Two Years Later
Jeremiah
The lawn chair has molded itself to my spine in the Arizona heat, and at this point, I’ve just accepted it. Behind the barn, a generator hums loud enough to power a stadium. Closer, my wife is laughing at something that is almost certainly at my expense. I have accepted that as well. It’s her birthday, after all.
Before sunrise, twelve mariachis wedged themselves against the window outside our bedroom and played “Las Mañanitas” right after they visited Abuelo’s window. He had been up all night having just returned from gambling with his buddies, so it wasn’t the birthday wake-up surprise it’s supposed to be.
But the window serenade completely delighted Erica. She sang along off-key, not really knowing the words. She was just going with the vibes. The whole Precio family got involved because nobody in this family loves you properly until they’ve woken you up badly enough that you can’t be mad about it.
Francesca and Bernadette physically dragged Erica out of bed to the mariachi music, and we all had pan dulce and hot chocolate in the living room.
It’s like this every year at Abuelo’s ranch. Waking up at the crack of dawn, Nacho making a huge breakfast, then general timfoolery the rest of the day.
Nate and Sebastián spent a solid hour rigging up a plywood standee game with a painted figure of a man on it. They called it The Chancla Toss. At every major body part of the painted-on figure, they cut a hole clean through, each hole worth different points. The head worth the most. I couldn’t help but notice the painted figure looked suspiciously like Mateo.
And now half the family’s calling it MatFeo and lining up shots at its face for sport. Abuela walked past on her way to check the beans, kicked off one huarache without breaking stride, and put it clean through MatFeo’s head from twenty feet without so much as a glance back. She kept walking. Nobody’s beaten that throw all day.
The food has been amazing. We’ve been grazing all day. At one point, Nacho and Tío Pancho ambushed Erica to have her settle who made the better salsa. She dragged chicharrón through each, sampling them like it was ranch dressing. She didn’t blink at the spice and simply asked for more. Nacho stared at her, betrayed, like she’d cheated death by habanero peppers.
It’s been the perfect Fourth of July.
Erica’s phone hasn’t stopped ringing all day. Half the West Stars wives and girlfriends took turns calling to sing happy birthday badly over speakerphone, Taylor and Hadley in one call, Lauren and Penny in another, Paige texting increasingly unhinged voice memos from wherever she is this week. Two years ago, Erica was convinced that whole group had already decided she didn’t belong in it. Now she’s usually the one starting the chaos. She’s practically the ringleader of the Irvine team Wags. She plans all the hockey family picnics and gatherings. They all called her today, too.
Then sometime in the afternoon, Zoe, Suri, Tanya, Ivy, Rue, and Ginger piled onto one FaceTime call, all six of them yelling over each other loud enough that I heard it from the porch. The Armitage Seven, who are her best friends in the whole world. And no matter where they are or what they’re doing, they always make time for each other.
Then her father called. He’s been out of prison a year now with a reduced sentence. He calls most Sundays, too. The first time he called, I found her sitting on our kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, crying happy tears. She’s in law school now, and studies at the kitchen table until two in the morning most of the time.
I watch the last of the light go orange over the ridge, but mostly watch how beautiful Erica is standing against the sunset. The smile on Erica’s face hasn’t dimmed since dawn. My ribs go warm and stupid, same as they did the day I realized I’d fallen in love with her. Same as the day I married her.
A loud, high pitched whistle jolts me from my thoughts. It’s Nate, who has all his fireworks lined up in a flat stretch of pasture Abuelo swears was made for exactly this. The whole family migrates over, with Abuelo having the prime spot in his folding chair close enough to the action that Abuela makes him move back, and he moves back exactly four inches.
As usual, Dante is shaking his head at Nate’s recklessness. Nate had made his annual trip to Ensenada for the huge boxes of fireworks that can’t be purchased in the US. Ignacio is too busy wrangling Ollie, his toddler, to scold Nate about it, and Enrique is laughing as Sebastián is doing everything to sabotage Nate’s efforts. Abuelo waves his arms at him, yelling in Spanish about how he’s not getting any younger.
Erica drags a folding chair over but Abuelo pats his knee at her. “Ven, mija. Siéntate.”
