The M.I.L.F. Man

"Have the courage to be free..."

I was comforting Ma Mere, who had just fallen in love with Cici long distance herself, when Lupita, still wallowing in guilt and having been ousted from the detention center with the others at closing time, arrived with a massive feast.

She, Bea and Victor had brought some of the vigil keepers along. Ama was with them, too, having been included in all the group texts. Kissed and hugged me so many times it gave my parents pause...

But by that time, my parents were too shell shocked to say much. I'd never seen them quite so casual around people they'd never met. Ma Mere, shoeless like Cici and Guy sipping tequila and mezcal and Mexican beers as if they were the exorbitantly expensive wines from his cellars—he was an insufferable snob as a rule.

Speaking of which, I don't think the Ritz was particularly pleased to have the smell of all those delectable dishes turning heads in the lobby as Lupita's wait staff went marching through. And Cici's somewhat scruffy activist pals weren't Ritzy types by any means.

In fact, I'd expected some to decline on principle, but quite a few showed up. Gawking, wide-eyed, at the opulence they railed against with such vehemence most of the time.

We all needed some soul food. Not just the succulent stuff on the tables but the love folded into every morsel by my beautiful Lupita.

I was amused—and relieved—watching Ma Mere get drunk and "disorderly." She'd already draped herself over me after Cici's call, burbling, "Cheri, please forgive me! I didn't understand," with such passion that I wasn't quite sure how to handle it.

And then she'd caught my face between those impeccably manicured hands and cried, "All those ridiculous things, the women, the wandering--first, there had to be this one! To change my lost child into this loving man..."

As the alcohol really began to take effect, she even swatted at my father whenever he attempted to peel her off me.

"You have no heart," she pouted at him. "So bloody British! Go away with your stiff upper lip and let his mother comfort him!"

She'd had—we'd all had—a few too many shots of this very strange, very sweet mezcal. It was mixed with pure cane sugar and Guy declared it "unpalatable" in secret so as not to insult. But the rest of us sucked down shots with grateful glee and found ourselves floating in a rather druggy daze thereafter. Poor Bea fell asleep after a few sips.

I, myself, had to go rushing away to my adjoining suite just in time to heave up almost everything I'd eaten. I was hugging the toilet for dear life when I spied Cielo's little bag under the sink. And burst into those loud soppy sobs that sometimes well up when one has had far more than one too many.