Twelve
1989
“Do you believe in ghosts?” Cora whispered. She and Mercedes were lying in a mound of pillows and blankets on Cora’s bedroom floor. They were having a sleepover for the first time in a while, and they’d made themselves sick on Oreos and Mountain Dew. They’d watched St. Elmo’s Fire and then danced to every music video on MTV for hours, but it was midnight and Mercedes had a pounding headache and a roiling stomach. She thought longingly of her own bed only three doors down, and was jealous of Noah who’d just gone home, Papi’s guitar in tow. Alma had given it to him with Mercedes’s blessing, and he was teaching himself to play. He wasn’t very good—he probably never would be—but he tried hard. He’d danced around with it while the girls sang, all of them pretending they were the Three Amigos version of Tears for Fears, their current favorite.
Alma and Heather had agreed that now that Mercedes, Cora, and Noah were all in high school, Noah couldn’t sleep over. No boys allowed. Mercedes wanted to leave too, but she knew Cora would be disappointed if she did, so she laid back against the pillows and closed her eyes, listening to Cora prattle and responding only when she needed to. Cora’s last question had her opening one eye blearily and staring at her friend.
“No. I don’t believe in ghosts. Do you?” Mercedes asked.
“Yes. My mom says there are no such thing as ghosts . . . only angels, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“Abuela says Papi’s an angel. I like to think of him that way. Maybe he sells shoes to all the little angels at the gates of heaven. Like the song,” Mercedes said.
“Will you sing it to me?” Cora asked. “I love that song, but I can’t ever remember the Spanish words. Maybe Noah can learn it on his guitar.”
Mercedes, her eyes closed, sang “A la Puerta del Cielo” all the way through, singing the story of the barefoot angels and begging them to sleep. She hoped Cora would sleep too. “Duérmete niño, duérmete niño, duérmete niño, arrú arrú.”
“Duérmete niño, duérmete niño, duérmete niño, arrú arrú,” Cora repeated softly, her accent bad but her voice lovely. “What’s the verse about the mothers who watch?”
“The children who sleep, God bless them. The mothers who watch, God helps them,” Mercedes sang in English. “Maybe we should change the words to ‘the fathers who watch.’ We both have fathers who watch over us, don’t we?”
“None of us have fathers. Not me. Not you. Not Noah. We should form a club,” Cora answered, her tone bitter. For a long moment, she was quiet, and Mercedes started to drift off, imagining her father smiling while he sold shoes to the angels. Papi would like that. Mercedes may not have a father on earth, but she still had a father.
“Do you think people who kill themselves go to hell?” Cora asked abruptly.
Mercedes jerked and sat up, alarmed.
“Geez, Corey. Why would you say something like that?”
“That girl—Brittney—in history class? She says suicide is a sin. Like murder. And murderers go to Hell.”
“Remind me to punch Brittney when I see her again,” Mercedes grumbled, lying back down.
“If you believe in God, you have to believe in Hell, don’t you?” Cora asked. Her eyes were troubled, and Mercedes groaned. Her belly hurt, and she didn’t want to talk about Hell or ghosts or obnoxious Brittney who wouldn’t know Hell from a hot tub.
“I don’t HAVE to believe anything. I believe in God because Abuela believes in God. And the God Abuela believes in is kind, and He loves all of His children. Especially the ones who need Him the most. Especially the ones who are sad enough that they want to die. He isn’t going to send them away to hell or anywhere else. That’s what I believe.”
“That’s a good thing to believe.” Cora sighed. “Let’s beat up Brittney together.”
“Deal. Now can we go to sleep? I feel like barfing, and I’m tired.”
“Okay.” Cora switched off the light and plopped down beside Mercedes, snuggling down in the blankets. She was quiet for several minutes, and Mercedes was almost asleep when she spoke once more, her voice so soft, Mercedes wasn’t even sure she was talking to her.
“There might not be such a thing as Hell,” Cora whispered. “But I do believe in ghosts . . . because sometimes I think I see my dad, sitting in his wheelchair in the living room. It’s just for a second, and then he’s gone. But it’s happened more than once. I want to ask him why he left me, but he always disappears.”
Mercedes pretended to be asleep and didn’t answer. But her heart was pounding, and she was wide awake. She desperately wanted to go home. But there was no way she was walking through Cora’s living room now.
