Page 31 of Burdens
“No, but it’s late and the middle of the week, so I just wanted to make sure.”
“I’m fine, baby. Now talk to me about you. I miss you,” she said and guilt gnawed at me. It had been a few weeks since I’d last called her, but with training, it completely escaped me to do so. She spoke again. “How’s the new class? Are you nice to them? I told you many times not to be too hard on them. They need kindness too, baby.” The lilt in her accent grew stronger with each question. It always happened when she got too excited or she was scolding me.
“Yo también te echo de menos, mamá?2.They’re fine and Iamnice. How are you? Will you finally take me up on my offer and retire?”
My beautiful mother, who was already in her late fifties, didn’t need to work. I’d told her too many times to count now that I’d be more than happy to take care of her, but she refused to retire for some odd reasons.
I’m not too old to work. Your mama still got it,she’d say whenever I’d bring it up. One thing about my mother was, you couldn’t argue with her. I’d tried every once in a while even if I knew her response would stay the same.
But that didn’t stop me from adding money to her account every month without her knowledge. She probablydidknow, but she’d never mentioned it.
“Noah,” she said in the tone she always used before she gave me a lecture.
I chuckled and shook my head. “Right, you still got it.”
“Damn right I do, baby,” she replied, laughing, and I joined her. I didn’t laugh very often, but when you had a mother like mine, her laugh was too infectious not to join her.
“How is it at the diner?” I asked as I sat on the bench, grabbing a towel from my bag to wipe the sweat off my face and neck.
My mother and I had moved back to Morocco from Colombia a few weeks before I turned twenty after I’d gotten an offer to train at the Academy. I’d always refused before because I hadn’t wanted to leave my mother behind or ask her to give up the life she’d built for us there to come back to a place that held so many bad memories for both of us.
The agent that kept knocking on my door, Theo Alvarez (also known as the biggest pain in my ass), had been so relentless that I’d eventually agreed under two conditions—that the Bureau guaranteed my mother’s safety and that she could go back to a place we’d made home whenever she wanted.
So they’d moved her into a small town right next to Bemes and she’d been working at the same local diner ever since.
“Oh, you know, it’s been the same for the last thirteen years.”
“Right, but make sure you get enough rest. You always tend to work too much,” I tell her, worried.
“I’m fine. Besides, I could say the same about you, Mr. I never take vacations.”
I stifled a laugh at the nickname and held my hand up even though she couldn’t see it. “That’s fair.”
She was quiet for a moment, but I knew her too well to know that her next line of question wouldn’t be something I was particularly fond of. “Now tell me, when will you give me any grandbabies? I’m not getting any younger, you know? If you need help finding someone, I could?—”
“No, mamá. No fixing me up,por favor?3. You know I don’t have time to date.”
Her heavy sigh told me exactly how she felt about my answer.
Besides, it wasn’t like I could tell her about the girl who occupied every inch of my mind because I shouldn’t be thinking about her that often.
I was about to change topics when I felt the heat of a heavy gaze on the back of my neck.
I looked over my shoulder to find Amalia standing right by the entrance. She looked surprised to see me here.
“Mom, I have to go. I’ll call you later, okay?” I told my mother in Spanish as I kept my gaze on Amalia.
“All right, baby. Visit sometime,¿Vale?4?I love you.”
“Love you too,” I replied before hanging up.
I pocketed my phone into the side pocket of my bag and brought a leg over the bench, straddling it. “Has anyone ever told you it’s inappropriate to eavesdrop on someone’s conversation?” I asked her, clenching my fingers against the wooden edge.
“It isn’t really eavesdropping if I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said, removing her shoes and placing them inside near the door.
I groaned internally. “What are you even doing here?” I muttered, watching her cross the rubber-matted floor and make her way toward the heavy bags where I just was.
A small frown appeared on her face. She pulled white hand wraps from the side pocket of her bottoms and began weaving them through her fingers. “It’s a gym. What do you think I’m here for?”
