Forever Summer (16 page)

“Gabe, I’d like you to meet two very special women.  Luisa and Yolanda took care of me when I was small.  Every day for over eight years, they watched over me and stayed with me whenever my mother was out or busy with other things.”

“Mucho gusto, señoras.”

“Gabriel Rodrigo,
el cantador
?”  When the women recognized who exactly was standing in their driveway with their beloved Summer, they blushed and held on to each other like school girls.

“I can’t believe Gabriel Rodrigo is in our driveway, can you, Luisa?”

“No, I can’t.  Get the camera.”

“What is he doing with Summer?”

“I don’t know, but he better be treating our
muchachita
well, or he will not be welcome here, I don’t care who he is.”

“
Claro que sí
but she looks happy and well, and he did bring her home.”  Their looks vacillating between gratitude, awe, and suspicion, they decided to invite him inside to pump him and their beloved Summer for more information and reserved judgment.  They were led into the
salón
, and fresh squeezed limeade and
biscochitos
were served while everyone got settled.

“Luisa, Yolanda, how is it that you are living here?  Did you buy the villa?”

“Buy it?  Of course not,
corazón
.  You aren’t going to sell it, are you?”

“Sell it?  How could I sell it when it isn’t mine?  I thought my father sold it years ago.  We never came back here after Mamá died.

“We know you have not returned before today,
niñita
.  We have waited for you all these years.  Why are you only now coming back?  Is it too painful for you?”

“Wait, I’m confused.  Who owns this house?”  Both women looked at her with owlish eyes, then looked at each other and launched into a whispered discussion in rapid Spanish that Summer and Gabe could only partially hear.  Finally, they seemed to reach some kind of decision and looked back at Summer.

“
Chiquita
, apparently you did not know this, but
you
own the villa.  Your papá signed it over to you legally on your eighteenth birthday.”

“My father gave it to me?  Nearly ten years ago?  That can’t be right.  He refused to ever bring me back here.  He said he never wanted to be here without my mother.  He … well, he would never give me … there must be some mistake.”

Yolanda got up and went to the desk in the corner and took out a folder.  Inside was the deed to the villa and Summer was listed as the legal owner.  It was signed by her father.

“I … I don’t understand any of this.”  Gabe put his arm around her again and pulled her against his side trying to comfort her and help her deal with this latest surprise.  Shock would probably be a better descriptor, judging by the look on Summer’s face.

“Summer, although you have not been here since your mother’s death, your father has been back once a year every year since her death.  He comes, faithfully on their wedding anniversary and spends the night.  He looks over the house and the grounds to make sure that everything is as it should be, and he leaves the next morning, giving us instructions to do any repairs or changes that he sees are needed.  He has never missed a year.”

“My God.  I can’t believe this.  I never knew.  I thought he sold it and couldn’t bear to be any place where he’d spent time with my mother.  He refused to even speak of her to me, even when I asked him about her.  I don’t understand.  He married Isela less than a year after my mother died, so I thought he’d moved on and put Mamá in the past and left her there.”

“Your father may have remarried,
mija
, and he may even love his second wife, but there will always be part of his heart that will forever belong to your mother.  On every visit, he lights a holy candle for her in the garden and stays out there for hours.  In the beginning, he would sleep out there, but eventually, he would go to the room they’d shared together and sleep alone.  Over the years, he seemed to find some kind of peace when he came.  He no longer cries, and although he is very quiet while he’s here, I think he is finally able to remember happy times instead of only sorrow and loss.”

“I don’t know what to say, to think.  Why didn’t he ever tell me?  Why didn’t he ever ask me if I wanted to come?  There were times when I literally cried myself to sleep wishing I could come here to feel closer to Mamá, and he wouldn’t even discuss it with me.”

“
Mija
, people grieve in different ways.  Some people share their pain, and others keep it to themselves.  Your papá suffered a profound loss when Sunny died.  Many people reached out to him, but he would seek comfort from no one.  When his second wife told us that we would no longer be working for them, we were devastated, not because of the loss of wages – your papá gave us a very generous farewell gift – but we hated to leave you.  We both loved your mother, as everyone who met her did, and we loved you as much as we could have loved a child of our own had we been blessed.  We could see that the woman Señor Alvarez married was afraid of you, jealous maybe.  She was very possessive of her new husband, and we think she saw you as too much of a reminder of your mother.  You became her competition.  We were so worried for you.”  Yolanda reached over and patted her hand.

“We went into the city, but your father came and found us and sent us here.  He asked us to keep it exactly how your mother had left it.  We have been here ever since.  I do not know for sure, but I do not think his wife knows about this place or that we still work for the
Señor
.  I would ask that you not tell her.”

“Isela never seeks me out.  As a matter of fact, she not only doesn’t see me herself, but I assume she makes sure that my father and sisters keep their distance as well.  I haven’t seen them since I started college.  As for my father, perhaps someday I will ask him why he gave this place to me and didn’t tell me.  I saw him more than a year ago when he was on a business trip, alone, briefly for dinner, but we hardly spoke.  Before that, it had been years since I’d heard anything from him.  In fact, before that last dinner, I’d seen him maybe twice since I started and finished college.  He calls on occasion, but we don’t have much to discuss anymore.  We’ve become more or less strangers.  He sent me a check for high school and college graduations.  He didn’t attend either of them.”

