartment would be as well, especially when the young woman was here somewhere. Young woman, as though Luisa were younger than her, when really it was the other way around – Rose was younger than her, the woman destined to be her new stepdaughter. Men.
Her car was parked out front. Luisa was here somewhere. But all of the lights were out, and it was silent.
Rose moved through the front room, through the living room, away from the kitchen to back hallway, to the bedroom and what she expected would be a connected bathroom to create something of a master suite in an apartment that only had one bedroom and one bath to begin with.
The curtains were all shut. The light was out. It took time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness, and when she had, Rose could see Luisa curled up on her bed, one pillow crammed over her head, all on one side in a fetal position. That didn’t bode well.
Rose wasn’t sure what she had expected. She’d come here for answers – not about Luisa, but about Emilio, who had been suddenly distant today, as though she didn’t exist at all. He hadn’t been cold, per say, just avoiding her. Of course, he didn’t tell her everything. Not yet. Probably not ever, considering he would want to keep his side art thief business close to his chest, especially given that she was a lawyer, but he didn’t have to tell her that for her to know about it.
There was a bottle of vodka on the side table.
“Whoever you are,” Luisa said, her voice feeble and shaking, “go away. I can’t deal with you today.”
“Luisa,” Rose said, and that was all she needed to say.
Luisa slowly moved the pillow from her head and looked up. Her eyes were red, her face was splotchy, and she looked so tired that Rose could feel her heart ache, which was weird because her heart didn’t ache. “Rose?” she asked, and she blinked a few times as if she wasn’t believing what she was seeing. “Is that really you?” Her eyes narrowed. “How did you get in here?” Then her eyes widened in shock. “Do you know how to pick locks, too?”
“Yes,” Rose answered immediately – truthfully, which was the real shock – and then shook her head. “I didn’t pick your lock. I found your spare key.” She waggled her right hand, showing that her hand was still dirty. She brushed her hand against her skirt again, trying to get the rest of the dirt off, with little avail. “Your father has been distant today, and I was wondering if you knew what was bothering him.”
Luisa’s face fell. “Of course, you came to ask me.”
“Luisa, you haven’t been drinking, have you?”
“No.” Luisa’s gaze moved to the bottle of vodka on her bedside table. “I haven’t opened it. You can check.”
Rose took that as an excuse to move forward from the bedroom door, and as she did so, Luisa moved over on her bed just enough for Rose to sit down next to her. The bottle was, as Luisa said, unopened. “You shouldn’t have this,” Rose said, her fingers finding Luisa’s.
Luisa inched her hand away. “It shouldn’t matter to you what I have and what I don’t have.”
“Luisa, what’s wrong?” Rose asked, and she turned to face her. This close, she could tell that Luisa’s eyes were swollen, and she could see the tear tracks on her cheeks. She reached out and brushed her thumb across Luisa’s cheek, only for the other woman to flinch away from her touch. “You’re crying.”
“He didn’t tell you.” Luisa shook her head. “Of course, he didn’t tell you. He never tells anyone.” She buried her face into the pillow again so that her words were muffled when she said, quiet, “Today’s the day my mom....” Her head popped up. “You know he doesn’t love you, right? That he never loves any of you?”
Rose didn’t say anything. She wasn’t interested in whether Emilio loved her or not. That didn’t matter to her at all. But it should have mattered to the woman she was pretending to be. She sighed. “Don’t be petty, Luisa.” She wanted to say it doesn’t look good on you, but that would be a lie. It looked beautiful on her.
“My father,” Luisa continued, but her voice had grown very soft, “has only ever loved two women in his entire life. One of them left him for fuck knows what reason, and the other jumped off a bridge and her body wasn’t found for days.” She bit her lower lip. “If he doesn’t feel comfortable telling you all this, I don’t know how your relationship is going to last.”
“Does saying all of that make you feel better?”
“No.” Luisa’s gaze landed on the bottle of vodka. She sighed and buried her head in her pillows again. “Nothing makes me feel better today except for that. And I can’t have that. So no.”
Rose’s jaw tightened. “I should pour it down the drain.”
Luisa’s head snapped back up. “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. “I’m not drinking it, you’re not drinking it, but you’re not going to waste a bottle of vodka that way. Not in my apartment. You can leave first.” She slowly moved into a sitting position, her eyes narrowing. “Why are you still here, anyway? You got your answer. Why don’t you just go?”
