Straighter than Parallel Parking

≈ f i f t e e n ≈

"Honey, there's this thing called pausing between sentences." Marcus laughs, before turning to face her with his intense hazel eyes. "And, no, to all of those. Well, I didn't hear half of what you said, but, yeah, no. I'm actually here to talk about, uh, your mother. My wife."

Ice would've dropped down her shirt, and Janice still wouldn't have flinched. She softly replays the words going through her head.

"W-wha—hmm?"

Eloquent, she thinks, internally face-palming herself. So freaking eloquent.

"I know we've never really talked about her," her father rushes, his cheeks a little red. "It's just—well—I don't know what to say, to be honest. I suck at talking about things like this. This is what Karlo excels at. The personal and touchy things."

"You're talking about the same guy who gave a speech on why it's unfair that girls get to play with dolls when, and I quote, 'you can't dress up action figures in pretty clothes', aren't you?"

Marcus chuckles at the memory, before turning somber. "And the same guy who used to hold you while you had nightmares." Janice smiles, fiddling with her iPod. "God, I don't know how he did it. I would come out with two black eyes and split lip. You had an arm even back then. He not only came out unscathed but, miracle of all miracles, you were fast asleep. Imagine, being jealous at your own son for taking care of your own daughter better than you. Irony at its finest."

"You didn't do that bad with said daughter," Janice states.

"I didn't have anything to do with how amazing she is," Marcus says, "she does that on her own. I just wish she knew that anyone else would think so, too. Even Giovanni. Especially Giovanni."

Her trembling heart takes a drastic leap at her adopted mother's name. "You think so?"

"I know so," a booming laugh erupts from him. "God, she was so beautiful and kind, but so goddamn stubborn. I honestly even expected her to take ten minutes to say 'yes' when I proposed just so I would have a heart attack. You know she locked me out of the house for twenty minutes once when we got our apartment because I didn't get the right chocolate bar when she was with Karlo? She just closed the blinds every time I tried to look through."

Marcus sighs, hunching his shoulders. "I miss her so much sometimes. She would've loved you all."

Janice puts a hand on her father's figure, one that looked so small with the memory of one he hadn't seen in years.

Emotions can you kill you more than any murderer, she tells herself, letting her father get himself back together.

"I didn't see her passing coming." Marcus says faintly. "We were so young, our kids were so young, but that's life. It just happened. One minute she was making me breakfast and then I don't see her for dinner ever again. You know the drill. Some punk decided that her wallet wasn't enough, and they wanted her necklace."

He gives Janice a pointed look, and it starts to piece together in her mind. "She wouldn't give it, though. Not her necklace. Anything but that. So he took her instead."

Janice has her hands fly towards to her collar, the necklace she hasn't bothered to take off from yesterday still resting. She swore she can't force air into her lungs now even if she tries to. "Mom died because of this?"

Her father doesn't even flinch, but smiles wistfully instead. "I love how you refer to her as mom, she would've been proud to be your mother."

This sent warm chills down Janice in a sharp contrast to the cold she'd been encased in a couple minutes ago. "That necklace was my mother's, de mi madre's. She got it from her mother and so on. A tradition, I guess you could say. I gave it to her on our wedding anniversary, and we were hoping to have a daughter wear it to her own. She was kind of rooting for a girl, even though we had three boys. I got lucky with you, mi querida hija."