Page 84 of The Secret Dinner

As I hugged my weary mother and she cried on my shoulder, I felt a complete and utter detachment, and with it came a depressing realization: If I didn’t belong in this world anymore, where did I belong? I’d turned into an entitled little bitch, fawning over the filthy rich in exchange for money in the bank and fuel for my ego. It was a truth too painful to accept, at least not without a healthy dose of angst.

“You look different,” my mother said. I hadn’t looked at myself in the mirror all day. Was she saying that because of Miguel? Or the drugs? Mothers have a freakish sixth sense about those things. “Come here, you need to eat something.”

The house was full but silent. I greeted some of my mother’s friends and introduced Cora to everyone, since clearly Piglet wasn’t going to—he’d always been terrible at social etiquette and seemed even worse now. Mrs. Marina, Hugo’s mother, was a very short woman, but she looked even smaller. She got up from the table to give me a hug before saying a word to her own son. She looked over at him scared, unsure of how to approach him after all those years apart. Their greeting was detached, heavy with heartache. Maybe her husband was still beating her. Hugo hated that she’d never stood up to him. This, combined with their intellectual gap and his unbridled vanity, prevented him from feeling true affection for his mother. What he really felt was shame. And anger.

We ate corn cake and talked very little—any word sounded wrong in that situation. I didn’t see Miguel’s mom until the wake. When we arrived at the small chapel next to the cemetery, she was standing beside the coffin, her dry eyes fixed on Miguel’s face. What mothers feel for their children isn’t just love, it’s something much stronger. As I hugged her, I understood that the reason she wasn’t crying is because the dead don’t cry, and that’s how she was. She was still breathing, but she was dead.

The pain I felt was more than emotional; it was also physical. My chest and eyes burned, and my legs felt like they had been crushed in a vise. Shaking off my stupor, I walked up to the coffin and started to bawl, everything I’d been keeping bottled up finally released: I cried for the people in cages at a slaughterhouse somewhere in Rio de Janeiro, I cried for that poor man desperately searching for his missing fiancée, I cried for my best friend.

Miguel was the most trustworthy, kind, and companionable guy I knew. Once, during my sophomore year of college, an ex told me he’d contracted HIV. We’d had sex a couple of times without a condom, and desperate, full of shame, guilt, and regret, I asked Miguel for help. He had important classes he couldn’t skip that day, but he insisted on coming to the clinic with me for a test. Before I even got the results back, he told me I should have been more careful but explained that being HIV-positive wasn’t the end of the world. The test came back negative, but if it hadn’t, I knew I had the best possible person by my side. Miguel was my confidant, the brother I never had. In losing him, I had also lost a part of myself.

The thought of hitting rock bottom can be comforting. You think when you’ve finally gotten there, the only way to go is up. Turns out, rock bottom doesn’t exist. Things can always get worse.

I was talking quietly with Piglet in a corner when Rachel walked into the room and approached the coffin, wearing sunglasses and holding a bouquet of white roses. She touched her ex-boyfriend’s cold forehead, placed the flowers on his pale hands clasped together over his belly, and seemed to be mouthing a prayer. Then she turned to us, taking off her sunglasses. Her eyes were red and sad but also filled with hatred.

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?” she shouted. “It’s your fault he’s dead!”

I couldn’t even believe it. I feigned offense, looking to my mother for backup. Cora took cover behind Piglet and Hugo grabbed Rachel violently by the arm.

“Stop spewing nonsense. Get out of here.”

“You killed Miguel! You’re all traitorous pieces of shit! You killed Miguel!”

She pointed at us like we were lepers. Wracked with sobs, she tried to break her thin body free from Hugo and attract more attention. People began to murmur, watching the show and shooting us accusatory looks. I wanted to kill Rachel. All I had to do was call Umberto and tell him that bitch was a threat, and that would be the end of her. I knew I had that kind of power, and for the first time, listening to her shrill screams, I thought about using it.

After some hassle, Hugo and two other guys finally managed to drag Rachel outside. I sat there quietly like nothing had happened, eager for time to hurry up and pass. Around half past four, the funeral procession began. I made a point of volunteering to be a pallbearer. As the gravedigger shoveled the dirt, my mother closed her eyes and squeezed my hands, feeling my cold skin.

It was only after most people had already left that I finally went over to Miguel’s mom. I’d briefly spoken to her during the wake, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something still pending, an unanswered question occupying an invisible space between us. I gave her another hug and kissed her wrinkled forehead, and told her again how she was like a second mother to me.

“I’m going to get you the money for your treatment,” I promised, but she was barely listening. I’d decided that I was going to take on that responsibility to try to make up for the whole shitty mess. Miguel’s final calls before he died had been to me. Thirteen missed calls. What had he wanted to tell me? Why hadn’t he texted me instead? It must have been something important, something he’d rather have said face-to-face.

I went home and tried to sleep without taking anything, embraced by the nostalgia of my teenage bedroom. But no matter how hard I closed my eyes and tried to clear my head, I couldn’t shake the feeling that my friend’s death had nothing to do with the violence of Rio de Janeiro, that it wasn’t just a coincidence.

That Miguel’s death had been planned.

2

On Monday morning, my mother filled the kitchen table with my favorite foods and sat down with the look of someone who wanted to have a conversation. My dad had already left for work and Piglet was still asleep in the guest room with Cora, so it was just the two of us. As she poured me a glass of chocolate milk, she asked how much longer I’d be staying in Pingo. I lied and said I’d already bought my return ticket back to Rio for the next day. She complained, but the truth was I couldn’t wait to leave.

“I have to work. I’m the manager now.”

“Manager?” She sounded surprised. “I didn’t know!”

“Yeah … So much else has happened that I forgot to tell you.”

“Congratulations, sweetheart.” She helped herself to a piece of bread, glanced around the table, filled her coffee cup, crossed and uncrossed her legs. I knew my mother well enough to know that she was trying to pluck up the courage to make a point. “That girl who made a scene at the funeral … Do you know her?”

“That’s Rachel, Miguel’s ex-girlfriend. Why?”

“What did she mean by those things, Dante?”

“I have no idea.”

“She said you killed Miguel…”

“Why don’t you ask her if you’re so curious,” I retorted, realizing too late how rude that sounded. I tried to fix it: “Rachel never liked us, she was extremely jealous, and she blamed us when Miguel ended things with her.”

“Do you know why they broke up?”