My hand freezes in mid-air, never really tapping on the doorbell like I'd intended it to.

Well, I did hear voices talking behind the door, but I felt it'd be weird to have Pamela drop me off at Nathan's instead and not go in at the end of the day. So the plan was to ring the bell, Miss Martins would get it, tell me to just call her Teresa even though it's been years now and I haven't. And then introduce me to whoever she seemed to be having a conversation with.  But I don't think that'll be happening. I don't think it was a conversation either because she just told whoever the guest is to leave and never return, that's what I want.

The person she told doesn't seem to be perturbed by her yelling. Maybe they're used to it. Maybe he's used to it. "I'll come around tomorrow. You should also come around too as the reservation stands— do you still like your tamales with cotija cheese and sour cream?"

"I said you should leave. And never return, get out."

It's not said to me, but I take it. Take it as the right time to leave. There are many reasons I should. First, of course, is the fact that it's wrong to eaves-drop, should've left a long time too. But the real reason is 'cause I don't want to get caught.

So, I take the nearest elevator available on this floor. And when I get down, amidst the busy people walking in and out the classic screen door that leads outside, I find the lady I always seem to run into. Eyes still green, hair still short and with her usual long coats. Except now I know her name. But before I can call out hers, she calls out mine.

"Melissa!"

We're both smiling and walking till we get to each other. During the walk my thoughts were on spiral on what to call her, but I finally settle on the fact that she's not too old for me to address by her first name. Overthinking will be the death of me. "Kelly. Hi."

"Fancy seeing you today, it's been a while. I've told Tyler to ask you out again but he hasn't."

I— what? Ask me out? I would laugh but I'm confused, and I think the conflicting expressions have me coming across as constipated. Kelly's smile falters a bit, though glints up again. Why didn't Tyler tell her he hadn't asked me out, and rather I was the one who did? Except that it wasn't for a date but a ride home.

"He's stubborn like that, let him come around."

"O..okay."

"Who do you come here to see, anyway?" She asks, but she's already hugging me when I tell her it's a friend from school, so when we break from the hug, we say our final goodbyes. She tells me to stay safe, alright and I say a weird okay to her because she's affectionate. Very affectionate. I'm not into stereotypes but I hear people from the U.k would choose no physical touch over the opposite.

As I descend from the stairs to the car I know is waiting since I'd called the driver to come pick me up, I decide that I like Kelly. I always have, yes, but I like her more now. And I like that she likes me.

I like that someone who's friends with Tyler seems to like me.

"Thank you." I say on getting into the car.  The man with an official cap on his head, nods once at me before turning the ignition.

"Gosh, you're finally home." Danielle breathily says, looking actually relieved that i'm home. And that's shocking. She's in clothes more official than usual, but still a bit causal. "Why didn't Pamela's car have you in it?"

"Because that car had me in it." I answer, gesturing to the black SUV now turning round the water fountain to leave through the gate. I study her as she shuts the main door, walking down the stairs entirely to meet me at the bottom. "Do you stay upstairs to watch the Williams' driveway?"

She ignores the question. "I've been waiting for you. Have you seen my laptop anywhere?"

"Which one?"

"God, how many do I have, Nika?!"

"Two?"

"Where on earth did you get that idea from?"

"You've got like a black one and a pink apple one with glitters on the—"

"That one got bad months ago. Now, can you stop being frustrating and tell me where my laptop is?"

"I'm not with your laptop." I say, almost scared and recoiled.

"Then who's with it?"

Just then a yellow school bus honks at the gate and both Danielle and I look to it.

There's muffled noises coming from the kids inside the bus, and then our brother starts coming out. Disheveled, but happy.

"Why is he getting home late today?"

"Why are  you both getting home late today?" She spits back and I remember we'd been kinda arguing.

She uses the remote in hand to let Toby get through the gate and once he's in, she's throwing him what she'd thrown me.

"Diego, have you seen my laptop?"

He looks first at me, then Danielle, "No." But he says it like he's lying. And he probably is. Which is scary right now.

"Diego."

"Maybe I did. And maybe it's in the washing machine." He says, picking the school bag he'd dropped on the floor to let himself rest. "And maybe I didn't."

"I did not just hear you say you put my laptop in a washing machine!"

"I said I didn't." He fires back but in the same way I did when I told her I hadn't seen her laptop. Scared and recoiled.

"Why would you do something like that?" I ask once my jaw isn't on the floor anymore.

"She ruined my PS yesterday." For talking back at her. I remember seeing it crash, hoped it wasn't totally destroyed.

"Yes, but I.." Danielle looks like she's struggling for words and about to cry. And this whole thing feels like it's getting out of hand.

