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“Honey,” his wife says, laying a hand on his arm, “why don’t you go inside and check on Eddie? He’s been in there an awfully long time for getting more drinks.”
Ramon gives her a nod, stops short of a full salute, and drags himself out of the lawn chair. He’s glad for an excuse to get away from the Texas sun, even if it’s starting to sink on the horizon, even if he’s lived under it for his entire life.
He doesn’t find Eddie in the kitchen. Instead, he hears a sound coming from the direction of the bedrooms. “Eddie?” he calls out, and waits, but gets no response. He moves closer.
It almost sounds like someone is crying.
He heads toward the source of the sound – Christopher’s room, except he knows Christopher is outside goofing off with his cousins.
“Eddie?” he calls again, gently nudging the door open.
He’s greeted by an unfamiliar sight: his son, sitting on the floor of his old bedroom, sobbing.
“Eddie?” It’s a little more frantic this time. “What’s wrong?”
Eddie lifts his head, the top of his hair just catching the late rays of sunlight from the window, and his face is splotchy red and tear-stained. “Dad?”
“Eddie, hey,” Ramon says, kneeling down. It’s not as easy as it used to be. He remembers squatting for hours out in the backyard teaching his son to pitch a perfect fastball when he was a child, before the girls were born, how they only called it a day when Eddie got tired even though Ramon could have stayed there all night. Neither of them are as young as they used to be. “Are you okay?”
Before he can fully situate himself on the floor, Eddie is reaching out and pulling him in, clinging to his neck.
“Okay,” Ramon says, running a hand across Eddie’s back, “I’ve got you, son.”
As he sits there on the floor with Eddie, holding him as the sobs wrack his body, he realizes he can’t remember the last time he saw his son cry. As a baby, of course, though even then Eddie cried the least of all his children. He’s not even sure Eddie cried at his father’s funeral – Eddie’s Abuelo Edmundo, for whom he was named, with whom he was close. And he’s certain that Eddie has never clung to him like this before.
He’s not sure how much of that is his son, and how much of it is him. He’s always tried to do what he thought was best for his family.
It’s only when Eddie’s sobs begin to quiet down that Ramon notices there’s a phone on the floor beside him, still connected to a call. A tinny voice is coming out of it, calling Eddie’s name over and over. The screen reads Buck. Ramon carefully picks up the phone.
“Is this Buck?” he asks, somewhat foolishly, when he gets the phone to his ear.
Buck’s voice, only half familiar to him from their brief meeting last year, cuts off mid-sentence. “Mr. Diaz?”
“Call me Ramon,” he says. Again, it feels foolish. He’s never been one for words. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I-it’s–” Buck starts, and then he, too, lets out a sob. Ramon hears him draw a breath over the line. “It’s Bobby. Our captain.”
Ramon nods to no one. “I see.” He doesn’t ask for more. He doesn’t need to.
“C-can you…” Buck starts, then there’s muffled sounds on his end. Ramon pulls the phone from his ear to check the call, all while Eddie is still sniffling softly against him. “Sorry,” Buck’s voice comes again after a moment, “I have to… Can you put Eddie back on?”
“Sure,” Ramon says, “just a moment.” He nudges Eddie gently and holds the phone towards his face. “It’s Buck.”
Eddie lifts his head, his eyes red rimmed and bloodshot. “Thanks,” he rasps out, a harsh whisper. He takes the phone. “Buck?”
Ramon scoots away, enough that Eddie can lean back against the bed on his own with a few inches of bare mattress between them. He’s not sure if Eddie took the sheets that had been there, or if he had bought new ones with Christopher; maybe Helena had stripped the bed after their grandson had left. She’s always quick to wash sheets, always quick to strip away the evidence. He’s never paid close enough attention to know it’s happening until it’s already done.
He watches as Eddie murmurs softly into the phone, his head tilted back against the bed and his eyes closed. It feels like he’s intruding on something intimate, but before he can make his excuses and leave, Eddie is hanging up. His head drops and the phone clatters to the floor.
“Careful,” is all Ramon can think to say. He reaches over to pick up the phone, and places it on the bedside table behind him.
“Thanks,” Eddie croaks out again.
