Fated

blanket around me as I drift into a deep pool of nothing.
    *   *   *
    I wake to the sound of Jennika’s phone—her Lady Gaga ringtone making it as far as the second verse before she rushes out of the kitchen and snatches it up from the recycled-glass table.
    Careful to keep her voice muffled and low on the first hello, she checks on me, sees I’m awake, and repeats herself in her normal tone, chasing it with, “Yes, this is Jennika.” Which is soon followed by an incredulous, “ Who? ”
    She squints in confusion, drops onto the nearest chair. Her free hand reaching for the Diet Coke she left on the side table, bringing it to her lips, then abandoning it to the table again before she can even take a first sip. And though I strain to hear the voice on the other side, all I can determine is that it sounds like a female.
    Maybe.
    I can’t be too sure.
    “I’m sorry, but—” She shakes her head, her voice growing edgy, fingers plucking at the long silver necklace she favors this week. “I don’t get it. If you truly are who you claim to be, then why now? Where’ve you been all these years? It’s not like I haven’t tried to reach you, you know? But you were nowhere to be found. It’s like you fell off the face of the earth!”
    When she catches me staring, she’s quick to abandon her spot and head for the kitchen, shooting me a backward glance that warns me to not even think about following.
    I lay still, pretending to comply. But really I’m just waiting to hear the familiar sounds of Jennika settling—the screech of a chair sliding away from the breakfast table—before I creep toward the doorway and press my body hard against the wall in an effort to listen without being seen.
    Trying to remember when she’d used that phrase before. So many people have come and gone from our lives—Jennika has made sure of that—but there’s only one she’s described in that way, as having dropped off the face of the earth.
    There’s only one other person who’s proved to be even more elusive than Jennika and me: my dad’s mom. My long-lost grandmother, who, according to Jennika, didn’t even make it through her son’s funeral.
    Paloma Santos is her name, and it’s only a moment before Jennika confirms it.
    “Fine. Let’s just say that you are Paloma. You still haven’t answered my question, which is—why now ? Why nearly seventeen years later? What could possibly be the point of all this? Do you have any idea how much you’ve missed?”
    And while I have no idea how Paloma might’ve answered, since from where I stand the call is pretty one-sided, I do know that whatever she said was enough to silence Jennika. Other than a sudden hitch in her breath, it’s a while before she speaks up again.
    “How—how did you know?” she asks, her voice growing thready, thin. The words soon followed by: “Well no, I’m afraid you can’t speak to her. It’s—it’s not a very good time.”
    I press closer, daring to peek around the door frame. Spying a glimpse of Jennika now slumped over the breakfast table, one hand propping up her head, while the other clutches the phone to her ear. Her words coming quickly, hard to follow, when she says, “She’s a smart and beautiful girl. She’s a lot like her father. She’s got my green eyes and fair complexion, but the rest is all him. I’m sorry you missed it, Paloma, I really, truly am. But now is not a good time. We’re going through a bit of a rough patch. There’s been an … incident. And while I— what? ” Her spine straightens as she grips the phone tighter. “How could you possibly know about that?”
    She turns toward the doorway, more as a precaution than having any real sense of my presence. But I’m quick to slip out of sight, biding my time until she pipes up again and I venture a peek.
    She rocks the chair back on two legs, absently rolling the hem of her vintage Blondie concert tee between her forefinger and thumb. Jaw clenching as she nods, listens, nods again. Carrying on like that until I’m practically bursting with curiosity, wondering what the heck my long-lost grandmother might be confiding.
    “Yes, I remember,” Jennika finally says, setting the chair right again and staring blankly at the table’s intricate zebra wood grain. “He loved you deeply. Respected you immensely. But he wanted to live his own life, his own way. He wanted a life outside of New Mexico. And now, after failing with him, you think you can get a