Rafael
Four years ago
Stepping through my front door, I found my father pacing in my living room. The relationship between us had hit a rough patch the night I announced my ex-girlfriend— the one my entire family despised—was pregnant. The strain got worse when I stated my intention to marry her. My mother had been in shock but my father had put his foot down and threatened a lot of shit. Fortunately for everyone, cooler heads prevailed and a compromise was reached.
It wasn’t as if I’d set my mind on marriage because I was in love with Francesca (I wasn’t) or that I felt as though she was my soulmate (I didn’t). I’d wanted to do it because she was carrying my child and I felt obligated to marry her. Thankfully, my mother had disabused me of that archaic notion. I knew I would be a good father without tying myself forever to a woman I didn’t love.
For the record, I wasn’t a total asshole. Although I didn’t love her, I did care that she was carrying my child. Prior to the pregnancy, my relationship with Francesca had been complicated and at times really fucking messy. We’d only ever had one thing—and only that one thing—in common, and that thing was sex. We’d dated as teens, and I’d lost my virginity to her. My parents had hated her on sight—a situation for which Francesca was one hundred percent responsible. At the time, I’d been nothing but a jackass kid who thought he was a man. My biggest issue had been that I was utterly consumed by sex, like most guys that age.
For that reason, even though my parents had cause to loathe Francesca, I’d tried to defend her. My arguments hadn’t mattered, and in the end, I was forbidden to see her. I’d had some shitty teenage attitude about it for a while—I was a hormonal douchebag who’d resented the abrupt loss of a sex life I’d enjoyed—but within a week or two I was over it. How could I not have let it go when I knew I didn’t love her?
Several years later, I came across Francesca at the University of Barcelona, and she’d profusely apologized for the way she’d behaved. I hadn’t been interested in picking up where we’d left off, but a few weeks later I’d run into her at a bar, we’d had a few drinks, and one thing led to another. I liked sex more than the average person, so I had a lot of it. Having it with her hadn’t been a big deal to me, which meant there were no emotions involved.
We’d hooked up casually a few more times—nothing serious, no commitments. I was seeing several other people at the same time— something they all knew—including Francesca. I’d had no intention of settling down for many years to come. Things took a dramatic turn when Francesca announced that she was pregnant.
When I went to my parents and told them she was pregnant, I’d tried to save face by giving them a bullshit story about how she and I had been dating for some time and were in love. I thought I’d sold it, but my mother had seen right through that. I found this out when Mamá came to me and suggested Francesca and I move into the guesthouse.
“We’d like to offer you and Francesca the guesthouse if you’d be willing to live there.”
My eyes went wide with surprise. “So, you accept that at some point we will marry?”
Mamá grimaced as she slowly stirred the espresso our waitress had just placed in front of her. Pulling the small silver spoon from the cup, she tapped it twice against the rim before setting it down on the white ceramic saucer beneath her cup.
“Your father and I raised you in such a way that it is no surprise that you’ve embraced the idea of fatherhood with open arms. I love this about you, Rafael, and I’d have been disappointed in you had you turned your back on Francesca, but there is a fine line between honor and stupidity. Marrying that girl would be a mistake of epic proportion.”
I clenched my jaw and looked out the window, watching as people walked past the café. When I turned back, my mother was eying me silently over the rim of her cup.
“It’s crazy to me that you don’t understand where I’m coming from. You and Papá got married in less than a week of meeting. I’ve known Francesca on and off for years.”
Mamá pinned me with a look. “First, it was mostly off, not on. Second, the length of years you’ve known her isn’t indicative of a well-developed relationship. There’s no comparison to what your father and I have shared for the last thirty plus years. He and I fell so in love that we couldn’t stand to be apart for a moment. Can you tell me you feel that type of connection to Francesca?”
I couldn’t, so I tried another argument. “I’m sure my child would want me to marry their mother.”
