Work Text:
[To see subtitles for the Spanish dialogue, mouseover the text. It uses the abbr tag, so it won’t work on touchscreen, sorry!]
When Jane Gloriana Villanueva was ten years old, she came home from school with a very important assignment.
“We need to do a report!” she announced to her mother and grandmother as she plunked her pink flowered backpack down on the kitchen table.
Doing reports always made Jane happy. Not only did it mean a lot of writing, but it also meant a lot of planning. She could make lists! Lists of books and topics and ideas and schedules, all organized neatly with straight ruler-drawn lines and color-coded tabs.
“Ma, have you seen my other green sandal?” Xiomara interrupted as she hopped around on one foot. “I’ve got a big date and I have to look amazing.”
“En el vestíbulo,” Alba said without turning around from where she was stirring a pot on the stove. “
“It’s on our role models!”
The question of role models was a complicated one for Jane.
She considered Meredith Jacobs, the author of her new favorite book series, Library by the Lake. Jane had recently decided that she wanted to be a writer herself, so who better to be her role model than someone who could write dozens of excellent books?
Or maybe she could write about Adelita Navarro, star of her new favorite telenovela, Los Recuerdos Perdidos de Laurel. She played Laurel’s best friend Rosita, and Rosita was daring and resourceful and intelligent and beautiful.
Jane could also tell that at this moment, her mother was watching her very very closely, and she wasn’t really sure why.
Still, Jane hardly needed any time at all to think about it, “I want to do my report on you, Abuela!”
It is important to note that Xiomara had never seriously thought that Jane would choose her as a role model. She knew that she wasn’t the kind of person that people felt that way about.
It is also important to note that Xiomara had gotten very good at hiding how much that knowledge hurt. “That’s great, honey!” she said brightly.
Meanwhile, Alba glowed. “Oh, mi amor,” she sighed, and gathered Jane in for a hug.
Two weeks later, Jane came home in tears.
“I dropped my report in the mud!” she wailed to her mother. She flung her backpack down and crumpled into a chair, burying her face in her arms on the kitchen table. “The cover got all bent and dirty, and some of the photos fell out, and I had to stand up in front of everyone and read it anyway, and the pages were all smudged, and it was awful!”
“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry.” Xiomara patted Jane’s back. “But you still read it, right? You kept going! That’s the important part. It’s just like - ”
Jane braced as her mother’s voice took on an explaining tone. She expected to hear a story about Xiomara’s latest date.
But instead, her mother said, “It’s like I tell my students. Even if your neighbor does the wrong step, even if you’re standing in the wrong place, even your shoe falls off, you just keep dancing.”
Jane nodded. “I guess,” she sniffled.
“Just keep dancing,” Xiomara said, hoping that it helped.
***
“Are the twins really old enough to start dancing?” Jane asked at brunch.
Two months into the renovations on the Marbella, neither Jane nor Petra ever considered that they might cancel their weekly brunch. They just ducked under the tarps that covered the front entrance and made sure to keep the kids away from the construction equipment on the way up to the penthouse.
And even though neither of them ever talked directly about why the brunches were so important – helping Petra hang on through Rafael’s imprisonment, bringing Jane ever so slowly out of the other side of her grief over Michael’s death – they both knew.
“I think they’re old enough,” Petra said coolly, spearing another bit of egg-white frittata with her fork. “You have to start these things young, you know. All the best dancers and gymnasts and violinists – they all began when they were three.”
“The twins aren’t even two,” Jane pointed out.
“They’re very advanced.”
At this moment, the twins were passing a sparkly stuffed turtle back and forth between them, giggling as if this were the most hilarious thing to ever happen in the history of the world.
“Very advanced,” Jane repeated dryly. “I can tell.”
“Tag!” Mateo tapped both twins on the shoulder. “You’re both it!” The turtle trade broke into a chaos of running and giggling as Mateo led the way in a chase around the room.
Petra glanced over. “Calm down, girls,” she said in a neutral, even voice.
And then something happened that shocked Jane to her very core:
The twins actually calmed down.
They toddled over to the corner of the room, plunked down into a soft pile of pastel cushions, and picked up some board books to start flipping through.
Jane stared. What was Petra’s secret? How did she get them to do that?
