The M.I.L.F. Man

The vigil

"This, you hide from us! This...girl--have you gotten her into trouble?" Ma Mere bleated. In very loud, very agitated French.

"Trouble?"

"Oh please, you know what I mean!" she cried, tossing arms skyward. I even got a little foot stomp along with the wide, wild eyes.

They'd flown in of course. Because it had gone much as I'd expected. This one calling that one and then, finally, that "I'm afraid your son's been kidnapped" call that had turned my mother into the screaming shrew gesticulating so madly before me...

They had even reserved an adjoining room at the Ritz, refusing to allow me to stay at the loft "unattended." And of course, the whole Rae thing had been forgotten not just by them but by the public as well, for the most part. Though I hoped the brief flurry of speculation had lasted long enough for Rae's ex to raise an eyebrow at least. Bastard...

I, myself, had not slept for two days and had only come to the Ritz, rumpled and red-eyed, to greet and reassure the parents having spent long hours in that big beige box waiting for word from Cici or someone who could tell me what was happening to her. Cold and intentionally uncomfortable building it was, that detention center. Bustling with people trudging toward fates similar to and perhaps even worse than Cici's. Families and lives being destroyed right before our eyes.

The sobbing children saying last farewells to nanas and papas and mamas and such broke my heart again and again. Yes, they'd been here illegally but some had been here for decades and had built solid, respectable and even enviable lives.

One man had built a business that eventually sent all of his kids to college--none of it mattered. His now adult children had to almost carry his grieving wife to the parking lot. And took a piece of my soul with them...

Victor and Lupita—who somehow felt responsible for her being there--kept vigil, too. Along with a constant stream of heartsick colleagues who'd fed the homeless and marched in protest beside her.

One of them bear hugged me breathless and cried, "You made her so happy and hopeful..." Before bursting into shoulder heaving sobs.

Which of course reminded me that Cielo was that once-in-a-lifetime, "There is a God" person who'd turned on the lights in my life in every sense of the world. Nearly all the women I'd met, in fact, had been little lights in the darkness. Harbingers of the even brighter, everlasting one to come.

So perhaps I'd been fated to "jump." As part of that larger and often seemingly incomprehensible Plan that only some higher power knows. I wanted Lupita to understand that. When she got over wanting to kill Chucho...

But drained by my mother's rage, I plopped down, spent, onto one of the love seats and said, "No, she's not pregnant. If she were I'd be trying to tunnel into that detention center with my bare hands..."

And she hissed, "Oh my God," and walked to the patio doors perhaps hoping the majestic mountain view would soothe her frayed nerves.

My father, ever the "stiff upper lip" sort of Brit, sat beside me, smiled quietly...cautiously...and said, "Well, you do look a fright, dear boy."

But there was something in his eyes—a deep warmth I'd honestly never seen before.

Might well have been about the man for whom he'd been named, who'd sacrificed his life for love. Of course, the border wasn't Buchenwald by any means. But I think my willingness to put myself in harm's way for someone had forced him to see me more clearly. Or at least...differently.