Joe pulled him into a hard embrace. It was the only thing that kept him standing.
Beto used to say that memories couldn’t be trusted. Every recall distorted the truth like a filter. Nathan now knew he’d used bad memories of Beto to justify his anger. He’d focused on the pain, letting everything else blur and fade. Now, too late, he told himself different stories. He unfolded memories he’d repressed for years and saw his father’s love hidden in the creases.
Now he remembered Beto standing and clapping loudly during his graduation, even though none of the other parents had done the same. He remembered test-driving his first car with Beto in the passenger seat, bemoaning the death of manual transmissions. He remembered being four years old and watching his father crouch low to fit inside the fort they’d built in Nathan’s bedroom—Beto’s large hands weaving delicate Christmas lights between the sheets. He remembered falling asleep with his ear to his father’s heart and trying to will his own to match its steady rhythm. Because even then, he knew that was how you loved someone. Like an extension of your soul in someone else.
It was their chef, Arianna, who found Beto and called Sofia away from the gala. Beto had stayed after everyone left to make arrangements for a surprise celebration. “I think he was nervous,” Arianna said. “He said that he never knew how much work Se?ora Cárdenas put into those things.”
Nathan had made plans to meet with Bobbi and Dillon after the gala. It would be nice to think he would have made the right choice and accepted his father’s invitation to join them at home. But he was done lying to himself, and he realized now that he had no instincts when it came to Beto. If he did, maybe he would have known the day with the photo album would be the last time they saw each other. If Nathan knew his father better, he would have seen Beto’s anger for what it was—self-loathing and fear, the knowledge that every second that ticked by was a lost chance to change things. If Nathan knew, he wouldn’t have gotten drunk at the gala while Beto had a stroke, and maybe his father wouldn’t have died alone.
The paramedics said it was painless. The doctors told them that strokes were a common risk for people with brain tumors, and that Beto had probably been experiencing symptoms for a while but hadn’t told anyone. “That’s just like Beto,” Sofia had said, huffing out a laugh that sounded nothing like her.
Nathan didn’t answer his phone all week. Bobbi and Dillon had tried to stop by, but he ignored the knocks on his door. He ordered pizza when he got too hungry to sleep; he only went outside to take out the trash so it wouldn’t attract flies. The first few times, some photographer took his picture, but that stopped eventually. The news cycle had moved on, and photos of a grieving son tossing beer bottles in the dumpster could only be sold so many times.
That’s how Rachel found him, carrying a trash bag and empty pizza box to the back of the building. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was curly, the way it had looked when they got caught in the rain. As soon as they locked eyes, she stopped walking and wrapped her arms around her waist, like she needed comfort.
“Hi,” she said.
He moved the trash bag to the opposite hand. “Hey.”
“I was in the neighborhood—” She stopped and shook her head. “No, I wasn’t. You won’t answer the phone, so I’ve been sitting in the parking lot watching Netflix, waiting for you to come out.”
“I put it on silent for the wake, and now I’m not sure where it is.” That was three days ago. Which meant he probably had seventy-two hours of messages from complete strangers poking at his grief.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly, and moved closer. “You have a lot going on.”
The funeral mass was yesterday. He’d been forced to listen to eulogies about the man everyone thought his father was. Beto Vasquez was a business leader. A compassionate philanthropist. But Nathan knew that he also loved old cars. He made homemade marshmallows for hot chocolate, and only used cocoa from Oaxaca, because, as he put it, “We’re not animals, mijo.”
“Yesterday was hard,” Nathan said. “Long. Mom was pretty out of it by the end.”
“I wanted to be there.”
“I’m glad you weren’t.”
She nodded. “You’re right. It would have been a distraction.”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s just that people are terrible. I could hear them talking about us during the service.” He took a deep breath. “Before the gala, I couldn’t handle us not being together. I don’t even remember sending you that portrait. It was reckless and selfish, and I’m so sorry.”