Before she could ask, the phone rang. “Sorry, I have to take this. It’s the contractor.” Petra rose smoothly from the table and glided off to carry on a muted phone conversation in the corner.
That left Jane alone with the children. “So,” she began. “Do you like dancing?”
“Uh-huh!” Ellie said. She wriggled up from the nest of cushions, still holding her board book, and started to dance to some music that only she could hear.
Anna got up too, but to toddle after Petra – and to hold her book up to her ear like a phone in a mirror of her mother’s posture.
“What do you mean they’re delivering the tile on Wednesday?” Petra snapped into the phone. “Didn’t they hear me say that we needed that tile by Monday at the latest? That idiot!”
Jane raised her voice a little to try to drown out Petra’s angry conversation with the contractor. “That’s a great dance, Ellie! Maybe you can teach Mateo. Do you want to learn to dance, Mr. Sweetface?”
“Thank goodness that’s done! ” Petra burst in, striding back to the table. “I can’t believe they – “ She glanced around at the children – Anna with her “phone” still clutched in her hand just as Petra had done, only now looking up at Petra anxiously; Ellie and Mateo dancing with giggling clumsy enthusiasm – and stopped before the anger could get away from her any more. “Well, that’s done,” she repeated, and drew herself up straighter, tossing her hair back over her shoulder.
“We should get going anyway,” Jane said. “See you next Saturday?”
“Oh, yes, about next weekend.” Petra’s voice was so carefully casual that Jane knew that something big must be coming. “I was wondering if you could come over a little early. Eight-thirty? I’ve got a photoshoot for Ocean Drive Magazine – they’re doing a feature on me,” she explained. She tossed it off briefly, as if she were in luxury magazines every weekend, but her satisfied little smile showed how special she really felt the photoshoot would be. “As an entrepreneur and a mother, and on everything I’m doing for the Marbella. The nannies have the day off next Saturday, so I might need an extra hand with the twins.” The casual tone and delicate smile faltered, just a little, as she finished: “It’s very important for everything to be perfect.”
Jane suppressed a groan. Giving up one of her precious few days of sleeping in? To come help Petra put on a show of having a perfect life with her perfect twins for a perfect magazine?
But Petra was actually asking for help. How often did that happen? Plus, Jane had promised that she would be there for Petra, and even if Petra hardly ever returned the favor, Jane would follow through on her side of the deal, because that was the kind of person she wanted to be. That she hoped she was.
“Yeah, okay,” Jane replied. She tried to keep her voice casual too, but she was never as good at that as Petra – she couldn’t help letting some of her true feelings out. Right now, it was a hint of sympathy, and a quiet weight behind her tone that showed that she understood how much the request had meant.
And then it all evaporated into Mateo’s squeal of “Wheeeeeeee!” as he charged out the door down the hall.
“Sorry!” Jane cried as she dodged after him. “Next weekend! Yes! Come back here right now, Mateo!”
In the back of her mind, Jane could hear Petra’s firm voice, the tone that had gotten Ellie and Anna to obey. Maybe if she did the same thing, Mateo would be as quiet and well-behaved as the twins. Could it really be that easy?
***
“It’s really that easy,” Chloe scoffed to Jane and Van on Tuesday. “Honestly, I can’t believe you haven’t caught on yet.”
Jane and Van stared at their computers. Mystifying yellow boxes and blue grid-lines filled the screens, topped by the jaunty title EdRePortal.
“This is the latest software,” Chloe continued. “All of the editorial offices use it to track their manuscripts. How can you not know it yet?”
“Because it just came out last month?” Jane ventured. “And because you just gave it to us an hour ago?”
“God!” Chloe groaned in exasperation. “I can’t waste any more of my time on this. Seriously, you just do this and this and this.” Chloe’s meticulously (vegan cruelty-free organic) manicured nails clicked a blindingly fast pattern across Jane’s keyboard. Reported! flashed onto the screen in cheery green letters. “And then it’s done!” Chloe spun around to stalk back to her office. “We need to get this up and running by Friday.”
“That means Thursday,” Van muttered as Chloe’s door closed behind her.
“If not Wednesday,” Jane agreed.
