“Mami, this makes sense, but why not talk to Prieto—”
“Ay, Olga,” her mother said, not even attempting to conceal her disgust. “If I wanted the help of a bureaucratic lombriz, I’d sit around waiting for Ricky to do something.”
Olga was taken aback. Wounded on her brother’s behalf. Prieto had said their mother was angry, had told her about the box of worms, yet the vitriol with which their mother spoke of her son still shocked her.
“Mami, I know you’re upset about the PROMESA stuff, but—”
“Olguita, we can’t waste time on Prieto,” her mother said, impatience in her voice. “If it was just his PROMESA vote, I’d think him weak willed, but no, it’s much, much worse. He’s been lining his pockets voting against his own people! The worst kind of traitor—”
“Mami,” Olga pleaded, “there’s got to have been a mis—”
“Nena, please,” she offered firmly. “Enough. We don’t need Prieto. We really just need you.”
Olga was quiet for a moment, straining to absorb this deluge of emotions and information. Her mother continued.
“Olguita,” she said, the coo back in her voice, “what I need now is the kind of intervention that can only come from the private sector. Where they can move outside the confines of government. What I need now is someone to commit to selling us—the people of Puerto Rico—large numbers of solar panels, and to commit to getting them to us quickly. I’m not looking for a handout now, mind you. We have money—we have some very generous patrons to our cause—but, for the volume of panels that we are looking for, we need someone willing to … bargain. And, of course, not ask too many questions.”
“And you think I know someone like this?” Olga asked, dumbfounded.
“Por supuesto. I think you know them well. I saw a picture of you two together in the Style Section, mija, at one of those fancy Hamptons parties you are always going to.”
A chill ran down Olga’s spine before she intellectually understood why.
“Did you know your novio, Richard, is one of the largest producers and distributors of solar panels in the United States?”
Anxiety flooded Olga; she was unsure how to disrupt her mother’s plans with the inconvenient realities of her love life.
“I, um, didn’t know that, Mami. I didn’t ask too much about his work. Pero, Mami, I cut things off with Dick—”
“？Y? So?” her mother interjected. “People reconcile, no?”
“I … I…” Olga felt, instinctively, that she should not mention Matteo; that to do so would only expose him—their relationship—to her mother’s verbal assault. She knew that, in service of the revolution, her personal happiness—anyone’s, really—was of little concern. She didn’t need her mother to confirm that. Her mother, seeming to sense her hesitation, pounced.
“Your whole life, Olga, you’ve been able to charm your way in and out of anything you’ve wanted. Wrap people around your finger! I’ve always admired that about you. I have no doubts you can do it again now with this Richard. It’s a chance to put your talents and connections in the service of something important for a change. Wouldn’t you like the chance to do that? For your Mami? For your gente?”
Her pulse quickened. In Olga’s heart there was a pin-sized hole of infinite depth that made every day slightly more painful than it needed to be. She thought of it, this hole, as a birth defect. The space where, in a normal heart, a mother’s love was meant to be. Olga felt before her a chance to finally heal this aching wound. Tears welled again in her eyes and she sniffled in the silence before she finally spoke.
“I … I can try.”
“Bueno.” Her mother concluded: “Se?or Reyes will reach out with details. Pa’lante, mija.”
And with that she hung up, though her energy hovered in the room for much longer.
* * *
KAREN’S GAZE FELT warm against the chill the call had left her with. Neither woman spoke for a long time.
“I take it this Richard is not the person giving you the glow?” Karen eventually asked.
Olga shook her head no.
“You don’t have to help her, you know. At the end of the day, this is your life.”
Olga was surprised that Karen, her mother’s ride-or-die, was saying this.
“But she’s my mother. How do you turn down your mother?” Olga asked, not quite rhetorically.