I didn't want to leave the beach. We kissed more.
But then, becoming self-conscious of the sunbathers who watched us but pretended not to, we walked hand-in-hand back to his car, putting on our shoes when we got off of the sand.
"Let's get your son."
We walked into my parents' modest suburban house to pick up Rob, and my mother-who was no taller than me-reached up and pinched Jake's cheeks. Oh, for crying out loud, he wasn't twelve too. Then she looked at me and said, "Lucinda, he is muy guapo."
"I know, Mom."
My mom turned to Jake. "It's so nice to meet you. I like how you call me to bring my Lucinda her soup when she was sick. Mijo, how are you? How is your papa?"
He gave her his melancholy half-grin, which was nevertheless devastating, and I saw my mom, not immune to his charms, falter a second and recover. "It's nice to meet you in person, and thanks for asking, Mrs. Figueroa. He's not doing that well. I'm going to go back and get him after I drop Lucy and Roberto home."
"I'm so sorry to hear that," said my mom. "I will pray for him."
"Thank you," said Jake politely, and he looked around the living room. A bookshelf held copies of my books. Pictures of me and Roberto and other family members were framed and put on the walls and on shelves. Neat but cluttered.
Then I realized that Jake didn't have a family home like this and never would. I couldn't give him a different past. We'd have to work on a different future.
My dad had been in the den watching television, but he came out and sized Jake up. My dark-haired, mustached father wore a plaid, button-down shirt, jeans, and a large belt buckle. He looked like he belonged in the country, even though he was a mechanic in the city. Standing next to Jake it was immediately apparent that height was inherited. My father came up to about Jake's shoulders. Boy.
"It is nice to meet you, Jake. I wish your father a speedy recovery," said my dad formally.
"Thank you Mr. Figueroa, it's nice to meet you too. And yes, I hope he gets well soon."
"Now. You must eat. You need to keep up your strength to take care of your papa." My mom took his hand and pulled him to the dining room table. "Sit down, I will bring you food. I have chile colorado, frijoles, arroz-"
"Mom, he's not used to people fussing over him," I started, but she completely ignored me. I eyed Jake, and he looked amused. Oh well, he did need to eat.
And I supposed he needed to also get used to having people take care of him.
"Lucy, did you have lunch?" called my mom from the kitchen.
"No."
"I'll make you lunch, too." What was it with food being equal to love? I supposed that being fed meant that you were cared for. This was normal for me. My mom always took care of me like this. She worked in a grocery store, after all.
But I thought that even though this was normal for me, it was probably strange for Jake.
The more I thought about these things, the more I wanted to expose him to them, and make it so that they were his new normal. I was so glad that he was going to let me help him stop being a workaholic businessman and start being just Jake.
Then my son walked in the room, sock-clad, looking rested.
"What did you do today, mijo?"
"Watched the Rose Parade and football. Played games with abuelo."
"How much Minecraft did you play?"
"Some." Then he spotted Jake. "Mister Jake, you're here!" And he ran over and gave him a hug.
Well.
Now I wasn't jealous of my own child, but I noticed that he didn't give me a kiss, but Jake got a full-on welcome with a hug.
Interesting.
But Jake needed a full-on welcome from a child. And I loved that my son seemed to really like Jake. The next thing I knew, Jake had asked Rob about his science fair project, and was agreeing to help him make something. Glory and hallelujah, I didn't have to do it.
My mom served us plates of tacos and sat down with us. She turned to Jake.
"Do you read her novels? They are as spicy as my chile colorado."
"Mom!"
"It's true, mija."
"She likes to embarrass me," I told Jake.
"I'll have to read them," he said. "Priority."
Just then the door opened and my younger sister Celia walked in. "Hey!" she said. "Happy New Year!"
Because she lived in Los Angeles, we saw her on holidays and today was no exception. My brother was too far away to see often. My sister worked as a makeup artist at a high end salon and loved it. While she was two years younger, in all other respects, she was my twin-same looks, same body, same high maintenance, same attitude.
"Celia," my mom said. "Mija, how was the drive? Not too bad?"
"Not too bad. Lucy, you feeling better?"