Jane had long since realized that Chloe was not – as she had once hoped – the publishing industry figure whose example she hoped to follow. Most of the time she took note of Chloe’s example in order to figure out what kind of writer and editor (and person) she didn’t want to be.
Which made it ironic that Jane was now wishing she’d paid closer attention to Chloe’s keystrokes when she was generating that report. Jane replayed Chloe’s motions over and over in her head – did Chloe tap this key and then this one? Or this and then that?
It didn’t help that Jane was so tired that the blue gridlines were swimming on the screen. Mateo had had a nightmare, and then woke up at 5:30 AM ready to play, so Jane was counting her hours of sleep on one hand. She hoped she’d make it to two hands tonight, but she wasn’t holding out good odds.
She glanced over at Michael’s picture where it sat smiling in the corner of her desk. He leaned forward a little, as he always did when she needed him, and told her, “You’ve got this.”
Jane boldly punched a few keys and hit enter.
Error! blared across the screen in angry red, and Jane’s stomach tied in knots.
Friends, Jane was not so sure that she got this after all.
***
“I don’t think I’m ever going to get this,” Jane groaned that evening as they cooked dinner. It was a rare weeknight that they were all together – Jane, Alba, and Xiomara. Bruce was out of town on an overnight business trip, and Xiomara wanted company. “This new software is going to destroy me. Here, Abuela, I’ve got the carrots all chopped for you.”
“Gracias.” Alba leaned over to pick up the bowl from the table next to Jane. “¿Que hay de tu amigo Van - él lo entiende?"”
Jane shook her head and started in on chopping the celery. “No, he gets it even less than I do. We both tried for hours, and couldn’t get it to do anything but beep and flash an Error sign.”
(They did try, friends. Trust me, I saw it!)
“And I know you won’t get any help from that boss of yours,” Xiomara put in.
“No.” Jane drooped even further down over the celery. “What’s even worse is that we both have to pretend to be making progress, or she’ll just yell at us for hours, and then we’ll have even less time to figure it out.”
Alba shook her head, making wordless clucks of disapproval.
Mateo spun giddily into the room, arms out. “I’m a helicopter!” he squealed. “Wheeeeeeeeeee!”
“Careful, Mateo,” Xiomara said. “No playing in the kitchen when sharp things are out, remember?”
Jane perked up a little. This was her chance! She could try out that trick that she’d seen Petra do. She straightened her shoulders, made her face blank and neutral like Petra’s, and looked right at Mateo as she said evenly, “Mateo. Calm down.”
He didn’t. “I’m a green helicopter!” Mateo spun faster and faster, careening into chairs and tables as he tottered around the kitchen with his arms out.
“Sometimes you just have to try something else,” Xiomara sighed sympathetically. “Come on with Abuela, sweetie.” She intercepted Mateo on his next run around the room and scooped him up. “We’re going to get the helicopter to fly somewhere else.”
For the next two hours, Mateo played Helicopter, except for the brief time at dinner when switched to playing Dinosaur, because helicopters don’t eat. Jane barely made it thirty minutes past Mateo’s bedtime before she collapsed into bed herself.
“Solamente tres días más hasta el fin de la semana",” Alba offered hopefully as she tucked Jane in.
Jane burrowed into the pillows. “But I still won't be able to sleep late. Petra’s having a photoshoot for Ocean Drive Magazine, and I agreed to help her with the twins. It’s the nannies’ day off,” she explained, before Alba could ask. “So I have to be at the Marbella at 8:30.”
“”Siempre puedes llamar a Petra para decir que no puedes ir,” Alba suggested, brushing Jane’s hair back from her forehead. “Estas exhausta, y solo va a empeorar. Tienes que cuidarte.”
“I don’t want to let Petra down! I can tell how much this means to her. She’d never actually say so out loud,” Jane admitted, “and if even I asked her outright she’d probably deny it. But I can tell.”
“Eres una buena amiga a ella. ¿Quieres que yo vaya también el sabado? Yo tendria traer Mateo conmigo, pero tres adultos para tres niños harían las cosas más fáciles”
Jane breathed a grateful sigh and lifted up from the pillows. “Oh my gosh, Abuela, would you? That would be great.”
Alba smiled. “Lo haré.”