“Abuelo, I’m not going to sit on your lap. Your knees are not built for it.”
“My knees, mucho feliz porque you sit.”
“How about a birthday kiss instead?”
She leans over and pecks him on the cheek and he cackles, delighted, already certain he’s won the lottery. Erica drags her chair the last two feet until it’s flush against his, drops into it, and loops one arm around his shoulders. Her head finds the spot just below his collarbone and his whole face changes.
Then, because he can’t help himself, he wags his eyebrows at me over the top of her head.
“Watch it, viejo,” I say. “That’s my wife.”
“She sit with me. I keep her.”
The first rocket goes up with a crack, and the whole family tips their heads back at once. Abuelo pats Erica’s hand where it rests on his arm and says, like he says every year, “Para mi cumleanos. Mi birthday.”
“I know. They’re for you.”
“Y tu, mija.”
“Yes,” she says, her head still on his shoulder. “Me too.”
Nate’s haul is not subtle. Gold sprays wide enough to swallow half the ridge. Something that screams on the way up and detonates into red that hangs there a beat too long, showing off. A green one that makes Ollie shriek from Nacho’s shoulder and he reaches both hands up like he can catch it.
I watch Erica more than I watch the sky. Half the show reflects off her face anyway, gold then red then gold again, and every time a new one goes up she tips her head another inch into Abuelo’s shoulder.
I watch my wife wrapped around the most shameless man in this family, and decide I don’t mind sharing her.
I give it a few more minutes, long enough that stealing her back doesn’t look suspicious, then lean down by Abuelo’s chair.
“I need to borrow my wife.”
“You had her all day.”
“You’ll get her back.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Abuelo.”
Erica laughs, presses a kiss to the top of his head that turns him instantly, embarrassingly soft, and lets me pull her up by both hands.
I’ve had a blanket staked out since before dinner, folded under a mesquite tree far enough from the crowd that the noise softens. I spread it out. She raises an eyebrow at the whole production, the blanket, the specific tree, the fact that I clearly planned this instead of it happening by accident.
“Did you set this up?”
“I set this up.”
“Like last year?”
“Every year. I made a promise to you, remember?”
She lies back first, and I lie down next to her, and for a minute we just watch what’s left of the show from underneath it instead of across the yard from a folding chair. Gold. Then red. Then a long gap where the cousins are clearly reloading and arguing about the fuse order.
“I remember,” she says, not looking at me, looking straight up. “You said you would take me far away and we’d lie in the grass, watching fireworks like a couple of kids.”
“And I’d tell you they’re just for you.”
She turns her head then, finally, and there’s a beat where neither of us says anything and the sky does the talking for us, one more gold burst catching the side of her face.
Then, because Erica can’t sit still inside a quiet moment for longer than about four seconds, she says, “So. Funny story.”
“That’s never a good opening.”
“Zoe and a couple of the girls have been looking into something.”
“Erica.”
“It’s not a job job. It’s more of a… hear me out… a public service.”
“Erica!”
“There’s this whole network of mafia pickpocket crews in Italy. And the local police aren’t doing anything about it.”
“I’ve seen them on social media,” I say. “That American lady holding onto a girl’s ponytail? Actually, I think you shared that reel with me.”
“Yes! Then you know.”
“I love the part when she says, ‘Little girl, I have eight kids, you’re not getting to me!’”
“I know, right? And who better to catch these thieves than people who know the biz?”
I give her a look. The one that means absolutely not, but she interprets as we are absolutely discussing this further. I’m a softie for her and she knows it, because she just grins and settles back down against my chest cheerfully watching the sky again.
By the time the last rocket burns out and the smoke drifts toward the mesa, we’re back in the thick of it, and half the yard is already arguing about whose turn it is to hose down the scorch marks on the grass.
I lose her almost immediately. Tía Nora gets to her first, already dealing a hand of Lotería onto a card table. Once Tía Nora starts a game, it doesn’t end until sunrise. Everybody knows this. I make Erica promise to check her phone in a half-hour to give Tía Nora some excuse for leaving the game so early. And when I say early, I mean after midnight.
I decide to go inside for a Jaritos but make it as far as the living room before I lose the fight with my own eyelids.
