Chapter 15: No Out Loud

On Sunday, Gabriel put on the one jacket he owned that wasn't a work jacket and said he was going to his mother's table.

"You haven't sat at it in three years," I said.

"I know."

"Why now?"

"Because she asked me to bring you to heel, and I never gave her an answer." He straightened his collar in the hall mirror. "She's owed one."

"Then I'm coming."

"Odette."

"You said it yourself. You've never said no to her out loud." I took my coat off the hook. "I'd like to be in the room."

He looked at me in the mirror for a long moment.

Then he held the door.

The Cordero Sunday dinner was set for twenty-two in the long dining room in Olmos Park.

Aunts, uncles, cousins, a priest, a baby in a high chair.

All of them were at the table when we walked in, and all of them stopped talking.

Marisol sat at the head with her pearls on and her back very straight.

Rafael's chair, on her right, was empty.

"Gabriel," she said. "You came."

"Mama."

"And you brought your landlady." She smiled at the table. "How charming. Sit anywhere. The chairs are for family, but we'll make room."

I took the seat across from the priest.

Gabriel did not sit. He stood behind the chair next to mine with his hand on the back of it.

"I came to answer you," he said. "You asked me Thursday to tell Odette to sign. You asked me to say it was kinder."

"Not here, mijo."

"You asked me to my face. I'll answer in front of everyone." He turned his head, slowly, and looked down the length of the table. "No."

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