Javi's mother is dead, so he must be coming home.

      He has to because to not come home is unthinkable. And even though Tatum Rowe stopped knowing Javi the day he packed up and left, he still thinks — no, he still believes that the Javi he grew up with didn't burn that day. It was just everything else that did. And the Javi he grew up with loved his parents deeply and would see his mother off.

     But his mother's terminal diagnosis had not bought Javi home, and Tatum had expected it then, too. Was on edge for days, certain he'd stop by the Castillo's and Javi would be sitting at the kitchen table, spooning soup into his mother's mouth, urging her to eat some more.

     Tate's imagined it, spent way too much time playing with this thought. Javi would return and they'd share this thing, caring for their ailing mothers, and it'd be like the last seven years never happened. There'd be no hole between them, only bridges.

     Despite every reason he shouldn't, Tatum started expecting things again. Because it was Lena and for however Javi may have felt about him (unwarranted, he couldn't help but think) this was his mother. He thought he'd be there for her.

     It doesn't matter now. Lena was sick, and then she was sicker, and then she was gone. He blinked, and it was over. Oscar was standing on his porch, clutching his hat to his chest as he said, "My Lena passed this morning."

     It's the morning of the funeral and Tate feels like he may throw up. Javi is going to be there and he's going to see Javi for the first time in seven years.

      This will be his only return home since he left, for his only mother's funeral, and so Tate will relent only slightly, given the circumstances. He will walk up to the boy he does not miss, never missed, could not care less about, and he'll say, sorry for your loss. He'll mean it because Lena was...Lena was a second mom, and a mom to all. She was a force of a woman.

     So he'll say it and he'll mean it. And then he'll turn away. He won't look back. He'll take a page out of Javi's playbook.

     For a long time, Tate thought he would never see Javi again. The years passed and the feeling that he lost something he'd forgotten he ever had grew. Hope this thorn nestled in the slots of his ribcage, pushed to the surface with every breath but still trapped under skin and sinew.

     He's shaking as he dresses, fumbling with the top button of his shirt, deciding against his tie. He hasn't been anxious about his appearance in years. His work doesn't call for it and everyone in this town knows very well what he grew into. But now he's wondering if he should've had his hair trimmed or let some facial hair grow in.

     There's a knock at his door. It's open and Pepper's standing there, dressed in dark blue scrubs, leaning against the frame. She drags her eyes across him. He wants her to tell him he looks nice but they aren't friends like that.

     "Your mother's ready," she says. "She's having a hard day. I wouldn't keep her out long."

     Tate nods, thanking her quietly. Pepper stares at him, assessing, and then turns away. They aren't close, often do not see eye to eye on his mother's care. But Pepper does a lot of good for his mom, who doesn't want Tate caring for her.

     He reaches for his cologne on his dresser, two spritz behind each ear before he sets it back down. Seven years, he thinks again. It's already been seven years.

     Tate goes downstairs, finding his mother in the living room, near the windows in her wheelchair. "Morning mom," he says forcefully chipper.

     When he told her about Lena, she'd dropped her head and he watched the tears dangle from her chin. He couldn't imagine what it must feel like, getting older, your body giving up on you, your friends dying off like a lousy murder mystery novel. And then there was none, and then there was just you.

     Pepper comes every morning, gets his mother out of bed, bathes and dresses her, and feeds her breakfast. She keeps telling Tate his mother is going to need around the clock care soon, but Tate isn't hearing it. For one, because the cost of having an in-home aid is egregious but he also can't imagine pawning off the responsibility on anybody else.

     He wheels Margie outside, down the ramp off of his porch, to his truck. He'd bought this property almost four years ago, after her diagnosis, had done most of the renovations himself. She didn't become wheelchair bound until last year but he was aware it would come to this so he'd designed his home with accessibility in mind.

     He was going to get a different car, but Margie insisted he didn't, back when she still spoke. Pepper said losing speech was part of the progression but that his mother wasn't there, yet. She'd stopped speaking by choice, tired of missing words, stuttering through her syllables, forgetting where she was even trying to go.

     He has an incredibly impractical pick-up truck, practical for his work, but not for his mom, who he picks up out of her wheelchair and sets inside the passenger seat. She's light, losing weight every day it seems, but Tate is strong now. Stronger than he ever thought he could be. Manual labor didn't exactly swell his muscles, but it certainly strengthened them.

     He buckles her in, and then lifts her wheelchair into the bed before going around to the driver's side. His mother is tiny now, curled up, knees tucked together, arms crossed over her body. Her blond hair has thinned and is pulled back into a French braid. She looks like a child, in some ways.

