Jhondie

Jhondie

I added a new level to my definition of the word "satisfaction" that evening. Watching a nasty Denise being driven off, now that was satisfying. It was mean, and low, and cruel, blah blah, I know. I should have taken the high road, and been understanding that she was pitifully jealous of Justin's happiness, and endured her presence for the rest of the evening. Well, there's a reason why everyone on the high road can do the speed limit. There isn't much traffic up there.

I was lucky to have a short little ally with me. Justin was too busy trying to be the nice guy, Mr. Maturity. I needed a hellion to get rid of that piece of crap. Brit and I had become rather close over the last couple of months. I knew she didn't like Denise, and everything just seemed to fall into place too perfectly for me to pass up an opportunity like that. It was fate. You can't fight fate, and if it's going in the direction you want, why even try?

"Can we get into our regular clothes now?" Bryan pleaded with his father the minute the O'Malley family took off. He looked so cute in his little suit and tie, but we all knew he would be so much more comfortable in jeans, possibly covered in mud. Brit was getting a little bit out of that tomboy stage, but she still didn't like being so dressy. They both turned a pleading face to their father. Who could resist that?

"Ok," he said, "but clean up the kitchen after, and be careful!" He emphasized the word careful. They both quickly scampered upstairs. Mr. Carter turned back to the three of us still in the living room. "So, um, would anyone like some coffee?" he asked. The tension between him and Mrs. Alvarez was back. I wondered what had happened that was so bad they couldn't be in the same room together for more than five minutes.

"I am fine," Mrs. Alvarez said. "Dinner was very filling." She looked at me sharply, her dark eyes boring into me like she could see my very soul. "But I could use a short walk. Jhondie, would you care to accompany me?"

Justin's hand tensed around mine in alarm, but I smiled anyways. "Of course," I replied. Hell, she couldn't be worse than Lydecker. Justin looked for a second like he was going to offer to go too, but I quickly added. "It is always nice to have some time in feminine company after being with all men so far this weekend." Mrs. Alvarez wanted some time to grill me, I knew that, and it was better to get it over with, without Justin trying to interject and steer the conversation.

It was still early in the evening. Southern California doesn't get cold. Not that it really mattered to me anyways. Mrs. Alvarez had a sweater and she seemed comfortable as we walked around the block in the pre-twilight evening. After a minute, suspiciously when she was sure we were out of hearing of the house, she finally spoke.

"That was not very nice of you," she scolded. I didn't even pretend.

"I'm not always a very nice person," I replied with a smirk. If she only knew how true that was. Mrs. Alvarez seemed amused at my reply.

"Denise is a lovely young woman," she said. "You should have compassion for her pain. Justin scorned her love, and she came here to heal from that loss." That felt more like a test to me. After a childhood at Manticore, you learn to recognize tricky statements like that.

"I'm not surprised at all that she wants Justin back," I replied. "He's one in a million. But I am not a passive person." There was more I wanted to say, but I left it at that.

She eyed me sharply for a moment. "Are you and my grandson lovers?" she asked baldly.

My immediate reaction was to lie. It's a built-in thing to deny any physical involvement until after the wedding. Screw it. If she wanted to tell me how bad I was for not waiting till marriage, it wouldn't be the first time I heard it from an old lady. "Yes we are," I said simply.

She paused for a moment, and I could tell she was a little shocked that I would be honest, and then not rush to explain, and lose the whole dignity thing. "You love him?" she asked softly.

I nodded. "Very much. Above all, he's my best friend." That was easy. He certainly was all of the above. She smiled at me. A real smile. I wished I could read her mind. I felt like I was tap dancing through a minefield.

We started walking again. She was still smiling. "Denise would never admit to that," she finally commented. "Even though Justin had admitted to it separately, she never would." I had to laugh. Our conversation turned to more everyday things, school, plans for the future, things like that. She wasn't that bad at all. She asked me why Brit and I were so close, and I told her about that fateful Saturday in September.

"So," I said, telling her how I had gotten Brit calmed down. "Brittany finally confessed that she was so upset because she didn't have any personal items. Well, I didn't have anything she could use, so I ran downstairs and told Justin that he was going to have to get her some." Mrs. Alvarez had tears in her eyes from laughing so hard thinking about her very masculine grandson being forced to such a task. "He tried to protest, but I cut him off dead and said either he could stay with his hormonal sister while I ran out, or he could leave and I would stay. He grabbed Bryan and left. He came back with a box of every kind they had in the store," I said with a sigh of exasperation. Men!

"And Thomas?" she asked.

"He came home later, and found Justin and Bryan sitting in the dark living room. They weren't talking, and looked like someone had died. He was going to ask what was wrong, but then he saw the boxes on the coffee table. Justin swears he tried to run, but they dragged him back." I grinned with the memory. "I was in the bathroom with Brittany and my makeup case and was showing her how to use the stuff without going overboard, and there they come, looking like I was diffusing a bomb with my toes." Actually, I think Justin would have been more confident if it was a bomb I was diffusing.

"Brittany just yelled 'Hi Daddy!' like there wasn't a thing wrong in the world. Then she turned back to me and started right back talking eyeliner." Mrs. Alvarez had to stop for a moment, the laughter getting to be too much for her. We got back to the house, and she smiled at me warmly for the first time.

"Are you a strong woman?" she asked me. It was an important question to her.

I couldn't help a smirk. "That I am." She nodded and we went back inside.

