“You’re going to be a fantastic interior designer,” Douglas said.
Maybe she would be and maybe she wouldn’t, but that was where her time needed to be spent. He knew it and she knew it. But
like always, she couldn’t seem to make the jump forward without a huge shove. She looked away with tears in her eyes, and
nodded.
He patted her back and walked around her, leaving her behind the counter alone. She watched him approach a customer. Damn,
he was a great teacher. She reached for the sticky notepad, wrote “Thank you” on it, and stuck it on the computer screen.
Then she left the store before she broke into tears.
Jaqueline answered the door and thanked the UPS man for the box he delivered. Inside, she opened it and pulled out the books
she ordered. She read the back covers with anticipation. Maybe these would provide some answers to questions she didn’t even
know she had about what to do with her life. If someone had told her when she was changing diapers and struggling to make
meals and keep the house clean while still squeezing out hours to help Victor with the restaurant that one day she’d be sitting
in this kitchen searching for something to do, she’d have laughed at them.
She poured herself a cup of tea and started reading one of the books.
Two hours later, Lucia rang her doorbell. Jaqueline was expecting her. She placed her books in a drawer and called out, “It’s
unlocked. Come in.”
“Che, cómo estás?” Lucia strolled inside and kissed her hello, placing a bag of pastries on the kitchen countertop.
“Bien. Té?”
“Oh, yes, iced tea, please.”
Jaqueline wrinkled her nose. Didn’t matter how hot it got, she couldn’t drink tea cold. “I made some fresh mate cosido.”
“Oh, well, in that case, I’ll take that. How are you adjusting to Victoria being gone?” She took a seat at the table.
“I’m not. She’s only been gone two days and I’ve called her both days to ask her to run an errand for me that I could have
done on my own.”
Lucia clicked her tongue. “You’ve got to stop that. It gets easier.”
“No, it doesn’t. How can you say it gets easier not to live with someone you spent the last twenty-eight years worrying about,
sharing things with, protecting, loving—?”
“At least you know where she’s at. I couldn’t even see Eric when he chose to leave.” She reached for a pastry that Jaqueline
took out of the bag and placed on a plate at the center of the round table. “And I had to pretend I didn’t know what was going
on between him and Antonio.”
“I don’t know how you didn’t kill your husband for losing your boy’s college money. I would have left Victor if he had done
that to the girls.”
Lucia sipped her mate cosido and gently smiled. “How could I kill him when I loved him so much? He didn’t intend to lose the
money.” She placed her cup down. “Jaqui, don’t take this the wrong way, but… maybe Victor didn’t share his plans about the
restaurant with you because you’re too harsh.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because we’re both married to good men. Not perfect men.”
“Some are more perfect than others.”
“You’re always so ready to attack. Why don’t you put some trust in him and accept that he’s doing the best he can?”
Jaqueline stood and faced away from Lucia, putting more water in the teakettle. “Victor hasn’t always deserved my trust, Lucia.”
She turned around again and leaned on the counter. “How many times has Antonio been unfaithful?”
“None,” she said, as if shocked by the question. Then her expression darkened. “Victor?”
Jaqueline nodded. “It was a long time ago, but something died inside me when I found out. Though I forgave him—I
had
to forgive him—things were never the same. It’s like he always tries too hard to please me by buying me things or working
harder, and none of it means anything to me.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me, loca?” Lucia said, full of compassion.
“I didn’t want to think about it. It was over.”
Lucia stood and hugged her. Jaqueline felt no emotion at all. She’d mourned the passionate, innocent, romantic part of her
marriage long ago. That didn’t hurt anymore. But now she missed the friendship part that they’d developed in later years.
Jaqueline eased back. “Listen, I think I’m going to go spend some time in Argentina.”
Lucia’s eyes opened wide. “How much time?”
“A few months. I don’t know. I need to get away. I want to see if I can find the part of myself that I lost.”
Lucia frowned and stared at her for a long time. “I have a better idea. I mean, you can still go to Argentina, but what if
we take a little vacation together first?”
Jaqueline smiled. “What kind of vacation?”
“I don’t know. A cruise?”
Jaqueline lifted an eyebrow. “A cruise?”
