The One Who Got Away

I used to help my father clean the shed once a week to earn an allowance of ten dollars. It wasn’t much, but I was grateful for any small amount of money to put towards a new videogame or mechanic airplane parts. At least Dad continued my allowance--and it gave me something to do. Before my days in the shed, I helped Mom at the flower shop and did my best to educate customers on the best flowers according to the occasion (flowers, as it turns out, are my favorite pastime). 

Unfortunately, that all stopped when I was thirteen and Mom packed her bags and left in the middle of the night. No goodbye. No note. Just...there one minute...gone the next.

 I missed Mom a lot the weeks following, but I soon decided that anyone who left without an explanation or goodbye to their own child didn’t deserve any tears. I decided I’d miss her money more, my allowance, because it hurt less than remembering her warm hugs, forehead kisses, and twinkling eyes that looked at me like I could accomplish anything.

I wasn’t always close to Dad, but we eventually learned to laugh at the same things and drink our coffee the same way (almost black, a splash of cream). He had a throaty laugh that was sometimes too loud, but we both had green eyes and a strong build. It took a few months after Mom left for us to talk because he fell quieter than before and sometimes forgot I was there, but that wasn’t much different from when Mom was around (he’d always been stuck at work late before and we never had much time to talk anyways). 

The day Dad and I finally bonded remains fresh in my mind; I’ll never forget it because that was the moment that launched a series of wonderfully exciting events my life previously had been lacking.

“Can I help in the shed?” I asked Dad one day after school, still wearing my shoes, backpack, and black jacket soaked from rain. I leaned over the counter and glanced into the living room where he sat in his leather chair and sipped his coffee, reading the newspaper (he was so old-fashioned, he never even bought a phone). 

“No.” He fixed his eyes on the bottom left corner of the paper, the “crime section,” I called it.

“Why not?”

“Why should you?” His green eyes flicked up to me over his rectangular glasses.

“Because...well, Mom--”

“Mom left, Max.”

“Well...exactly. Mom gave me an allowance. Now? I can’t work till I’m eighteen. And I need money. It doesn’t have to be much, just enough so I can save up.”

“For? You’re sixteen, son. You can’t really need much, can you?”

I needed enough. But if I wanted him to say yes, I had to settle for less. “I just need...fifteen a day?”

“Hm.”

“A week?”

“Ugh.”

“Okay, ten?”

Dad pursed his lips and looked out our kitchen window at his shed, his happy place. The sky looked purplish-gray but it finally stopped raining. I saw the wheels turning as he twisted his lips around. He worked morning to night six days a week and when he was home, he spent all his time cutting wood and repairing things in the shed.

“Ten is all I can give ya, Max,” he said, eyes flicking back to me. “Once a week. I ain’t rich like your mom.”

I hoped he’d be more generous, but I wouldn’t complain. Instead, I grinned and fist-pumped the air, shouting, “YES!” because that money...changed everything.

Mom paid way more than Dad, sometimes up to fifty bucks an hour, and when she was still around, my immature thirteen-year-old self went and blew the money on Hot Cheetos, Silly String, and sometimes balloons. No reason. But since I turned sixteen, I realized I liked aerospace engineering, which meant college, and my grades certainly weren’t getting me there. 

But the real reason I needed money...was a girl I liked, the first girl ever: Valeria Asencio--The One Who Got Away.

Valeria reminded me of strawberry waffles on Saturday morning. She smelled sweet, her plump lips were always tinted crimson, and she often knotted her wavy red hair in a bun straight on top of her head, like a strawberry on top. Or cherry. But she had curves, too, which is why strawberries made more sense.

We had classes together since freshman year, but I noticed her my junior year in AP English since she always dominated socratic seminars and used words like “ensconce” or “dissipate,” which were words I knew and liked but never used because Jerome and Carlos would give me crap about it if I did. 

But that Friday at the end of class, while we packed up our books, her blue eyes met mine, those shiny lips smiled and I knew--I had to make her fall for me. To do that, I had to take her out.

And to take her out, I needed money.

“We’ll start next week,” Dad assured, leaning back in his chair and adjusting his newspaper. “You can help me organize. Clean up. Not much to do, anyway.”

That was the second most important moment: helping Dad in his happy place. That’s how we bonded. Once again, I had a parent who cared for me. And Dad, I knew, wouldn’t walk out like Mom.

The following week, we stood in the doorway of the shed as Dad pointed, “Lawn mower could be emptied, tools could be cleaned, maybe use that wood over there and start building us some coffee tables.”

“I might need a raise if I’m building coffee tables,” I joked, gently punching Dad’s arm. He didn’t laugh, but he did look over at me and half-grinned before throwing an arm around my shoulders as we both looked on.

