Walking Right Out

Well, this is awkward. Not the same kind of awkwardness that filled Grandma Tiffany’s house during the famous Christmas of 2016, or even the type of awkwardness that must have existed when Aunt Nancy told the family she was pregnant at 17. No this was different, and much, much worse. 

This day will go down in history as the day that I, Holly Garcia, announced that I will not become a part of the family business. I mean who even wants to sell cars for the rest of their life anyway. I’ve always wanted to become a street artist, and sure it’s not the most respectable job out there but I love it just the same.

Tick tock, tick tock. It feels like I’ve been standing here for years. Finally my father, ugh, I don’t even want to call him that, starts to speak. “Holland,” were off to a great start, everyone knows I hate my full name. “You need to think about what you're saying here. The car shop has been open since the model-T first was first released, and everyone in the family has been a part of the business their whole lives. Do you really want to break tradition just for some hobby?” He says the word hobby with venom, as if it’s poison dripping from his tongue. “Now Jacob, let's hear her out.” Thank you Jasmine! You are a blessing from heaven itself! 

My father, ugh, nope, still can’t stand to call him that, Jacob remarried when I was eleven. Every child hears the fairy tales of the evil step-mother, but Jasmine was anything but. She was the only one that would ever hear my side of the story, the only one to comfort me after Peter broke up with me, and the only one to stay with me during my best friend Maria's funeral. Jasmine always came to my art shows before I told Jacob and my family about them, and now she’s supporting my dreams once again. 

“But-t the family business!” Jacob cries. Ah, I get it now he’s worried about that family business. Not the car shop, but the mob. Yes, you heard that right, the mob. The Garcia family has been the leaders of the largest mob in New Jersey since 1829. When I first heard about the mob I was 14, and did what any teenager would do in such a scenario and sat in the corner of my bedroom, with the lights out silently for a whole weekend. A month later Maria was found in a Target bathroom with a slit across her throat. 

Everyone said she killed herself but, I wasn’t some idiot teenager, and I’ve seen enough episodes of Law & Order to know exactly what happened. Maria was murdered, and my family's mob was the ones that did it. I never told anyone that I knew what really happened to my best friend, but that day I swore to myself that I would never be a part of such a vile thing just for the sake of ‘family tradition’. 

“I don’t care about the family business. Either of them.” Jacob gasped, while Jasmine looked confused. Right, she doesn’t know, no one other than people of Garcia Blood knows of the mob, even if they marry one of the members. My mother never knew, I read her diary that I found in the attic. She wrote everything in there and if she knew something she would have written… about… it. 

She did know! Her last entry states that she was “scared for what would become of her little girl if something were to happen or if she were to disappear”, it was written in poor handwriting, most likely from fear or stress, and that page was tear stained. And the entry date, 11/26/2006, four days before she was hit by a car, and died the next day. 

“You have to understand what you are doing, Holland!” The implication behind Jacob’s words were clear. “I do understand, more than I ever have. This is my choice, you can’t make it for me. Maria and Mom would have wanted this for me!” Jacob knew what I meant by saying this, he knows that I know now.

“Very well then, have it your way.” Jacob rose from his place on the couch, and his eyes said everything that his mouth didn’t, “I miss her too”, “I know I won’t change your mind”, “They’ll be after you”, and “I love you”. All of that was said in one look. I gave him a nod, if only to know that I saw the unsaid words. With that I grabbed my purse, turned to Jasmine to say “Thank you, for everything” and walked out of the living room.

I walked right out of the house, right out of my home, right out of the lives of my family, right out of the metaphorical chains that once held me down, right out of the gilt I held for both my mother’s and Maria’s deaths, right out of the burden of being perfect, right out of the fact contentment, right out of the nightmares, right out of my old life and into a new one. A new one full of danger, but also full of opportunity for my future. 

I looked up at the sky and started to think. I thought about what my mother would think of me now. Would she be proud? She always did enjoy the stick-finger drawings I made of the two of us. I thought of Maria, poor, sweet Maria. She was the smartest girl in our grade, she was the ladder of the cheese club and the debate team. She didn’t deserve to have her life taken from her, neither of them did. Just for a second I could almost hear their voices again, telling me that I’m doing the right thing. The thought puts a small hop in my step as I travel to my new life in who knows where. I know the Garcia mob will come for me, but I’ll be ready when they do.