Though it was early, traffic was heavy, and it took forty-five minutes to reach my mentor’s house. She opened the door before I’d hardly rung the bell and hugged me hard. As usual, she wore a loose housedress and an apron in competing floral patterns. Her gray hair was braided neatly; her lined face revealed nothing but pleasure in my arrival.
“It’s so good to see you,” she said in Spanish.
“Likewise.” I kissed her cheek.
She gave me a serious look. “I wondered if I had to die to get you to come home.”
“No, I just had some business to take care of first.”
“I know, nena. Looks like you tracked Chance down too. I told you to keep this one. You’ll make beautiful babies.”
A blush heated my cheeks, but I didn’t dispute her words. “I hope so. We’ll find out in seven months or so.”
Her eyes dropped to my belly; then she pressed gnarled fingers to my abdomen. “Felicidades! Do you want to know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“You can tell?” Chance asked in surprise. “Just from a touch?”
Tia cackled. “Of course not. I’m a witch, not a gypsy. But if I guess, I have a fifty percent chance of being right. I used a little of your money,” she went on, as she ushered me into the house for warm gorditas and cold horchata.
Once she settled us at the kitchen table, I waved her statement away. “I intend to settle some money on you, so you don’t have to work so hard.”
“I appreciate that, mija.” The diminutive endearment meant she looked on me as a daughter, or more likely, granddaughter.
Touched, I ate the snack she had prepared, and we chatted about how life had treated her in our absence. She complained about a rival named Juanita and the witch who was undercutting her at the market stalls. Comforting that some things never changed . . . that I had a place where somebody always welcomed me.
After we finished, Chance kissed Tia’s hand and said, “I trust you have no objection to my attentions to Corine, especially in light of her interesting condition.”
“You’re a good boy,” she said. “But cheeky!” She turned to me with a playful scowl. “Didn’t I tell you not to let him have his fun without a ring on your finger? And look where it got you.”
“I had fun too,” I pointed out, and she swatted me with a striped dish towel.
Chance was grinning, delighted with our exchange, which I assumed meant he had translated it correctly. He dropped a hot kiss on my smiling mouth. I tangled my fingers in his hair and forgot about Tia, until she splashed some water on us.
“Dios mio, you’re like a pair of shameless dogs. Out!”
“Wait! We need some protective charms,” I told her.
That appeased her sense of the proprieties. “Claro. With a baby on the way, it’s only prudent. I’ll get to work on them right away.”
Thus shooed from Tia’s kitchen, I went with Chance into the front room, where we killed two hours kissing and whispering. If I’d been watching us, I suspect I’d have hated every minute of it. But I didn’t move away until the bell rang. Chance went with me to answer it, hoping it was his mother. Min stood with a pile of bags at her feet, a taxi pulling away into the cool twilight. She went into her son’s arms in a puddle of tears; I retreated into the house so they could have some time alone. Their voices rose and fell in the courtyard garden, a lovely place for such a reunion. Better than a filthy warehouse, for sure. But it didn’t matter where Chance came back to us, only that he was here.
And he’s not going away again.
Slowly, surely, I was accepting this as truth. My life’s path had been rewritten, and I couldn’t wait to see where it led. Twila’s words rang in my head, and this time they sounded like a benediction: There are no destinies now. Life will be what you make of it, whatever you choose.
Half an hour later, Min accompanied Chance into the house; he hauled her bags into the living room, then looked bemused as to where to put them. An idea struck me, so I hurried into the kitchen to check with Tia.
“Chance’s mother is here. We don’t have room for her at the apartment, and I was wondering if you would mind if she took my room for a little while. I’ll cover room and board—”
“She’s family,” the old woman cut in. “You’re family. And you take care of me very well, mija. Of course your suegra can stay.”
Suegra meant mother-in-law in Spanish. Though Chance and I weren’t married, it was close enough to the truth that I just hugged Tia and thanked her. If I stepped on her pride, she would make my life difficult in countless ways. She squeezed me back, ending with a firm pat.
“You just keep giving me reasons not to die. I think I’ll stay another year. I want to see the baby.”
Tia talked about death like it was a decision to be made; and maybe it was. You heard stories about people who lived to be eighty-seven and only passed on after they had no work to do, no useful purpose. If my baby gave her a reason to stick around, I was glad. I went to the bedroom I had used once, collected the remainder of my things. Whether Tia wanted the money or not, I left her three thousand dollars in the treasure box. So long as she lived, she would want for nothing. I’d stand as family for her, as she’d done for me.
I came out with my bags packed. Chance and Min were sitting together on the couch, his mother tucked beneath his arm. I didn’t intrude, knowing he was her whole world, but not in a way that made her dependent or clipped his wings. Min was one of the strongest women I knew, apart from my other mother; but then I had an abundance of powerful ladies in my life. Between Shannon, Eva, Tia, and Twila, I would be hard-pressed to find one who didn’t totally kick ass and take names.
