Page 28 of Fearless
He took the filled shot glass and raised it carefully. “A toast first.”
“To what?”
We pondered together in silence for a few moments. “To your dad,” he said quietly. “For raising one hell of an amazing woman who knows her tequila.”
That was so utterly sweet and unexpected of him to say. My throat closed up with emotion, but I gave a shaky, appreciative smile.
“To Javier Luis de los Angeles,” I whispered, gently touching my glass to Jandro’s.
“Salut,”he murmured.
Our eyes remained locked on each other as we each bit the flesh of our lime wedges. Citrus and salt coated my tongue as I brought the drink to my lips. Jandro copied my movements like a mirror, sipping gently at the rim of his glass. The burn of the alcohol evaporated into a sweet, refreshing flavor as it mixed with the acid and salt on my tongue.
“Damn, that’s good.” Jandro turned away briefly to check on the eggs.
With the intensity of his gaze gone, I found it easier to talk again. “Do you need any help?”
“Absolutely not.” He turned back toward me and flipped a knife in the air with a smirk before returning to chopping bell peppers. “Is your old man still around?” he asked in a softer voice as he worked.
“No. At least I’m pretty sure he’s not.” I took another small sip of añejo. “He was drafted for the border war between our county and Texahoma. Every two weeks or so, they gave him leave to come home for a weekend. Eventually, he just never came home again.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry, Mari.”
“Don’t be,” I told him. “The last few weekends he came, he was different. I was a year away from graduating school then, so I recognized the symptoms of PTSD, but it still hurt. Just violent outbursts out of nowhere, treating my mom and I like we were the enemy.”
“How about her, she still around?”
“Yeah, she just didn’t wantmearound.” I smiled at his bewildered, narrowed eyes. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. She was the one who encouraged me to leave home after graduating and become a traveling medic. She and a bunch of her friends, older ladies like herself, holed up in an old nursing home and they run their own little community there. Not so much a service center, but more like a soup kitchen. They feed and house people temporarily who have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s amazing, but aren’t you worried about her?”
“Oh, I was scared to death of some thugs rolling up on them. We fought almost daily where she told me to get out and live my life, while I insisted on staying. She pretty much threw my shit out on the curb on the last day.” I spun my now half-filled glass of tequila on the countertop. “But she was right. I had to leave the nest and find my own way.”
“You wanted to protect her though,” Jandro said. “And I imagine take care of them as they got older. It’s what people from our culture do.”
“Every time I told her that, she reminded me that she and her friends weren’t no fuckin’ pansies and half of them were war veterans. They could shoot a trespasser in the dark from a hundred yards away.”
Jandro laughed loudly at that, throwing his head back as he paused his chopping. “Both of your parents sound like badasses.”
“I got pretty lucky.” I took another nibble of my lime flesh. “How about you? Your folks still around?”
“Nah.” His voice softened. “I only really know them from the stories my sisters told me. The oldest two and my parents trekked up through Mexico from Guatemala to escape the dictatorship there. My mom found out she was pregnant again by the time she reached Arizona. She had me and the two youngest of my sisters, almost back-to-back, while we all stayed with my aunt and uncle. They were deported shortly after I was born, even though they were granted political asylum. Some glitch in the system that never got corrected.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him sincerely. “You never saw them again?”
“No. They sent letters with my sisters back and forth for a few years, but then the postal service got really unreliable and…” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Kind of like with your dad. We just never heard from them again.”
“I had family on his side too that got deported despite having green cards and work visas,” I sighed. “Cousins, aunts, and uncles I’ve never met. It’s so fucked up.”
“And look where we are now.” He huffed out a dry laugh. “Funny how no one wants to come here now that this place is a fucking free for all.”
“The people we trusted to protect us failed us,” I sighed. “Now we’re on our own.”
“You know what this conversation needs?” Jandro spread his hands wide on the counter, lifting his eyebrows suggestively at me.
“A less depressing topic?” I asked.
“Yes. And also more tequila.” He leaned across the counter and placed a surprise peck on my lips. “Food’s ready. I’ll plate it up while you pour us another round.”
