Chapter 9: Future Plans
I spent the morning with Esteban. After our morning tryst, we showered, dressed, and then ran down the stairs to find Mabel somewhere outside, as we desperately hoped that she hadn’t heard us.
She was out back, tending to my mother’s roses. She held a hose in her hand, and sprayed it all over several rose bushes my mother had planted near the house. I smiled as I watched her. For all the servants my mother had hired over the years, she had never asked any of them to take care of her roses. The roses were her own private joy, and at those times when she had traveled and been unable to care for them herself, Mabel had always shown up to water and nurture them.
I walked behind Mabel and hugged her. She laughed as I did so, and her whole big body shook.
“Your mother