***
“I’ll do it this time,” Van said. “Let me see if I can get it right.”
It was Friday morning, and they still hadn’t made any more progress on EdRePortal.
All Wednesday they had struggled in parallel, both cringing at the angry blaps and beeps that came with each red Error! message.
On Thursday morning, Chloe had hovered over Jane’s desk just long enough to say, “You’ve got that new software down, right?” For once, Jane was glad that Chloe didn’t even wait for an answer.
As soon as the door had closed behind Chloe, Van leaned over to whisper, “I’ll keep trying. You pretend like everything is normal and you’ve got it all figured out. If I actually do make it work, I’ll tell you how to do it.”
So for the rest of the day on Thursday, Jane and Van had kept the sound on their computers off, and took turns. First Van wrestled with EdRePortal while Jane ran around fetching Chloe’s lunch, snacks, dry-cleaning, and hand-crafted artisanal ice cubes. (Don’t ask, friends; I don’t know what that means either.) Then as soon as Chloe left the office for her second spin class of the day, Jane dove in to the software to try to see if she could figure it out. Every time, she tried to remember exactly how Chloe’s fingers had looked tapping out that confident pattern on the keyboard, and every time, she missed it.
Trading off didn’t help them make any more progress towards figuring it out, but at least only one of their computers would be frozen up at a time so the other could get some real work done in the meantime.
When the door banged open for Chloe’s return on Thursday afternoon, Jane pasted on her usual cheery smile and typed away as if she were actually doing something that had an effect, instead of staring at yet another Error!
Now, on Friday, they were running out of time. “She actually wants to see the reports today!” Jane whispered. She kept her face pointed towards her computer, talking to Van without actually looking at him, as if they were spies. Or, at least, acting like the spies she’d seen on Los Recuerdos Perdidos de Laurel, when Rosita was taking her twin sister’s place undercover to expose the corruption of the President of Grandania. (The President’s place had actually been taken by his evil twin. It was a great storyline, friends! You should all watch it!) “We have to figure out how to make this thing work!”
“I know,” Van groaned in agreement.
“Let me see what you’re doing,” Jane suggested. She stood up from her desk and ambled over to Van’s, moving as casually as Rosita had done when she was entering the president’s office. Her eyes flickered towards Chloe’s office – no, the coast looked clear there. No risk of being seen.
“Okay,” Van said. “So I’ve figured out the first part. You go like this, and then like this…” The EdRePortal screens flipped smoothly past while Jane watched Van’s hands punching the correct series of keys. It looked so close to what Chloe had done…
Error!
“Dang!” Van groaned.
Jane wasn’t so discouraged, though. “Wait a second! That looked like you were really close. Try it again, except hold down the control key for that last part.”
As soon as Van got EdRePortal restarted, he did…and onto the screen popped a green Reported!
“Yesssss!” Jane whisper-shouted.
For the next thirty seconds, they went through their usual routine for when they got something right that they couldn’t let Chloe they had ever gotten wrong: tiny foot-tapping dances under the cover of their desks and festive jazz-hands behind their computer screens.
“How did you get that?” Van asked, when the victory party was over.
Jane shrugged, trying not to grin so widely that Chloe would suspect that something was up. “Watching what you did and remembering what Chloe did, I guess.”
Jane was fairly certain that this was the only time she would ever imitate Chloe on purpose.
***
How could two sweet little girls cause so much chaos?
It was all that Petra could do to keep the twins sitting still long enough to tie the ribbons in their hair and buckle their shoes. First one would wriggle out of her seat and then the other, and as soon as Petra had grabbed one and pushed her back in the chair, the other would be out and running. Plus, they had just started some kind of hammering and sawing in the next hallway over, and even when the twins were quiet, the racket from construction continued. It had been going on for thirty-five minutes straight, and Petra was near her wits’ end.
But she couldn’t let that show, not when the photographer was going to be there – and definitely not when Jane was going to be there.
Petra couldn’t allow the camera – or Jane – to see anything but perfection. Pale dresses. Pale ribbons. Crisp fabric. Shiny shoes. Smooth hair. She would never concede to be seen as anything less.
Which meant that when the door opened, bringing some hope of reinforcements against the chaos, Petra didn’t let her relief show.