This family shows zero interest in slowing down before sunrise, especially not my boomer uncles. Somewhere behind me, Tío Boris and Tío Pedro are re-litigating a soccer match from four years ago at a volume that suggests neither of them remembers indoor voices exist.
I abandon my craving for the Jaritos and go to my room instead. I drop onto the bed still wearing the cowboy boots Erica insisted we match in for the Fourth, mine dark brown, hers a little lighter, with little embroidered stars up the sides. I lie there long enough to consider whether sleeping in them is a problem for Future Me.
Future Me can deal with it. Current Me just wants his wife.
I pull out my phone.
Me: Come to bed. I need you.
I send it. Stare at the ceiling. Nothing.
I give it eight minutes and send the follow-up.
Me: Get in here. I want to give you something.
Still nothing. The party outside hasn’t dropped in volume at all. I figure she just hasn’t seen it. I close my eyes.
Then… footsteps coming fast from the direction of the main wing.
I smile without opening my eyes. Took her long enough.
The door doesn’t open with a soft click of the handle the way Erica usually opens doors. She’s stealthy even when she doesn’t mean to be, so I’m startled to see the door flinging open, banging against the wall… and the whole family coming through it at a dead run, straight for my bed.
Nate hits first, launching himself onto the mattress and on top of me. “COWABUNGA!”
“NATE. Get off me.”
Sebastián launches onto my bed next, both of them crushing me into the mattress.
I’m not sure who pounces on me next. Mateo, probably, and Memo, Roman, and definitely Eugene.
Nacho’s in the corner with Olive. Their kid is half-asleep on Nacho’s shoulder, one small fist curled in his father’s collar, completely unbothered by the chaos.
“What the heck, guys?” I grunt under the weight of my cousins.
“You said to come,” says Bernadette with a shrug.
“We were just following instructions,” adds Desiree.
Enrique’s narrating as he walks closer to the bed, hands cupped around his mouth like he’s calling a horse race. “And here we have the hockey player in his natural habitat, folks. All tucked in, lights off, living his best life.”
“The boots, though.” Mateo pokes one with a finger, delighted. “Do I even want to know?”
“I was falling ASLEEP!”
“With your boots on.”
“Really, Jeremiah,” Desiree says, “The things couples do behind closed doors…”
“My door was literally closed!”
Madeline ticks her head to the side. “I kinda want to know.”
“Should we ask Erica?” January says from the doorway. “Erica!”
If Erica’s out there, she can’t get through the bottleneck of traffic in my doorway.
Abuelo arrives next, cackling before he’s even through the door.
“Mijo. I know card game, keep you up hasta sunrise. Vamos.”
Clearly, he just wants me to drive him there.
“I don’t want to gamble, Abuelo, I want to sleep.”
“Que lastima.”
The room keeps filling.
Francesca and Edmund squeeze in. Roman gets shoved from behind by someone and ends up sitting directly on my legs, apologizing the entire time without moving.
Madeleine perches on the footboard. Desirée’s laughing too hard by now.
“Guys.” I try again. Nobody’s listening. “GUYS. I can’t BREATHE.”
From the hallway, somebody, Tío Boris probably, yells something in Spanish to which Tío Pancho and Tío Enrique crackle at.
“Why are you all here?” I say, to the room.
“You asked us to,” Enrique says.
“I did NOT.”
“Oh yes you did,” he says.
I don’t get to argue back, because that’s the exact moment Erica appears in the doorway laughing.
“Did you put them up to this?” I wheeze out. My chest is still getting crushed by hundreds of pounds of dudes that smell like tequila.
She shakes her head. “Nope.”
I look around. My whole family is in this tiny bedroom. My uncles, aunts, cousins, Abuelo and Abuela… even the dogs.
“Someone. Anyone. Explain what is happening.”
“Comfortable?” Erica says.
“No! There are smelly dudes on top of me.”
“You told us to come to bed,” Nate says, still on top of me like he’s paddling a surfboard out over the waves.
“No.”
“Yes.”
I feel the weight lift, and one by one the cousins peel themselves off me. Oh sweet air in my lungs.
Enrique steps forward, taps his phone so the screen lights up, and turns it to show me.
It’s the family text thread. EL CHISME.