Yolanda shook her head sadly.  “That is shameful,
corazón
, and there is no excuse for a father to abandon his child, but I may be able to offer an explanation.  When I first saw you today, I thought you were the angel of your mother.  You look so much like her, I thought it was her, and she’d come to take us up to Heaven with her.  Perhaps seeing you reopens the wounds your papá suffered when he lost your mother.  That does not make it right, but it could explain things.”

“My
abuelita
said the same thing.  She said that Papa loves me, but he still misses my mother.  She also said the same thing you said about Isela, that she felt threatened by me.  She said I should forgive him and pray for her.  I don’t know if I can.”

“God says to forgive, Summer.  ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.’  That means that we will be forgiven our sins based on how well we forgive others who sin against us.  I would guess that by the time your papá realized he had been wrong to neglect you, the damage was already done, and he didn’t know how to undo it.  Perhaps the only way he could think of reaching out to you afterwards was sending checks and giving you this house where you had once been so happy.  He was wrong to turn you away, but if he didn’t still love you, he would not have done these things.”

“
Abuelita
says to find forgiveness for my own happiness.”

“Your
abuelita
is very wise, Summer.  Now, come, revisit this place where your mother loved to stay.  It was her favorite place to visit.  I think if she could have found a way to move your father’s cattle ranch here, she would have.  And knowing how much your father cherished her, he would have done it had it been possible.”

Everyone stood, and the older women left Summer and Gabe to roam the house and gardens.  Summer was amazed at how well preserved everything was, how nothing had been changed since her mother had been alive.  The tiled barbecue was the same, the patio, the furniture, the decorations, the dishes.  Nothing was different.  Obviously, her father had wanted to preserve it in memory of her mother, but she wasn’t sure she agreed.  Sunny had changed things often.  She had a habit of buying new dishes after a year or two, not because they needed replacing, but because she wanted a change.  It had been the same with the furniture, the décor, even the placement of things and the color of paint.  Had her mother lived, she would have changed things at least a dozen times by now.

“
Querida
, are you alright?  I don’t know what to do to make things easier for you.  Tell me what you need from me.”

“I don’t even know what I need from me or my father or anyone else right now, Gabe.  But I’m glad you’re here.  I feel your strength and comfort.  I think I’ll just think about things for awhile, before I decide what I want to do, or if I should do anything at all.  A part of me wants to throw that deed in my father’s face and tell him it’s too little, too late.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did, baby.  Nobody would.  As far as I’m concerned, his actions or lack of them were inexcusable.  A father should protect his children always.  He was the adult, the parent, and you were the child, and he should have put your needs ahead of his own.”

“I’ve always believed that, also, but now … maybe he wanted to, but he couldn’t find the strength.  My mother was such a tiny thing, only a little over five feet tall and very petite.  I’m five three and probably was taller than her by the time I was fifteen or sixteen.  As little as she was, though, she was the one in charge of the family.  My father was always the breadwinner, and he appeared to be the head of the household, but all my mother had to do was look at him sideways, and he’d stop, start, or change whatever he was doing that was displeasing to her.  I never remember my mother complaining while she was sick, but I remember seeing my father cry a couple of times as well as scream at different people that it wasn’t fair and that he’d give all he had for a cure that would save my mother.  He was obviously devastated.”

Looking at Summer, Gabe could begin to imagine devastation when he thought of losing this incredible woman forever.  He was already beginning to feel desperate wondering if she would walk away from him.  Wrapping his arms around her, feeling her warmth against his body, he could no longer see his future without Summer as a part of it.  Despite the short time they’d known each other, he knew she was the missing part he needed to be complete.  Like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle, Summer made him whole.

Gabe began to wonder if he’d judged Summer’s father too harshly.  Rebounding after Margarita’s death hadn’t been particularly hard.  Theirs hadn’t been a marriage based on love or respect, but rather on greed, dishonesty, and misperceptions.  When he thought of never being with Summer again, there was automatic panic and intense fear that he would never be the same, never find happiness so genuine and powerful again.

“I think I’ll just let everything simmer for awhile.  I don’t have to do anything right now, and I certainly don’t want to make any major decisions or let my temper get the best of me.  I’m going to go back inside and say goodbye to Luisa and Yolanda.  I’d like to come back and see them again some time.  You don’t have to come with me again if you don’t want to.  I’m okay with being here.  I just need to sort out all the rest, like forgiveness and whether or not it’s even feasible.  Thank you, Gabe, for bringing me here.  I’ll never forget it.  I’m not so sure I’d be so calm if you hadn’t been here with me.”

“I’m glad I was here also, and I will be happy to bring you back anytime you’d like.  I also want to say goodbye, and if I’m not mistaken, there will be pictures and autographs to see to before we leave.  Hopefully they’ve decided that I’m good enough for you by now, although I’m not at all sure they would think anyone completely worthy of you.”