Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
I’m reminding myself that this is for them when we pull up to the prison parking lot on New Year’s Day. Last year at this time, I was blissfully ignorant of the avalanche poised to dump all over my life. I had my suspicions, sure, and my concerns about the state of our marriage, but nothing was certain. And there were days I could even pretend everything was fine. I’ll never take solace in a fake fine again.
“Ready?” I ask, turning to study Lupe in the passenger seat beside me and Lottie and Inez in the back.
“Yeah, but…” Lupe bites her lip, toys with the ends of the long red braid flung over one shoulder. “Do you have to come inside?”
I frown, tossing the keys in my purse before meeting the concern in Lupe’s eyes. “You’re minors. I have to accompany you, and there’s no way I’d let you go into a federal prison without me. You know this. Why don’t you want me to come?”
“He cheated on you,” Inez says, surprising me since I know how hard it has been seeing her father’s feet of clay. Her soft response barely cloaks the disbelief and dismay of a little girl who thought the sun rose and set on her father. When I glance back, her eyes hold an incongruity of emotions I wish she didn’t have to sort through yet.
Fury. Disappointment. Longing.
She loves an undeserving man. It’s a sorrow most women experience at some point in their lives, whether it’s a father who neglects or a son who forgets or a husband who betrays. These men let us down and we pull ourselves back up, hopefully with the help of other women who love us in ways that heal. Lola and Nayeli held a Boricua High Council FaceTime this morning over breakfast. Nayeli prayed that I would have peace that surpasses understanding, the kind that rises when your heart would drag you to fall. Yasmen came to the house this morning carrying a bouquet of yellow roses from Stems, my favorite florist in Skyland.
“For friendship,” she whispered into my hair. But I knew she really meant for courage. She hugged me tight, squeezing, not letting go until a few tears trickled over my cheeks because she knew I needed to cry just a little.
My friends, my sisters, my daughters. My great loves.
I look at each of my daughters with deliberate care, wanting them to see strength and resolve. I love that I’ve raised girls who think about me, who care about me as a human, not just their mother who exists to serve their every need. There’s an honesty in that. I think I saw it in my mother because I knew she stayed with my father, loved him in her own way, while the deepest parts of her heart belonged to another. I saw her not just as Mami, but as a woman in all her full, flawed dimensions. I want my girls to have that too.
“Your father broke my heart,” I tell them, “and he broke the law. He is not, in my estimation, a good man. I wish I could have protected you from the truth, but that was impossible. So you understand why I had to divorce him.”
“I would have been mad if you hadn’t,” Lupe says, traces of bitterness in her words. “He doesn’t deserve you, Mom.”
“No, he doesn’t, and he doesn’t deserve you either, yet here we are.” I gesture toward the imposing white building of the prison. “He’s all the things we said, but he’s also the man who taught you to ride a bike, Lupe.”
She drops her eyes to her lap.
“And always played video games with you, Inez,” I say, glancing back to meet my daughter’s eyes. “And did handstands with you in the backyard, Lottie.”
“He wasn’t very good at them.” She snorts, but a small smile cracks the corner of her mouth.
“My point is that it’s complicated,” I say. “He’s not all bad and he’s not all good, and he’s still your father. Finding out he’s not perfect doesn’t erase all your love for him.”
“You’re sure you’re okay with us seeing him?” Lottie whispers.
“I’ve told you from the beginning and I mean it now. I don’t want to keep you and your father apart. He will never—hear me when I say this—never have custody of you. No judge would award him that, and I would move heaven and earth to stop that from happening. You can love him, but I will never trust him with my heart again. The three of you are the most precious things in the world, and I will not trust him with you.”
I let the words land in the quiet interior of the car before going on.
“And seeing him today may bring up some really big feelings. I’m not leaving you to process that on your own. So yeah, if you want to see your father before he gets out, I will be with you.” I grab my purse and open the car door. “Ready?”