Page 99 of Boss Me

Then she saw me.

“Lito! You’re here!”

She knew I’d come back; I’d called her the night we’d returned.

“Don’t get excited. I’m not looking for salvation. I’m looking for you.”

She held up a finger to me. Gently, she took the baby from the woman and handed her the outfit. “Pruébate estos.” She nodded at the clothes the woman clutched.

The baby in her arms, Mamá stepped into the hall outside, and I followed her. Pictures of Mary Magdalene rolling back the stone from Jesus’s tomb, brightly crayon-colored by the kids in CCD, fluttered on the walls.

Mamá tilted her head at me the way Coco used to do sometimes. “You don’t look happy. Isobel said you were happy.”

“Jesus, Mamá. Hello to you, too.”

She covered the sleeping baby’s ear with one hand. “You take the Lord’s name in vain in church, Miguel? I raised you better.”

My skin heated the way it always did when I remembered the man she’d named me for. “He hasn’t bothered you, has he?” The security guys reported that he hadn’t tried to see her, but they weren’t monitoring her phone. She wouldn’t let me do that.

“No. Has he tried to see you?”

“Not since Tuesday, when I saw him at work.” I wished I hadn’t had to tell her, but I’d done it for her own safety.

“Good. But tell me, why aren’t you happy? Is it because of him?”

I leaned against the white-painted cinder block wall. “Nah. Work and…other things.”

“Ah. Isobel told me about tu novio. Ben. What happened?”

“I—the CEO confronted me with a—a video. Of Ben and me. Then he brought in Da—Mick. It was a lot, and I reacted badly.”

“Did you talk to your therapist about it?”

“Je—” I choked it back. She sounded just like Jamila. “I have an appointment this week.”

“Good. I wish…” She looked down into the sleeping baby’s face and fussed with his blanket.

I touched her shoulder. “What do you wish, Mamá?”

“That I’d been stronger when you were little. That I’d stood up to him.”

The incense-soaked air was too heavy to breathe. “Mamá, no. You did the best you could.”

“And so did you, Lito. I’m proud of you.”

“I never stood up to him. Not the way I should.” All those times I’d heard them in their room, I should have stormed in there. Done something. Done anything. But I never had the courage.

“No, no. What I needed you to do was grow bigger than him. And you did.”

“That’s just genes—”

“No.” She laid her hand over her heart. “Bigger here.”

My own blackened heart thumped. “I’m not, though.”

The young woman stepped into the doorway. The blouse, eye-searing as it was, fit her well and brought out the red highlights in her hair.

Mamá handed her the baby. “Un minuto, querida.”

---