Mamá’s blue eyes softened as she set the sizable white cup down. “What children need is love, care, support, and parents who are happy and living authentically. Living a lie isn't something a parent should teach their child is acceptable. Marrying her would be the ultimate lie, Rafael. You will never find your joy if you legally bind yourself to her.”
My mother had me dead-to-rights. “There’s no way for you to know that,” I argued, even though I knew she was right.
“You and I both know that you don’t love her. Marriage without love is a disaster.”
I glanced away before shaking my head. “I’ve said that I love her,” I reminded her. “How can you claim I don’t?”
Mamá raised her brows and gave me a wry look. “I’m your mother, Rafael. I know you and I am very aware that you aren’t anywhere near being in love with her. She hasn’t been your girlfriend since you were a teenager and that fairytale you tried to sell Papá and I didn’t hold water for even a moment. If there were no pregnancy, you’d never have let it go any farther than casual sex. Can you tell me that I’m wrong?”
I ducked my head in shame as I processed what she’d said. Giving up on the idea of spinning a lie about love, I shook my head. “No, I don’t love her, but—”
“There is no but. There is only fact. You do not love her. That being the case, this is my advice. I know you need to try for the sake of the child and I support you in that. To that end, I suggest you give this relationship a year. If at the end of that time you can look me in the eyes and tell me you love Francesca, I will support you all the way—and so will your father.”
I’d taken my mother’s advice to heart. With the compromise in place, Francesca and I moved into the guesthouse. I could see that my parents were actively trying to be supportive of the fact that their first grandchild was on the way. However, it hadn’t escaped my notice that Papá did whatever he had to do to avoid Francesca as much as possible, which accounted for my surprise in seeing him in the living room.
I looked around, expecting to see Francesca since the blue Mercedes my parents had loaned her was parked out front, but she wasn’t there. Although she wasn’t around, my twin brother, Diego, and two older brothers, Mateo and Alejandro, were seated on the couch. Dio saw me first, and if I’d been blind, I still wouldn’t have missed the way he winced. I also took note of the way Mateo and Alejandro went stiff with tension before Mateo leaned back and murmured something to our father. When my father spun to face me, I saw that he was ashen.
Alarm bells were clanging in my head as my brothers got up from the couch, all gesturing for our father to sit down. When he’d settled into a seat, he motioned for me to join him. After I did, my brothers took up position just to the right of me—like a security trio. It was clear that my father had come to speak to me and whatever he had to say wasn’t going to be good. I knew that Dio, Jandro and Mateo were there for support.
The contents of my stomach inched up toward my throat as the three exchanged a look. “Papá?” I prodded.
He was completely wrecked when his gaze met mine. “Rafael, I…” he swallowed hard, his eyes watering as he looked away.
“Is it Mamá?” I asked, my voice full of panic.
He shook his head. “Your mother is in the house, safe and sound. Everyone is fine, but we asked her and Ava to stay there while we spoke to you. I feel—as do your brothers—that this is not something you would want them to witness.”
The warning bells inside my head became air sirens, warning of imminent and catastrophic impact. If it wasn’t any one of them, there was only one person it could be.
“Then it’s about Francesca,” I croaked. “Did she lose the baby?”
The sick look on my father’s face confirmed my guess. My child—the one I’d fallen in love with without ever holding him or her—was gone.
Papá shook his head. “There’s no right way to do this, so I’m just going to say it. Rafael—there never was a child. It was all a lie.”
Even as I tried to reject his words out of hand, deep down inside of me was a pain so extreme I half expected to stop breathing. Rationally I knew there was no way my father and three of my four brothers were gathered in my living room to shovel bullshit, but I just didn’t want to believe my father's words. I sprang from the couch and held out both my hands as if to ward off what he’d said.
“That’s ridiculous!” I bellowed. “She’s damn near six months pregnant. I’ve shown you ultrasound photos and that ultrasound video she got two weeks ago. How can you come in here and say something so crazy? All you need to do is look at her stomach to see that she’s pregnant.”