“Tia says she’ll put you up, however long you want to stay.”
Min leveled a quiet look on me. “I mentioned this to Chance, but I wasn’t sure how you’d feel.”
“What?” I settled on the chair across from them.
“I might sell the business in Tampa, relocate. If that wouldn’t bother you.”
I beamed at her. “I’d love that. You could go into business with Tia, maybe. Open a storefront selling her charms and your salves and potions?”
“Is she any good?” Min hadn’t made a living in homeopathy without examining the bottom line.
“The best. I owe her my life,” I said honestly, remembering the charm that saved me in Sheol.
“It doesn’t have to be decided right now,” Chance pointed out. “I’m just so glad to see you, Omma.”
“Me too,” Min whispered.
Their tenderness touched me, and because I was still wrestling the hormones, I went into the kitchen to help Tia to keep from crying. I couldn’t pull power anymore, but I could measure supplies and mix things as ordered. Her eyes weren’t as sharp as they had been, so she didn’t object to my presence while she crafted the charms. She didn’t comment on my lack of magick; and I wasn’t sure if she knew that I’d lost the touch too.
I’m human, I thought in wonder. With all implicit benefits and limitations.
An hour later, Min and Chance joined us. We ate dinner together, food that Tia had cooked the day before, and which I heated without mishap. By ten o’clock, I was dying of exhaustion between the month I’d had, the peanut, and the long bus ride with its inherent broken sleep. My thigh was hurting too, but I didn’t feel like I had any right to complain. Not when I had my family all together and the man I loved in my life again.
But Chance noticed. “It’s time to get you home. I’ll see you in the morning,” he added to Min.
She hugged him so tight around the neck that I could tell she was reluctant to let him out of her sight, and I so understood that feeling. He gently disengaged. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Promise.”
Min managed a shaky smile, wiping away a joyful tear. “Part of me can’t believe you’re here. I was so afraid you would choose greatness instead.”
“Omma,” he said softly, “I did.”
Then he took my hand and led me home.
Happy Endings
Not surprisingly, Chance had no keys, so I used the spare set I kept at Tia’s place. By the time we climbed the last step to his apartment, my leg was on fire. I could tell I had a long road of physical therapy ahead of me, but the pain was worth it. Everything had been. That night, I slept in Chance’s arms, and it was perfect. The next day, we went over to join Tia and Min for lunch, mostly to reassure Chance’s mother that he hadn’t disappeared again. She should acclimate to his return soon, lose some of her clutching fear. It had taken me a few days to accept the new reality.
I was so happy it hurt.
Much later, after unpacking my things, I went out to the balcony to admire the sunset. Chance came up behind me, wrapping his arms about me. I finally had everything I had ever wanted. There were questions to be answered in the future: how many more children, and where we’d buy our home so our friends could visit. Chuch and Eva would bring Cami. Booke, too, might find his way here eventually, on his way back from the world tour. Someday, Jesse and Shan might have kids, and hopefully they’d bring the whole family.
I wouldn’t be opening a consignment shop with Shan, but that was fine. She had her own dream to pursue, a bigger one than she’d dared entertain before. I didn’t doubt that she could achieve it either. Someday, she’d have her own clothing line, her own cosmetics, and she was going to school to make it happen. I believed in her; and Jesse would support her all the way.
“Do you ever regret giving up—”
Chance stopped me with a kiss, which answered all my questions and then some. No. He wanted this life . . . and me. “The apartment’s fine for now, but I’d like to buy a house within the next six months. We need to put down roots.”
How well he knew me. The shop had been my first attempt to do exactly that, but the bond had been damaged. Now I needed more to make Mexico wholly my home. The baby had changed everything in a beautiful, shattering, unexpected way. Chance and I planned to take classes together, so we could both become entirely fluent in the language, which would help in forming relationships. Since I had a jump on him and could speak functional Spanish, I’d help him along, and in return, he intended to teach me to speak Korean, which would make Min happy. I wanted our child to speak all three languages—to have a better start in life than I had. Chance would help make it possible. He’d built an empire from nothing. He was fierce and savage and determined . . . and mine.
Mine.
The sunset was gorgeous, a fierce and furious dying of the light over the distant mountains. I loved the crisp night weather and the sunny days, the cheerful people at the local farmer’s market, and the tourists who used to wander into my shop. With Chance beside me, this Chance, devoid of inhuman luck, life could be whatever we made of it. No hidden curses, no secret pitfalls. Just him and me, together.
“It’s hard to believe it’s finally over,” I whispered into his shoulders.
“Sometimes I wake up . . . and I think I’m dreaming. That I’m still there, and you’re still here, and I’m so afraid you won’t wait that I can’t breathe.”