Page 35 of For Pleasure Or Worse

“I put together a list of addresses that need invitations to the wedding, Natalia."

Tal jolted at her name and the metal tongs she was holding dropped into the pan. She quickly wiped her palms on a towel hanging off the oven handle and turned around smiling. “That’s great, thank you, Anna. So helpful.”

A few family members from New York made sense to ask about. I sure as hell didn’t know their addresses off the top of my head, but a list that folded over on itself didn’t sit well with me at all. I plucked it out of my mother’s hand and turned it over.

“I'll have to see how many extra invitations I set aside.” Tally left the stove to come peek over my shoulder, and her sharp nails tightened around my arm. “By chance are any of these the same household?"

My blood pressure spiked rolling down the list of names. "Who the hell are all these people? Mr. Thomson, my high school principal? The Osmonds from church? Darren and Steve who cut your grass? The last time I saw half these people was at my confirmation in the seventh fucking grade, Mom. I have no obligation to them. They don't know me anymore, and they sure as fuck don't know Tally. They're not coming.”

"There are so many people back home who can't wait to see you two married," my mother said to Natalia, in a guilt-tripping, sing-songy way. My fiancée smiled sympathetically, and that manipulation pissed me off even more. She was too good of a person, and she was easy to exploit because Mom knew that Tally wanted to impress her. She also knew from the dress fitting that her relationship with Sistine was rocky at best, and that she’d be eager to please as a consolation.

Looking toward the living room for some support, I found my father still standing three feet in front of the television completely nonplussed and holding his glass of wine on his belly like a shelf. Muscles on both sides of my jaw clenched and relaxed over and over again, and the dull headache I had was now piercing, spreading to the base of my neck, like knuckles knocking against a door.

"We’ll make it work," Tally said enthusiastically. She took the paper delicately out of my hand before I could crumple it into a ball and throw it. "Maybe we can make some compromises. That way everyone is happy."

I admired her faith in my mother to comply. What I knew, and the reason I was getting so worked up about it, was that Anna Duran didn't compromise. It'd been that way my whole life. Part of the contention in our family was my unwillingness as a teenager to let her get her way. When I left for the Army against her every beg and plead it was like metaphorically putting a stake through her heart.

"Don't bother," I said. "After the first five it's like reading off the phone book."

Natalia spread the list out in front of my mom anyway, running her dainty finger down the blue ink. Neighbor of twenty years and their adult daughter I used to run through the sprinkler with, the deli owner down the block who gave me my first job, my high school baseball coach and his wife, my orthodontist. People who had vague impacts on my childhood, and the last shred of connection I still had to the Bronx that my mother was trying so hard to keep relevant. I slid open a drawer on the island and pulled out a pen, then went down the list crossing names off finitely.

My mom tried to tug the paper back across the counter in her direction but I swiped it out of her hand. She reached over and grabbed a corner and pulled; I smacked my large palm down over the center. She held firm to the top of the looseleaf and added two sets of fingers, and this time when she pulled, it ripped the paper in a jagged pattern. My barber's name got split in half.

"Oh look at that, Benny got cut," I said sharply.

"Mateo…" Tally murmured. I was pleased with myself for standing my ground until her attention darted to my mother, sitting there with her eyes puffy and watery, a faint quiver on her lips.

My shoulders dropped and all the fiery adrenaline hit me square in the gut. "Oh come on," I said. "It's just a list, Ma. It's not a fucking big deal."

Her mouth twisted, and she crossed her arms over her chest. Her refusal to speak to me, especially now, only amplified the overstimulation I was feeling. It made me irate. If she couldn't be an adult about this I wasn't going to be forced to be one either.

"You're trying to guilt-trip me, Mom, and it's not going to work. I refuse to let you play the victim here." I jabbed my fingerinto the table and realized it was shaking. My entire body was. Like I’d gone into some kind of manual overdrive and I had no control over it. Then my breath caught, but my pulse continued thudding and thudding until a cold sweat licked up my neck. I paused and tried to regather myself but failed, voice shaking. "You've done this my whole life, all right? Made me feel like shit for making my own choices and not yours. And I let you give me the cold shoulder for the weekend about Angelo, but I'm putting my foot down here."

The tightening feeling in my chest got worse. I was holding onto air that I physically couldn’t expel, my body rejecting my attempt to stand up for myself. I was well aware that something foreign and unexpected was happening to me and there was nothing I could do about it but try to fight back as my vision clouded, and my head grew heavy.

"I'm not a bad son," I forced out. I didn’t even know why I said it. I didn't believe that I was, but the silence from my mother was making me feel like I needed to fill in the gaps. "Dad, come on, help me out here."

My breaths went from miles apart to shuttling in and out. I was begging for air. The harder it was to find some, the harder I tried until I was hyperventilating. And the more aware I was that I was hyperventilating, the harder it was to stop.

“Coconut,” I struggled out. “Coconut.”

There was a hand immediately at the nape of my neck, and it took a second for me to realize it was a concerned Tally comforting me while the room started to spin.

"Matty? What’s happening?" My body turned toward Tally’s voice before my brain did. It was like looking down a tunnel at her. "Baby, come sit down."

I found a chair and dropped into it, and then Natalia was in front of me on her knees, holding my face and telling me to focus on her. Her sweet, worried eyes and heat-stricken cheeks.The rogue baby hairs that stuck out of her bun and fell onto her forehead. I counted her eyelashes.

"Oh my god, David!" my mother's panicked voice rang out. "David! He's having a heart attack!"

I held up my hand, my right ear ringing, and I rolled my neck back and forth like that might stop it.

My father sprang into my peripheral with beady, brown eyes boring into mine. “What do you mean? Call 911!" he yelled.

“He’s not making any sense. He’s talking about coconuts!” My mom rushed me, putting a cold hand to my forehead. She was hysterical. "Oh my god, I gave him a fucking heart attack! Is your face numb? Are your arms numb? Oh God, please Lord."

"Give him some space!" Natalia shouted back. She ran her sharp nails down my jaw and mimicked slower breathing. "Keep focusing on me. Do what I do."

"I'm calling 911," my dad announced.

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