Jesse finally spotted his suitcases coming down the shute. After waiting 35 minutes on top of a 10 hour flight he was exhausted. All he wanted to do was go home and shower. He grabbed his cases as they made their way around the belt and he headed out of the airport. He followed the crowd of people as they went from hallway to hallway. When they came threw the arrival doors they were met with 100 smiling, anticipating faces. It was hard to spot who you were looking for in a crowd of so many. His eyes roamed the crowd and finally made contact with a pair of familiar brown eyes. He smiled when he saw her and headed in her direction. When he reached her she gave him a bright smile and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

"Hello baby cousin!" He teased and picked her up.

"Wow. You've gotten old on your journeys." She said pointing out his little patches of grey hairs above his ears.

"I haven't been home in a while so there's been some changes." He said with a smile.

"18 years is a long time." She said with a frown. "Not just a while" she said mocking him.

"18 years? I've been home since then." He said wrapping an arm around Maria's shoulder and heading off to her car.

"Oh sorry. How could I forget that one time you came home for 2 days!"

"At least I was home."

"Only because…well because she got sick." His smile fell at the mention of his mother and his heart began to swell. He coughed and smiled slightly.

"You know…A business needs someone to run it." She rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"You didn't even introduce us to your wife." She said.

"Which one?" He laughed but felt uncomfortable at the same time. She shot him a look from the corner of her eye that she said didn't approve of his three marriages, his last one ending only 3 months ago.

"So…how's Diego?" he asked, clearly changing the subject.

"Oh, he's ok. He's been getting into trouble at school lately." She said with a frustrated mother's sigh.

"How old is he again?"

"15." Jesse shook his head.

"I guess I need to start coming home more often." He said.

"He's looking forward to seeing you. After you're mom…died….well he's taken it pretty hard. It'll be good that you're home." She unlocked her little red punch buggy and he smirked.

"Nice car."

"Hey don't be "hating" the bug, as Diego would say. Do you know that they call him D at school? I didn't go through 10 hours of labour to have my son be called D." Maria tutted as she started the car and Jesse chuckled.

"You sounded just like her."

"Well went you live with someone for your entire life you tend to be like them."

"You still live at home then?"

"No. I moved in with my boyfriend 6 months ago." She said with a smile. "You'll like him. He's very funny."

"Funny I remember you saying the same thing about Diego's father too." Jesse said and Maria frowned.

"Dominic is different." She said focusing on merging with the highway traffic.

"How so?" Jesse asked.

"Well…he's older and he's funny."

"You said that already."

"He goes to church, I didn't say that yet." Jesse stared at her like she had 3 heads.

"What? Did I just hear you say you go to church? Every Sunday?" He asked.

"I said he goes to church every Sunday." Jesse chuckled.

"I can only imagine how Diego would react to you asking him to go to church on Sunday morning. "So if you live with this…"

"Dominic."

"Dominic guy…who's taking care of dad?" He watched her face go from pink and happy to colorless and thoughtful. He knew before she even spoke who it was. "Huh, so she still lives next door then?"

"Yes. She inherited the house when her mother died. That and a little bit of an extra profit." She smiled and looked at him through the corner of her eye.

"Is she married?"

"Why thinking about making her wifey number 6?" she teased.

"No, she'd be wifey number 4." He smirked. "I just want to know." She smiled and raised her eyebrows.

"No she has never married and I don't think she's about too."

"Huh…She lives in that big house by herself?"

"Yea she shares it with her brother and…" Her face changed and she shrugged. "They've got a dog."

"She hates dogs."

"Hated I think is the term your looking for. She's different than she used to be in high school. Happier." Maria said and Jesse nodded. He was glad that she was happy but he had hoped that she would've been a little bit unhappy without him. But here she was rich and happy but herself with a dog! He sighed deeply.

"Let's change the subject." Maria said trying to lift his spirits.

"Ok." He smiled slightly. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Tell me about you wives. In order please." She said with a smirk.

"You don't want to here that story!" He said with a chuckle.

"No I do. Come on spill it!" He sighed and rested his head against the seat.

"Alright. Isobella was my first wife and I met her while I was traveling through Italy. Her family owns a ranch in the country and they are famous for their wine and cheese, believe it or not."

