I started laughing, even as tears came into my eyes. “What if I have to help you put on socks?”

“Then you’ll help me put on socks. And if I’m in a wheelchair and you’re not, I’ll give you a ride.”

My tears spilled over as I laughed, and I couldn’t help but put my forehead to his shoulder. “You can’t promise me you’ll always be there. You know that’s not the way it works.”

“While I still have breath in my body, I won’t go anywhere, Peach.” He kissed my temple. “You never know what will happen an hour from now, a minute from now, but I won’t make you regret any of it too bad, even when I get on your nerves and we bicker because we’ve been together forever and know everything about each other. That time could be a month, or could be until we’re both in diapers, but I’ll be there.”

“Diapers?”

“Diapers,” he confirmed, leaning down to kiss my face three times. “I promise.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Tell her,” Josh whispered as he passed by me in the kitchen to refill his cup with apple juice from the fridge.

I ground my teeth and made my eyes go wide in his direction while going back to keeping an eye on my mom who happened to be standing at the stove in the kitchen, giving the rice she was making a stir. “I will. Give me a second,” I hissed at him, glancing in my mom’s direction one more time to make sure she was oblivious.

My eleven-year-old mouthed “Wuss” to me over his shoulder as he left the room with his glass full.

Sadly, I knew he was right. I needed to tell my mom who was coming over for Christmas dinner. Well, more specifically, why someone was coming over for dinner with Miss Pearl in tow.

Shit.

Grabbing a clean kitchen towel from a drawer, I’d barely dipped it under the running tap when I finally said, “Mamá, Miss Pearl and Dallas are coming over for dinner.”

“Miss Pearl? ¿La vecina?”

“Yes, the neighbor. The one whose house burned down.”

“And who else?” she asked distractedly, her back still to me.

“Dallas. My neighbor. Josh’s coach.” It wasn’t like we hadn’t talked about him a dozen times before. Knowing my mom though, she was just playing dumb, possibly hoping I’d mysteriously come up with someone else with the same name.

“The one with all the tattoos?”

Jesus Christ. “He doesn’t even have that many tattoos,” I groaned.

“Enough,” she mocked back.

When I squeezed the excess water off the towel, I told myself that I wasn’t imagining it being my mom’s neck. “Please stop with the comments. You’re going to have to get used to them. You’re going to be seeing a lot of him.” There. I’d done it. I’d told her.

“¿Cómo?”

I turned to look at the woman who had carried me around for nine months, who fought me more than anyone else, criticized and judged me five times as much, and gave me more headaches than any person in the world. But she meant the world to me. Nuts and all. “You know como.”

One of her eyes went a little squinty, and I saw her let out a deep breath. “He’s your boyfriend?” she asked in Spanish, drawn out and in nearly a shocked breath.

I couldn’t disrespect her by lying, so I told her the truth. “You can say that.”

This dramatic woman, who had given birth to me almost thirty years ago, reached straight for her heart.

“I love him, Mom.”

She turned away, giving me her cheek. Jesus Christ. Slightly scared of her even though I was taller than she was, I took a step closer and lowered my voice, trying my best to be understanding. It didn’t work well, but I tried. “He’s the best man I’ve ever known, Mom. I’m lucky. Stop looking like you’re going to die, come on. Es un güero, he has tattoos. Rodrigo married Mandy who wasn’t even Catholic, much less Mexican, and he had tattoos. Stop with the face.”

“How can you even—” She gasped dramatically.

Here it was. “How can I what? The boys really like him. Louie is half in love with him. He has a steady job. His grandma lives with him. He was married and he didn’t want to have anything to do with me until he got divorced—”

“He was married!”

I blinked at her, almost at my end with her shit. So I threw down the one card I had to trump this freak out: “You were married before Dad. Remember that guy?”

She sucked in a breath that had me raising my eyebrows.

“You thought I didn’t know? Mom, I’ve always known. Dad told me a long time ago. Who cares?”

Her face went about as red as someone so brown was capable of. “Diana….”

I cracked a smile at her and took a step forward, trying to put my hand on her shoulder, only to have her move out of the way at the last minute. It hurt my feelings a lot more than it should. “What is it? I don’t care that you were married to someone before. You don’t have to be embarrassed. Obviously, we all struck out with our first relationships. It happens. Rodrigo did too, but look, you met dad and had us. It’s fine.”

My mom’s back went to me, and I could see her dipping her head, her shoulders hunching as she bent over the kitchen countertop. “Stop talking about Rodrigo, Diana.”

We were back to this? “Mom—”

“No, no. This has nothing to do with me and what happened before you were even born.”