Rosario didn't know what all to expect on the other side of the door. Her frame of reference for aunts was a limited one: there was Tía Elena, all tight smiles and fad diets, who'd said all of ten words to Rosario in twenty years of knowing her, and there was Tía Caridad with her high laugh and her Blue Lives Matter bumper sticker, whose sole and heartfelt piece of advice to Rosario (when Rosario was eleven, before she'd put her foot down and refused to go to Christmas lunch anymore) was 'never date a boy who's darker than the bottom of your foot'.
That was it. Ma didn't have any brothers or sisters, and Dad's family considered themselves good Christians simply for tolerating the Ortiz girls. Rosario didn't know how to how to deal with an aunt who seemed genuinely interested in her life, let alone excited about meeting her. If it wasn't for the Patrick factor, she might've assumed Apollo was putting them up to it.
But sure enough, Clio opened the door with a beaming smile, looking just as eager to meet Rosario as she'd seemed over email. There was a small kid clinging to her leg, peering wide-eyed from behind their mom in a way Rosario took for shyness till they sprung forward with a dramatic shout and an action pose. Rosario started, and immediately felt dumb for it, and tried to make up for it with an awkward smile. "Hi. Um, hi," she added to Ella, waggling her fingers in a tiny wave. "Cool gun."