Waiting for Sunday

chapter 7 - dust-frosted snow globe

That weekend, Felix goes back to Decatur.

He bribes Quincy into making the twenty or so minute drive east out of the city using a bag of dark chocolate covered graham crackers and a boba tea pit stop—a bribe he uses every single time, and yet has never not worked. The Subaru rumbles up Felix's steep driveway, greeting a small, one-story house that has not changed in all of Felix's life, and probably didn't change much before that, either. Pallid, mold-colored siding that is either green or blue depending on who you ask, white shutters with vibrant green flower beds underneath his mother cares for more than her own life. The cobblestone walk is crisp, free of weeds, yet the vines climbing the trellis by the door have been left to roam free like upward-bound rivers. A plastic skeleton hunched like it has severe scoliosis leans against the patio railing. Angel probably picked that one out.

"Should I come in and say hello?" Quincy asks, putting the car in the park and popping another graham cracker in her mouth. "I can't even remember the last time I saw everyone. Is Reina here?"

Felix glances at his phone, propping the door open with his foot. "She said she would be. But I don't know, Quincy. Based on how my mom sounded, maybe you...maybe you shouldn't."

Felix knows she's heard the weight in his words when Quincy gives him a look. It isn't piteous, neither does it ask for elaboration. It's acceptance. Commiseration. She says, "I'll be one call away."

Felix smiles at her. "Thanks, Q."

He hears the roll of her tires against the concrete as she pulls out of the driveway again, probably heading to hunt for odd jewelry and old man sweaters at the nearest thrift store if he knows her at all. Felix clears his throat and adjusts the fit of his eyepatch—a new one today, free of any coffee stains. He's barely lifted his fist to knock on the door when his brother swings it open.

"You're late," Angel says, delivering a playful punch to Felix's shoulder, which hurts, because Angel often forgets that the summer between his junior and senior year of high school he morphed from a beanpole into a bodybuilder. Their father was strong like that, too; their mother used to joke that he could lift a car if he wanted to. There was no proof of that, of course, but a young Felix believed it with exuberance.

"You can blame Quincy for that," Felix replies as Angel steps aside to let him in. He hears the unintelligible hum of a game on the television in the other room, crowds cheering and the shrill sound of a whistle. Something smells vaguely tomatoey, laced through with the warm scents of oregano and Sazón. His mom must be cooking. Maybe making this trip wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"Quincy?" Angel tosses his gaze towards the door again. "She didn't wanna come in?"

"No," Felix answers, probably too quickly. "She had some other errands to run."

A frown passes Angel's face, but before said frown can condense into words, especially any of the interrogative sort, Felix rounds the corner. The foyer's dark hardwood disappears into gray linoleum, a painted black sun raying out from the floor's center beneath the dining table.

Felix wonders, if his life were a movie, just how many scenes would take place right here in his childhood kitchen. It's strange to him, how familiar and bizarre it is. He can describe the specific arrangement of trinkets on the shelf beneath the cat-shaped wall clock with his eyes closed—the framed family photos beside the Hobby Lobby daily devotional flip books, beside the random snow globes from New York City and Nashville and Denver. If someone asked him to grab a spoon, however, he'd have no choice but to spin around looking lost.

He finds his older sister and his mother there. Reina is resting against the countertop's corner, holding a steaming cup of something warm with one hand and twirling a long strand of bronze hair with the other, while Beatriz stands next to her, frowning into whatever bubbles in her slow cooker.