"Mostly. I'm not all the way back to normal."
She turned and gave Rob a kiss, squeezing his cheeks, hugged my mom and dad, and then noticed Jake. She put her hands on her hip, all sassy-Lucy. But I guess it was sassy-Celia.
"Who's this, Lucy?"
"Nice manners. This is Jake, my boyfriend."
"How'd you get one of them to come to life?"
"Stop it! He's a real person."
Jake stood up. "I'm Jake Slausen. Nice to meet you."
"Celia Figueroa." Then she turned to me. "Jesus, Lucy, I know you waited forever to find one, but how did you find this one?"
I rolled my eyes. "Nice, real nice. And he found me." And I proceeded to tell her about how he walked in on me in my bikini. She laughed and pulled up a chair and had tacos with us. Rob sat next to his grandfather, talking his ear off about Minecraft. But I heard Rob tell my dad about how Carlos took him to a rock shop so they could look at all of the rocks that were in Minecraft, like lapis lazuli. And that's not what I expected Carlos to ever do. Huh. Meanwhile, my mom and sister peppered Jake with questions about art and photography and law.
"So what do you see in my sister?" asked Celia. "She's always got her head in the clouds, all these ideas in books."
"Oh my God," I said, and gave her a push.
"She seems pretty squared away to me," Jake replied. And I loved him for saying that because I'd worked hard my entire adult life to be pretty squared away for my kid. He'd noticed.
I was glad to give Jake some glimpses of my family, because when he was with me, I was at home, and I thought the same was true for him.
A few weekends later, Roberto went to his dad's, and Jake and I attended the final art class of this session. At the end of the class, after I'd dressed, I walked over to him at the easel, and he showed me what he'd drawn. With intricate, exquisite detail, he'd captured my body on paper-my small waist darting in from my booty, the strength of my legs, the tips of my nipples. Using a single line, he'd drawn my cheekbone, and with another, the under edge of my lower lip.
But the part of the paper where he hadn't drawn anything also mattered. I'd heard the professor talking about negative space from time to time-the idea that the seemingly empty visual space around an object, not necessarily the object itself, could be drawn. Rather than fill up the paper with clutter, Jake drew the essentials, just what was needed to convey the subject-namely me-and no more. This left a lot of blank paper, but it felt vibrant, not barren.
He needed negative space in his life too. We all did. We often went through life trying to fill it up with work, activity, noise, and busy-ness. And while all of those things could be fun-I loved the activity-we also needed quiet time to write, create, and live our lives. I thought that's what Jake had been doing-burying himself in his work and his busy-ness, so that he didn't have to really live. And who could blame him for being fearful of really living his life? His childhood had been super scary. For so long, he'd avoided the fear, and side-stepped his life, by filling it up with work. This way, there'd been no room for living. He slept, ate, exercised, and went to work, and filled up all of the space on the paper of his life. No art to it.
Now, finally, he was starting to live, to not pack so much work into his days. To instead trust that it was okay to be unscheduled. That was how I operated-I normally wrote when Rob was in school, but not on any particularly rigid schedule. With joy, I watched him start to get that roominess in his days, paring down his list of things to do to what was essential and allowing for free time on his calendar, so that he could live his life for real. So far, so good with keeping his vow to not work so much. He'd started coming home at six or seven o'clock, sometimes earlier. Since previously, his habit had been to come back at nine o'clock, this was major progress. I didn't say a word about it. Inside, though, I was dancing. Yay.
Things were looking brighter for me, too. Amelia had called me after New Year's. She'd successfully gotten Carlos's paycheck docked for child support. We had a hearing scheduled where we would hash it all out-the kiss in the courthouse, the trip to Las Vegas, the fight, all of it-but the court had ordered Carlos and me to a family law mediation process. This was where we met with a mediator and tried to negotiate a child custody settlement out of court. While I didn't want to talk to Carlos, Amelia assured me that I would be in a separate room and I didn't have to see him. Fine. That wasn't for a few weeks, though. If we didn't resolve it, then we would have a full-scale hearing. I was worried about the cost of all of this, and I hated having the uncertainty stress me out. So I'd go to the mediation.