And that’s how it started: every Sunday, I helped Dad organize and clean. It was his only day off, and he refused to let me work there when he wasn't around because there was one key and I might “lose it somewhere.” But I earned ten dollars a week, and on my fifth week, he gave me $25 because I spent extra time cleaning the yard tools.

“You know, you take more after me than I thought.” Dad leaned up against a table I worked on and watched as I cleaned the wrenches, tire iron, and gardening tools with a green--almost brown, now--rag. “Your mother wanted you to pick flowers with her, but I’d say you’re better at the tough work. See them blisters? You’ve been lifting those heavy shovels and digging some pretty spaces for the watering system. I’ve been doing it for years on my own.” He held out a callused hand, smudged with dirt and padded with scars.

I’m not so sure I was cut out for the “tough work” though. I accidentally cut the palm of my hand the week before while sawing a block of wood, and honestly, I thought my life was over.

“Mom’s missing out,” I said, wiping the last wrench and setting it in the tool box with the others. “We’re better off without her.”

“You can say that again.”

Dad acted like he didn’t miss Mom, but I knew he did: he stiffened whenever I mentioned her. I noticed pictures of our family tacked on the walls above our work station in the shed, along with love letters she wrote him and jewelry she left behind. He stared out the window a lot, though our only view through the window were trees and his shed. He studied the newspaper like it might one day tell him where she went, or that maybe her News Spotlight would find her on Broadway again--because maybe she went back to New York where she first started out at only seventeen and was making it even bigger now.

Meanwhile, I’d been working up the courage to ask Valeria out.

The day after I first asked Dad if I could help him, I sat next to Valeria in AP English. I said, “Hey,” she said, “Hi,” and we learned about AP things...together.

We sat next to each other every day for a month. Eventually we’d work together on upcoming papers, edit each other’s papers, grade each other (she practically tore my words apart, but it was fine), until one day she wrote on my paper during class, “When can we hang out?:)”

Heck. Yeah. It was happening.

So on week six, I asked Valeria Asencio out on a date--to the carnival. We went on Saturday. And it was the best night of my life.

In short, we laughed, spun on tea cups, screamed on roller coasters, ate pink cotton candy (and elotes, and funnel cakes, and gold-coated ice cream), and I didn’t win her a stuffed animal ‘cause I sucked at throwing, but I did buy her a light-up necklace. I mean, we were falling in love. And at the end of the night...she kissed me.

The next day as I helped Dad unload bricks for the well we were building, he studied me carefully, longer than usual. I pulled a brick from a bag, set it on the grass, another brick from--

“You alright, Max? You’re a bit quiet today.” Dad straightened and put his hands on his thighs. “School going okay?”

“What? Oh, yeah, it’s...well, pretty great.” Valeria actually distracted me, so my grade in English went from an A to a B+, but maybe she could help me bring it up. “And, well...can I ask you something?”

Dad stiffened. Wiped sweat from his brow. 

“I know it’s a touchy subject, but...how’d you and Mom get together? Was there...a process? How’d you know you wanted to marry her?”

“Oh.” He laughed suddenly, though it sounded more like an exhale. “Uh, um...I think it was her smile? But she wasn’t the one, Max. She left.”

True. Maybe I was wrong for asking. “Yeah...nevermind.”

“So there’s a girl, eh?” He nudged me then. “What’s her name?”

I didn’t want to let Dad in on my love life, but I needed a family member to talk to about it. So I smiled and said, “Valeria. She wants me to call her Val. She’s beautiful, Dad.”

“Why?”

“Why? I mean...her mind is beautiful. And her blue eyes...that hair...she likes Video games, too.”

“Is she rich?”

“What?”

“I mean, can she help support you?”

“I guess...I dunno…”

“Is that why you’re working now? It’s about a girl?”

“No, I mean…” Was that a bad thing?

“Hmph” was all he said, but then he loosened up and said, “You should bring’er over sometime. If anyone wants to date my son, they gotta go through me.”

I laughed and said “of course,” though I also decided I’d wait a while before ever introducing her to Dad. I understood why my friends never brought their chicks to meet their parents: they scared them away.

Dad asked about Val every Sunday after, but I kept saying “she works” because that seemed to be an excuse that appeased him. Val did work at a cafe, but I’d let her be the one to share.

We started dating a month later, and one month turned into a year. She helped me bring my AP grades up and gave me the most valuable writing feedback ever, saying I was a talented writer, but I never saw my mistakes until I wrote the last sentence (sweet, huh?). We talked about attending college together and moving out of state. And I finally decided to introduce her to Dad.

Of all the things that happened that year, this was the worst.