      Tate drives in silence to the funeral home, parking among the crowd of cars. It's a small town, and everyone knew Lena. She made a point of being known, of knowing everyone. She would make her rounds, door to door, delivering containers of food and the daily gossip.

     He makes sure he's in the back, between two other cars and that no one's around when he reaches in for Margie and picks her up. She hates this part, the public display of her disability. He sets her in her wheelchair quick. She groans and he winces. He knows she's in pain, though she won't talk about it. Because she won't talk, he thinks bitterly.

     There's no point in being upset about it, especially today when there's other things on Tate's mind. He's careful as he pushes her up the rocky path towards the graveyard entrance.

     Tate is hit in the face with Javi. He's standing behind Lena, his hand on her shoulder. Oscar's on her other side. Javi is tall in this photo, probably seventeen if Tate had to guess, based on the patchy beard, more shadow than anything. The photos propped on an easel next to the pathway everyone's walking. There are bouquets of flowers underneath it.

     He hasn't seen a photo of Tate since he left. He remembers when he'd tossed their things into a bin outside and started lighting it on fire. Margie came racing out the back door, screaming at Tate. "You do not burn memories," she said. "I don't care what you feel, you don't do that." As if it was some act of witchcraft. Like he was condemning their past to hell and chaining their souls to the devil.

      She'd snatched the box he was holding and stormed back into the house. Most of the photos she had taken of them growing up. So he guessed they were just as much hers. That was the last time he'd seen them and his mother's memory was all soft corners now. Even if he wanted them, he was sure she'd forgotten where she'd put it.

     Tate finds Oscar in the crowd first. He walks over slow, thinking and waiting for Javi to appear beside him. It's warm outside but overcast. People are finding seats and the casket is this lone beacon in the center, adorned with extravagant red roses.

     Oscar hugs him, long since over the formality of a handshake. "Thank you, Tatum," he says sincerely. "For coming."

     "Of course, Mr. Castillo."

     He gives him a look, the same look as always that says Oscar, please. It's not in Tate, even now at twenty-six, to see Javi's father as anyone but Mr. Castillo. He starts to ask where is Javi but the question dissolves on his tongue. He's been asking that question for years. Where did you run to when you took off? And why didn't you ever come back?

     Oscar excuses himself after saying hello to Margie. Tate moves on, pushing his mother slowly over the grass, carefully avoiding anything that could bust the wheel or send her flying out of her seat. He finds an end seat in the second row and wheels her beside him before he takes it.

     Tate is unfocused throughout the whole of it, eyes scanning the faces, looking past and between and around everyone because maybe Javi is lurking at a distance. But no, he's not here. Tate would see him if he were. He'd feel it.

     Reverend Bennett finishes speaking and Oscar steps forward. "Lena, my love, I'll count my sleeps until I'm beside you again." He kisses his fingertips and places them down on the casket.

     Tate feels distinctly that he is bearing witness to something higher than him, something unfathomable. Where does love go when there's no one there to receive it?

     It stays, he realizes. Finds a corner of your soul and sticks there, a stain you can't wash away. A feeling you can't ever unfeel.

     After the funeral, he doesn't straggle, mainly because of his mother. He puts her back in his truck but then he sees Oscar walking Ms. Felicity to her car. He tells Margie, "I'll be right back," and he walks over.

     Tate is starting to sweat, the sun pressing down on them now. When he gets to Oscar, he doesn't bother with formalities. "No Javi?"

     Saying his name out loud feels like screaming bomb in an airport, this unnecessary cause for alarm. But also like a betrayal. How many nights had Tate promised himself he would stop the caring, stop the worrying and the wondering. He feels like a classified dumb ass for putting so much unspoken energy into someone who had no problem up and leaving him.

     Oscar shakes his head. "No Javi."

     He shouldn't have asked because Oscar starts crying and there's nothing worse, even now then watching an adult cry. Even though Tate's an adult now, too. He reaches over, unsurely, patting his shoulder.

     "What did I do? To have a son that hates me so?"

     Tate tries to swallow but his mouth is unnaturally dry. "He doesn't hate you," he says earnestly. He believes it true. He thinks, no, Javi hates me. I made him run. I'm the reason he stays away.

     Oscar pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and dries his cheeks. "I'm sorry," he says clearing his throat. "Today was hard."

     "I know," Tate says even though he doesn't, can't really wrap his brain around burying someone you love and doesn't want to. But maybe Javi was a type of burial, too.

     When Oscar leaves, Tate remains staring at the ground, itching to get out of his skin. Instead, he turns his back to the car, feeling his mother's watchful gaze. She sees everything now, forever observing but never speaking.

