Page 135 of Contempt

“Like what? Because you know I’m here, too, right?”

He did look up at that statement, and his hands froze on his grinder. “I know that, Lucia.”

“Just making sure.”

Renzo smiled.

She winked.

He needed what he needed.

She didn’t judge or push.

“I found my mom,” he muttered, going back to his work as soon as he let those words escape his lips. “I thought … it’d been years, you know? Maybe she would be willing to try now. Maybe she was sick and tired of being sick and fucking tired, Lucia. I thought a lot of things, and so I went looking for her.”

“You didn’t tell me you wanted to find your mom.”

“I was going through some shit about her.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

“She can’t get better for me and Rose, you know,” he said, sighing. “It’s too late for us—we’re adults, and doing our own thing. But Diego, he’s still a kid. She could get better for him. Make a fucking effort, and fix the shit that’s wrong before it’s too late like it is for the rest of us.”

“Ren …”

“She just asked me for money and then when I wouldn’t give her any, she called me a bastard and said she was gonna call the cops on me.”

Lucia wished she could be angry.

Or surprised.

Really, she just felt numb.

A lot like the way he sounded.

“Diego’s got what he needs, Ren,” she said.

He nodded. “Yeah, but he also needs a mom. He doesn’t need someone who acts like his mom, or whatever, he needs her. The real fucking thing. I know, Lucia, because I needed her. I needed her and all she ever wanted to do was give everything she had to the drugs she pumped into her body. Our father, well, he’s a lost cause. Dead, I guess.”

“What?”

“He had a heart attack a couple months back,” Renzo said, dropping cut up bud into a folded up paper to roll. “I know where he’s buried. Haven’t been there yet, but it’s on my mind lately, too. So, yeah … I went looking.”

She could tell he was just talking to talk. He was giving her details because he felt like she needed to know them. She wanted to know, sure, but it was always up to him on whether or not he was willing to share.

She didn’t push.

“You want a minute?” she asked.

Renzo licked the line of the paper, and passed her a look. “Depends on if you want to share this smoke with me, baby.”

Lucia laughed. “Not while you’re in the tub.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Listen, some of us use the bathtub for its intended purpose, Ren, which is to take a bath.”

“I use it for that, too.”