I brought Val over Sunday evening. Val overdid herself: she wore a beautiful white and pink sundress, tan boots, gold earrings and bracelets, and left her hair down. God, I loved that girl. I was certain I’d marry her after high school.

After school, I brought her over and led her into the dining room where Dad sat in his chair reading the paper, and when he saw us enter the room, he grinned and stood quickly. “Hey! It’s you! Max’s girlfriend, right?”

“Yes,” she said nervously, laughing and blushing. “Valeria. Nice to meet you.”

“Max’s Dad,” he said, and shook her hand. He didn’t give his name, which seemed odd, but I was too nervous.

It wasn’t bad; this moment, I also replay in my head often, because I can’t figure out what went wrong: I made them both coffee, Dad and Val laughed, she told him about our AP classes and working in the cafe, he didn’t ask any embarrassing parent questions, and they spent an hour highly engrossed in a conversation about worms, compost, and gardening. I mean, I guess that was strange, considering Dad never cared about it when Mom brought it up.

They got along so well, my nerves calmed and I decided it was time for a bathroom break. It was quick...only five minutes. I did fix my hair, but I still thought it wasn’t that long.

But it was long enough. Because when I came out, Val wasn’t smiling anymore.

“I should probably get going,” she said, setting her cup on the coffee table. “I’m so glad I finally got to meet you, sir. We’ll be in touch again.” She looked up at me and smiled, but those blue eyes seemed afraid. 

Of me.

I drove Val home that night, and she was quiet. What’s worse? It didn’t end that night.

She concentrated harder in AP. When I’d tap her, she’d shush me and say, “Let’s focus.” Her texts became short, until I only heard from her when I texted about an upcoming test we could study for. She started bailing on dates, declining my calls, and a month later, she dumped me.

We didn’t go to college together. We didn’t get back together. When we graduated, she left to some college she decided on last minute, and then she was gone.

That was the last time I heard from Valeria Asencio, my first love: The One Who Got Away.

That was ten years ago. I’m twenty-seven now, sitting at a cafe writing this. And let me rephrase: that was the last time I heard from Val...until today.

“Max, is that you?” she said, setting my latte down as I Googled “how much does a funeral cost.” (These days, I make six-figures, thanks to my Aerospace degree, but I never quite forgot how broke I used to be.)

I looked up and recognized Val by her diamond eyes and messy bun. So of course, I shouted, “VAL!” and hugged her and she actually hugged me back but when she pulled away and looked at my computer screen, she stiffened.

“Got a call last night,” I said. “Dad…”

“He’s…”

“Yeah...heart attack. So sudden.”

But she seemed uncertain, and then I asked her, “Why did you break up with me?”

It wasn’t the right thing to ask, I sounded insensitive, but over the past few years, I started piecing things together. I replayed my most important moments, my favorite memories, often in my mind, and over time, I started to make connections. Things didn’t quite add up...but they also sorta did. And being at the cafe today wasn’t a coincidence at all: after I got the phone call from the hospital last night, I knew I needed to see Val. Because she withheld a conclusion I didn’t quite want to believe, but deep down, knew all along.

I Googled her all night until I found her social media page. Found where she worked. And I flew out to see her.

And now she says, “You never helped him, did you?”

No, Val, I did not.

Just before I started writing this, but after Val asked her question, she explained that she broke up with me because Dad started talking about Mom that night. And he slipped: he said, “I’m glad Max has you. Haven’t seen that boy so happy since his mom was alive.”

Val said what I would’ve: “I thought she left?”

Val said you stopped, but then you smiled, and I don’t know what you were thinking, Dad, but you must’ve assumed I was so much like you, I’d help you take Valeria, next. You asked her if she’d ever kill for money, and when she didn’t reply, you told her she didn’t need to be worried--she wasn’t rich enough for us, anyway.

Now, Val says, “Your Dad said you helped him kill your Mom when you were thirteen, Max. That you helped bury her under the shed and took all her money. You decorated the shed with pictures and jewelry because it was a shrine. You both wanted her inheritance.”

What the hell am I supposed to think, Dad? I graduated, never earned enough scholarships, paid for college outta pocket, moved to another state, and you had all this money hidden for when I moved away? My biggest question is...why didn’t you take me, too?

If this is true, I’m glad Val’s the one who got away, because it looks like Mom didn’t. And am I supposed to even believe that? I’m picking out a casket for you, Dad...but maybe I need to find an empty one for Mom, instead.

Val told me to write this all down because I never notice the mistakes until the last sentence. So now, with her next to me at the cafe, I’ll reread this letter with fresh eyes. I’ll pay attention to my favorite moments with you in the shed, with you reading the newspaper, with us digging holes and admiring the inside of the shed….

But what good will it do now? You’re dead, and I have your inheritance now.