     He takes his phone out, shaking again. He half wonders if this a precursor to the illness taking his mother, if this is something they'll share like their dark eyes and crooked nose.

     He places a call, lifts the phone to his ear. It rings, keeps ringing, rings even longer until the familiarity threatens to take him to his knees and he gasps. "It's Javier Castillo. Sorry I missed your call. Feel free to leave a message."

     He's an idiot and he's going back on his word in so many different ways. Sylvia's going to kill him.

     "Javi, it's me. Tate."

❂

     Javi wakes with no recollection of where he is. He's lying in a small bed with starchy sheets tangled around his legs. He stares up at the popcorn ceiling. The whole room is white with one window — barred — breaking up the monotony and a vent in the corner circulating cool air. Nothing about this room is remarkable or familiar.

     Add in the drugs, and he's lost for the first three minutes of every morning. It comes back slowly and then all at once. He shoves it away quickly, not needing the reminder of where he is and how long he's been here.

     It smells like fabuloso, which is the only thing that makes him think of home in this place. If he shuts his eyes, he's transported to his old kitchen with the red and beige checkered floors, scuffed and well worn from all his running around.

     Javi could lay here all day, unmoving and unthinking. They usually come for him by nine to say you don't get outside time if you don't take your medicine and you can't take your medicine on an empty stomach. Javi doesn't really care about outside time. He doesn't really care about anything, actually.

     But if he says that, it gets documented and its bought up in session. And what he cares even less about is talking about how he just doesn't care. It's simply easier to get up, play pretend at being alive for a while, go through the motions of existing.

     Today is different, though. When they come to get him, it isn't to take him to breakfast. He's sent to the front office and handed the bag they confiscated when he arrived. Today's the day he gets out. 30 days and he's finally liberated. His liberator? Five feet six inches of silent judgement.

     She's in the room with them, signing as a witness on paperwork that says they highly recommend he continues treatment and that if he doesn't they aren't liable for his untimely death.

     Emery Rowe doesn't say anything until they've fully exited, like by speaking to the psychiatrists they could both end up strapped to a chair. They didn't strap Javi to a chair when he got there. They kept him in the infirmary for the first three days. He was too doped up to run.

     He glances back as they pass through the iron gates enclosing the place. It's medieval looking, but the practices, he thinks, are up to code. Nothing illicit happened in the thirty days he was there. No shock treatments, no abuse, no over-drugging. Just a regular psychiatric hospital trying to keep people sane and alive. The two, he's afraid, are just not mutually exclusive.

     When they come to Emery's car, which he recognizes only because it looks like the kind of car she'd drive — a dusty orange bronco with stripe details on the side — he reaches for the handle but it's locked.

     Emery's beside him, hands on her hips. "What the fuck, Javi?"

     He sighs loudly. "Do we have to do this right now?"

     "Uhm, yes, considering I just had to sign you out of a psyche ward? I would say yes, we do have to do this right now. I haven't heard from you in years, no one has. And then I get a call—I get a call you hurt yourself? You're at risk for hurting yourself again?"

     "I'm not at risk," he snaps. "I made a....a miscalculation."

     She makes a sound like a dying animal. "Was the miscalculation that you lived or that you almost died?"

     He dares to look at her, only briefly, but it doesn't matter because it comes across fast. She throws her hands up. "Why are you putting this on me? Why not your dad? Why not Tate?"

     The sound of his name is a slice, three inches deep, bringing blood and feelings to the surface. "Emery," he says carefully. "Can you please get me out of here? Please."

     She stares at him, her head jutted to the side like this whole situation has personally offended her. She relents, dropping her shoulders with a nod of her head. "Okay, yeah, lets go grab some food. You look...not well."

      He waits for her to unlock her car before he gets in.

     "There was no one else to call," he says after she's started driving.

      Because he'd burned everyone else. Hadn't spoken to his parents, to anyone from home, in years. Emery was never from home. She'd been a visitor, frequent when they were real young and then less as much through their teenage years.

     But still, they were close, close enough that he still had her number, close enough that she picked up, that she drove over state lines to come get him. He doesn't know if she came because he called or because she's Emery. This is the thing she does. She goes where she's needed or where she pleases and makes no qualms about it. The moment she turned eighteen she moved her life to the road.

     Javi opens the plastic ziplock with his meager belongings. His wallet, cell phone, a pack of nicotine gum, cigarettes, and chapstick. He takes out his phone and tries to turn it on. "Do you have a charger?" he asks.

