Get Out If You Can

Diego | Scrawl On The Wall

"Diego, that's you?"

"Yeah." I hesitate a bit as I step into the warmth of home. Mom's got every reason to be mad at me for arriving well after curfew — because, after all, her biggest parenting mistake was letting Enrique overstep the boundaries she'd set. According to her, at least.

I lock the door, wincing as it slams a bit too hard against the dark-brown frame. The grandfather clock somewhere ahead of me in the hall declares I am, very unceremoniously, thirty minutes late.

"Hey, Mom." I fling my navy blue sweatshirt on a mustard armchair. "Where's Abuelita?'

"Diego!" The second I turn around, Abuelita's hands are around my neck. "How are you?"

"Brilliant." I smile at her. My face is numb from the cold outside, but I must admit it — the way-too-expensive electric fireplace Mom bought was worth every dollar. "How have you been?" I ask, sitting on an armchair. She sits on one opposite me.

"Very good," she says. "Your Abuelo couldn't come because of a conference he had to attend. He's always attending those things," she says, shrugging. "Never home, that man. How are you doing, though? Stella tells me you're never at home either," she laughs, "don't learn that from your Abuelo. It's not nice."

"I've been doing some work at Callenfield Uni." I stretch my legs and kick off my shoes. The warm fire unfreezes my toes. "Doing a physics program there. Oh, and I was just at Augusta's," I say, watching her face brighten. "She asked me to say hello to you for her."

"Such a dear," Abuelita fondly remarks. "We'll go see her sometime, okay? Stella, where is my son?"

Mom shakes her head, arranging and rearranging my sweatshirt. "Upstairs, in his office. I don't know what he's up to these days." Mom sits on a couch next to me. "He doesn't even have that much work. "Andre?" she calls out my father's name. "Come down!"

"One minute, Stella, it's just this —"

"There you have it." Mom waves her arm. "Diego, why are you late, though? What happened?"

"Nothing, I just got too absorbed," I say, patting my backpack. "Sorry."

"He's so sweet!" Abuelita gushes. If I didn't love her as much as I do, I would've cringed.

"I'm actually kinda tired, you know?" I get up from the chair and walk to the helical staircase. The one thing I love about our way-too-pretty and way-too-pricey house is the staircase art — everything from the gilded banisters to the creepers that crawl in thin tendrils around the railing. I call it 'art' because if it's not that, then I don't know what it is.

"Yes, it is late, go to sleep." Abuelita nods at me, still smiling. "Tomorrow we can go see Augusta!"

"Take some rest, then, Di," Mom says. I walk up the staircase — when someone rings the doorbell.

Abuelita gets up to check who it is.

"Sit down, sit down," Mom says, getting to her feet. I can't help but laugh at how Mom inadvertently smooths her hair. She has to look good. "Should I call the — never mind. It can't hurt to check."

I'm glad she's capable of thinking that. On any other day, Mom would send for the butler, Jorge, no matter what. I don't know what made her do otherwise. Abuelita's presence? Well, possibly.

I sit down there, on the stairs, just to see what's happening.

Mom opens the door — after smoothing her hair one more time, that is. She doesn't say anything. It's like no one's out there.

Oh well. Maybe this is another one of those pranks. The ones where kids with no work to do ring people's doorbells just to see if they can run away before the owner of the house opens the door.