Page 53 of Starting Back
“Happens when people get older. I’m just grateful we have them as long as we do.”
His eyes darted away for a moment, a sad smile drifting across his mouth when he turned back toward me. I’d known my aunt and uncle more than twice as long as I’d known my own parents, and they’d become my mother and father in every sense of the words over the years.
I was grateful to have them too, and I should have shown them a hell of a lot more than I’d done for my entire life.
I hoped I’d have a chance to make up for it.
“Have the kids seen him yet?”
Gabe shook his head. He lived about fifteen minutes from his parents with his wife and two kids. If my aunt and uncle were as bad as he was warning me they were, it was going to be hard to take care of them and still be there for his family.
“Jessenia helps her grandmother all the time, but she isn’t going to know how to react to seeing her favorite person bedridden. Louie is a lot like you, doesn’t sit still but takes in all that’s going on. We explained it to them last night, and they haven’t said much.”
After Gabe parked, I followed him to the hospital entrance. I could feel the tension radiate off him as we walked.
“I won’t stay away so long again,” I told Gabe when we stepped onto the elevator. “At forty, I should grow the fuck up, no?”
He shook his head when the elevator dinged on our floor.
“As I said, I wasn’t getting on you for not visiting in a while. It’s not a question of growing up, but we’d like to see you slow down a little so you could give yourself a chance to enjoy your life. All we’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy, no matter where you are.” He slapped my arm and pointed to the open doorway of one of the rooms.
“Leo’s here!” Tía Lucia’s eyes grew wide when they met mine. She sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, her brown helmet of hair we always teased her about tucked under a kerchief. I guessed she hadn’t been keeping up with the weekly salon appointments she’d always made a priority, and it already hurt to see her looking so unlike herself.
She scooted to the edge of the vinyl cushion chair to get up. My chest squeezed when she tried to hold on to the chair arms to stand but couldn’t get enough of a grip to pull herself up.
“Ción, tía. Easy, I’ll come to you.”
I knelt in front of her, taking her thin, quivering hands in mine before kissing her cheek. “Of course, I’m here.”
“D-dios te bendiga.” My stomach dropped at how much she struggled through her usual blessing and the helplessness in her glossy, frustrated eyes.
I swiveled my head when the bed creaked behind me.
Gabe was right. There wasn’t any training that could have prepared me for what I was seeing. Instead of boisterous and vital, the man in the bed was a shell of whom I’d always known my uncle to be.
The corner of his mouth drooped as his entire side slumped into the mattress. His eyes were glassy as he moved his head back and forth, his chest heaving up and down.
I leaned over to check where the IV penetrated his arm, an urge from the nurse in me. My eyes followed the line up to where the machine ticked and whooshed, filtering whatever was in the bag into his veins. His arm still looked strong, like he could pop up and slap me on the back as he always did whenever he saw me.
A frustrated growl erupted from his throat when his hand on his good side floundered against the mattress as he attempted to sit up.
I squeezed my aunt’s hands and stood, shaking my head as I made my way over to the bed. Whereas my aunt seemed frail, tío Joe was still solid and stocky, which probably made his frustration over the loss of control over his own body even more difficult to bear.
“Hey, tío. Don’t get up on my account, you lie down and rest.” His eyes lit up as he peered up at me, the smile he couldn’t form with his mouth reflecting in his eyes.
“You must have rushed here. Did you eat, mijo?”
I shot a look at Gabe. He closed his eyes and nodded. Her soft voice was strained as if it was taking all her strength to get it out.
“I’ll eat later, tía. Don’t worry about me.”
“That’s hard.” She laughed, looking between Gabe and me. “I always worry about my boys.”
Gabe smiled, a tiny chuckle jerking his shoulders. I’d always been close to them, but when they’d had to take me in, I’d felt like an intruder. I was blood, but not their own. Gabe and I always looked enough alike to pass for brothers, but I fought hard not to belong with them at first.
My anger at losing my parents had made me lash out at the beginning before I realized how fortunate I was that they chose to take care of an emotionally fucked-up and ornery teenager. They’d always treated me like a son, not a nephew.
And like any son, I shouldn’t have been this far away from the only parents and family I had left—especially when they needed me.