     She jumps, surprised and then fumbles with some cords bundled under the radio before handing a USB-C cord to him. He plugs his phone in and sets it down.

     "This is crazy," she says clenching the steering wheel. He doesn't know where she's going but she seems to know. "No one's heard from you, Javi. No ones heard from you in years. Why didn't you ever reach out to your family? To Tate?"

     Javi grabs a fist full of his sweatpants and holds onto it. His whole body's pulled taut like a violin string. "Can you stop asking me about them?"

     "You actually don't have to tell me," she says taking a sharp turn. "I already know because it's all anyone can talk about. You pulled a Houdini. And as someone who's all for, and fully understands needing to leave a place, the least you can do is check in, shoot a flare every once in a while."

     She turns into the empty lot of a diner and throws it in park. "I'm gonna say it once because he's my little cousin and I love him. Tate deserved better."

     That's all Javi needs to hear and he's dropping his head, squeezing his eyes shut to hold back the tears. He knows he did. He knows it. They all did.

     Emery gets out and then she's on his side, passenger door open, tugging on his arm. "Come on, bones. Lets go eat."

     She pulls again and Javi can't do anything but follow. He's at Emery's mercy. "Look, I'm not trying to dog you, okay? I get that you had a tough time. I just had to say that, okay. Like as an on the record kind of thing."

     Javi doesn't answer, just listens, as they walk in. It's a retro highway diner, empty on this random mid-afternoon. What day is it? Javi stopped keeping track. There's a women with big, curly hair standing at the front who smiles when enter. "Booth for two?" she asks with bright pink lipstick on her front teeth.

     Emery nods. "Please."

     She grabs menus and leads the way. Javi takes the seat across from Emery. They're up against the windows and when Javi looks out he feels at peace. The road is tree-lined and the sun's breaking over the tree tops lighting everything in an orange haze. He's been in a concrete jungle for the last seven years.

     "I made a mistake," he says quietly, still looking out the window.

     He feels Emery's hand on his. Her palms are callused. "It's okay," she says. "All that matters is that you're alive."

     Wrong mistake, he thinks but doesn't say.

     When their server returns, Emery orders Belgian waffles and an orange juice. Javi gets a turkey club and waffle fries with a coke. He goes back to looking out the window, can feel Emery's gaze on him, unwavering.

     "I can't believe how much you've grown up," she says finally.

     "Well the last time you saw me I was eighteen," he responds.

     She laughs softly. "I remember. You were so...boyish."

     He still doesn't look at her, just nods his head. He hears her shift, can feel her presence, know she's leaning over the table towards him.

     "What happened to you, Javi?" she asks quietly.

     Sometimes Javi plays this game in his head, where he is both Javi and his mom and his dad. And they're all sitting in the living room and he's in his mom's head looking at himself. So he asks himself, What do you want to be when you grow up?

     But then he's back in his rightful body and he's looking at his mom when he says, Not Javi.

     Now he's all grown up and he's still Javi and there are days, long days, where he can't even stomach it. What do you do when you hate yourself that much? Where do you put it?

     "Alright," Emery says after too much silence. Their drinks have been placed on the table and now they're just waiting on food. "Let's make it easy. Why don't you tell me where you were? Where'd you go?"

     That is easy. "Washington," he says. "D.C."

     "Oh, wow, nice," she says definitely sounding surprised. "I've actually never been there before."

     "Where were you?" he asks finally turning to look at her. "When they called?"

     Emery looks like no time has passed, certainly not nine years. She's probably only twenty-nine now, but she could pass for barely legal. She looks nearly nothing like Tate, with crispy blue eyes, freckled skin, and light brown hair she's highlighted. Still, she reminds him very much of Tate.

     "I was actually in Chicago."

     Javi balks. "God, I'm sorry," he says quickly. "I shouldn't have called you. How long of a ride was that? I'm so sorry."

     Emery holds a hand out. "Javi, chillax, please. I do that kind of driving all the time. It's kind of my thing. And if I couldn't do it, I wouldn't have, you know?"

     "No, you would've," he says simply. "That's kind of your thing, too."

     "You're right," she says grinning. "Cause I can pretty much do anything. I'm something of a super girl."

     He almost laughs but doesn't. Their server comes up with their food. "What do you do in Chicago?" he asks as he over-salts his waffle fries.

     "Little bit of this, little bit of that. I dog walk, do part time at a dispensary, uber when I need extra cash." She shrugs. The answers very Emery.

     "What about health insurance?"

     She rolls her eyes. "Total scam. Hospitals are free, anyways."