* * *
Two weeks after the first anniversary of her death, Mercedes accompanied Noah to Cora’s grave. Heather had gone on April fifth, and Mercedes told Noah she would stay with Gia whenever he wanted to go, but he shook his head and said nothing more. He was quiet. Reflective. And for a while he seemed resistant to going at all. Whenever Mercedes brought it up, his lips would tighten and his head would bow, as if to say, “There is something I need to say but won’t.” And he wouldn’t. Mercedes didn’t even bother trying to wheedle it out of him.
There was a new awareness between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It didn’t rub in all the wrong places or cause them to constantly check their feet to see how they looked as they walked, like a kid with a new pair of sneakers. It was simply another layer, and it was almost frightening that it didn’t feel strange. Maybe it was because they didn’t change. They still teased each other and bickered like they were twelve. They still behaved exactly the same way. Except for the times Mercedes caught Noah gazing at her with an expression that heated the skin of her throat and tightened the muscles of her lower belly. When she caught that look she remembered how it felt to kiss him, and she desperately wanted to do it again. But they didn’t. She didn’t. The shower scene, as he’d called it in the salon, had not come up again. Not in innuendo or in real life. It was not forgotten, but it wasn’t discussed.
On the eighteenth of April, a Monday, Noah came home from work and suggested they go to the cemetery together. They bundled Gia against the threat of rain and climbed in Noah’s car, stopping at the store to purchase flowers. They had several graves to visit. They bought yellow roses—her favorite—for Cora and a sprig of evergreen mixed with baby’s breath and a few red roses for Papi. Maybe it was too Christmas-y for April, but Christmas made Mercedes think of ever-faithful, ever-loving Papi. Noah bought a spray of daffodils for his mother. The woman who was afraid of the light deserved a little sunshine. Finally, they bought a small, mixed bouquet to lay on Sergeant Mike McKinney’s grave. He wasn’t buried near the rest, but in the Veteran’s section at the top of the rise. Through the years they’d never forgotten him, though Noah and Mercedes had never really known him. Sergeant McKinney and his missing parts had made a lasting impression. Sadly, not the impression he would have liked, they were sure.
They wove their way to the best access point for the graves they needed to visit, and parked the car. By some unspoken agreement, Cora would be last. They visited the oldest loss first, trekking to Sergeant McKinney’s grave and laying the flowers beneath his name. Heather had already been to his grave too. There was a picture of Cora and her father together—it looked like a Xerox copy—in a plastic sleeve to protect against the April rains. Mercedes supposed it was Heather’s way of reminding her dead husband that it was his turn to look after their daughter.
“I know what you’re thinking, Mer” Noah murmured, his eyes on Mike McKinney’s name.
“What?”
“You’ve got that damn song in your head.”
“Dem Bones?”
“Yep.”
“It’s completely inappropriate. But ever since we had that talk, I think of it whenever I think of him. How did you know?”
“Because you’re tapping your toes in the rhythm of the song . . . and because it’s been stuck in my head for a year.”
“I’ll sing ‘Red Red Wine.’”
“Don’t you dare.”
Mercedes patted the stone, and Noah saluted it. Gia wanted to climb up on it, and Noah swooped her up so they could move on without desecrating Gia’s grandfather’s resting place.
Papi was next in the rotation. He and Sergeant McKinney had died fourteen months apart. Mercedes got him fourteen more months than Cora got her dad. Cora said it wasn’t fair. Mercedes reminded her that loss wasn’t a competition, but Mercedes never argued that the way Cora’s father died was worse. It was. Papi slipped away as peacefully and as quietly as he’d lived. His family missed him dreadfully, but there was no violence in his death. Only the violence of broken hearts.
Mercedes sang a verse from “A la Puerta del Cielo,” the lullaby that made her think of Papi, and touched her fingers to her lips and then to his name before rising. Noah reached out his hand to her, and she took it, walking with him, missing her father but moving on.
“What was that?” Noah asked.
“The song?”
“Yeah. You were singing that to Gia the other day, and Cora sang it too, though she usually just hummed it.”
“I taught it to her.”
“To Cora?”
“Yeah. A long time ago. It’s called A la Puerta del Cielo – At the Gates of Heaven. Papi used to sing it.”
“Tell me the words.”
“A la puerta del cielo—at the gates of heaven. Venden zapatos—they sell shoes. Para los angelitos—for the little angels. Que andan descalzos—that go barefoot.”
Noah smiled. “Maybe that song is the reason my little angel never wants to wear her shoes.”
