Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117177 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Okay, Bandit, out of the way, out of the way.” Aunt Richelle pulled him gently by the collar out from between us so she could envelop me in a hug.
“I’m sweaty—” I tried to say, but it was too late.
“I don’t care.” She huffed, squeezing me tight.
I returned her embrace, inhaling her familiar scent with a sense of relief as I lifted her off her feet.
Aunt Richelle giggled like a little girl, and I chuckled, finally releasing her.
She pulled back to clasp my face, and she looked so much like my mother, I felt a sharp twist in my chest. “So what brings you here . . .” She glanced down at my attire. “No luggage?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t know how I got here. I went out for a jog, and the next thing I know I’m on a train to you.”
I felt her scrutiny for about two seconds before she said, “You have clothes in your room if you need to change. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”
Another reason I loved my aunt. Unlike my father, she didn’t badger me with questions or commands. She knew when I was ready to talk, I’d talk.
“Thanks.” I leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I missed you.”
She beamed, her smile the same as Mom’s. There were only four years between Mom and Richelle, my aunt Richelle being the younger sibling. The Wilsons had only each other growing up. No big extended family. Just my grandparents and Mom and Richelle. My maternal grandfather had been a plumber and my grandmother a nurse.
When I was three years old, my grandparents had gone on a rare vacation to Maine. On the first night in the new lodge they’d rented, they’d died in their sleep from carbon monoxide poisoning from the faulty flue installation of the wood burner in the bedroom.
It had devastated Aunt Richelle and my mother. I never knew my grandparents, but my mom and aunt had told me so much about them over the years, I almost felt like I had. I’d seen photographs, and both sisters were the spitting image of my grandmother when they were younger.
Thick blond hair, eyes as blue as the Caribbean from space. Tall too, at five ten. They were beautiful. Or maybe I was biased. I didn’t think so though. I think my mother’s beauty was a big part of the attraction for my father. He was a man who liked to procure beautiful things.
As I climbed the stairs to the guest room designated as mine, my gaze passed over the photos Aunt Richelle had hung on the wall of the stairwell. Photos of my grandparents, of the parties Richelle held at the beach house years ago, of Miguel.
I touched his photo. “Brother,” I murmured as I passed.
Then I stopped again at a photo I’d seen a million times.
Of my father and Mom at some gala or other.
My mother was stunning in a red gown and my father handsome and severe in a black tux. While Mom smiled at the camera, my father stared stonily ahead, his hand resting possessively on her back.
She died from ovarian cancer when I was sixteen years old.
I never saw my father cry once. I sneered before moving upward.
A photo of Mom sitting on the porch swing of the small house she’d grown up in. She was a teenager in the picture. The sight of her eased my anger.
“Te amo, jefa.”
The small amount of Spanish we’d learned hadn’t come from our father. Our father didn’t teach us anything about his Mexican heritage. In fact, it was the opposite. No, Miguel had learned that “jefa” was an affectionate word meaning “boss” that Mexicans often used when addressing their mothers. We loved it because Mom was definitely our boss and had both her boys wrapped around her finger. Whenever we were in trouble, we’d weasel our way out of it by telling her, “Te amo, jefa.” Never in front of our father. He’d snapped at Miguel to speak English when he’d overheard him call Mom that.
Staring into her laughing eyes, I missed her warmth. Her support. Her wisdom. She’d been everything to me. For years I’d had focus, I’d had goals, and now that I had none of that, it was like the seventeen years since she’d passed were but months.
“God, I miss you.” Fighting back tears of grief, surprised by the ferociousness of it, I retreated to the bedroom. Once in the shower, I let the jets of water pound down on my shoulders, slicking away the sweat and hopefully the bitterness. I thought I’d won that fight long ago.
It had never been more clear since returning to Earth that I hadn’t made peace with my father.
That’s why I’d come here to this house.
There could be no pride or ego or arrogance in an astronaut. An inability to put all that aside and listen to advice, or admit when you needed help, could cost you or your crew their lives. So I knew when to admit that I needed something.