So, I step in. "Danielle, wait."

"That's what I work on. That's where all my... that's what I work on." She's crying already.

"And my PS is all I had! I was going to show William what I-"

"Toby, maybe you shouldn't speak anymore."

"I swear to God, Diego. I swear to, God. The next time I see you-"

"But you ruined my PS too!"

"Toby."

"Are you for real? Standing there to compare a PS with a laptop?"

"They've got the same value."

"Tobias, stop speaking."

"I curse the day you were born. I curse it." She says, sobering up. She begins roughly wiping the tears off her face with her palms. I take cautious steps to her. "All you've ever been is bad news, Diego. All you've ever— Oh you didn't know?"

"Soledad."

"Mom didn't die after you were born." I freeze. "She died because you were born. Whatever dad told you is a bag of bull."

"Soledad, stop. Please stop."

"Don't even touch me Nika or I swear to God!" She yells to me even though her eyes remain on Toby. "This... ingrate, this brat, is the reason I don't have a mom today and you tell me a ps and laptop are of the same value? You're nothing but misfortune." 

The french doors bang when she walks back inside the house, but they don't close. Just bang too hard that they stay ajar.

"Toby."

"Mom didn't die when I was one?" He asks, looking broken and wounded and I know, I just know I feel the same.

"Toby,"

"Did she not die when I was one?"

"No. No, she didn't."

I spend the next hours in the hallway, hollering out my siblings' names to no avail. Toby told me to leave him alone and Danielle told me to change out of my uniform as if her door was transparent and she could see me through it. Not to miss a minute for when maybe either would come out, I took my uniform off right there in the corridor. Only the skirt. And since the white shirt's long enough to cover a lot, I stayed in it. Socks and shoes still on, Tie a little relapsed and drawn over to the left.

"Hey."

I look over at Toby who blinks away when my gaze meets him. His door's slightly opened to show the clutter inside, he steps out of his room yet remains close to it as if any wrong move from me, he'll be running back in. I take one glance at my sister's door, still shut, before getting up from my sitting position on the ground to meet him.

"I told you to leave me alone." He adds.

"Yeah, but I didn't." I say softly, moving to touch him. "Toby, what Danielle said... she didn't mean it." I know Danielle's in her room not too far, so I get this anxious feeling, hoping she doesn't yell back that she did.

"She did."

"No, she didn't."

"Why didn't anyone tell me I was the cause of mom's death?"

"Because you weren't. There was an accident and she was pregnant. You were not the cause of the accident. It's just that it was.. it was a sort of 50-50 and she chose to keep you instead."

"So, she would have lived if not for me."

"That's not the point." I counter. Then soften, because here's a ten year old who's just been told he's the reason for his mother's death. Sure there were times when I wondered if things could be different, if maybe in some other reality different choices were made, but then Toby wouldn't exist. And I'm not extremely sure I'd say this out loud, but I love my brother. "That's not the point, okay?"

I tentatively wrap him up in an embrace that I think he hates until I'm retreating and he pulls me back. But let's go immediately.

Then we stand there. Him, a bit awkward, and me, .. a bit awkward too I guess. I also ask him a bit of an awkward question.

"Wanna see something?"

He looks up at me like i'm a lame grandparent who's just announced I got him a cute new sweater he'd have to act like he likes to not hurt my feelings.

"I promise it's not a knitted sweater, don't worry."

We walk out together into the now dawning sunset, with me sometimes reaching out to him and him moving further away from me so I forcefully pull him near because he's not too old to hold my hand and he needs love.

When we get infront of the garage, I, from the corner of my eye, watch him watch me put in the passcode on the screen to let the door open. It opens with a loud groggy sound that shuts off our hearing for the moment, and the room is dark till I turn on the fluorescent lights. That are now too bright we're squinting our eyes.

"Why did you bring me here?"

I give him a flat look because he already knows, "You already know." My feet squeak against the tiles as I corner a cello taped carton. "Well, I mean, you can guess."

"I know mom's old things were kept here."

"Why didn't you ask to see them?"

" 'Cause no one looked like they'd agree."

I crouch near a carton, studying him for a while. I thought he'd say something along the lines 'he did'. That he did ask but dad said it's better if he doesn't, he did but Danielle shooed the idea. That he'd asked me, but perhaps I can't remember.

Not just an assumption we wouldn't agree. Even though he's right.

When we moved here, mom's things stayed in the garage. Dad seemed too sentimental to see it around the house often, and too sentimental again to let it go. I presume we all liked it that way, preferred it, 'cause there wasn't any verbal discussion between us about it. Dad never had to crouch down in a squat to get on our level and explain why 'it's better this way', because we never asked. Danielle-Soledad and I never asked. And Toby was barely a year then, his few words weren't exactly reasonable, so even if he wanted to ask, the question wouldn't be understood by anyone who wasn't barely a year.

