Page 58 of The Last Sunrise

“How can you do this without an ounce of sorrow or regret? Without any hint of respect for me and my family? You are not the woman I knew, and not a woman your mother would even recognize. She would be devasted that you turned out this way. T’has tornat cobdiciós i menyspreable.”

“No, I am not the woman you knew. She was a careless, romantized child. And how dare you speak of my mother. And my greed? My greed has fed my family. I can’t say the same for you. This money will be life-changing for you, Mateo. You’d never have to work again.” She shoots, aiming to kill.

“Stop deluding yourself into thinking you’re saving me when you know damn well that’s not the kind of man I am! And I will speak of your mother and your greed because she didn’t have a greedy bone in her body, unlike you.”

My heart breaks for both of them at the mention of my mom’s mother, who I never had the chance to know, as Mateo makes a cross shape across his chest by tapping his index finger in the four spots. When I was young, my mom talked about her occasionally and told me a handful stories about her. Before my mom started to harden over time, I could tell she loved her mother and that her death affected my mom more than she would ever say to me. The more she pretended she didn’t exist made that even more explicitly clear. My mom’s face is a shade of pale I’ve never seen outside a hospital room.

The black necklace around her neck seems to tighten, choking the breath from her. Her free hand pulls a little at the heavy jewelry. “Mateo, you need to leave.”

“Why? It’s been too long since someone has called you on your shit, Iz. I’m not one of your yes men and, no, everyone”—he turns to the thankfully small crowd of spectators—“I’m notdrunk. Not one drop.” I wonder why they’re speaking in English, then realize that the only people Mateo wants to hear this seems to be SetCorp, and it appears to be a direct decision made by him to prove a point, a point that’s clearly working.

“Mateo, let’s talk outside. There’s so much you don’t understand,” my mother urges. His mentioning her mother shakes her, because even the glass in her hand is swaying slightly and her legs look wobbly in her heels. That, or she truly does put everything below her company, her ego and reputation.

“You’ve had so much time to call me yourself. You yet again made a choice for me without asking me, and you can’t just throw money at everything and fix it like you always do! You knew how important this was to me, but you still moved forward. I waited, thinking you would call me yourself about this, and you didn’t. I don’t have anything else to say to you. I just wanted to come to your fancy party and look you in the eyes one last time, hoping, praying that there was just one ounce of the woman I knew and loved. But now, looking at you, there’s nothing inside you that I can hold on to. You’ve become someone you yourself would have hated, and I can finally go on with my life without you haunting me, without thinking about what it could have been like with you. It would have been hell being with you, you soulless woman. Enjoy your fucking money, Isolde. Enjoy destroying our land and toast with the millionaires who are the only ones who will be able to survive here if this doesn’t stop! Toast to all the families whose lives are ruined now because you just had to have one more hotel built! Cheers, everyone!” Mateo holds an imaginary glass in his hand and lifts it into the air.

A few people I recognize from SetCorp are staring, worried looks covering their usually smug faces. It pisses me off thatthis is all falling solely onto my mom’s shoulders. My mom’s complexion has lost all color, and I have never, ever seen someone speak to her the way Mateo just did and live to tell the tale. Her eyes are shining, her chest moving up and down, the black stones bouncing off the lights. The flute in her hand shakes so much that the champagne splashes over and onto the shiny floor. She doesn’t even look down at it as a man in a server’s tux dashes over to wipe it up.

I want to rush to her side, but part of me is desperately hoping that his words will resonate with her. I want her to process them, not shut them out like she does with every emotion since I can remember.

She stares blankly ahead, watching Mateo’s exit as he shouts, “Good job, everyone! Ho estàs arruïnant tot!”

“He said, ‘you’re ruining everything,’?” Julián whispers. “I’m not going to tell you the rest. You don’t need to hear it.” His voice is sympathetic, caring for me even though his own father is hurt.

I can’t take my eyes from my mother. Even though her expression looks empty, I know her well enough to know she’s anything but. She’s lost somewhere in the past, in pain, and still watching Mateo’s back.

“Go to her,” Julián urges me, pushing gently against my back.

I’m torn. I want to comfort her, but in a fucked-up way, I want her to learn something from this, even if it’s only temporary. I watch her for a few seconds and can’t take it anymore. I kiss Julián’s cheek.

“I’ll be back,” I sigh.

“I’ll be here,” he promises.

I grab ahold of my mom’s hand. Reluctantly she attempts to stop me as I lead her out the closest door. She hesitates a little more, and I yank at her, not giving her a choice but to come with me. I know she must be humiliated, hurt, and already trying to think of a way to explain what just happened to the people at her company.

As soon as I push the door open, she lets out a huge gasp of relief mixed with panic as the night breeze hits her. She lets go of my hand and grasps at her chest with both hands, then pulls at the necklace, ripping it off in one pull. The heavy stones fall onto the concrete in a cluster of thuds, and I bend down to grab them, knowing they must be worth a ton of money. She grips my shoulder, pulling me up.

“Leave them,” she tells me.

“Do you want to go to your room?” I ask her.

Her dark eyes are stormy, and her breath is blustering. She shakes her head.

I’m stunned by the words that follow. “We should have never come here.”

I think back to the flight across the Atlantic, the excitement she tried to hide in her eyes as we landed on the runway. So much has changed since that day, it feels like a lifetime ago.

“We should have never come here. I shouldn’t have brought you here; we shouldn’t have—” She struggles to speak, as if she just ran up twenty flights of stairs.

“Mom, I know it had to be hard to face him. But—”

She holds her hand up to cut me off.

“It’s not as simple as that. Facing him… I’ve been starving inside for years without seeing him, unbearably missing him, full of regret for decades. Facing him was every nightmare I’veever had come true. He’s disgusted by me. My mother would be disgusted by me.”

In my entire twenty-three years on this earth, I’ve never had a vulnerable conversation with my mother until we got to this island. The fact that she had this great love and never even mentioned him to me is evidence of that. She’s never talked about herself, her feelings, her anguish, not one mention of regret. Not ever.

“He’s missed you, too, I know it. I’ve spent time with his son this summer, Mom. Stories about you, about your life, your mom, our family. I’m sure he feels angry and betrayed right now, and that’s why he said those things, but he loved you more than you can imagine. He’s kept letters from you…” I don’t want to share everything Julián has told me, but I need to salve a little of her pain in some way.

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