“I know. I just wish that asshole had told me the truth, not left me a message barking about vacations. Not to mention all the cash we’ll lose from this.”
“Don’t think about that. We’ll figure something out,” I say as we reach the trellis and Benson races across the parking lot to get the car.
“Yeah, yeah. Listen, don’t tell Maria, she’ll freak. And be careful with Bob.”
“Don’t worry about me. Aiden is all over it.” I look at Aiden. Black clouds are descending on his eyes, shoulders ready to demolish concrete. A flicker of hope glimmers in the void. I can’t imagine anyone—ICE or fire—brave enough to mess with him.
“I’m glad you have him,” Javier says in a quiet voice. And I realize something just changed for him with Aiden.
“Thank you,” I say, the words so fervent that Aiden looks down at me, his eyes stilling in concentration.
“Do everything you can to stay, sweetheart. No matter the cost.”
“We will. Love you, Javier.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up and hand the phone to Aiden. He is looking at me with an odd expression in his eyes—as though he is imagining something.
“He says he’s glad I have you. And that we should do everything we can.”
He nods, the V deepening, and yanks me by the arm as the Rover comes to a screeching stop in front of us. We climb in and peel away from the curb the instant my seat belt buckle clicks. Patty and Jack wave at us from the garden shop door.
“I have to babysit the girls tonight,” I whisper, now dreading the hours apart with every electron in my body.
If Aiden was tense before, it’s nothing to how he looks now. His arms lock around me like iron bars. “Elisa!” he protests though his teeth. “You’re almost fainting!”
“I know, but they have Antonio’s physical therapy and Javier has to work. I’ll be fine at Casa Solis, don’t worry.” I solder myself to him, gripping his arm.
Waves of tension roll over him like aftershocks. Or maybe foreshocks. But he takes a deep breath and cups my face. “I’m not letting you be alone tonight. You can babysit at home.” His shoulders twitch at the mere idea.
“At home?” I blink at him, mouth open. “B-but…you—what about your…distance and startle reflex?” For some reason, I whisper the last two words.
“I’ll lock myself in the library. You can have the rest of the house. Cora can help. I don’t want you alone—” He pauses. “And I don’t want to be away from you either. Not even for a minute.”
For one blinding moment, the terror disappears and I’m just a girl in love. For the first time. For the last time.
* * * * *
Seven hours later, during which Aiden assimilated three treatises and the entire three thousand pages of America’s immigration code, Benson parks the Range Rover in front of Casa Solis, Aiden and me behind him in the Aston Martin. The plan: the girls and I will drive in the Rover with Benson and Aiden will follow us, lest the girls touch his back by mistake.
Maria is out in the yard, watering the daffodils, while the girls teach Anamelia how to ride their one pink bike with silver tinsel on the handlebars.
“¡Ah! Amorcita,” Maria cries as she sees me climb out. She waddles to her feet and wipes her hands on the apron printed with suns. The girls dart around me, Anamelia crashing her bike into the Rover’s tire.
“¿Linda, estás bien? Pareces cansada. ¿Tienes frio?” Maria feels my forehead and pulls down my eyelid to check why I look tired. It takes at least two minutes to assure her that I’m all right. Even then, only Aiden unfolding gracefully out of the Aston Martin stops her. A long silence falls over the yard. Even the girls stop giggling.
He strides to us, seeming confident to the whole world. But I know his strain in his shoulders and the imperceptible look he exchanges with Benson, who moves subtly between him and the girls. Maria’s face folds into a beautiful, motherly smile.
“Ah, Señor Hale! Finalmente. Nice to meet you.” She places her sun-spotted hands on his face, reaches on her tiptoes and kisses him on both cheeks. Aiden stares at me over her shoulder, eyes frozen wide. Benson chuckles and tries to disguise it as a cough.
“A pleasure to meet you as well, ma’am,” Aiden says, as Maria releases his face and starts rattling off in English before Aiden can speak another syllable.
“Thank you for the water heater. They come put it up this Saturday, then warm showers every day.” She clasps her hands together. “And the girls go to camp this Friday because of you. But the iPads, Señor Hale, no—girls don’t talk to me no more, only watch Pixar. Bien, bien, come inside, I make posole soup.” She lifts her hand as though to pat him on the shoulder. I step between them.
“Maria, you’ll be late for Antonio’s therapy, and Aiden and Benson have some work to do. I was thinking of bringing the girls to his house and we can play there. Is that okay?”
She frowns as though she doesn’t understand my question. “Of course, amorcita.” Then she looks at Aiden, lifting her chin up with gravitas. “I trust you with all my children, Señor Hale, including Isa.”
“I’ll do my best with all of them, ma’am.” Aiden clears his throat when he finally has a chance to speak.
She nods with a smile and starts loading the girls’ toys and the “infernal iPads” in the Rover’s trunk. Without her buffer, as the girls face Aiden, I’m not sure who is more scared: they or he. I decide it’s Aiden. But he puts on his Marine face and smiles. Bel’s eyes widen but she doesn’t speak. Dora and Daniela greet him, smiling in a way that makes me proud. Anamelia, who was born only two weeks after I met the Solises, takes to him immediately.
“This is a big car,” she says to him point-blank. He blinks a couple of times.
“Yes, it is,” he says, eyeing Anamelia like she might eat him.
“I have a car for my Barbie. But it’s pink.” She looks at Aiden, expecting him to comment on this disclosure. He scratches his head.
“Pink is good,” he says after a while. The other three giggle and go climb in Rover’s backseat. I wish I had my camera out.
“Why do you have two cars?” Anamelia continues her interrogation.
“Ah…because you’re very important.”
She grins. “You have a lot of hair for a boy,” she announces. She is used to Javier and Antonio, who have shorter hair than Aiden. I pick her up, bite her cheek and tickle her. She squeals and reaches for Aiden who has an odd look between panic and something I can’t decipher.
I secure her in the booster seat before he runs for the West Hills.
“Aiden drives us,” Anamelia commands, pointing imperiously at Aiden. Maria turns and looks at him with a smile.
“Anamelia, Aiden has to drive the pretty car so it doesn’t break,” I say and close the door before she says she’ll ride with him to help him fix it. Her face falls and she presses her dimply hand on the window like she is waving at him.
* * * * *
The moment we enter through the doors of our home, Aiden makes a beeline for the library.
“Aiden, where you going?” Anamelia calls after him.
“I have to make a call, Anamelia. It’s okay, Elisa will be with you.”
Her bottom lip juts out but she recovers quickly. “Wait! I have a phone,” she says, digging her pink Barbie phone out of her Hello Kitty rucksack. She flips it open and hands it to him.
An endless moment passes in the foyer as the girls and Aiden look at Anamelia’s outstretched hand. Then his posture straightens, he draws a contained breath, and treads back to Anamelia, taking the phone from her gingerly.
“Er, thank you,” he says.
She grins and claps. “You have to put it in your ear.”
He puts it next to his ear (“Hello, Benson”), reaches in his back pocket and gives her his iPhone. She giggles and twirls in her Mary Janes. And with that small exchange, we troop into the living room, Aiden bringing up the rear while I squeeze his hand instead of doing something stupid like dropping on one knee and proposing.