Nor did she let the wince show when the first person through the door was Mateo. “Wheeeeeeee!” he squealed.
“Wheeeeeee!” echoed the twins as they took off after him.
“Girls, be careful of your hair!” Petra warned, with little hope.
“Hey, Petra,” Jane said. She dropped her purse and Mateo’s bag of toys and snacks by the door, and surveyed the room. “How is it going so far?”
“Buenos días “. Alba cast a sympathetic look around the room. “Estás muy occupada, hm?”
“Oh. You brought your grandmother,” Petra said, in the same tone that she might have said, “you brought your gym socks.”
“Yes, I did,” Jane said with a slightly too-sweet smile. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine!” Petra snapped.
Ellie and Anna whizzed by, running laps after Mateo. “Wheeeeeee!”
Jane raised skeptical eyebrows, but all she said was, “Uh-huh. Got it.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Solano.” Coming in the door behind Jane and Alba were a pair of black-clad women, one tall and one short. The short one teetered under the awkward bulk of a stack of crates, her bright-blue-dyed hair barely visible above them. The tall one pushed her way ahead as if she didn’t even see that the other one was there. “Sawyer. From Ocean Drive Magazine.” She didn’t specify whether it was a first or last name, and she didn’t leave time for anyone to ask. “Let’s get in, get out, get it over with, okay?”
The crates thumped heavily to the floor. “I’m Jasmine,” said the blue-haired woman, offering a tentative wave with her now-free hands.
Sawyer stared at Jasmine, as astonished as if one of the twins’ stuffed animals had spoken. “Chair,” Sawyer commanded.
Jasmine scurried out into the hall, with Jane’s “Nice to meet you, Jasmine,” trailing after. Jane had a lot of sympathy these days for people with awful bosses.
Petra stepped in, imposing herself between Jane and Sawyer. “Thank you so much for taking time in your busy schedule,” she said smoothly. “We’re so glad that Ocean Drive Magazine is doing more features on local women entrepreneurs.” She felt more confident now – she’d done dozens of interviews since she took over the Marbella, and even if Sawyer hadn’t actually asked her the question, Petra could definitely give the answer. “As I said to the reporter, it’s important to show women being able to be both mothers and businesspeople, and – “
“Raaaaar!” Mateo shouted, waving his clawed hands as he ran in a circle around the grownups. “We’re dinosaurs!”
“Raaar!” Ellie and Anna chased after him, imitating the gesture and the sound between gleeful giggles.
Petra winced. “Come on, girls.” It pained her to have to interrupt her speech about entrepreneurs, but it pained her even more to think that the toddler dinosaurs would tear up each other’s hair ribbons. “You don’t want to mess up your clothes.”
“Chair?” Jasmine squeaked from behind a wide wicker chair as she lugged it into the room.
“Chair!” echoed Ellie – and then roared it in her dinosaur-voice. “Chaaaaaair!”
Sawyer sighed. “Finally! Okay, so we’ll set this up here,” she said, waving vaguely towards one corner of the room. Jasmine deposited the chair, then scurried around unpacking the crates: lights, diffusers, poles of various shapes and sizes. While she set them up, Sawyer kept talking, “You can sit here, Mrs. Solano, with the girls standing on either side. We can try one or two with them on your lap as well, and with all of you standing – “ She broke off as Ellie and Anna whizzed past again. “Kids,” she muttered, eyes rolling heavenward. “God, why did I agree to do a shoot with kids?”
Petra bristled. “Excuse me. My girls are very well-behaved.”
“Son niñas.” Alba shrugged tranquilly, even though neither Sawyer nor Petra was listening to her. “ ¿Mateo, quieres leer un libro?” Distraction sometimes worked.
“Yeah, this is going to take twice as long as I thought.” Sawyer’s voice was thick with offhand disdain. “Jasmine, call back to the office to get the next appointment rescheduled?”
“No, everything will be fine,” Petra protested. “I assure you, we will be able to get you in and out ahead of schedule. We respect your professional obligations. As everyone in the new Marbella will,” she added, revving up for her speech again, this time with a pointed defensive note under it: “And in the new Marbella, we’ll make room for guests of all ages, understanding that families need a place where they can get away…”
“Why don’t I get Mateo to go somewhere else?” Jane suggested, pushing her voice up cheerfully. “Come on, Mr. Sweetface! Time to let Ellie and Anna take their pictures.” She dodged between the chaos of toddlers, trying to grab at Mateo.