“Sure. It’ll be fun. Just us girls. We can chat until three in the morning every night. Sing karaoke, sunbathe without having
to worry about how we look because no one will know us.”
Jaqueline laughed. “That sounds fun. But what will Antonio say?”
“He’ll hate it. He won’t want me to go, of course.”
“I don’t want to cause you any trouble. One of us contemplating divorce is enough.”
Lucia went back to her chair. “You’re not getting divorced and neither am I. But we are going to remind both those men how
terrible life would be without us. ”
Jaqueline doubted Victor cared one way or another if she was gone. “So where should we go?”
Eric opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of orange juice. He was about to take a couple of swigs from it when he remembered
he wasn’t living there alone. So he reached for a glass and poured. As he drank, he looked out the kitchen window to the backyard.
His guys were carrying in two huge pine trees. “What the hell?” He put the glass down. “Victoria,” he called.
She walked out of her bedroom.
“Did you order pine trees for the backyard?”
“No.” She frowned, joined him at the window, and gazed at the same spot.
As they watched the men lower the trees into the ground beside the fence, Antonio followed them into the yard, directing them.
Eric cursed.
“He’s only trying to help,” Victoria said.
“For the last time,” he said, and walked out the sliding glass door.
“Hóla, nene.” Antonio smiled. “Good morning.”
Eric sent the two workers home and turned to his father. “What are you doing here with these trees?”
“What do you think of them?”
“What do I think of pine trees? They look great in the mountains. What are they doing here?”
“You need landscaping by the pool.”
“I know that. But what am I supposed to do with pine trees?” He tried to keep his frustration in check, but it wasn’t working.
Antonio pulled off his button-up shirt and hung it on the fence. Underneath, he had on a white T-shirt. “If you put one on
each corner of your backyard, laying in your pool will feel like you’re in a lake in the mountains, and—”
“Wait a minute.” Eric motioned for him to pause. “This doesn’t have anything to do with trees. Just like firing my pool guys
and hiring your own wasn’t about the pool. Just like wanting to redo my walls didn’t have anything to do with the damned walls.
What’s up?”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“You’re not.”
“Well, I’m sorry.” He frowned, like he didn’t understand what the big deal was, and wiped beads of sweat off his forehead
with the back of his hand.
“Why would you do anything without talking to me? I have a plan for this house. I have a budget. And I need to stick to both.”
“Like I said, I’m trying to help.”
“Fine, stop it. Don’t help me anymore.” Eric headed for the door.
“Eric, wait.” Antonio pointed to the trees. “What should I do with these?”
The perfect suggestion was on the tip of his tongue. He turned and stared at his father. “Ah, fuck. Let’s get the damn things
in the ground.” He grabbed two shovels and handed one to Antonio. Each corner of the yard had large four-by-five-inch planters
with overgrown ornamental grasses and impatiens that needed too much water and made a mess on the patio. He’d planned to pull
them out and put in crotons. The large green and yellow leaves would look decorative without dropping flowers near the pool.
Along with some decorative stones, it would have been perfect. Now, he had pine trees for an area he was sure would be too
small once the trees grew.
He began to dig out clumps of grasses, stabbing the shovel into the soil. “So, you gonna help me?” he asked Antonio, irritation
in his tone.
“Yeah.” Antonio went to the opposite planter. “I’m trying to, you know, get involved in your interests. You don’t have to
get so upset.”
Eric suspected something like this, but found it hard to be sympathetic. “My interests?” He plunged the shovel into the ground.
“This isn’t like playing catch with me because I like baseball. This is my job.”
“I know.”
Bull. He didn’t know crap. And he didn’t understand that butting into his business was no way to spend time together. “This
is my work; it isn’t a hobby. You can’t just jump in and fix things you think I’m doing wrong.”
Antonio yanked out handfuls of grasses. “You never were one to let anyone help you.”
Eric glared at him as he bent over to yank out the flowers on the edges of the planter. He tossed them over his shoulder.
“Even as a boy. Remember when you were building that bird feeder and I kept telling you you were doing it wrong? But did you
listen? No. You built it the way you wanted and it came out crooked.” Antonio loosed the soil with the shovel, then bent over
and pulled out a blue fescue whole. It came out easily and without spraying too much dirt on the patio.