"Oh very "A Walk in the Clouds". Nice touch." Maria said and he smirked.

"Wasn't the girl Greek in that movie?" He asked,

"Yea and pregnant too, but those are just minor details. Go on." He chuckled.

"Well her family did inspire me to start my own wine brewery. So I started my own business. Which I managed to do because we got divorced and I received a large sum of her inheritance." Maria shook her head. "What? It's not like it ended on bad terms. We just grew apart. I still email her occasionally. She's married again and has two babies."

"Uhuh…go on. Wifey number 2."

"Well before her I traveled to Spain. I stayed with Abuela Maria for 6 months. Then I found a big chunk of land and bought it. I started planting the crops and built the house. I met Jacqlynn while me house was being built. I hired her father to design and build my house for me, which is beautiful by the way. You would love it! It has fantastic views and huge bay windows, high ceilings and-"

"Hold on. How old was she?" Maria asked.

"Why does that matter?"

"You hired her father, which means he was young enough to still work, which means that she must've been really young." Maria concluded.

"She was 21, when we married." She gasped.

"She was practically a baby!" He shook his head.

"She was no baby! Besides I wasn't that much older than her."

"How old?" Maria looked at him briefly and he coughed and then smiled.

"28." He mumbled.

"28! My goodness. She's just a child."

"That was years ago Maria."

"Why did you spilt up?"

"Same reason why I left Isobella…"

"Don't say money or I'll kill you myself."

"No it wasn't money." He rolled his eyes. "They were…well it was difference of personality and goals in life, different goal what we never shared."

"As in…?"

"Well…with Isobella, she wanted to settle down but I wasn't done traveling yet. I had already spent 3 years in Italy, because we got married. I didn't want to stay in Italy forever."

"Selfish." Maria mumbled and Jesse smirked.

"Yes maybe…I was young then."

"And the other one? Jac something?"

"Jacqlynn? She wanted kids and I didn't." Maria sighed. "Alright, tell me about the last one. I've prepared myself."

"Lilly-Anne?" She looked at him with her eyes wide and he smiled.

"Her name was…" Maria shook her head. "I've changed my mind. I don't want to know."

"Yes you do. She was from Britain. I had met her while I traveled through there. We had a fling while I was there, but it never went anywhere. Then one day she shows up at my doorstep and we got to talking. One thing led to another and two months later she back at my door telling me that she was carrying my child."

"I never knew you-You never said anything!"

"Let me finish." She sighed and slowed down on the off ramp. They were about 10 minutes from the house. "The respectable thing to do was marry her, so I did. By this point I was 34 and ready for that kind of life. I was excited for that baby, although its mother, at times, I could hardly stand to look at let alone sleep in the same bed as her. I wanted that baby and would put of with Lilly's selfish needy ways. I can still remember sitting with her 14 hours of labour and when I looked at that baby I knew. He was paler than she was and he had bright red hair. You think one of my kids will have red hair?" He asked her and she shrugged.

"You never know."

"No…it's not possible. She begged me to make it work and that it was a mistake, but every time I looked at him I felt disappointment. I gave her a large sum of money, we signed the divorce papers and she left with the baby. She took the money along with my ambition to get married again and to have children." They pulled into the driveway of the old house and Maria sighed.

"I almost feel bad for you." She said with a mischievous smile and he rolled his eyes. They were never good at the mushy stuff. She chuckled and got out of the car. "Come on let's get your stuff inside."

As he got out of the car a bright red 2011 Ford Mustang pulled into the driveway next door. A man got out of the car and said something to the blonde girl in the passenger seat. He wore a dark blue baseball cap and a white t-shirt with brown boat shorts and flip-flops. He raced up to the house and flung open the door, disappearing into the house.

"Who was that?" Jesse asked, turning to Maria. She turned away from him and focused on getting his heavy suitcase into the house. "Maria?"

"Huh?" She looked up and then over at the house. "I don't see anybody." She said with a shrug and quickly walked into the house. He sighed and looked over at the car still running in the driveway. It was a nice car; expensive; something that he could see himself driving. He shook his head as he grabbed his last bag and shut the trunk.