“No sooz!” Gia piped up, right on cue. Mercedes and Noah laughed.
“Dee-Uh walk,” Gia insisted.
Noah let her down, telling her to stay close, and they walked in fits and spurts toward Shelly Andelin’s grave, coaxing the little girl along.
Shelly’s grave was a simple slab with her name and the word mother engraved above it. Noah had had no money when she died. What nineteen-year-old kid does? But he’d scraped enough credit together to buy a casket, a plot, and a stone to mark the spot. He’d told Mercedes once that his mother said he was the only thing she’d done well . . . and she hadn’t really done much. In Mercedes’s opinion, Noah was the best thing about his mother.
“I feel sad when I come here. I don’t miss her . . . not the way I should. I’m hard on her. In my head and in my memories, I’m hard on her,” Noah said. “Everyone deserves to be mourned, and I didn’t mourn her enough.”
“You’ve never been very good at pretending.”
“No.” He shook his head, and Mercedes could see the conflict in his face, the same conflict he’d been struggling with for weeks, but he shrugged it off again without unburdening himself.
“Gia, come on,” he called. Gia was lagging behind, weaving in and out of the stones, putting too much distance between them.
“I coming, Daddy.” She tried to run, her feet heavy in her pink snow boots, and Noah watched her with a small smile on his face.
“She’s not calling you Noah anymore,” Mercedes commented.
“No. She teases me sometimes and calls me Noah. How can a two-year-old child even know the concept of teasing? But she does. At first, I would roar and tickle her. But I realized I was reinforcing it. So now I ignore it completely. If she wants my attention, she has to call me Daddy. Otherwise, I’m blind, deaf, and dumb.”
Mercedes laughed. “Very smart.”
“I love her so much,” he whispered, his tone fierce.
It was such a sudden admission, and so out of the blue, that Mercedes looked up at him, puzzled. But something in his voice and face echoed an inner anguish, and Mercedes was quiet, letting him speak, trying to hear the things he might not say.
“The first year with a new baby is a blur. Dads kinda get shoved to the side. Or maybe we happily shove ourselves to the side. We go to the corner and pray the family survives. But that first year is mom intensive, you know? There’s no place for Dad. We’re the support, the backup. I obviously didn’t do the best job at that, considering my wife . . .” His voice trailed off, and he breathed once, deeply, and let whatever he was going to say dissipate in the breeze.
“The day Cora died, there was a short period of time when I didn’t know what happened to Gia. When I called you and you said you had her, and she was safe, I had this visceral, almost transcendent moment of relief. It was like a surge of superpower. That moment has sustained me through this whole year. When I’ve been at my lowest, I think of how Gia was spared, and it gives me strength. My mother told me once that I’m a miracle. She said she didn’t make my soul, and my father didn’t make my soul. Someone else did that. That’s the way I feel about Gia. I can’t take credit for her. I’m just lucky enough to get a front-row seat in her life.”
Mercedes couldn’t imagine Shelly Andelin uttering those words, but she was touched that she had. She felt a sudden rush of gratitude for the odd, little mouse Noah had called mother, and mentally thanked her for giving him something to hold onto.
When they reached Cora’s grave and brushed off the debris left by a long winter, Mercedes handed the roses to Gia so she could lay them on the grave. Gia didn’t want to relinquish them, so they let her tromp around with the flowers in her arms, watching as she marched in her private parade.
“I don’t know what’s going on in her little head half the time, but it looks like fun,” Noah murmured.
“It’s a party, no doubt.” Mercedes laughed. Since the flowers were in use, she dug Cuddy’s stones from her purse and studied them before laying them down on Cora’s headstone, one at a time.
“What are those for?” Noah asked.
“Cuddy gave them to me. He always leaves me a rock when I cut his hair. His pockets are full of them. I asked him once why he carries rocks. He says they keep him from floating away with the dead.”
Noah shook his head. “Cuddy scares me a little, Mer.”
“He doesn’t scare me.”
“Does anything scare you?” There was laughter in his voice, and she didn’t respond.
He scared her. Noah scared her. Losing him scared her. It always had, especially after Papi died.
“I like Cuddy. And you know me, Noah. I don’t like everyone. I can be a total bitch.”
“No, you can’t, Mer. You just think you can. Big difference.”
“Cuddy’s been told he’s crazy his whole life. And he believes it. He fried his brains with drugs to escape the crazy, and he just made it worse. But there’s a sweetness and a gentleness that’s constantly pouring out of him. He cries when I wash his hair.”