Eric reached for a trash bag and tossed the chopped-up grasses and flowers inside. “You always think you know better.” Eric
shook his head, still bothered after all these years about his father wanting to run his life.
“Give me one of those bags,” Antonio said.
Eric noticed he was trying to keep up with him, but he was already winded and sweating heavily. He tossed his father a bag.
“And my birdhouse didn’t come out crooked.”
Antonio laughed. “Yes it did.” He hurriedly dropped the rejected plants into the trash bag and got back to pulling more.
“It was the tree I hung it on.”
Antonio continued to laugh as he worked, and it only annoyed Eric more. He lifted his shovel and dug more intensely, carving
up the soil, cutting into the roots of the plants. Now sweat poured off his forehead. He wiped it with his shirt, but a drop
of sweat got into his eye and stung. “Damn it,” he shouted, and threw the shovel up against the fence. “So what if it was
crooked? So what?”
Antonio continued to work, ignoring him. “So if you had listened it could have come out better.”
“It was
my
damned birdhouse.”
Antonio paused, his face red. “But I was trying to teach you something. That’s what fathers do.”
“People learn by making mistakes. Why couldn’t you just let me make mine?”
Antonio maintained eye contact for a moment. A flash of emotion crossed his face. Then he took his shovel and gently dug up
the impatiens, pulling up the flowers with the roots. “Victoria might want to plant these somewhere else,” he said. His voice
had lost its warmth.
Eric cursed. Wasn’t he going to answer him? Wasn’t he going to tell him why
he
was the only one that could screw up and had to be forgiven, while Eric had to do things just right? “Just throw the flowers
out. We’re not going to use them.”
“Why not? There’s nothing wrong with them.”
“We’re not going to use them.”
“That’s crazy.”
“We’re not going to use them!” He stalked over, pulled the flowers out of Antonio’s hands, and tossed them into the trash
bag.
“You fool,” Antonio shouted. “What did you do that for?”
“You don’t listen!” Eric shouted back.
“
You
don’t listen.” Antonio reached for the trash bag. Eric pulled back, ripping the plastic and spilling the contents all over
the concrete patio around the pool.
“Now look what you did,” Antonio said.
“Ah, shit.” Eric dropped the torn bag. “Now look—”
“No, you look. I came to help you and all you’ve done since I got here—”
“Help! You call this helping?”
They both continued to shout back and forth, neither hearing what the other said. Their voices got louder and louder.
“Hey!” Victoria interrupted. “Oh, my God. Look what you two have done.”
Dirt and plants covered Eric’s area. Antonio’s was nice and neat except for the mess Eric had made when he ripped the trash
bag. His father had smudges on his face, and his shirt was drenched. Eric imagined he looked the same.
Just like that, Victoria had yanked Eric out of this crazy place inside himself where his emotions had regressed fifteen years
or more. Here he was with his father acting just like he had as a teen: feeling powerless and angry and fighting back irrationally.
He drew a breath, looked down at the mess, and shook his head.
“Good morning, Victoria,” Antonio said. “I brought a couple of trees. We’re going to plant them.”
Her horrified expression changed when she turned her focus from the massacred plants to Antonio, and she smiled. “They’re
beautiful. How thoughtful of you.”
Eric got back to work. He picked up a rake and tried to collect the mess he’d made into a pile.
“I’m going to the grocery store,” she said. “Can I bring you guys anything? Doughnuts? I made coffee. Or maybe something less
stimulating and more calming.”
“No, gracias querida,” Antonio said.
“Eric?”
He hadn’t meant to make a scene or to embarrass himself or her. He wiped his face and glanced at her. “I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
His heart skipped a couple of beats as he looked at her. The look in her eyes told him two things. She was trying to help,
and she was concerned about him. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Okay, I’m leaving, then.”
Eric nodded. Once she was gone, he turned to Antonio. “Look, I don’t need you to teach me anything anymore,” he said. His
voice was still rough and cold, even though he was through fighting. “I know better than you that pine trees this close to
a pool won’t work.” He pointed and gestured to the trees standing beautifully in their pots.