“Goodness! Why does my little prince look so long in the face? Mi bebe precioso. Were you that lonely with your mamma so far away? Aish, you have to keep him better company when I’m away, Licia. My darling needs a lot of attention.”

*

My head feels like it’s spinning a million miles an hour - swirling with pristine pant-suits and hospital blankets, the smell of sugar and scones, and antiseptic - of freshly painted French-tipped nails - all melting together into one homogenous rainbow headache.

“-But whatever you do, please don’t tell my mom. Please. ”

It makes too little sense. And it’s too much at the same time.

I’d never defy his request unless I thought I really had to. But why…?

My sigh comes out like a mist of white exhaustion as I slam and lock the car door behind me. The frosty glazed landscape is shiveringly radiant - every inch of snow and hanging icicle glistening like white sand and kittenish fangs in the late afternoon light. 

Sometime between today and tomorrow, I’ll need to shovel again, but for now, I slip and slide my way across the icy driveway to the mailbox and knock out a few icicle teeth until I can free my mail from the slack-jawed metal mouth. 

There’s nothing there but a Christmas card from Andrew and Jinho, ostentatiously addressed to “Her Majesty, The Queen of Baltimore.” 

I groan internally the moment my eyes fall on the address line.

The number of postage workers who must think we’re positively crazy.

I blaze with embarrassment, forcing myself to feel duly annoyed, as the urge to laugh at his kid-ish antics snuffs out the moral fire.

He should DEFINITELY be instructed NOT to do this again.

But I smirk just the same, rolling my eyes as I slide the scarlet card carefully into my trench coat pocket and retake the perilous journey toward the front door at 0.5 speed, praying I don’t slip and fall to my doom, or at the very least, end up spending the night in the emergency room.

After all the time I’ve spent afraid of meeting my death behind a steering wheel, that would be irony at its finest.

I shake my head with the uttermost wariness and care, unwilling to risk even the slightest shift in my equilibrium until I’m clinging to my front door handle. The small doorstep is coated over with a layer of ice that would give the driveway a run for its money, but that, at least, I can easily keep dusted with road salt.

Tossing my gloves onto the psychedelic coffee table and my keys into one of the dirty cups like it’s a game of metal-and-glass beer-pong, I flop down amongst the paint stains on the sofa cushions and slide my phone from my coat pocket.

What time is it right now in Mexico?

Goodness knows Andrew will be asleep by 9 p.m., like a good boy, and the last thing I want is to wake him, though I know he’d never complain.

I try to remember and calculate the difference in time zone, though I could just look it up.

I’m pretty sure Maryland is an hour ahead of Mexico City.

Still, he takes a minute or two to respond, and when he does, it sounds like he’s eating lunch.

At 3 p.m.?

“Why didn’t you wait to swallow before you called me?” I grumble, scoldingly.

“Didn’t want to miss your call and then end up having to play phone tag back and forth,” he says a little thickly. I hear him swallow and then the aggressive slurp of him drinking…something or other. Fruit juice probably, because he never could grow into drinking coffee or tea like any other adult. 

I roll my eyes a little mom-ishly, though I know he can’t see me.

And then I curse my own brain for remembering-

“I got your Christmas card,” I say as steadily as I can manage when the racket stops, “How many times do I have to tell you to stop addressing my letters like that?”

“But the beauty of the mail system is that they have to deliver it,” he laughs, his voice vibrating through the microphone like crackly sunshine.

I think I hear Jinho speaking rapidly and angrily in Spanish somewhere in his background. 

Another voice replies with ingratiating ‘Señor’ and ‘mi jefe’s, but he doesn’t seem to be having it. 

Andrew sighs.

“Sorry. Our delivery guys just got us the supplies we ordered, three days late. The hotel is going to be furious if we can’t finish the gazebo on time, but obviously, we’re running a bit behind schedule now…”

“Ouch,” I wince sympathetically, “...I hope everybody was doing okay. A few hours late might be tardiness, but three days…?”

“You have no idea what delivery is like in Latin America,” he sighs, “nearly everything we order comes three days late, and when we order early to try to make sure we still get it on time it arrives six or nine days late.”

