Page 111 of Riding the Pine

She arches a perfectly sculpted brow in my direction, giving me a look I’ve seen too often throughout my life. She smells blood.

“Mija. If you have something to say, spit it out.”

I sigh, replacing my cup into the saucer before poking at the edge of the guava pastry.

She waits for a moment, then another, and as she regards me, she sips at her drink again. Does the silence not bother her? Is this an interrogation?

I shift in my seat which makes her laugh.

“Ever since you were a little girl, Mija. You get that face only for two things. Uno, when you’re constipated and have a sore tummy.”

My cheeks heat.

“And dos, when you’re upset at your Papá.”

My head snaps up. Our eyes meet. She smiles. “Aha.” She points at me. “What has he done this time?”

I shake my head, delaying the conversation a few more seconds by taking a long sip of my delicious java juice.

“Athena.” Her tone takes on that motherly edge that says she isn’t going to drop it. “Dime.”

How? How can I tell my mother her husband is a cheating cabrón?

She heaves out a sigh, drawing her fingertip around the edge of her saucer. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

It feels like I’m being led somewhere she already knows is the destination. Could she know?

“Mamá.” I twist my hands in my lap, hard to do when one of them is in a cast and yet, I persist. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”

“Your father cheated on me.”

My eyes widen, and instead of being relieved, my stomach tenses. “You know?”

She nods.

Wait. Cheated. Past tense. I’m pretty sure Papá hasn’t given up his habit, but I have no proof.

“It’s more than that, Mamá. He’s had children with them.”

Her eye twitches. “Children… plural?”

It takes a few minutes for me to tell her everything I know. When I do, she’s quiet for another long stretch of time. A member of staff comes to clear our dishes, and two more people come in off the street and take a seat a few tables away from us.

“Do you remember when you were younger, when you saved up your allowance and bought Apollo a cow for his birthday?”

I don’t know where she’s going with this, but I nod. It wasn’t a real, live cow, but considering the story of Apollo and the cows from mythology, I felt like I kind of had to.

“Ares kept stealing it.”

“He left cow footprints in flour on Apollo’s wooden floor.”

“Just like in the story.” Still completely clueless as to where she’s headed with this trip down memory lane, I laugh. Because it really was a stroke of genius.

Ares stole the cow, just like Hermes, and left powdered, backward footprints so Apollo would be thrown off, believing his cattle actually went the other way.

“You want to steal Papá’s cattle?”

She shakes her head. “Papáisthe cattle.”

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