Papá stood and reached out to me imploringly. I took a step back because I knew I couldn’t handle being touched. “We all believed that as well, until earlier today when your mother and Avelina came across Francesca while they were in the city,” he explained. “She had no belly, Rafael, and when they confronted her, she spun a few different tales about why that was. In the end, it was all lies. I had the security team go through your bedroom. There was a suitcase of silicone pregnancy bellies beneath your bed, and they’ve since figured out that while the ultrasounds and the video she was showing us were real, they weren’t from Francesca.”
The sound of my heartbeat inside my ears became so loud it was damn near deafening. Because Francesca had such anxiety about weight gain and stretch marks, I hadn’t been allowed to go to any of her doctor's appointments. I hadn’t seen her without her clothes on in months, but that hadn’t been as upsetting as one would imagine. For me, the worst part of her body issues was the way she cried and carried on whenever I tried to touch her stomach. It was so extreme I’d worried about the health of the baby, which meant I’d had no choice but to stand down. She’d always been uptight about her body, so her behavior hadn’t come as a huge surprise, even though I’d found it ridiculously annoying. I was going to be a father, and I wanted to be involved every step of the way. I let her get away with that shit but told her straight out that she needed to get over it because I’d be in the delivery room come hell or high water.
To appease me, she’d come home from every doctor’s appointment with the appropriate things. Prenatal vitamins, ultrasounds, updates on where she was in the pregnancy. That had to have been real. Somehow, my mother, Ava, and now my father had gotten it wrong. I could believe that she had lost the baby—but there was no way she’d led me on for months with a fake pregnancy. Only a monster would do something like that. Francesca was full of character flaws—she was selfish, jaded, envious, snobbish, and a million other things that weren’t anything to write home about—but I couldn’t conceive of her faking an entire pregnancy.
“This is ridiculous,” I said frantically. “That can’t be true. Her name was on those ultrasounds.”
My father grimaced. “Not her name, Rafael. It said, F Rodriguez. We assumed that meant Francesca, but they’re all from her cousin, Fabiola. Security has already interviewed her, and she admitted that Francesca paid to have duplicates made.”
“No. No, no, no. You’re wrong.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Dio walk out of the room, but I was too far gone to ask where the fuck he thought he was going.
“Son, please—”
I broke out into a cold sweat as I shot up off the couch. “Just… stop fucking talking. This can’t be happening!”
My father’s eyes filled with tears as he looked at something over my shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he exhaled and then nodded once. “Turn around, Rafael,” he instructed quietly.
The tone of his voice and the look on his face were heartbreaking. Whatever it was, he was conflicted. I knew to the core of my being that whatever was behind me was going to destroy me. My legs felt like jelly beneath me, as if I’d spent the previous two months onboard a cruise and was only just taking the first few steps on dry land. I had to force myself to turn, and it was like I was moving through glue. When I finally stopped, I saw Dio standing outside my bedroom door. He had a large, round piece of flesh-colored silicone held up, and although my mind wanted to deny what I was seeing, I knew damn well it was a fake belly.
The edges of my vision went blurry as the reality sank in. The child I’d loved had never existed. The hopes and dreams I’d had were all based on lies, and everything I’d done had been for a fucking silicone circle. I knew the tenuous control I had on my emotions was about to snap. I needed everyone to get out before I exploded.
“I need to be alone,” I bit out.
“Son—”
I shrugged off my father’s hand when he set it down on my shoulder.
“Please,” I said. “I need a minute.”
I needed a hell of a lot more than a minute, but knew that was apparent without me saying it.
My stomach clenched as Dio turned, walked into the kitchen and set the belly down on the island. My gaze kept returning to it because I needed the reminder of the massive shift in my reality. I’d changed my entire life for a piece of silicone.
“None of us think you should be by yourself right now,” Jandro said from behind me.
“We are here for you, Rafe,” Mateo offered. “Now more than ever, you need your family by your side.”