“No!” Ellie cried gleefully. “Tag! You’re it, Auntie Jane!”
“Girls!” Petra spun away from Sawyer. “We talked about this! You need to come sit down right now.”
“Sit down right now!” Anna mimicked, charging across the room
Jasmine dove to catch at the light diffuser’s pole before it fell. “Do we want to try this another time, Mrs. Solano?” Jasmine offered hopefully.
“No!” Petra persisted. “We’re doing this now!” Her voice was rising higher with every word,
“Now now now!” Anna sang.
“Girls, you need to sit down!” Petra repeated.
“Let’s stop the game now, Mr. Sweetface,” Jane said, trying – and failing – once more to catch hold of Mateo.
Anna ran in circles around the photographer, Mateo and Ellie following close behind. “Idiot idiot idiot!” Anna sang. “Sawyer, you’re an idiot!”
There was dead silence.
Into the blankness dropped Petra’s gasp. “Oh, I am so sorry. I can’t imagine where they heard that!”
Ellie beamed proudly. “You said it, Mommy! On the phone!” And then she started too: “Idiot idiot idiot!”
“Stop it!” Petra couldn’t believe the volume of her own shout, but couldn’t call it back once she’d started. “Stop it, all of you!”
There was another silence, deeper and more shocked than before. Petra’s eyes darted around the room, staring at the people staring at her. Jane and Alba, pitying. Sawyer, annoyed. Ellie and Anna….afraid.
Petra couldn’t help it. She turned and ran.
The door slammed into an echoing quiet.
“Uh-oh,” Ellie said. “Mommy’s mad.”
Anna nodded, eyes suddenly gone wide with fear and surprise. “Say sorry?” she offered.
“Someone get Mrs. Solano back in here.” Sawyer didn’t seem fazed at all by the insult, or mollified by the apology; she just moved forward with her usual veneer of casual disdain. “I’d like to have a chance of only going one hour overtime instead of two.”
Jane and Alba looked at each other. “Abuela, can you go…”
“Si,” Alba agreed.
“Okay, kids!” Jane said brightly. “We’re going to read stories until Mommy and Abuela are back!”
***
Alba found Petra on the edge of the construction zone, staring at the blank sheetrock wall with her arms crossed around herself and back rigidly straight. Petra’s face was stiff too, but Alba could see the faintest flicker in Petra’s eyes as she realized that she wasn’t alone anymore.
“Petra?” Alba asked softly. “¿Estás bien?”
Petra said nothing. Her feet shifted slightly, directing her gaze more decidedly towards the wall.
“Tienes que volver finalmente,” Alba tried again.
“Go away,” Petra muttered, low and sulky.
“Si,” Alba said agreeably. “ Si es lo que quieres. Pero yo no lo creo.”
“I don’t understand you. I don’t speak Spanish. Go away.”
Alba raised her eyebrows, giving a skeptical look to Petra’s back. “Ah, creo que lo haces. Te he visto reaccionando a conversaciones que he tenido con Jane y Rafael."
Petra flinched at the mention of Rafael’s name – and that was the first crack in her armor. She wavered, her mouth pinching tight and her shoulders tensing, until finally, she gave in. “All right, fine, I know Spanish!” Petra snapped.
Five years ago, she had studied up so that she could follow along with Rafael’s favorite telenovela, Los Milagros de Mariana. Or, more precisely, so that when he confessed that his favorite show was Los Milagros de Mariana, she could gasp and say in surprise, “Really? Oh my gosh, mine too!”
“So what do you want?” Petra still didn’t look at Alba.
“Quiero ayudarte. Tienes que terminar de tomar fotos y continuar con tu día. Todos se sienten perdidos a veces. Todas las madres, todos los padres. No es la falla.”
“I haven’t failed!” Petra lashed out against the word.