     Javi would disagree. His cushy insurance was why he'd gotten a bed at one of the nicest psychiatric hospitals around. His work had nearly killed him so it was only fair that it cover the ambulance and hospital stay.

     Emery was devouring her waffles, didn't seem to come up for air until they were done. By then, Javi's appetite had taken its leave and he was sipping on his coke, enjoying his first taste of caffeine in thirty days.

     "That's all you're gonna eat?" she asks raising a thin eyebrow.

     "That's all I'm going to eat," he agrees. He could tell her that's all he can eat, that Trazodone has this funny way of making him feel both full and utterly empty but he doesn't.

     Emery looks at him weirdly but doesn't say anything. When their server returns with a check, she goes for it the same time he does. "Please," he insists taking it from her. He removes his AmEx from his wallet. "I owe you."

     "You don't owe me anything Javi," she says sincerely. "You're like a brother to me. I'm really—I'm really glad you called, okay? I just wish you called sooner."

     He tips generously and then they leave, heading back to her car. "Oh wait," she says. "I'm gonna pee before we leave. Here." She tosses him the keys and then runs back towards the diner.

     Javi gets in, leaning over the console to put the keys in the ignition and start the car. He rolls down his window and lets the cool spring air in, taking in deep breaths. He's grateful for Emery. He's not sure who he would've called if not her. Definitely not his parents.

     His phone lights up, turning back on. He's not in any hurry to get back to real life. He knows what's waiting for him. But as soon as his phone turns on, the notifications start rolling in. He hasn't had access to his phone in thirty days so he knows, he knows its going to be a lot. Emails, texts, phone calls, voice mails.

     He hesitates then picks it up. Nothing about what he is seeing is surprising until he scrolls through his missed calls and sees the name Tate.

     Tate called.

     Does he know? Javi immediately wonders. Did Emery tell him? She was asked not to disclose any of his private information with anybody by the nurses who called her. But maybe she'd felt more loyalty to her cousin than to Javi, which he could understand.

     Tate left a voicemail but Javi's not sure he's in the right mental state to listen to it. He's unsure if he'll ever be, actually, so he skips it and goes down to the voice mails from his dad.

     One day ago. Just Javi, come home. I miss my son.

     He plays it again. Javi. Come home. I miss my son. He plays it again. His son. He misses his son. Is that who Javi is still?

     He clicks on the next message, from six days ago. Javi, come home. The funeral is Friday. He jolts, surprised. Who's funeral? he wonders and quickly goes to the next message.

     Javi, come home. It will not be long now.

     Not Tate, not Tate, not Tate. He knows it's not Tate because Emery would have known, she would have told him, but he can't stop thinking it, like an incantation. A prayer, a whim, the holy bible and trinity.

     He hears the door open, Emery bouncing into her seat but he's gone cold, trembling as he hits the next voicemail.

     Javi, come home. Your mother is sick.

     Javi shakes his head. No. No, it can't be. His mom is—his mom has always been healthy. She walks every morning. She does aerobics at the Y. She never drank. She never smoked. No.

     "Ah shit," Emery says quietly. "I'm so sorry, Javi, I completely forgot."

     Javi hasn't cried in a long time. He has felt the tears often, prodding at the backs of his eyelids, stinging his vision, but he hasn't let go. He couldn't let go. Because he's been so afraid he wouldn't be able to stop, that he'd never get control of this again.

     But now he thinks he really doesn't have to stop ever. He can die like this, mourning his mother, who he hasn't seen in seven years and will never see again.

     "Javi, I'm so, so sorry," Emery is saying reaching across the console for his hand. "Just let it out."

     "Oh god," he says choking back his sobs. "No, I'm sorry this is so not. So not what you signed up for."

     "When did you become so self-effacing? You're so worried about being too much."

     "Yeah thanks," he manages to get out.

     Emery laughs. "I'm sorry but what's up with all the apologies? You really don't need to be sorry for being human, Javi."

     "Yeah but," he says and she stops him.

     "There's no buts," she says firmly. "You just found out your mom died. If you didn't respond like this I'd be concerned."

     He swallows and then asks the question he's sort of dreading. "Do you know what it was? How it happened?"

     Emery nods. "Yeah, lung cancer. When they caught it, it'd already spread to her liver and stomach. She just, she just didn't wake up one morning."

     Javi's still crying, slow tears leaking out the sides of his eyes, dribbling down his jaw, tickling his chin. So that was it. His mom was gone.

     He turns to look at Emery. His mouth is full of saliva. "Can you do me a favor?"

     "Yeah," she says nodding. "Yeah, anything."

     "Can you take me home?"