She could ask herself the same question. Truth be told, Rose didn’t want to be anywhere else. Trying to be with Emilio right now was agony, not to mention pushing him into letting her in and to quit avoiding her would put a damper on their relationship. He would be uncomfortable with her, and she couldn’t afford to make him uncomfortable with her. Besides, she actually wanted to be here. Even with Luisa snapping at her.
“I’m allowed,” Rose started, hesitant, her fingers tapping on Luisa’s sheets, her gaze focused on her fingers, “to love more than one person at the same time.” She pressed her lips together and glanced up enough to try and meet Luisa’s eyes, which seemed even more puffed and red now that they’d widened. “Maybe I just wanted to be a good stepmother.”
“You aren’t my stepmother yet.” Luisa crumpled onto her mattress again and moved over just enough for Rose to curl up beside her, if she wanted. “It was my birthday,” she said finally, only to continue rapid fire and correct herself, “Mom didn’t die on my birthday; that’s not what I meant. My birthday was a few days before, but we’d checked Mom out for my birthday so we could go to the aquarium and we were driving back and it was a long line on the freeway and Mom said she didn’t want to go back and she got out of the car and she jumped and Dad just stood there.” She took a deep breath and fresh tears began to pool in her eyes. “He just stood there.”
Rose slipped her shoes off, followed by the far too tight skirt that was not made for this sort of movement, and slowly curled up in bed next to Luisa. She pulled the blankets up around them. “It’s not your fault,” she said as she wrapped her arms around Luisa’s waist and pulled her close to her, resting her chin on her shoulder.
Luisa turned just enough to face her. “I know it’s not my fault. It’s not my fault. What did I say to make you think it was my fault? If anything, it was Dad’s fault. He’s the one who stood there and didn’t do anything about it. He’s the one who watched her jump. He’s the one who checked her out of the hospital.”
“It was your birthday and you wanted your mother there. Any child would have wanted that.”
“Exactly.” Luisa turned to face away from her again, and her voice was so soft that it had lost its normal enthusiasm. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Of course, you didn’t.”
Luisa nodded just so. “I wonder…if she hadn’t gotten out, would she have gotten better? Would she still be here? Would she be proud of me?” Before Rose could say anything, she shook her head. “But then Rafael wouldn’t be alive and I wouldn’t have my baby brother and I can’t imagine what life would have been like if she’d still been alive. I wouldn’t have had so many stepmothers. You wouldn’t be in love with him. Or maybe you still would be, but he wouldn’t be trying to marry you.”
“You might not have been at the bar,” Rose continued. “I might not have been at the bar.” She pressed a kiss to Luisa’s neck. “I shouldn’t have been at the bar.”
Luisa turned to face her again. “But you were. And he is. And you are.”
“And your mother would have been proud of you,” Rose whispered, meeting Luisa’s eyes. “Any mother would be.”
“Like you?” Luisa asked, and she smirked, shaking her head. “Don’t answer that.”
“I’m proud of you.” They hadn’t known each other more than two weeks, and Rose could state that as a fact. “You made it through rehab. Again. Because you knew you needed help and you went and got help.” She kissed Luisa’s cheek. “You’re a medical doctor—”
“Because I thought it would make Dad proud of me.”
“And he is.” Rose smiled. “You should hear him talk about you sometime. He is so proud of you. More than he is of your brother.”
“He should be proud of Raf, too.” Luisa sighed and crumpled against Rose just the slightest bit. “I’m a fuck up.”
“Everyone is a fuck up.” Rose tightened her arms around Luisa’s waist. “But you know what?”
Luisa’s eyes narrowed, and she turned fully around in Rose’s arms so she could face her. “What?”
Rose lifted her chin on one fingertip. “You aren’t drinking.”
Luisa blinked. She didn’t say anything at first, and that was the most wondrous thing, and then she nodded. “I’m not drinking.”
“At least you’re not drinking.”
“At least I’m not drinking,” Luisa repeated. She nodded once, as though memorizing it, and then curled up against Rose, resting her head on her chest. “You’ll stay here with me for a little while, and then you’ll run back to him, won’t you?”
Rose closed her eyes and then nodded. “I’m in love with him, Luisa, and I can’t marry you.” She hadn’t explained that yet, hadn’t needed to, had told Luisa it was a one-time thing and then prepared a strategy in case Luisa ever told her father. It wasn’t hard. She’d been trained to make these sorts of strategies. (She’d never thought she wouldn’t want them.) “But I can stay with you for now.”
“Ok.” Luisa felt small against her. “Just don’t let me go.”
“I won’t.”