"Uncle J!" Diego said from the top of the stairs. He was a tall kid for 15 and thick skinned. His hair was dark and curly, like Maria's, but his skin was light and his eye were blue. He had a mouthful of braces and enough confidence to show them off in a huge grin.

"D!" Jesse said and Maria shot him a glare as she carried his bag upstairs. Jesse wrapped his arms around the teen and smiled up at her.

"Oh you heard about that, huh?" Diego smiled as he stepped back. "She tends to get touchy about the smallest stuff."

"She's always been like that."

"I can still here you!" Her voice drifted down the stairs.

"Here I'll take your bag upstairs for you." Diego said with a smile and lifted the bag as if it were empty. Jesse smiled. There was a time when he would've been able to do that, but with his lack of exercise and his new obsession with Cool Ranch Doritos, he could no longer do that without breathing heavy.

"Hector?" Jesse's real name was called from the living room. He smiled as headed in that general direction. His father sat in front of the window, the sun beaming through the window and lighting up his face. His wrinkled dark skin looked smooth and soft and his faded blue eyes were glossy. He wore a green sweater and sat with a blanket over his lap as if it were the middle of January, rather than the beginning of July.

"Hi dad." Jesse said walking to his father's chair. He knelt down beside the chair and grabbed his father's hand. His eye's flicked to Jesse's general direction but did not see. They hadn't seen anything for over 10 years and Jesse was still getting used to the idea of his father being blind.

"Good to see you son." He said with a wheezy chuckle. Jesse smiled at his father's sense of humor and patted his hand.

"You too dad."

"You've got grey hair!" His father said with a satisfactory smile.

"How…How'd you know?" Jesse asked stunned.

"I don't. I just guessed." His father laughed. "At your age ¾ of my hair was grey. Most of that was your doing."

"Well someone had to keep you on your toes. Mom coddled you too much." His father laughed and looked out the window, lifting his face towards the sun.

"Beautiful day huh?" Jesse nodded and the realized that his father couldn't see him nod.

"Yes, beautiful."

"You're mother would've been out tending her roses. Even if she had just come home from Chemotherapy she would tend to those flowers." He said with a fond smile. "Of course it wouldn't last very long before she had to come inside and lie down. Stubborn, that's what she was." Jesse's throat tightened at the fond words about his mother. He could picture her in her white rain boots and overalls, humming away as she tended to the flowers. "She loved those roses." His father sighed and rested his head against the seat. Jesse stared as he spotted a single tear roll down his cheek.

"Son?"

"Ci Papi?"

"You'll make sure that you take care of the roses, wont you?" He asked and Jesse nodded again. "I'll take your silence for a yes." Jesse laughed.

"Ci papi, of course."

"Max'll do that, Abuelo." Diego said interrupting them. Jesse looked up confused.

"Max? Who's Max?"

"He li-"

"Aunt Ella hired him to tend to the lawn and garden when she wasn't feeling up to it." Maria said cutting off Diego.

"I can do it." Jesse said and both Maria and Diego gave him a skeptical look. "What? I can!"

` "Not the way that Aunt Ella did." Maria said with a shrug. She sat in an arm chair across from them and opened a novel next to the chair.

"Yea, Aunt Ella spent hours showing Max how to cut the flowers perfectly." Diego said, leaning against the arm chair.

"Why didn't she show you?" Jesse asked him and Diego flinched. "Why'd she have to hire him?"

"He didn't have the patience to learn." His father smiled.

"But Max said he'll teach me." Diego said staring at his socked feet.

"He will Diego, be patient." Maria said. "He's taken her death just as hard as the rest of us have."

"Ya well, he hasn't been here in 6 days. The roses are going to die if he doesn't take care of them."

"Hector?" Jesse's father said with a sigh.

"Yes?"
"You go and check on them." He said patting his son's hand.

"Now papi?

"Ci."

"Do you know how to cut them?" Diego asked skeptically and Jesse shrugged.

"Mom showed me once or twice."

"But he didn't have the patience either." Jesse's father laughed and Diego looked triumphant. "Please son?"

"Ok Papi. I'll go."

Jesse grabbed the garden scissors from the kitchen and headed out to the front yard. The roses did need to be trimmed but they weren't hurting that much. They were beautiful blooming red and white roses. Jesse sighed and knelt down in front of a red rose bush and started cutting.