“The Mercedes touch.”
She wiggled her fingers. She thought he was kidding, but the way he looked at her said he wasn’t.
“Why five rocks?” he asked, clearing his throat.
“He told me one for Gia, one for me, one for you, one for him, and one for Cora herself. He also said David slayed Goliath with five smooth stones. You know, just in case we need to slay someone before we leave today.”
“Hmm. Everyone here is already dead.”
“Cuddy told me to keep the rocks. But I’m not going to carry them around in my purse. I don’t need any help not floating away.”
“Plus, your purse weighs twenty pounds without the rocks.”
“Exactly.”
Amazingly enough, Gia left the rocks alone and was finally coaxed—after one rose was set aside for her—to lay the flowers on her mother’s grave. With the sun setting in front of them, the three made their way back toward Noah’s Subaru.
“Are you still angry, Mer?” Noah asked, setting Gia on his shoulders.
“Are you?”
He was silent, and Mercedes could feel his indecision billowing like steam from a hot pot. He was stewing in something.
“I asked you first,” he said, sounding the way he had when they were ten.
“I’m not angry. Not most of the time. I want to understand, and I’m not sure I ever will.”
“No. Me neither. I would give anything to have an hour with her. To talk to her. I have a lot to say,” he muttered.
“Do you want to tell me? I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”
“There are some things, some confidences, that shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
“I’m not taking them lightly, Noah. I never have.”
“I know, Mer. That’s not what I mean. I don’t want to hurt your opinion of Cora with my anger. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect. Mami told me not to tell her when my friends hurt me, because I would forgive them eventually, and she never would.”
Noah laughed. “So true. I’m working on forgiving Cora. Forgiving myself. But I don’t want to paint her a certain way—a permanent way—because of the way I feel right now.”
“Are there things you aren’t saying, Noah?” Mercedes asked, wanting to know what he knew but not wanting to reveal her own secrets.
“There are things I’m not saying, Mer,” he answered. “Things I may never say.”
“Okay,” she whispered, wondering for the umpteenth time what was right and what was wrong, what was betrayal and what was love. But if Noah was set on silence, she would be silent too.
“All I know, Noah, is that Cora loved you,” Mercedes offered after a long pause.
“How do you know that, Mer?” he asked, so softly, so sadly, that she blanched and waited for him to meet her gaze.
“Because I know who you are, Noah Andelin.”
He stared at her, confused.
“You are the best person I know. Always have been. True. Kind. Selfless. Hard-working. Handsome.” She winked. “I agree with your mom. You,” she poked him in the chest, “are a miracle.”
“That’s how you feel, Mer. Not how Cora felt.”
“She was convinced she didn’t deserve you, and she did her best to prove herself right. But I know she loved you. She worshipped the ground you walk on. Just like I did.”
“Just like you do,” he teased, ready to leave the serious talk behind them.
“Yes. Just like I do.”
“I love you, Mer.”
“I love you too, Noah. Now can we please go eat? I’m starving.”
“Dee-Uh hungy,” Gia piped up from her father’s shoulders.
“Gia is always hungry.” Noah laughed. “I guess I better feed my girls. Let’s eat.”
* * *
Three days later, at the end of her shift, Keegan was waiting for Mercedes in the parking lot beside Maven, a cigarette between his fingers, propped against his black Volvo like he was posing for a photo shoot.
They hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words—always polite, always professional—since the night almost two months ago when he’d admitted the affair. Mercedes had begun to relax in his presence, to even hope that Cora’s indiscretion would stay buried with her. Keegan clearly had other plans.
“She looks like me, Sadie,” Keegan greeted, grinding out the cigarette with the toe of his pointy black boot. “Cora’s little girl. She looks like me.” He pushed off the car and approached her Corolla. She had her keys in her hand—she always had her keys ready before leaving the building.
“Don’t you think she looks like me, Mercedes?” Keegan pressed.
“I think she looks like Cora,” Mercedes said. Her hands had begun to shake, making her keys jangle.
“I hadn’t gotten a good look at her before. But when Noah brought her in a couple weeks ago . . . I saw her. I saw her, and she looks like me.”
“What are you trying to say, Keegan?” Mercedes’s heart was knocking against her breasts, and she wanted to fold her arms over her chest to keep it still. But she steeled herself instead, meeting his gaze.
“What if she’s my daughter?” Keegan insisted. “I need to know that, don’t I?”
