Borrowed Time

Chapter 6

Luz felt frustrated as they left the mall, seeing how quickly Hunter became withdrawn and sullen again. She'd made such incredible progress getting him to open up, but he was back to barely even looking at her again. She tried to make conversation while they waited for the bus, but he didn't respond much.

Luz asked him if he was okay. He awkwardly replied he was fine, just a little tired. She didn't believe him, but she pretended she did.

By the time the bus dropped them off by Luz's house, Camila's car was already in the driveway. Luz felt a pang of guilt for not being there when she got home, but hopefully her mother didn't mind. As they approached the front door, Luz was struck with a strange sense of uncertainty; did she knock on the door to her own house or just go in? It was weird to even stop to think about it, and normally she probably wouldn't have, but somehow, she still felt a little odd being back at home– as if she wasn't sure if she even belonged anymore.

Ignoring the weird feeling, she opened the door and called,

"Mamá, nosotros estamos en casa!"

She heard her mother welcoming them home, calling from the kitchen. They entered and found Camila was already getting started on making dinner.

"There you two are, I was worried you'd missed your bus. Here, come here Luz."

Luz approached and her mom gave her a hug and a kiss on her forehead.

"It's so wonderful to have you back home again, part of me wondered if last night was just a dream. Did you two have fun at the mall?"

Luz gave Hunter a glance and then smiled at her mom, saying,

"Yeah, actually, it was pretty awesome."

Camila was pulling vegetables out of the fridge.

"Good, I'm glad. They closed a bunch of stores there and opened a lot of new ones since you've been here, some of it must have been barely recognizable to you."

Luz nodded.

"Yeah ... hey, do you need help with dinner? I'm happy to help out."

As Camila sorted produce on the counter, she answered,

"Oh, yes, thank you, Luz."

Luz turned to Hunter, giving him an appeasing smile.

"You wanna help out too? Only if you want to, I mean– we could teach you a human recipe."

He shook his head, looking between her and Camila and answering politely,

"N-no, that's all right– I'm sure you'd like to spend some time with your mom, I don't want to get in the way of that."

Camila answered kindly.

"You'd never be in the way, but that's fine, you can leave the cooking to Luz and I."

Luz realized that Hunter might be rather bored waiting for them, though, and decided to go and show him how a human television worked. Once she'd showed him the basics of the remote control and the DVD player, she returned to the kitchen to help her mom with dinner.

The kitchen had the ingredients for soup spread along the counters, and Luz planted herself in front of one of the cutting boards to help with chopping carrots.

"So how was work today?"

Camila sighed. She had a group of potatoes by the sink and was washing them off. Shaking her head, she answered,

"To be honest, things have been pretty rough lately. We've been short-staffed ever since two of our assistants left. I've had to take up a lot of the slack. Losing our best tech was what hit us hardest, we've been so backed up."