Justin

Maybe I should have been worried when Nana and Jhondie came back, chatting amicably. I knew Nana was more comfortable expressing herself in Spanish, and Jhondie was keeping up with her no matter how fast she was speaking. They were talking about future plans, and Jhondie was telling her that she was toying with the idea of going to medical school. I knew she didn't really want to be an investigative journalist, and she had said that if she were a doctor, then Zack would know that if another X-5 ever needed one, there would be at least one doctor that they could trust without reservation. I thought it was more a tribute to her dad, a way so that she would know that there were still two good doctors out there in the world, but some things I do keep to myself.

I was with dad and the twins in the kitchen munching on the pecan pie, well I had the pie, and the twins were devouring the other bowl of yum-yum while dad had some pumpkin pie, when we heard them come back in. Nana was asking her what kind of doctor she wanted to be. Jhondie said she was fascinated by neurology, but she wasn't sure yet if that was what she wanted to specialize in.

They came into the kitchen, and Jhondie promptly got herself a slice of the pecan pie. I could tell she was still trying to be nice. She would have grabbed mine if Nana weren't there. She gave me a little smile, and I was hoping that meant everything had gone well. Actually, I knew it couldn't have gone too badly. Jhondie wasn't gliding as much as she was walking again.

"You want anything Nana?" Bryan asked.

"No, child," Nana replied. "I will not be staying long." She shot dad a cold glance that I had come to interpret as "I know I am not welcome here". We could all feel the tension between her and dad. Even Brit was being quiet. It had been so long, but she was never going to let go of the blame. My grandparents blamed dad for taking their daughter out of Mexico and taking her to the States where she had been killed. Dad would take so much, and then point out it was the package that they sent that had her out that day when she died. You just have to love the Family Blame Game. Fun for all ages.

"Are you returning to Mexico soon?" Jhondie asked, trying to break up some of the tension.

Nana nodded. "Tomorrow. I come in to spend the holiday with my grandchildren, but I cannot stay away from my home for long." That was SOP here. It's why Dad would tolerate her for the day. He knew it was for less than twenty-four hours and she would be gone again.

The rest of the talk was pretty small. Dad excused himself after a bit. I didn't blame him in the least, and the five of us sat around the table in the kitchen chatting and catching up. It was nice until mom was mentioned. Nana's face got hard, and I knew she was going to go into one of her more acidic speeches about her version of what happened.

"It was so tragic for a mother to outlive her child," Nana said. Bloody hell. "Just the day before she had been talking how much she loved her visit to Mexico, and how much she wanted to come home, but Thomas did not want to leave America. There was no need to stay after the Pulse, and he could have moved his tiny business to Mexico just as easily, but no, he made her stay here." She sighed. "She was always so happy when she was home. You children would have been happy there too."

"Nana," I interrupted. The twins were looking a little upset as they always did when Nana went off on one of her "you should be in Mexico" speeches. They were too young to remember, but Nana had tried to take us to Mexico after mom died. They could vaguely remember some of it, but I could remember having a DNA test done to prove paternity. It took me a while, but I came to understand that people would lash out with grief and want to assign blame. "The only person who needs to get the blame for mom was the drunk that killed her," I reminded her. "We've done good here with just the four of us."

"You should be with your family," she insisted. "You have none here. You should be with your aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents." Not this again. Now that I was of age, she wanted me to move to Mexico, and if possible, bring the twins with me. Not a chance.

"Well," I said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. "It's three less people you have to worry about."

"You need to be worried about and not left to raise yourselves," she replied. "You yourself have been required to be a parent far before your time. You had to take care of yourself when you were far too young."

"Nana, sometimes you have to grow up quickly," I said, wanting her to chill. "It's not a bad thing."

"Children should be children," she said as she had a thousand times before. "That is the problem with the world. They are told to be adults and the adults will not give them the wisdom they need. They are given a television to teach them morals and values, and we wonder why there are so many problems when the parents are gone all the time, and they have no one to guide them and…"

"And," Jhondie interrupted. She had a soft voice that still carried firmly when she wanted to make a point. "And sometimes adversity develops into strength." Her eyes met Nana's levelly, who was looking a little shocked that she was being cut in on. Denise had certainly always let her speak, even when she went off on a rant. "It isn't easy to lose the people you care for the most in the world, but it can make you stronger." Her hand was holding mine, and it tightened reflexively. "Sometimes losing someone suddenly can give you the strength to do things you never thought possible. Things you never dreamed of. And in the end, you become the person you didn't know you could. Things happen for a reason. Sometimes the loss of one will be the salvation for the many. It doesn't make it any easier, but it helps just a little when you can't sleep."

She had never really told me about how and why she escaped from Manticore. I knew some of it. I knew Zack had told them it was time and she had fallen into a river, but listening to her, I knew she was talking about her escape. Had someone been killed that night they ran? Was that the trigger? I wanted to ask her later, but I had no idea how to bring it up without hurting her.

Nana was speechless for a moment. That was a moment to mark down in the calendar. Dad had come back downstairs and heard that little speech from Jhondie. I think he was quite impressed that she quieted Nana for a moment as well. Jhondie just took another bite of pie. I couldn't help but wonder if anyone else had noticed that Jhondie had yet to stop eating since she'd come back.

"Do you really believe that?" Nana asked.

Jhondie looked incredibly thoughtful for a moment. "If I didn't," she replied softly. "If I had never learned that for myself, I would not be here now." Maybe Nana was thinking that she was referring to her father's death, maybe my dad was thinking she was referring to when she "had cancer" as a child. I knew the truth.