Mercedes stared at him, horrified. His point was imminently reasonable while threatening utter devastation.
“Why?” Mercedes breathed. “Do you suddenly want to be a father?”
“No. Not particularly. But . . . if I am the little girl’s dad—”
“Her name is Gia. Gia Mercedes Andelin. She has a name,” she hissed.
“Right. Gia. If I am Gia’s dad, I want to know. And I want Noah to know.”
Again, Mercedes paused, her eyes pouring over his face, trying to understand, to glean motive and malice, to unearth intent. He looked away, clearing his throat and folding his arms.
“Why would you do that to Noah? He’s her father. He’s been her father since the day she was born. He’s done all the work. You haven’t. And why would you do that to her? Why would you complicate things this way?”
“Look at her. She looks just like me,” he huffed.
Mercedes had looked, and Gia did look like him. No one would put it together, but the moment you suspected, it wasn’t hard to see.
“Secrets have a way of coming out, Mercedes. It’s gonna come out,” he warned, shoving his hands into his pockets and taking a few steps toward her.
“So, you’re going to go to Noah, and you’re going to tell him you think that his daughter is actually your daughter? Are you going to sue for parental rights? Force him to fight for his daughter in court? What?” It was all she could do to keep her voice level, to maintain eye contact, to not attack him with clawed fingers and snapping teeth.
“If I have to.” He sounded almost apologetic, like he knew what he was saying made him an asshole, but there was no other way to get what he wanted.
“If you have too? You slept with his wife, and now you want to take his child?”
“I think she’s mine.” He shrugged. “But maybe we can work something out. Me and you,” he said, moving so close she had to lift her chin to meet his gaze.
“Work something out?” she asked, her voice flat.
“I need money, Mercedes.”
She wasn’t following, and her heart was still caught in the horror of his threat.
“W-what?”
“I need . . . cash,” he repeated. “I’ve gotten myself into a little trouble that only money can fix. If you can help me, I’ll stay away from Noah and the little girl.”
She was reeling, angry, but most of all confused. “You want me to pay you off?”
He had the conscience to look uncomfortable, but he nodded, defiant. “I need money.”
“What assurance do I have that you’ll stay away once I give you the money? I wasn’t born yesterday, Keegan.”
“Noah seems like he’s a decent guy. I know she’s in good hands.” Keegan said, magnanimous. “I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
Mercedes wanted to laugh. As if that was what this was about. Keegan didn’t give a shit about the kind of hands Gia was in. He was playing a role. A part. And he wasn’t playing it well.
“I need that money, Mercedes. I’ll take it, and I’ll go.”
“You’ll go? You’ll leave the salon?”
“I’ll go to L.A. or New York. I want bigger and better than Salt Lake City, Utah. I made more in one weekend at the Sundance Film Festival than I make in two months here. There’s money working for big names. I’ll go, and no one will be the wiser.”
“How much money are we talking about?”
“Fifteen grand would probably do it.”
“Holy shit, Keegan!”
He folded his arms, defensive, but he didn’t amend his price.
“Why do you think I have that kind of money?” she asked.
“You live in a dump. You drive a fifteen-year-old car. You shop at Goodwill. But you make good money. You’re a saver, Mercedes. I bet you tuck away every last dime.” He smiled at her fondly like her frugality was adorable.
“Who are you?” Mercedes said, shaking her head. “I feel like I don’t even know you.”
He shrugged. “Who am I? I’m kinda thinkin’ I’m Gia’s daddy.”
The words made her shudder, her vision swam.
“We’re friends, Mercedes. I like you. You like me. I hate that it’s come to this.”
“Why has it come to this, Keegan? Nobody’s making you do it.”
He shifted and looked at her sorrowfully before pursing his lips and tossing his long, blond hair back off his face.
“I’m willing to give her up. But I just think I deserve something in return,” he coaxed.
Give her up? Mercedes scoffed so hard she choked. She’d always known Keegan was shallow. Vain. But she’d never been threatened by his faults. Everyone had them, and he was a good stylist. She’d even liked him. She didn’t like him anymore. She hated him. And she was afraid he was going to hurt the people she loved most. For the first time, Mercedes considered that Cora hadn’t been trying to confess her affair with the paper doll picture. Maybe she’d been trying to warn Mercedes.
“All right, Keegan. I’ll pay. I’ll pay, and you leave. And I don’t ever want to see you again.”