Stella’s jaw tightened. For one unguarded second the perfect mask slipped completely and what was underneath it looked alot like someone who had been carrying something heavy for a very long time. But she didn’t give me the explanation I had been waiting years to hear. She pulled the mask back on instead.
“I’m sorry, Nique. I’ve been saying it for years and I’ll keep saying it. You can be angry at me for the rest of your life if that’s what you need, but I am still your mother and I will always love you. That part doesn’t have an expiration date.”
“You’re the woman who gave birth to me,” I said, my voice going flat and cold. “A mother stays. A mother doesn’t make her children feel like a secret she’s ashamed of.”
I turned my back on her and started walking again.
“You’re going to miss out on real love holding onto all this anger,” she called after me.
“I don’t need you to love me, Stella!” I yelled over my shoulder.
“I’m not talking about me,” she said. “I’m talking about Dex.”
My feet stopped before I told them to. I turned around slowly, the gravel shifting under my sandals.
Stella stood there with her arms crossed, something settled and certain in her expression. “I don’t know what happened between y’all. I don’t know how he ended up with Amina. But I see the way that man looks at you and I see the way you look at him when you think nobody is watching. Michelle told me they only coparent. That’s it.” She paused, letting it land. “People aren’t perfect Nique. You know that better than most. You’re going to spend your whole life alone if you keep using forgiveness as the price nobody’s ever allowed to finish paying.”
“It’s real easy to tell the victim to forgive when you’re the one who did the damage,” I said
That shut her up. I turned away for the last time, finally escaping into the jungle and leaving her standing in the dust of the life she’d traded us for.
Chapter twenty-two
Treading Water
The urgent care waiting room was doing the absoluteleastwith its decor. Plastic chairs in a color that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be green or gray, a ceiling fan that was moving air around without actually cooling anything, and a telenovela playing on a mounted TV that nobody was watching. We’d been sitting for almost an hour and the only thing that had changed was the number of people who had walked in after us and somehow gotten called back first.
Deuce had handled his business at the front desk though. The receptionist had started rattling off intake questions in rapidSpanish and before I could even pull up a translation app the kid was already answering her, smooth and unhurried, like he did this every day. Got Amina checked in, got the paperwork sorted, and came back and sat down like it was nothing.
Amina’s ankle was wrapped in a temporary bandage one of the cenote guides had put together. It had swollen up pretty good on the ride over but she was keeping it elevated across an empty chair and the color was coming back to her face.
Paris sat beside her scrolling her phone with the particular energy of someone who was bored, but too loyal to leave.
Kyson was on his second coke from the vending machine down the hall, leaning against the wall looking like a man calculating exactly how much of his vacation this was going to cost him.
Wendell sat with his hands folded, patient and unbothered, the kind of man who had clearly spent time in waiting rooms before and had made his peace with them.
Deuce was the only one who couldn’t sit still.
He had been up and down twice already, checking the vending machine, reading the informational posters on the wall in both English and Spanish, and was now back in his seat slumped down, scrolling his phone.
“Bro,” he finally said, directing it at nobody in particular. “We are literally ten minutes from Hartwood right now. Do you know what Hartwood is?”
“Tell us,” I said, already knowing I was about to get a full breakdown.
“It’s an open fire restaurant in the middle of the jungle. They cook everything over wood flame. No gas, no electricity in the kitchen. The chef trained all over the world and came to Tulum specifically to build this place.” He leaned forward like the information was urgent. “They do a wood roasted fish that people fly to Mexico specifically to eat and we are sitting in a waiting room watching a telenovela.”
Paris looked up from her phone. “How do you even know that?”
“I researched Tulum before we came,” he said like it was obvious. “Who travels somewhere without researching it first?”
“Every single person on this trip,” Kyson said flatly from the wall.
I checked the time on my phone. We were pushing close to an hour and a half with no update from the back. I looked at Wendell. “Listen, y’all don’t have to stay. Deuce got us checked in and these folks speak enough English to get by. I really appreciate you both coming.”
Wendell nodded, already reaching for his hat. “You sure?”
“Positive. Go eat the wood fired fish.”