But he also grew up and never asked.

Had the atmosphere been so tight, he just knew it'd be wrong to ask what he's mom looked like, a photo, a drawing? Had the air been so tight he was sure we'd disagree?

"Why didn't you try?"

He shrugs, walks towards an open carton. "It was no use." He starts checking out the things, and I figure it's best to let it go.

In photo albums, there's pictures of mom from before we were born, before our parents were even married I think. There's ones of her alone, and there's ones of her with friends. Mom was pretty. Beautiful, actually. We got our pale skin from her and her smile lights up the world. In most of the pictures she's either smiling or mid-laugh.

"Uncle Octavio was right." Toby says, calling my attention off a picture I'd been looking at. I walk to him, stopping at his back. When he feels my presence, he tilts up his head to look at me then goes back to what he's holding. It's another picture of mom.

"Was right about what?"

"About you being a replica of mom." He says.

I squint my eyes to take a better look at the picture, still see no— not that I don't see a resemblance, same hair, same skin tone— but I don't see a replica. Rather I see more of a Danielle. That care-free smile, the laugh, it's more my sister than me. I rarely even laugh. At least not in public, in the beach, with so many friends and no care in the world.

"Nah, I think Soledad looks more like her." He tilts his head up again to look at me, but this time his face is filled with a 'what are you even saying' kind of look, and it's so funny on him that I'm laughing.

"See." He grins. "Your laugh is the same, you look more like her than Soledad. Isn't that why you were named after her?"

I ponder on it for a while. No one ever told me why I was. Maybe she would've if she were here. "Well."

"Look at this one," he says, going over the pile in his hands, dropping some on the table to search through just a smaller set and then, "here." He hands it to me. "She's not smiling there, it's a straight face. See the resemblance?"

I take the picture from him, but it's not a resemblance I'm looking at, or if I'm indeed more of a replica of her than my sister, rather I'm looking at the background of the picture. The people she's with. They're all in white lab coats in a glass office, some of them are smiling but like Toby said, she's with a straight face in this one. Still beautiful. But where did she work? Why had we never wondered where she worked?

"Do you agree now?" Toby asks, taking the picture from me. I want to hold it back. But again, let it go.

"Yeah, I kinda see it." I say regardless.

He nods, then goes back to the pictures. When he spots a video tape he drops it on the table and continues looking through the pictures.

I busy myself walking around the room. There's some of the old furniture that reminds me of my childhood. The memories are almost real that I see myself cornering a few of them while dad chases me round the house, I see his smile, mom's smile, hear my giggle. It feels real yet not exactly something I can hold onto. For example, the faces aren't clear, I just know they were there.

"What's in this video tape?" Toby asks from behind. Dropping a vase that also brings back a memory, I turn to him. As I get closer, he wags it in my face. I take it from him once I'm close enough. "What's in it?"

"I don't know." I reply pointedly, how am I supposed to know?, whilst scanning it in my hands. It has mom's full name written on it. In blue marker, good contrast to the white. Anica Galvez Martinez.

"Does it have videos from my birth? Or.. or of when she was pregnant of me?"

I look at him. "Tobias, I don't know what's in it." I return to scanning the hard disk, feeling it in my hands. It's cold. Metallic. "But I'll find out, I guess."

He nods.

"Do you want me to tell you when I've found out."

"Eh." He shrugs. "If you want."

We stay in the room, looking at memories upon memories and at some point I get tired, but I don't tell him it's time-up or anything, I just wait till he's done. Till he's dusting his hands on the front of his uniform pants with a happy look on his face. Not too happy, more like a sense of peace. Closure.

I hold out my hand for him to hold and he does. "Thanks." He says.

"If it's for bringing you here, gratitude not accepted."

"I mean it, though."

"And I mean it as well. The entire Martinez household owe you an apology for never letting you see mom's things, and assuming you didn't need to."

"I thought I didn't need to too, but it was nice to see." He says. A blonde curl falls into his eyes when he looks up at me. His hair is overgrown. But he's cute.

"I love you."

"Alright, time up." He yells, running out of the room and leaving me laughing to myself. I get out the room too, still laughing, hesitate taking the video tape with blue markings on it then just take it anyway.

Putting in the passcode to let the garage door down once we're both out, I say to him. "I'm gonna pretend time up means you love me too."

"It doesn't!"

"I said, pretend."

"It doesn't!"

Our banter continues even after we get into the house, only stops when we kinda forget what we'd been bantering about and I go upstairs. Later in the night before dinner, I place the video tape next to my laptop.