The voices grow louder and more heated, at least on Jinho’s side.

I catch a dozen or so four-letter words, and Andrew covers the phone, saying something earnestly in Korean that I don’t understand. The only word I pick out is “big sister,” but I’m pretty sure it was a request for Jinho to watch his language.

“Lo siento, Alicia,” I can feel his embarrassment burning through the phone, and imagine him rubbing between his eyes in that ‘old person’ posture he learned from Tia Bella. “Jinho can be a little intense when it comes to the business sometimes. He’s just concerned about our company’s image, you know?”

“That’s understandable…” I say a little slowly, resisting the urge to laugh, for his sake, “A delivery coming three days late is no joke.”

He sighs like a steam engine and I decide to change the subject.

“-But about this Christmas card…you realize it’s January, right? I told you that you have to give your letters a lot of lee-way if you want me to get them by the holidays.”

“I sent it in October,” he says with another heavy sigh, “You know how the mail system is. I wanted to send you a present but I was worried it would never make it…”

I hear a door slam.

“But! I might be able to bring it to you myself,” he says brightly, “Jinho and I are going to be in the area sometime this week or the next to renew our business permits and do some repairs on Mom’s house. Jinho says if we’re ever going to sell it then now is the time. Renting has been a hassle since we’re not in the country to monitor our tenants…”

A car door slams.

“The last ones broke some stuff, and the whole endeavor ended up costing us more than we gained. But hey, we’ve just gotta work with what we’ve got and manage as best we can. We’re going to try to fix it as quickly as possible before the housing market shifts again. There’s something about a boom and everybody buying at once and then I guess the price will go down again? - I don’t really know - Jinho’s the one who keeps track of all that stuff, but he knows what he’s talking about.” 

I hear a door opening in the background and Jinho’s voice comes through unintelligibly, but calmly, somewhere far behind Andrew.

“Si si si,” Andrew says quickly, before chuckling and saying excitedly back into the receiver.

“Jinho told me to say hello to the Queen for him. Gosh! It’ll be so awesome to see you again. You have no idea how much I’ve missed you since the move. He always says I talk about you like you’re some long-deceased relative and not just a phone call away. But calls are just different. We’ll probably be able to get lunch somewhere, the four of us, at least once before we leave. You, me, Jinho, and Kat. I just realized we haven't even introduced them, yet -"

Ohhhh. No no no.

My heart jumps into my throat and chokes me.

“Drew…” I start to say, but my voice fails me.

“-It’s been way too long since we all talked in person. You’ll have to give him my apologies, I haven’t been keeping up with his films. The last one I saw was that one with the robots…”

That was his last one.

He keeps chattering away about the movies and Jinho and my paintings while my conscience pounds on my brain - screaming at me-

-How…

How am I supposed to tell him?

Andrew turns away from the receiver again saying something to Jinho in Korean. Then he sighs into the mic, apologizing a little too loudly.

“Oof, ‘Licia, I’m so sorry. I totally forgot. We’ve gotta go now that we’ve gotten the lumber and see if we can make up for lost time. I’ll call you - or text you as soon as I can.  I love you-”

“Drew-” I start to say. But he’s already hung up.

Two seconds later, his text appears on the screen, but I can hardly see through the headache shaking up the world like a cocktail.

“I’ll text you when we’re back in the country so we can arrange to get lunch - but hopefully sooner if we can. Our schedule has been hectic. P.S. I saw the news report for your exhibit online. I’m totally telling everyone that my older sister is a celebrity! (Jinho says we have to fix your house so we can start name-dropping XD.)”

The mention of the exhibit scratches another far-off corner of my conscience.

I totally forgot about the meeting with Juana King and Melissa Xochitl this Monday - it’s too soon.

The world is moving too quickly and I want to get off before I puke.

My sigh comes out like vaporous ghosts of those memories I don’t want to let keep haunting me - but I have - have to explain-

-Crossing my fingers that everything will be okay. 

That they’ll believe me - forgive me.

Because if they don’t I’ll have to explain…to Andrew…to Mrs. Moon -

And because I don’t want to lose this.

For me.