“Oh, sweetie.” Her mother pulled her into a hug. “We were just going to church, but I’ll stay home with you. Daddy can take Nona.”
Those tears were what I had been waiting for. The fact that she saved them for her mother didn’t sit well with me. I stood there, feeling unwanted and unneeded, tossing the keys around my finger.
Her grandmother was staring at me, and I was aware of her dark eyes assessing my tattoos, my hair, my clothes.
“Is this your chillo, Robin?”
“Nona!” Her father shot his mother a glare. Then he stuck his hand out to me. “I’m Juan, Robin’s father. Thanks for bringing her home.”
“I’m Phoenix. Nice to meet you.” I didn’t know what a chillo was, but apparently no one was supposed to ask that.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, let’s go in the house,” her mother said. “I’m Julia, by the way. And this is Nona.”
Nona glared at me.
Juan and Julia. Robin’s mother had delicate features and hair that might have been dark brown, but that she now dyed a deep red. Her father had black hair shot with silver, and they were both of average height and average build. They were attractive and looked like they belonged together, exchanging glances that showed they knew what the other was thinking or feeling at any given moment. The fact that they were sixty only added to the contrast between their stability and my mother’s hot mess of a life.
“Do you need me to move the car so you can leave?” I asked her father.
“We’re not going,” Nona declared. “I’ll watch mass on TV. Take Robin in the house, Julia.”
Her father gave me an amused look. “I guess we’re not going. This was a waste of a dress shirt.”
I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t quite make it happen. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to leave or go in the house with them, and I felt uncomfortable. This whole normal family thing was something I both envied and hated. I didn’t know how to do this.
But Nona came up to me and wrapped her arm around mine. “Help me into the house.”
That didn’t leave me many options but to walk with her back through the garage.
“Is Phoenix your real name?”
Again with the name. Thanks, Mom. “Yes.”
“Was your mother a hippie?”
If hippie could be defined as drug user, then yes. “No, not necessarily. She just wanted my name to be unusual.”
“She succeeded.”
“Don’t mind her,” Robin’s mother said as she led Robin into the house. “Nona thinks because she’s old that gives her the right to say whatever she is thinking.”
“It does,” Nona told me. “I’ll be a hundred years old this year, you know.”
“Wow,” I said, surprised. She had thin skin and even thinner hair, but she didn’t look that old. “That’s amazing.”
“She is not,” Robin’s father said, sounding annoyed. “She’s trying to impress you.”
“How do you know?” she asked. “A woman’s age is a secret.”
“You told me you were twenty-seven when I was born.”
“Maybe I lied.”
He rolled his eyes.
I liked Nona. She was jacked up, and I understood that better than nice and normal.
But once inside, she went into the kitchen with Robin’s mother to watch, and I’m guessing to criticize, the making of tea for Robin while her father retreated upstairs, probably to change out of the dress shirt. Robin lay on the couch, an afghan spread over her by her mother. I hovered in front of her like a jackass, wanting to pace but forcing myself to stand still.
“Your family is nice.”
“Yeah, they are.” Her hair was snarled and limp, and the skin under her eyes was bruised. As she folded her hands under her cheek, they trembled a little.
It killed me to see her looking like that.
“What is a chillo?”
“A lover.”
“Oh.” What a retro word. But it said so much more than boyfriend. It seemed weighted down with passion and intensity, and I realized I kind of liked that. What we had shared, it was beyond just crushing on each other, and it was part of the reason I was standing there agonized.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I was annoyed to see it was Davis, wanting to meet up with me.
Seeing Robin here, in this normal house, made me wonder if she was right—if we weren’t good for each other. How could she ever tell her parents I was a convicted felon? How could I ever fit in to her life? And how could I ever be the support she needed when the thought of her drinking just pissed me off?
She was definitely right about one thing—we both needed space. I couldn’t stand here waiting for a scrap of attention, a sign of any sort of emotional attachment.
It was fucking pathetic, and I wasn’t doing it.
“I guess I’ll head back,” I said. “Unless you need anything.”
“I’m okay.” She finally looked at me. Really, truly looked at me. “I’ll call you in a few days.”
In a few days? She was dismissing me? Telling me to go away?
Fuck that.
“You can’t just snap your fingers and make me disappear,” I said. “We need to talk about stuff, not ignore it.”
“You said you would never throw it in my face, but you did.” Tears welled in her eyes.
“I said I’d never throw what you did with Nathan in your face, but I have a right to be upset about the drinking.” I was using a low voice, conscious of her family nearby. “And you threw my anger in my face, too, so I’d say we’re even.”
“It’s not a contest. Just give me a few days, please, just some space.”
“You can’t hide every time something bad happens. You can’t shut down.” Didn’t she see that’s what she did? She retreated and withdrew.
A tear trailed down her cheek. “And you can’t hurt me every time you’re scared. You promised to hold up the sky for me, Phoenix.”
That cut me as deeply as a bowie knife. Most of my life I’d been a failure in one way or another. I sucked at school. I sucked at friendship. I sucked at being a good son.
But I had wanted more than anything to be a good boyfriend to Robin. To have the outside action match the love I felt on the inside.
To hear that I had fucked that up, too, well, I couldn’t handle it.
“That’s not fucking fair,” I told her. “I’ve always had your back. This wasn’t something little. I found you unconscious! I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to get you to see how messed up last night was.”
“I am very much aware of how messed up I am. Thanks for reminding me.”
“Now you’re purposefully misunderstanding me.”
“Just leave. Please.”
Damn. That was rough. It must have showed on my face because she winced. “I’m sorry, that didn’t sound right. I didn’t mean to be hurtful.”
But I shook my head. It was too ingrained in me to be strong, to hide my feelings. I had spent a lifetime pretending my mother didn’t hurt me. I wasn’t about to admit that Robin had and could. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “You can’t hurt me.”
Without saying another word, because I knew I would lose it, say something really ugly, I turned and left.
It wasn’t until I got out onto the main road heading for the highway that I allowed myself to shout in the empty car in pure frustration.
“Damn it!” I pounded the steering wheel and wondered why the hell I had to meet Robin if I wasn’t going to get to be with her.
Because the right thing to do would be to walk out of her life for good and let her become the person she was supposed to be, a graphic designer with an accountant husband and a house in the suburbs. Not saddled with a loser who had a record and no money.
But when I got back to her place to drop her car off and walk home, I went inside for some sick, masochistic reason. I headed straight toward the oil paintings she had been working on. Flipping through them one at a time, I saw the dark emotions she had clearly been pushing out through her art.