Chapter 29

After a few minutes I asked Dom if he was mad at me for ruining our night.

"You're kidding, right? I love it when you get jealous, possessive and irrational," he teased as he started tickling me. "I'm Italian. That's how we express our affection. It does my ego good to know I can make you crazy without even touching you."

I laugh because the only other option would be to cry and I'm tired of crying.

I didn't spend the night. I went home to Mama's.

Just my luck, she was up when I walked in.

The look she gave me said it all.

"What?" I took off my heels and went to the fridge.

"How's Dom?" Mama asked as she poured me a cup of hot cocoa from the kettle she had sitting on the table.

"He's… good." I say as the cold air from the fridge billows out around me. We'd gone out for dinner but since I never made it passed the parking lot, I was starving.

"I'm surprised you bothered to come home," my mother said as she raised an eyebrow and flared her nostrils at me. "Your top is on inside out by the way."

I look down quickly to see that my mom had just tricked me into admitting I'd been fooling around with Dom. My top was fine.

I rolled my eyes and pulled out some fruit salad and grabbed a fork.

"You're cruel, you know that?" I tell my mom as I sit down across from her.

She laughs and pushes her hair out of her face. She's sitting there in bedroom slippers, a robe, and pajamas she's had since before my dad went away. Somehow she still looks like a queen.

"You and Dom are going to make it you know. You've both made mistakes, but things will work themselves out."

I chew my food and play with my mug. I look back at her and ask a question I'm not sure I want the answer to. "Did Papa ever cheat on you?"

Her eyes narrow. "Never. How could you even ask that?"

"He cheated on me." I say simply. "We didn't just have a fight mama. He cheated on me. Deliberately and repeatedly."

I jab another piece of fruit. "And I can't decide who I hate more- myself for still needing him, or him for hurting me like he did."

"Dios mios. I didn't know." Her voice is full of sympathy.

"I think… I think I could forgive him if it had been jst one night after he found out about the Army." I stare at the kiwi on the end of my fork.

"How many?"

"I can't make myself ask. The team knows. Everyone we know knows he did it Mama. He wanted to humiliate me. He did it on purpose. He made sure I even saw him with one of them." I bite the green fruit and chew slowly.

"This is after he came home?" I can tell from her voice she's beginning to understand both of our points of view. She's my mother, but she loves Dominic too. Everyone does.

I nod. "I feel like- like I worked so hard I didn't deserve that. But I also feel like I lied to him so I did. I feel like I didn't tell anyone we got married so I can't be pissed that he didn't act like we were." I push the fruit around. "I'm so confused Mama."

"You didn't deserve that Leticia." My mother's voice is firm and her denial quick. It soothes my wounded pride.

"I can't live like this. I can't live my life this way." I put the fork down and bite my lower lip.

"I don't want to feel like this mama. I see him and all I want to do is be with him."

My mother comes around the table and wraps her arms around me.

But it's not enough to stop the pain, and somehow that breaks my heart even more.

The words I'd said earlier in the night come pouring out again. "I'm about to break. I can't stop this ache. I keep going back to the one thing I must let go of…"

She sits down next to me and rubs my back. "You're both so young. I shouldn't have let you get married so young."

"I love him mama." I cry, fisting my eyes. "I don't know what to do, I just want to be with him, but I can't feeling like this. He did it on purpose."

"He's trying, mija. I know he's trying to make it up to you." My mother uses her sleeve to wipe my eyes and nose.

"He makes me so weak."

"Don't say that. I saw what you went through these last three years with him. You were stronger than I ever hoped you could be and it was because you loved him." She brushes my hair out of my face and kisses my forehead.

These rituals of comfort, where would I be without them?

"Everyone expects me to get back together with him Mama. You heard Abuela that day. She still thinks divorce will get me excommunicated. And Mia and the Team- they forgave Dom just like that. I feel like I'm crazy cause I just can't let it go. But I can't let him go either." I take a sip of my cocoa and close my eyes.

"If you let him go you'll regret it for the rest of your life." Her voice is so full of conviction that I believe her. "He's your one and only Letty. You know it. We all know it."

"So I'm supposed to just… just take it? What if he does it again? If he hit me you'd want me to leave him, but he fucks around because he has some Macho reputation to protect and somehow everyone just isn't surprised. It'll be okay Letty. He's sorry Letty." I mimic.

I break down again. "I don't think it'll ever be okay."

"Have you told Dom how you feel?" Mama asks.

"Only when we're fighting. We can't… talk about it. It hurts so much that I just lash out at him." I laugh a little which surprises my mother. "And then he'll kiss me or hold me or beg me to forgive him and tell me not to give up on him because he'll spend the rest of his life making it up to me and end up believing him."

"But you ran away anyway."

"It's not running away," I whisper, "It's surviving."

"Go home to him Mija. Tell him all of this and work it out with him." My mother kisses my forehead once more.

"I don't know if I'm strong enough," I admit as I look longingly at his house from the window. The light is on in the bedroom. Our bedroom.

My mother laughs. "You're not strong enough to live without him Mija. You only cry when you're not with him. Or when you think about things that happened when you were apart."

"We were going to take it slow…" I say even as I stand up.

"Slow doesn't work for the two of you." Mama pushes me out the door bare foot. "Go to him and promise me you'll try. Don't wait for tomorrow because it may be worse than today. I thought I had a thousand tomorrows to spend with your father, mija. Go to him and live your life with him. Because just surviving sucks."

I look at her and see the tears in her eyes. I nod because I'm so nervous that I'll puke if I open my mouth. How did this happen? I don't know, but I know, suddenly, that it is right.

I turn back and see the light still on- and I run home.

This time I've made up my mind.

I know there's things in my life that I'm going to let go starting tonight.