The screen is a wall of green bubbles. My message, sitting right at the top, sent straight to the family thread instead of to my wife.
Jeremiah: Come to bed. I need you.
I stare at it for a second before my brain catches up.
“I sent that to everyone,” I say, to nobody, to the ceiling, to my own stupidity.
“You sure did,” Enrique confirms.
He shoves the phone into his back pocket muttering something about updating my contact name to DO NOT LET THIS MAN TEXT UNSUPERVISED.
Sebastián reads the two texts out loud like it’s performance art. “Come to bed. I need you. Get in here. I want to give you something.”
Everyone laughs but me.
Then Abuela’s voice cuts through everything.
“Is fresh tray of empanadas, just out the oven,” she says, to the room in general, clapping her hands the way coach does when he wants to get our attention.
Nate’s gone before she finishes the sentence. He’s out the door so fast the air displaces. The rest of the room follows in a wave, a genuine stampede, everyone making a beeline for the kitchen before Nate eats all the empanadas.
Abuelo goes last, laughing the whole way, blowing Erica a kiss.
Abuela stays in the doorway a second longer, taking in the wreckage of the room, the two of us, my boots.
“All those payasos,” she says. “And not one think to bring you cerveza.”
That gets a laugh out of me, even now.
“I don’t want a beer, Abuela.”
Then she’s gone too, and the door clicks shut behind her, and for the first time since five this morning, the room is completely silent.
Erica looks at the door for a second.
Then she looks at me. Boots. Everything.
“So,” she says. “You wanted me in here.”
“I texted. Twice.”
“Yeah, and the whole family saw it.”
I catch her hand, pull her the rest of the way onto the bed. “I don’t need the whole family. I needed my wife.”
“More than the empanadas?”
“Way more.”
Her skin is warm everywhere I touch.
Then I remember. “I’ve been waiting to give you the rest of your gift all day.”
Her eyebrows go up. “The rest of my gift.”
“Come here.” I say it low, deliberate, and I watch it land exactly the way I want it to, her whole body angling toward mine.
Then I turn her around by the shoulders and dig both thumbs into the knot sitting just under her left shoulder blade, the one she’s been favoring since she spent half the afternoon hauling Ollie off the fireworks crates.
She makes a sound that is one hundred percent a moan, and I am one hundred percent not sorry about it.
“Oh my gosh.”
“You like this?”
“YES! Oh! Don’t stop.”
I don’t. I work my way across, find the second knot, and lean into it like I mean business.
“Happy birthday.”
She melts into the massage, making cute little sounds that are doing something to me. Then, because apparently I do not know my own strength, the next sound out of her is nothing like the first one.
“OW. Ow ow ow, softer, please.”
“Sorry, sorry.”
“SOFTER!”
“I’m being soft…”
“You are NOT being soft, you’re trying to relocate my spine. Ow!”
I ease off, laughing into the back of her neck, and she sags forward, half laughing herself.
Somewhere against her hip, muffled, a voice says, “You heard the woman, Primo. She said softer.”
This is followed by an onslaught of laughter.
We both freeze.
Erica twists around, digs into her back pocket, and holds up the phone. It’s a live call. A butt dial to Sebastián. His number must be on her speed-dial from all the law school help he’s been giving her.
“You’re on speaker,” Sebastián says, then all the cousins at once, talking over each other. Jokes at my expense, and something about getting a room (which we already have, thank you very much).
“We don’t want details,” Nate says, entirely unconvincingly. “But also we want details.”
Erica hangs up mid-cackle and drops the phone somewhere off the side of the bed, face down, out of reach, out of service for the night.
“New rule,” she says. “Phones on airplane mode for the rest of the week.”
“New rule,” I agree.
She kisses me before either of us can think of anything else to say, and somewhere down the hall, someone has started the karaoke already, murdering the first verse of something in Spanish, off-key, way too loud, and nobody’s stopping them.
As long as they stay out of my room, I don’t care how loud they are.
I kiss my wife and pull her into me. I still haven’t taken the boots off. At this point, I’m not going to.
* * *
Thanks for spending Erica’s Birthday at the ranch. There’s more where that came from. Stay tuned to my weekly newsletter for some exciting news coming soon.