Much as I loved my family, I knew my brother was wrong. For what was about to come out of me, I had to be left alone. Because he was my twin, Dio was smart enough to know this, which meant he didn’t attempt to get me to change my mind.
“I appreciate you all being here, I do, but right now I need silence. Please don’t make me ask again. Just give me some time.”
I sensed them looking at each other and having a silent conversation, but I didn’t have it in me right then to say another goddamn word. All I knew for sure was that everyone needed to leave before I exploded.
One by one, they stopped and hugged me. I was aware of the repetition of movement but physically I felt nothing at all.
“We’ll be in the house when you’re ready to talk,” Papá said.
I nodded. “When I’m ready,” I parroted, knowing I’d never be ready to talk about the way I felt. Ever.
The second I heard the door close behind them I raced into the bedroom. On the bed were two more pregnancy bellies—one was smaller than the one Dio had walked out with, while the other was bigger. The blood was rushing through my ears, and somehow it was getting even louder. Turning, I confronted my reflection in the mirror over the dresser. How had I been so goddamn stupid? Why hadn’t I suspected?
“You know it’s ridiculous that you won’t even let me feel your stomach. You’re carrying my child. Why am I not allowed to experience any of this with you?”
She cried and cried, pulling at her hair as she wailed. “You don’t know what its like for me,” she sobbed. “My body isn’t mine anymore! I’m getting fat and I feel like I’m the ugliest bitch in Spain. Is it too much to ask for you to let me have some space?”
“Your body is still yours, Francesca. You’re bringing life into the world—that is a good thing. Perhaps you should talk to a therapist.”
“I’ll get better. Just please,” she sobbed, her lip quivering as tears flowed down her cheeks. “Don’t touch me. I feel like I’ll break if I’m touched.”
Every time we argued about her inability to be touched, I worried for the health of the baby and ultimately let it go. I’d been played for a goddamn fool. Everything she’d said and done had been nothing but a performance. The worst part was that I’d done it to myself.
“I think I should have an abortion. The truth is that I don’t want to have this baby,” she said. “I’d be bitter and angry while you’d be out living it up and fucking everything that walked.”
I had a choice to make, and for me it was easy. The baby came first.
“I won’t be out living it up,” I promised. “I will be there for you every step of the way. Don’t have an abortion—let’s raise our baby together.”
Two tears rolled down her cheeks. “Are you sure? I don’t ever want you to feel as though I’ve trapped you.”
I thought of my father and the pain he lived with every single day because he hadn’t known about my brother Mateo until he was fourteen. Mateo’s mother chose to keep and raise their son without my father’s help. Papá only found out about his oldest son after she died. If he were in my shoes, I knew he would do anything to have the opportunity to have known and loved his child from the very beginning. I had that chance, and I wasn’t going to fuck it up.
“You aren’t trapping me.”
Looking back, I saw how easily she’d manipulated me. With a loud roar, I smashed my fist into the center of the mirror. My thoughts were so loud that the sound of glass cracking before it shattered was about as noticeable as a whisper.
Walking out of the room, I stormed across the house to the other bedroom. The door was closed, so I kicked it open. Much like the sound of the mirror shattering, the loud splintering of the wood didn’t faze me at all. My already breaking heart crumbled to smithereens as I looked around and took it all in.
Only two weeks before I’d spent two days painting the walls. I could’ve hired someone to do it, but I’d wanted to do everything in my child’s room myself. My rage grew in leaps and bounds as I thought back to Francesca telling me how much our baby—the baby I now knew had been as fake as her badly done tits—was going to love their room.
Holding my baby, seeing their first steps, dropping them off at preschool, coaching their sports teams, being the carpool dad, watching them grow— it had all been nothing but a dream built on a web of lies.
