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1
María José doesn’t know, but Paulina kept her wedding ring. It’s there, tucked inside the carved wooden box her mother passed down to her, the one that smelled suspiciously like weed but whose intricate design Paulina loved to trace with her fingers while deciding what to do with her jewelry for the day. Dahlias, peonies, and garden roses, she’d identify them, count them all as the ring sits, heavy in the box.
She never wears it, of course, always goes ahead and picks other rings. It doesn’t match any of the bracelets or necklaces she owns, and more than once she had thought about throwing it out. Or maybe donating it. Maybe tomorrow, she’d say. Or I should have it appraised, first. She never did, and so it continues to take up residence in her room. Never seeing the light.
Sometimes, she would just look at it. Think about a life she once had, with a husband that loved her and a family that was going to make it, whatever happened. On nights when she’s had a little too much wine, she’d think about trying it on, just once, to see if it still fits, and maybe think about the promises made to her on the day the love of her life put it on her finger. She never does, though, just reaches for her wine glass instead and goes to bed.
2
She had cried a lot when her husband became her ex-wife. She never let anyone see, though. And no one really noticed, she thinks, except Bruno, who’d been so little at the time. She knows because there were nights he’d crawl into her bed, and she’d ask if he had a nightmare and he would shake his head. He just looked at her with those big eyes, and pressed a chubby little hand on her cheek.
She’s not sure when she stopped crying and the overwhelming sadness gave way to a quiet ache, easy enough to put into a box, much like her ring, and tuck away inside her heart. She had had to send Bruno to live with her parents for a while though, just to get to that point. She couldn’t bear to look at him. He looked so much like her, and she couldn’t stand to see her ex-wife’s smile on her son’s face, to eat across the table from those hazel eyes she desperately wanted to stop seeing in her dreams.
And so she sent him away, to cry it all out without him finding her sobbing in the middle of the night anymore. Pretty soon, she was once again the Paulina de la Mora that doesn’t cry. Not for anyone.
3
She had expected to feel nervous, and sad, when she heard her ex-wife’s voice for the first time in years over the phone. To do the one thing Paulina de la Mora wasn't known to do: ask for help. But when María José said yes, she’d cross the ocean for her and yes, she’ll stand by her, she didn’t expect to feel relief. Didn’t expect the feeling of warmth creeping up, slowly but surely, from the tips of her fingers, or the lightness in her chest she always associated with coming home.
It was odd, knowing she was coming home. No, coming to Mexico, she corrects herself. Paulina’s not a fool. She checks her social media sometimes even though she says she doesn’t, knows that her ex-wife has a family and friends who love her, a job she finds fulfillment in, a cozy apartment to come home to in Madrid. She may have looked at the photos closely once or twice, trying to see if any of the friends in them might be something more. She’s not sure, but Paulina knows for certain that María José is not coming home by going to her, the woman who threw hateful words and an ashtray her way all those years ago.
But she sees it in her smile at the airport, anyway. A homecoming. Feels it in her kiss. Hears it in the words she said right before they finally closed the distance: cambie de sexo, no de corazon.
She also didn’t expect to feel desire, even as they quickly turn away from each other. María José doesn’t need to know that, doesn’t need to know what she wants. And oh, she wants, drawn to her so surely and so powerfully despite the years, despite everything. And if she tries to sate that desire by herself in the privacy of her room, imagines that her hands are her ex-wife’s… Well, that isn't something anyone needs to know. Especially not María José.
4
Paulina steals glances at her, when she thinks she won’t see. She can’t help but think about what their lives would’ve been like, had María José stayed like she begged Paulina to let her do. Had Paulina been there for her, when she needed her the most. Had she stood by her and put her first, instead of lashing out. Maybe they would’ve made it work. Maybe they still could.
She tries to tell her this when she apologizes. When she bares her shame over the way she acted, when she tells her she was wrong. But that on its own was a big enough revelation — too much, a part of her screams. You’re revealing too much. And when María José tells her she forgives her, that she understands, she’s too overcome with emotion to say much else. That, and the way she looks right at her, makes her feel like maybe she already knows.
But she is leaving, again, and it’s worse this time around because she’s taking Bruno with her. And it’s too much, too fast, that Paulina finds herself rushing right back behind her walls.
In her daydreams she’d thought up different outcomes, different ways they could make it, this time, if she tries hard enough. Remembering this draws a hollow laugh. So much about them has changed. That much is easy to see and, a small voice in the back of her mind adds, to feel under her palms. And besides, she has plenty else to worry about without the storm that María José’s presence has wrought inside her — her father’s incarceration, her mother’s drugs, the stolen money, her family’s various infidelities, this stupid party. The florería. Maybe, she thinks, this is all that’s meant for her after all. Someone has to keep their family together, right?
But when her mother tells her to run and win her family back, Paulina only hesitates for a split second. And then she runs.
Once there, the words spill out of her mouth way faster than usual, and she doesn’t blame María José for looking so confused. She would be, too, in her place. But everything, for once, is crystal clear for Paulina. This is one secret she can share. She could be brave.
I want to try again, she wants to scream. I want you here, with me. I want our family. And so she finds the courage to ask, “¿Te quedas? ”