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“How long have you two been together?” Sonny asks, as if it’s only just occurring to him that Daniela and Carla weren’t born in love with each other— didn’t appear in the world, fully formed, wrapped in each other’s arms. To be fair, Carla has her own doubts about that.
They’re congregated around the dining room table, a summertime lunch Sonny couldn’t get at home, SAT prep books that Daniela saved up to buy when Vanessa was going through it and kept in the corner of her tiny bookshelf for the day they’d be needed again. A little worn, a little outdated, but good enough. It was Carla’s idea.
Daniela looks at Carla slyly, asking, “Do you want to go first, or should I?”
Carla laughs. Point to herself. “Together for seven years, in love for eight.”
She pauses, looking expectantly at Daniela. Dani kisses her, once, pressing the tip of her nose into Carla’s cheek for a second as Sonny pretends to gag himself. Carla reaches across the table to lovingly flick him on the forehead.
“Together for seven years, in love for seven and a half,” Daniela answers. “I took a bit longer to figure it out.”
“I don’t get it,” Sonny shakes his head, resting his cheek on one palm, studying them carefully.
“I don’t either!” Carla agrees. “When I saw her for the first time, yelling something about something at somebody,” she stares at Dani, eyes sparkling, “I wanted her to yell at me like that. Or maybe it was just that I wanted her to look at me at all.”
Sonny’s heart twists in his chest, half adolescent repulsion at the idea of love making him say something so point-blank lame and half horrific, marrow-deep longing. Daniela, ever the observer, notices immediately. Winks at him.
“It’s not my fault you fell like a pig from a moving helicopter,” Dani wraps an arm around Carla’s chair, playing with the ends of her hair that fall down her back in waves.
“No.” Carla insists. “She knew. Maybe not then, but sooner than she says.”
Daniela sighs, letting Carla pull her hand up and onto Carla’s shoulder so she can hold it in her own. “Okay, mí vida.”
Sonny looks between his aunts, thinking for the first time that, maybe, some people really sit at tables and eat lunch like it’s nothing. Like they get to have this every day. “I mean it, though. How am I supposed to know when it’s serious?”
“You’ll know.” Daniela says plainly, Carla nodding along in that knowing way adults do when they think they have some effervescent thing that Sonny just couldn’t possibly understand.
“Come on,” Dani says, standing abruptly to collect Carla’s plate and her own with the practiced motions of an eldest daughter. “Help me clean.”
Sonny grabs the rest of the dishware, following Daniela into the kitchen. She hands him a rag, motioning at the clean cups and plastic plates already filling up the drying rack.
They stand there, together, for a long moment, Daniela scrubbing and Sonny drying. He wonders if it’s always this peaceful at Carla & Dani’s place.
“So when was it, really?”
“Hmm?” Daniela hums, turning to look at him out of the corner of her eye.
“When did you, yakno, know Carla was the one," he teases, lowering his voice mockingly. There’s an undertone to it, something unspoken and heartbreaking, so Dani let’s him get away with it. This time. Just this once.
“Seven years, three hundred and sixty-four days. Give or take a day.” Daniela responds, even-toned, certain.
“But then why did you—“ Sonny let’s the unspoken question hang in the air, finishing the last plate and leaning his body against the linoleum kitchen counter.
“Just because I knew she was the one doesn’t mean I was ready to admit it. You know a little something about that,” Daniela says, and Sonny blushes. “Plus, I have a reputation to keep up. Do you realize how much Carla has damaged that already?” She smirks, pulling the dish rag from Sonny’s hands. “Yesterday she called me baby in front of Cuca.”
He grins down at her, and Daniela realizing that somewhere along the line he’d gotten a lot taller than she is. Floating wisps of dust catch the glow of the setting sun in the tiny kitchen of Daniela’s apartment; it hits her that, someday, years after she’s gone, this is one of those stories he’ll tell people when they ask him about his family.
“Dani? Sonny?” Carla calls from the dining room, “Did you guys drown in the sink?”