A wail of despair erupted from me as I raged. I yelled and cursed as I tore dresser drawers out and flung them across the room, each one crashing against the wall. Lamps, ceramic figures, picture frames, and the stuffed animals I’d been buying my child for months were all destroyed. By the time I got to the crib, I was sweat covered and breathing like I was mid-marathon, but I kept going. Only when that crib was a pile of busted wood did I stop—and at that point, I had no strength left. I struggled to breathe as I realized that I had to get out of that room if I had any hope of surviving.
I got as far as the living room before everything gave out. Dropping onto the wood floor, I curled up on my side and went blank.
* * *
Sometime later, the lamp inside the front door flicked on. I hadn’t moved from my spot on the floor and wasn’t even sure I could. I knew I’d need to get up and get out—no fucking way was I staying in the guesthouse ever again—but at that moment, I didn’t possess the physical strength to do so.
I didn’t need to bother to look to see who my visitors were since I could hear Mateo whisper something sternly before Ava murmured something back just before the front door closed. Seconds later her hand landed on my shoulder as she lay down on the floor next to me, curling up on her side so that we were face-to-face.
“Ava—”
“Shh,” she said as she took my hand in hers. “We don’t have to talk, but you need someone here with you. You’d have fought your brothers, gotten into it with your father and tried to act like everything was okay with your mother, so I told everyone to back off and let me come in.”
As heartsick as I was, I had to admit it was brilliant. As my oldest friend, essentially the sister I’d never had, Ava knew parts of me that most people never even saw. Although she’d been miffed by the reappearance of Francesca, she could never turn the other cheek when I needed her.
When she brought me in for a hug, I went willingly. All the rage I’d been feeling was gone. What remained was absolute, gut-wrenching agony. Ava held on tightly while I sobbed, her voice the only anchor I had to cling to. As I let it all out, I promised myself those would be the only tears I’d shed over Francesca’s lies.
* * *
I was busy avoiding everyone—and wishing I could avoid myself, too—but since the incessant buzzing and ringing of my cell phone wasn’t letting up, I knew I needed to engage.
I checked the display and saw that Alejandro was calling. Swiping my finger across the screen, I answered.
“Why are you blowing up my phone?”
“Ava’s been in an accident,” he said. “Get to the hospital, now. Mateo is losing his fucking mind and Papá is not handling this well. We all need you here.”
I was racing for the door before he finished speaking. “I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
Arriving at the hospital, I had to walk through a throng of reporters, the click-click-click of their cameras whirring as they shouted questions. I generally found the presence of the press and paparazzi annoying as hell but had learned to accept it for what it was, particularly where Mateo was concerned. Because our family owned a billion-dollar business and his mother had left him billions of dollars when she passed, the press took an obscene amount of interest in him. Never had it been more invasive or unwelcome than it was in that moment.
Once inside I found my family being guarded by our security team in a makeshift private waiting room. Alejandro had warned me that Mateo was freaking out but seeing it in person was jarring. Every one of us was close to Ava, but for him, she was the world. Alejandro had also been correct when he said our father wasn’t holding up well, either. Papá was nearly beside himself with emotion, something that was difficult to see. Ava was more than his son’s fiancée—she was also his best friend’s daughter. Her father, the man we called Uncle Quino, had died a few months before and with his passing, my father felt more responsible for her than ever.
My mother, Alejandro and Dio were doing their best to keep Papá and Mateo calm, but they weren’t having much luck.
The most prominent concern was that Ava hadn’t regained consciousness at all. I remember thinking that my family had been through enough hell over the course of the previous year. From Uncle Quino’s illness and death, Francesca reeling my dumb ass in and faking a pregnancy and now Ava in the hospital, we’d had enough. Surely, I thought, the hits were going to stop coming.
I maintained that frame of mind right up until the police showed up at the hospital to inform us that Francesca had been arrested for—and had subsequently confessed to— purposely running Ava off the road.
The bottom dropped out of my world the day I was told I’d been preparing for a child that didn’t exist.
That day in the hospital, I realized the downward spiral was never going to stop.