And no matter how much Rolando once loved Gloria, he is not her husband. Even if she wishes she had married him instead. But she must live with the choice she made twenty years ago when she turned down his heart.

“Go play,” Gloria tells her son.

Pazito runs toward the park’s jungle gym as if all the kids swinging on the monkey bars are friends of his and not complete strangers. He’s fearless, something Gloria has always loved about him and recognizes has aided him well in auditions. Pazito never freezes up; he always moves. Well, that’s not completely true. Fear freezes Pazito when Frankie raises his voice and hands at Gloria. But she doesn’t want to give air to those thoughts right now. She’s been having such a lovely day.

Gloria sits on the blue bench, not far off from when she was here for the barbecue on the Fourth. She looks over at the stretch of grass as if she can see the memory playing out before her, like ghosts stuck in the past: Gloria’s two sisters relaxing with sangria on lawn chairs; Pazito playing catch with his older cousins; Frankie working the grill, but only because Rolando was originally on cooking duty and Frankie just had to show him up; and Gloria herself on the picnic blanket, hugging her knees and daydreaming about how freeing this gathering would feel if only there were one fewer person.

She returns to the present, to the reality where Frankie indeed isn’t here at the park.

Where Gloria is alone with Rolando.

“I’m sorry to hear about Death-Cast,” Gloria says.

“Don’t be. I’m really proud of myself for quitting.”

“In what way?”

“Instead of waiting for the day when an operator calls to tell me I’m going to die, I already understand how important it is to live while I can.”

Gloria loves that insight.

Life shouldn’t be about to end before someone begins living.

“That’s really admirable,” she says, watching her son fearlessly scale the jungle gym, watching her son live like he’s going to forever.

“Don’t you think you should do the same?” Rolando asks.

“Do what?” Gloria asks.

“To live while you can.”

“I am,” Gloria says.

“No offense, Glo, but I don’t think you are.”

He hasn’t used her nickname in ages, and Gloria’s heart skips a beat. “What do you mean I’m not living?”

“Tell me what your life looks like—and not what you do for Pazito.”

Everything that Gloria can think of that doesn’t involve her son feels too small, even if it brings her joy. Things like cooking with her mother’s recipe for garlic maduros and watching legal dramas and soaking in the tub with only a lit candle alive in the dark bathroom.

“Raising a child should count,” Gloria says. “That makes me happy.”