“Yeah, it’s super thin. Three-D.”
“Cool!” Jeremy said and Pescoli’s skin crawled. She didn’t need to be reminded that there wasn’t yet one flat-screen television in her home. It just wasn’t a big priority and she didn’t have a lot of extra money to go throwing around on electronics. She needed to change the subject. “Those cards about done?” she asked Bianca.
“Almost.”
“Then it’ll be your turn, Jer.”
“Why? That’s so—”
“Lame, I know. But, again, it’s tradition and your aunts would like to hear from you.” She laid on the guilt a little thick as it had been a while since she’d even talked with any of her three sisters. “You know the ones who send you all those gifts you like?”
“Fine!” he grumbled as he yanked on the lights to straighten the cord and the plug-in fell out of the socket. All the lights immediately dimmed. “Fu—”
“It’s Christmas!” she cut in.
“Not yet!” he snapped, seeming to be angry at the world these days.
Pescoli was having none of his bad mood. “We don’t swear anyway.”
“What? Mom, you’re such a hypocrite. ‘We’ ”—he mockingly swept a hand toward her—“all swear.” His gaze centered on his sister, defying her to pull her goodie-two-shoes routine, one that Pescoli had quit buying once Bianca had turned ten or eleven and Pescoli had caught her trying to smoke. “They’re Carrie’s!” Bianca had cried when Pescoli had confiscated the Marlboro Lights and then dramatically flushed perfectly good cigarettes down the toilet when she’d really wanted to stuff the half-empty pack into her glove box for one of “those” days. She hadn’t. Her point was more effective watching the cigarettes deteriorate, bits of tobacco floating in a swirling pattern as the toilet flushed.
As far as she knew, the dramatic demonstration had been effective; Bianca, it seemed, was smoke free. With Jeremy she hadn’t been so lucky. Not only did he chew, he didn’t bother to hide it any longer. “I’m eighteen, it’s legal!” But he also, she knew, dabbled in marijuana. “Weed isn’t a problem. There’s nothing wrong with it.” Her arguments that marijuana wasn’t legal had fallen on deaf ears.
“Okay, I’m as guilty as anyone, but let’s all try to watch our tongues, shall we?”
No one answered, Bianca was still texting, her pile of signed cards not increasing, and Jeremy, still working with the lights, was watching the latest sports scores flash on the television.
Pescoli figured this was as good a family tradition as she was going to get.
Which was just kind of pathetic when you thought about it.
Chapter 12
Big mistake!
What were you thinking, asking O’Keefe over to your place? That’s only asking, no, make that begging, for trouble.
“He’s going to find out sooner or later,” she said aloud as she walked into her town house and tossed her keys onto a nearby table. She couldn’t keep her son’s birth a secret forever.
He may not be your son—
“Yeah, I know!” That argument had been playing in her head over and over again, but she figured it was just denial. Unwinding her scarf and hooking it over a curved arm of the hall tree, she told herself it would be better if O’Keefe heard the truth from her, if she owned her past.
It was important, if she wanted to find the boy, and she did.
And then what? He goes before a judge for his crime?
“Of course,” she said, and realized she was talking to herself. She believed in the justice system, trusted in it. Even if it seemed to have backfired in the case of Junior Green.
She had to find Gabriel Reeve and turn him in; let the system do its thing, but make damned sure he had a good lawyer.
Are you going to find him one? Is that before or after you have that mother-son talk and explain why you gave him up for adoption?
“Oh, hell,” she whispered as Jane Doe trotted down the stairs and became a puddle of fur in her hands when she lifted the cat off her white toes. “Life’s complicated,” she whispered and Jane rubbed the back of her head under Alvarez’s chin.
As she carried the cat into the kitchen, she walked through the living area, picked up the remote and clicked on the news. As expected, the station was running a clip of the recent statement to the press by the public information officer. The footage had been taken less than an hour before and Alvarez watched as Dan Grayson stood, ramrod straight, next to the woman at the mic. A handsome man, very cowboy-esque with his Stetson, boots and lean, long frame. She could envision him on the cattle trail, upon a horse, spending hours in the blistering sun. Rangy and tough, Grayson was a lawman with all the right morals and instincts, the first she’d been able to trust in a long, long time. Her throat constricted a little at the fantasy she’d wrapped around him, her boss.
The television picture switched to the Presbyterian church and the nativity scene. Behind the reporter, police were working, and as the camera panned over what had once been a pristine crèche, Alvarez was transported back in time to her own childhood and the nativity scenes of her youth while growing up in Woodburn, Oregon. She remembered the Christmas traditions, the gaiety, the sense of fun and breathless anticipation of her childhood. The house had been filled with the noise of her siblings, the rapid-fire Spanish of her grandmother and the scent of cinnamon for the traditional Mexican cookies that took days to prepare. There were garlands and lights, and on Christmas Eve, Grandma Rosarita’s homemade tamales steamed in corn husks lent a savory aroma to the big kitchen.