Ramon is about to say something, though what, he isn’t sure, when his wife’s voice calls out from somewhere near the back door of the house. “Eddie? Ramon? Is everything okay in here?”
Eddie looks at him, his eyes – so like his mother’s – pleading.
“Just a minute,” Ramon calls back.
He watches as a fresh wave of tears wells in his son’s eyes. “I can’t go back out there, dad.”
“Okay,” says Ramon, nodding. “Let me talk to her.”
He heaves himself off the floor, his knees creaking, and heads toward the back door, where he finds his wife half inside, yelling to someone in the yard.
“You’ll let all the hot air in,” he says.
“Oh, you,” Helena replies with a wave of her hand. She’s always handled the heat better than him. “What’s going on in here?”
“Eddie’s not feeling well,” he says. “He’s resting in–” His room? Christopher’s room? He’s sometimes not sure what’s safe to say, and what will cause that little line to appear at the side of her mouth.
She frowns either way. “I hope it wasn’t something he ate,” she says. “Then we’re all in for it.”
“I’m not sure,” Ramon replies.
“Did he at least put sheets on the bed?” she asks, glancing back at something outside.
“No,” Ramon says, “but I’ll see if he’ll let me.”
“It’s easier to clean sheets than a whole mattress,” she says, all business. With all his years of corporate experience, he never could have run as tight a ship as she does.
How much of it was her?
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll try.”
“Did you at least get the drinks?”
“No, I–”
“It’s fine,” Helena says in that brisk way of hers. “I’ll get them, you go check on him.”
She moves into the kitchen and gets to work, and Ramon makes a quiet retreat.
When he gets back to the bedroom he finds Eddie unmoved, breathing deeply.
“Eddie?” he asks yet again, not sure if he’s somehow managed to fall asleep there, hunched on the floor. “I told your mother you weren’t feeling well.”
Just barely, Eddie nods. “Okay.”
“She said that if you want to rest in the bed we should put sheets on it first.”
“He was like a father to me,” Eddie says, head still bowed to the floor.
It hits Ramon in the chest. “I’m very sorry,” he says. For Eddie’s loss, or for himself, he’s not sure.
“He gave me a family when I needed one and he saved my life more times than I can count. And I wasn’t there for him.” He sounds angry now, but still he doesn’t look up.
“It’s not your fault,” Ramon tries, but it feels hollow.
“It is, though,” Eddie says, and now, finally, he lifts his head. “I screwed up and made Christopher leave and I couldn’t stand up to you and mom soon enough to bring him back home before she sunk her claws in and you went along with it, acting like his father, and now–” Eddie shakes his head and pushes himself off the floor. “I’ll get the sheets.”
Ramon steps aside to let him pass by, watches as he heads to the linen closet in the hall and returns with a set of sheets. He thinks they’re the same ones that were on it before; Eddie must have another set at his own house.
“Let me help,” he says as he watches his son wrestle with the fitted sheet. “I used to help your Abuela make the beds when I was a boy. She taught me to do the opposite corners first so they don’t slip off.”
He feels Eddie’s eyes on him as he stretches the sheet across the mattress. “You never taught me that before.”
“Your mother always made the beds.” He pulls another corner taut.
Eddie grabs the pillows and tugs the cases onto them while Ramon finishes the sheets.
“Do you want a quilt?” Ramon asks when they’re finished, standing at opposite ends of the bed.
“No,” Eddie replies.
“Okay,” Ramon says. He moves to leave, eyeing his son still standing motionless, staring down at the pillows. “Do you want the light on or off?” He thinks Eddie slept with a nightlight at one point, but it may have been one of the girls. He may have told him that men don’t sleep with nightlights; maybe his father had told him that.
“Off.”
Ramon nods, switching off the light as he pulls the door nearly closed behind him. Just as he’s about to leave, he hears softly: “Dad?”
He pokes his head back in the door. “Yes?”
“Can you send Christopher up?”
“Of course,” he replies, and with a gentle knock on the door frame he heads back to the party, still in full swing, none of them aware of the way his son’s world has been changed.
Outside, the buzz of cicadas is giving way to the chirp of crickets, and the sun is nearly gone.