I needed to get out of the house.

It was an itchy sensation that I felt underneath my skin. It was an itch that could only be scratched by fresh air and space from Julio's words.

A day later and still I could not stop thinking about what he said. It was certainly an effective way for him to get me to stop pressing him about his drinking habits and rebellious streak. All I could focus on instead was trying to discern if he truly meant what he said and if it held any truth.

Respect was such a foundational aspect of any relationship. If my family didn't respect me, then certainly I would have felt that sooner than Julio would have taken notice. Certainly it would have caused riffs that would have sent me out to live on my own despite the economic strain it would have put me in.

"Where are you going?"

I was a foot from the door, shoving my laptop in my bag to take with me to the library. I couldn't work at home. Not while knowing Julio thought so lowly of me and that there was a gun in the house everyone but me was supposed to know about.

There was a permanent stain on all of my family members and I. A stain of never drying worry and concern for me left by mother's blood. Julio was my very first fresh start. He wasn't alive when it all happened. He didn't have the capacity to understand that I had needed extra care while growing up and that it somehow meant I was weaker than the rest. His wide eyed gaze looked up at me and saw his awesome cousin who could blow bubbles like a pro and tucked him into bed the best. I knew it would change eventually but not this dramatically.

It perturbed me to know that Julio saw me as naive, unsuspecting, and helpless. I was not the big sister figure who could burst through the closet doors unafraid of the monsters that may have been hidden in there but the victim.

Nancy waited for my reply with a hand on her hip. Lately she'd been so hard to keep track of. She would go missing for hours on end and then materialize with an intensity that was scary.

"I'm going to do some work at the library." I pulled my coat on, feeling her gaze weighing me down.

"You already went out yesterday for a coffee run. Don't you think you should relax after having been through such an eventful last couple of days?"

"I'm fine." If I had a penny for everytime I uttered the phrase, I would have had a house of my own. "Julio was off getting drunk while your husband was shot and you didn't give him any problems about going back to school or work."

The sentence was uncalled for but I was mad. I couldn't stop myself.

Nancy rolled her eyes. She fed off my tone. Subconsciously or not, she took my attitude as a contest. "That's different. You have trauma revolving around guns. I think you should talk to someone just in case. I can set that up for you, if you want."

"And what about you? You've just been widowed and instead of grieving you're parading around announcing you want to go live all on your own!"

I bit my lip. The second I finished I wanted to take it back but Nancy was already teary eyed and fuming.

"Don't call me if you have a mental breakdown in public or start wetting the bed again!" With that Nancy stormed up the stairs, her stomps resounding in the house until she slammed her bedroom door. I remained frozen in front of the door with hands trembling at my sides.

I'll fix it later, I told myself. Nancy and I had bigger fights before and we'd make up everytime. This one wouldn't be different.

I'd give her time to cool off while I worked. When I came back I'd apologize.

Working at the library was immersive enough to drown out the guilt of what happened at home. I got lost in the manuscripts, the highlighting, the notes, the emails. It took every ounce of concentration to get through the workload. I couldn't afford to lose time by not absorbing what I was reading. I had deadlines I needed to meet. Julio might have thought I was weak but if he knew how much will power it took to remain focused on the plot holes in a fantasy book while your own life was filled with them, he'd think better of me.

After three hours of non-stop typing, I shut my laptop to rest my vision and mind. A minute or two of massaging my temple passed by and I decided to treat myself to some aimless scrolling through my phone. As I opened my favorite social media app, I received a phone call from my aunt.

"Hola, mijita, you will never guess what was delivered to our doorstep today!" she sang as soon as I answered.

"What is it?"

"I really should let you find out when you come home but I'm too nosy."

I laughed, glad the workspace I chose was empty as not to disturb anyone. "At least you are able to admit it."

"It's a beautiful bouquet of roses. Real roses! And they smell amazing." I heard some rustling on the line and imagined she had lifted them to her nose to smell them. "They're from Darren. Don't worry, I didn't read the card."

I had the strangest feeling that she read the card.

"Any special occasion coming up?" she asked.

"No. Darren doesn't need any occasions though. He's always sweet."

Technically, there was no occasion but I wasn't being entirely honest. His reason for sending the flowers was not so much romantic as it was tragic.

My mother's death anniversary was around the corner. I hated that I knew the time of year she died. If I didn't know, then I wouldn't be doomed to think about her in this devastating light every September. Since I did, I spent the whole week leading up to it thinking about the day and the events that followed suit. I didn't know if Nancy was the same. We never talked about it.

Darren and I had. I opened up quickly to Darren and because of that I had told him about how excruciating this time of the year could be for me. Ever since we'd been together he'd done his best to make the day hurt less. He'd done as good a job as anyone could. He made me feel far less alone. Mostly because I knew he understood. He had lost his own mother just before we first met.

"Well, the card is right here in front of me. I guess you'll have to wait until you come home to read it."

She wanted to read the card so bad.

She'd probably read it once she hung up.

"You can read it to me," I said with a sigh of defeat. Maybe Nancy was onto something for deciding to move out.

Tìa clapped her hands together. Then I heard the unfolding of an envelope.

"Mickey, my pearl, my treasure, and my world. It looks like work is going to be busy for a while. Being away from you is going to be unbearable. When things calm down at the office, let's take many beach trips, many road trips, and many trips to the couch to watch a movie. I don't know how to breathe without you. You mean everything to me. I love you. Signed Darren."