“Lo sé, lo sé,” Alba soothed. “Este es exactamente lo que estoy diciendo. Esto no es una falla. Esto es parte de ser una madre soltera.” Alba paused – Petra could have spoken into that silence if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t. “ Especialmente,” Alba continued more gently still, “si nunca tuviste buenos ejemplos de maternidad a seguir.”
“Stop it!” Petra broke her stony silence to snap the words over her shoulder, barely turning her face. “You don’t know me! You don’t know anything about me or my childhood!”
“Conozco tu madre,” Alba pointed out dryly. “Ella me empujó por las escaleras e intento a matarme. ¿Recuerdas?”
Petra sniffed. “Okay, fine.” Alba stayed quiet for another long moment, and this time, Petra did move into the space that she left open, to speak very quietly. “Every time I think I’ve learned how to do this, every time I think ‘oh, now I understand how they work,’ something changes.”
Alba smiled. “Todas las madres se siente lo mismo. Te acostumbra a ellos arrastrándose y luego aprendan a caminar. Te acostumbra a ellos caminando y aprendan a escalar.”
“And then they talk! And – and – they repeat things!”
“Eso se pasa,”. Alba agreed. “Creo pasará por un tiempo, especialmente repitiendo cosas que dice. Tratarán de seguirte, siempre. Eres el centro de su mundo.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Petra’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “They’ll watch me, and do what I do. And I’ll ruin them,” she said, just as she had said to Jane all those months before when Rafael went into prison and left her alone with the twins.
Alba shook her head. “No los arruinarás,” she said, just as Jane had. “Puedes establecer un buen ejemplo para ellos si lo intentes. Tuviste un mal ejemplo para la maternidad, pero siempre puedes darles una major.”
When Petra and Alba came back into the penthouse, Sawyer and Jasmine were poking halfheartedly at the diffusers and cameras, trying to do something useful with their time even if their subjects weren’t there. Jane was sitting in the big wicker chair, arms stretched out to reach around both Ellie and Anna to hold up the picture book in front of them. (Mateo was still stomping around making dinosaur noises, but at least he wasn’t doing it anywhere near the photoshoot area.
Petra hesitated on the threshold – would the twins still be afraid of her?
But they didn’t shrink back: they both looked up, their little faces brightening into happy smiles. “Mommy!” they cried.
Petra tried to hide just how relieved she was. “All right, girls,” she said briskly. “We’re going to take some photos now. Watch me, and see how nice and quietly I can sit.” She strode over to the wicker chair, perfectly balanced on her high heels. “Jane, that’s my seat.”
“It is,” Jane agreed. “All yours.”
* * *
“So you made it through?” Xiomara asked later that night, as the three of them swung wearily back and forth on the porch swing. Jane was in the middle, with Alba on one side and Xiomara on the other, all with glasses of wine and their shoes kicked off.
“We did,” Jane said. “I had to promise Mateo extra cookies and extra Lego time, but we made it.”
“Y Petra también hizo bien,” Alba offered.
“She did. I think those photos are going to look – “ Jane stopped. She didn’t really want to say ‘like a Stepford wife with two Stepford babies,’ because she didn’t want to be that mean to Petra, even though that’s what she thought the photos would look like. “They’re going to look exactly the way Petra hoped they would,” she decided on. “I don’t know what you said to her to get her back in the room, Abuela, but it worked.”
“Le dije lo que ella necesitaba oír,” Alba said vaguely, and smiled. “Y era la verdad.”
Jane nodded. “Whatever it was, it was good. I don’t blame Petra for going to pieces like that. Being a parent is hard.” She let her head tip over to rest on her mother’s shoulder. “And taking care of all three at once? I mean, you have it even worse in your dance classes, Ma, with ten or eleven little kids running around at the same time! And then coming home to your own kid, all by yourself? I don’t know how you did it.”
“I wasn’t alone,” Xiomara said softly. She glanced over to catch Alba’s eye with a brief grateful smile. “And I don’t know how I did it either. But when you’re a parent you don’t always have time to stop to think how you’re going to do it; you just do it. You just you keep going because you have to.”
“Just keep dancing, right?” Jane said.
And in that moment, Xiomara knew that her daughter really had heard her, and that even if Jane didn’t realize it, Xiomara was her daughter’s role model after all.
“Yeah,” Xiomara said. “Just keep dancing.”