An Extra Pump of Sugar

Chapter 23

My father flipped the channel back to Fox News after I'd intentionally switched the television to CNN. On mute, it had taken him five minutes to notice his missing cast of white people, and it pleased me, seeing the vein jut out of his forehead.

"Don't you have better things to do, Mona?" he complained.       

"You know you can turn it off, right? Tucker Carlson won't keel over."

Papá Noe crossed his arms, disapproving of my tone, but I couldn't care less. My family wanted so desperately to be white and wealthy—or in my father's case, maintain that status—that they would disregard everything the far-right did to vilify Latinos and Mexican immigrants. It was as embarrassing as it was backwards.

I couldn't sway their vote, but I could sure as hell mess with their media exposure.

Dad scowled at me and leaned forward in his chair, carefully guarding the remote in his lap. "Have you given any more thought to an internship? Like the position at my firm?"

My smile was flat. "Not a morsel."

He opened his mouth to admonish me for my attitude, but Jay cut in before he could say anything inflammatory. "She doesn't have time, what with her boyfriend and all."

I would have punched the idiot if he wasn't so fragile, so I smothered him with a couch pillow instead. "Ignore him. I don't have a boyfriend."

Lita frowned at me from the rocking chair. "Still no man, Ramona?"

Ugh. Not the matchmaking talk. Anything but that. "I haven't found one worth my time and attention."

She curled her lip. "All good men are back in Guatemala. I find one for you."

"You know, my heart does race for that glorious machismo."

Jay cackled beneath the pillow I'd rightfully shoved in his face, and I grinned. Family dinners were going to be insufferable without him here as a buffer. He was the last thing keeping me tethered to the Montgomery-Rivas family tree, like the fraying rope of a tire swing. As soon as he passed, I'd be rolling my way to freedom—or exploding with undisclosed, facetious responses. One or the other.

My mother walked into the living room then, her cellphone in hand, and the panicked bewilderment on her face poisoned my smile. "Jay...I was just on the phone with the hospital." Betrayal bubbled up her throat. "Why did they ask me about hospice?"

The room went quiet, save for my mostly deaf grandfather, who asked my father to repeat the question. I glanced at Jay with my heart in my esophagus, and I could see the dread in his eyes. He hid it well behind a look of casual dismissal, but I recognized anxiety when I saw it. "It's nothing. They're just promoting their programs, I'm sure—"

"I called because I haven't received any bills since January," my mother pressed. "They said you haven't seen the oncologist in months."

"Forget about it," Jay told her, a plea on his tongue as he made to vacate the interrogation room, but she moved to stand in front of the couch, blocking his exit.

"Explain."

"I told you, Camila, I don't need you to keep paying for my medical bills. It's just—"

"Why are you lying, Jay?"

He glared at her, and his frustration turned sharp, like a weapon he intended to wield. "You're my sister. Not my conservator. Let it go."

"Let it go?" she repeated, and I winced, identifying the shrill, maternal panic in her voice. There was no subduing this fire now; the curtains had just caught aflame. "This is your health we're discussing. I will not simply let it go!"