Page 109 of Riding the Pine

Athena

MARCH 14TH

It has been fourteen days since I last had an accident overnight. Or, for that matter, couldn’t sleep.

The boys have moved back into their own homes. Well, most of them. Scottie has all but officially moved into my apartment with me. Neither of us have labeled it, but he’s slept in my bed, curled around me like a loyal guard dog every night since the first one.

Despite my tendency for being a strong, independent woman, numerous conversations with my therapist are teaching me that I don’t have to be that strong, independent woman all the time. And that when someone offers to help, it’s even okay to accept it.

It’s weird. It feels like I’m weak, like I should be able to lie down in my bed and get some goddamn sleep by my big girl self, and I loathe feeling like a burden to Scottie, and my brothers. But something I’m learning through my recovery journey, is that sometimes I need to let people help me to let them feel a bit better about themselves as well.

My brothers are all beside themselves with worry about me. To their credit, they can still look me in the eyes, unlike a lot of students around campus who heard what happened to me. Buttheir concern is so strong, I can feel it when they walk into a room.

They have been put at ease since I let Scott spend every night lying in bed with me.

The irony of the situation isn’t lost on me. In the beginning, I avoided dating Scottie because I was afraid my brothers would hand him his ass on a platter or stop talking to him altogether. And now, the only thing that keeps them away from my front door every night is the fact he’s here to take care of me.

Funny how things change over time.

I’m sitting in Sip Happens, a local coffee shop that specializes in coffee beans from Latin America. It’s a small, family-owned business that I’ve kept secret from my brothers because it makes buying their Christmas and Birthday presents easier on me.

I needed somewhere that wasn’t Bitches Brew.

The buzz about my attack hasn’t died yet, nor does it seem to be waning in the slightest. As much as my usual boss bitch demeanor doesn’t mind being stared at—in fact, I’m used to being the center of attention, given who my father is—I’m used to it and often invite it. But I don’t have the energy for it right now.

I don’t have the energy for much. And the conversation I’m about to have with Mamá is going to take up enough of my strength.

Scott and the boys told me I should wait, that I could wait, but it’s been weighing on my mind for long enough. I need to get it off my chest. And she needs to know.

It’s a matter of minutes before she opens the coffee shop door, making the overhead bell jingle. In her fifties, she looks amazingly well. I’d bet she could easily be mistaken as someone a decade younger.

She’s always been someone to take great care of herself and prides herself on her appearance. She’s wearing a knee-length, black jacket with a faux fur hood. She’s got a Dolce and Gabbana black purse dangling from a silver chain link handle that matches her black peep toe shoes. I bet they’re D&G as well.

She pulls off her shades, her thick black hair glossy and perfectly wavy. She gives new meaning to the word beach waves. I either get limp and flat orstuck my finger in a socketchic.

“Mija.” Her face doesn’t soften as I stand to greet her because she doesn’t believe in pity. She’s never been one for showing the world vulnerabilities for them to exploit, and while in private she’s empathetic and supportive, in public, it’s business as usual.

She’s been avoiding me this week, however, as though she knows I have something of importance to talk to her about. And any time I suggest coming over to visit, she dissuades me. I think Papá has perhaps told her not to be too eager to welcome me into the house. Either he’s still clueless about how to deal with the fact his eldest daughter, and apple of his eye has been raped, or he’s still pissed I yelled at him in his own office.

Either way, those are his problems.

Mine is the fact I’m about to tell his wife of more than thirty years that he’s a cheating piece of shit.

“Mamá.” I return her cheek kisses with some of my own. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

I go straight for the jugular. She’s not a beat-about-the-bush kind of woman. She’s direct in her approach in all things.

Thankfully, Sip Happens is small. Most people come here for to-go coffee for the surrounding businesses, or they buy the beans and merch. There are maybe ten to twelve tables, and as if by fate, the only other people in the place sit as far away from us as you can get without being out on the street.

She waves me off but says nothing. “At least let me get some cacao in my veins before you come out swinging, Mija. Your usual?”

Sip Happens has not one but two different brands of coffee from the Dominican Republic, which makes my Mamá both inordinately happy and homesick at the same time.

Given the choice, she’ll always order a Café Santo Domingo medio pollo—espresso with a little bit of milk served in a small cup. And apparently, I’ve been here with Mamá often enough to have a ‘usual’ of my own. La Tacita café amargo—black coffee with no sugar.

“Sí, por favor.”

She disappears and comes back with a tray of sweet treats. I shouldn’t be surprised, the woman doesn’t just have one sweet tooth, she has thirty.

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