My aunt nearly melted into goo as she sighed into the phone. "Ay, que lindo."

I would have been lying if I said I wasn't melted into goo as well. To think that Darren was so generous with his 'I love you's' when he had struggled to get the three words out for the longest. I could name several dates where I was certain he was about to say it. His reluctance to call it what it was was killing me - especially since I knew he loved me too. It was on a midnight picnic that he admitted that he felt as if he didn't deserve me. He went on and on about it until I kissed him. Then he said that just this once, he would be selfish. He would have me.

I ended the call with my aunt and took a look at my work again. The need to distract myself had been so powerful that I was actually ahead of schedule. The cursor of my mouse hovered over a file on my laptop's home screen. Instead of being another folder with my clients work, it was a work of my own.

I had no aspirations about being a writer. I was perfectly content with my part in the book production process. However, my work forced me to hone in my writing skills. If I felt a strong emotion, it felt more natural to me to write it down then to speak to someone about it. I could better articulate my thoughts if given some time and a blank word document than I ever could with speech. When I needed breaks from my work, I often found myself typing out whatever I was thinking about. Sometimes it would turn into a short story or a poem or a diary entry of sorts. Whatever it was, it was a place where I could pour out everything I was thinking about without setting off any alarms in anyone's head. The only person to ever see it was me.

Thoughts and memories of my mother were at their strongest after my phone call with Titi. Though it was devastating to think about it, it was kind of a nice change from thinking about Adonis. It only made sense that I would write about her. If there ever was a time to, this was it.

I clicked the file.

__________________

I came home achy and hungry. Both sensations were metaphorical. The aching and hunger came straight from my soul.

It was from the problem I ran into while writing about my mother: It was nearly impossible to write about her without writing about my father.

My father was like a door in the back of the house that you kept closed. It was your dead son's room that was messy and gross but despite all of that, if you opened it and went inside you'd miss him. You would be compelled to rummage through the sock drawer and stacked CDs. You would reach under the bed for traces of him, for pieces of him you missed out on while he was alive. You would be pulled into the never ending grief and mystery if you ventured into the room so you keep the door shut. You keep it locked.

I never asked about my dad anymore. I never visited his relatives. I never went to visit him in prison. I didn't have any of the old pictures with him in them and I never read about the court case that found him guilty. I didn't think about how I looked like him or how I carried his DNA. I hid my father like an embarrassing secret but the consequence was that in burying him, I buried part of my mother. I buried part of myself.

There was always that despised part of me that was curious. The little girl who stood too close to the edge of the cliff in an attempt to take a peek at what was at the bottom. She wondered about him. She wondered more than he deserved.

There was one exception to my rule about shutting him out.

I used to write letters to him. I'd send them every other month - rambling on about whatever was going on in my life at the time. I did it because it seemed less daunting than an in person encounter or a phone call. My family hated the idea but they didn't have to worry because nothing came out of it. He never wrote back. I don't think I would have kept writing to him if he ever wrote back.

The hunger I had upon arriving home was for something lovely - something beautiful, pure, and stable. That was why I was delighted to remember that Darren sent me roses. I could picture the sweet aroma entering my lungs and washing away the dark cloud of my father.

I had Darren's contact pulled up on my phone, about to dial him to thank him for the gift, when I spotted the roses.

They were beautiful but utterly destroyed. The stems were cut right at the flowerbuds. They created a circle around the vase they were in, petals fallen onto the ground and into the sink like a splatter of blood drops. The scissors that did the job were laying right next to the massacre, unashamed and proud.

"What happened to my flowers?" I asked no one in particular. I hoped that my aunt was in the vicinity but it was Nancy who walked in. "Did you do this?"

The action was mean - far meaner than I would have thought Nancy capable of but after the fight we had in the morning it seemed like the most likely story.

She regarded the slaying of flowers with an upturned nose. "As if! I don't care about your stupid flowers or your stupid boyfriend! Why don't you just back off and leave me alone?"

"Who else would do this?"

"I don't know but you deserve it! I haven't been anything but nice to you your whole life and you're treating me like I'm some monster! Because I expressed concern for you this morning you throw my husband's death in my face?"

I worked my fingers through my hair, gathering the strands to form a ponytail. To give myself something to do other than listen to Nancy's screaming, I crouched on the ground to clean up the mess of petals.

"I'm sorry," I finally said, realizing she wasn't going to leave. "I'm sorry. I haven't been myself lately -"

"You're sorry? You can't tell me you're sorry after pulling this crap!" Nancy crouched down to look me in the face. I lost balance and fell back onto my behind, giving her height over me. "You've been making this all about you. We're supposed to feel sorry for you because all of this reminds you of when Mom died? Guess what? She was my mother, too! And we're supposed to think you're high and mighty because you're trying to defend Adonis's honor like he was some hero? You're selfish, Mickey! He was my husband! Mine!"

"Stop!"

The guttural shout that escaped me sent Nancy back a step. It was enough to get my uncle and aunt downstairs and Julio watching with wide eyes in the doorway. My cheeks were dripping with tears and my vision blurred from the overflow. I was choking on a sob when Tìo came beside me, extending an arm between Nancy and I as he instructed her to give me some space.

My aunt looked at the mess with a frown that wrinkled the corners of her mouth. "What happened? Nancy, what happened?"

"Mickey's just being Mickey. Sensitive as always."

I buried my head in my hands. I buried myself. 

Author's Note - Vote and comment! Since this is a mystery, I'd love to hear any theories or hunches you may have along the way.