10 minutes later her heard someone shout "Hey! Get away from there!" from behind him. Startled Jesse stood up and backed away from the flowers as the man wearing the blue baseball cap marched towards him. As he got closer, Jesse noticed that he was just a kid, maybe 17 or 18.

"I'm guessing that you're Max?" Jesse said with a smirk.

"Fucking right! Now what the hell are you doing to those flowers? Look you butchered them." Max bent down and inspected the flowers.

"I did not butcher them! I cut them the way my mother would have." Jesse watched with satisfaction as the boy froze. Max sighed and stood up.

"Sorry man. No disrespect. This was just…our thing. Mine and Ella's I mean." He said staring at the flowers with such sadness. He was just a bit shorter than Jesse and his face was smooth and pimple free.

"You're a bit young for her, aren't you?" Jesse asked. To his surprise Max laughed. There was something familiar about that smile.

"No, it wasn't like that. She was like a grandmother to me." His eyes met Jesse's and Jesse had the weird sensation that he was staring into a mirror.

"Huh…" Jesse said, squinting his eyes at the boy.

"I can finish them for you if you want." Max held out his hands for the scissors. Jesse coughed and handed them over.

"Mind if I watch you? So that I don't butcher them next time." Max smirked up at him.

"Sorry about that. I don't mind if you watch." Jesse nodded and leaned against the stair railing and studied the boy as he cut the flowers.

"So…how old are you?" Jesse asked.

"18."

"You like sports?"

"Who doesn't?" Max said with a smile.

"What's your favorite sport?"

"Well I like to play soccer, but footballs more my thing."

"When's your birthday?" Max looked up at him confused.

"What is this? 20 questions?"

"Sorry, I was just curious." Max studied Jesse's face and then turned back to the rose bush.

"Well…just curious, but how old are you?"

"36. My birthday's February 23." Max smirked and Jesse smiled back. At that moment a black Maybach 57 pulled into the driveway next door. It quietly turned off and slowly Suze got out of the car. She hadn't changed that much since high school. Her hair was cut in a bob and she was still stick thin. Her hips might've been wider and her breast larger, but that came with age. She wore a black turtleneck shirt, with short sleeves and grey dress pants, which to Jesse's unfortunate approval, made her butt look really good. She wore a pair of large dark sunglasses, but he didn't need to see her eyes to know that she had spotted him. She froze as she draped her large Louis Vuitton bag on her arm and carried a sleek black briefcase in the other. Her lips made a straight line as she pressed them together nervously. He smiled at her and she looked down at the keys in her hands, locked the car and headed up to the house.

As she reached the steps Max stood up, spotted her and shouted "Hey Mom!" Jesse looked back at him then towards Suze and watched her drop her bag on the porch. She might as well have opened her mouth in a gaping manor. She stared at them behind her sunglasses and Jesse could almost see the nervous sweat forming on her brow.

"She's your mom?" Jesse asked him in a low tone.

"No I just call random people Mom for fun." Max said sarcastically and Jesse smirked. He sounded just like her when he talked. "Don't get any funny ideas either!" Max said with a warning as he handed Jesse the scissors and headed for his house.

"Funny. Listen…want to come over tomorrow and show me how to cut the roses again?" Max looked at his mother still standing watching them.

"Sure. Is 10 ok?"

"In the morning?" Jesse asked shocked that a boy of his age got up before 12.

"Yea. I normally take the dog for a run around 7:30." Max said with a shrug.

"Huh…Can I join you?" It was Max's turn to look surprised. A smooth smile slid over his face.

"Think you can keep up?" Jesse smirked at the boy.

"I think I'll manage." Max sized him up.

"Even size 6, marathon runner up there cant keep up with me." Max said pointing over his shoulder at his mother.

"She runs marathons?" Jesse asked amazed.

"Sometimes." Max said smiling at her. "So, you sure you want to do this?"

"7:30." Jesse said and held out his hand.

"7:30!" Max said shaking his hand.

"I'm Jesse De Sliva by the way."

"I know. I've heard all about you." He said and then ran up his driveway, kissed his mother's cheek and disappeared inside. She looked at Jesse with an expression that he couldn't place. He watched as she sighed, shook her head and then went inside.