Don't Date Rosa Santos

by Nina Moreno

  I just wanted to feel my abuela and know she was okay.

  “My house is your house,” Marisol told me in English, startling me. Her gaze touched on the urn with a look of understanding. I wasn’t the first to bring someone back, and I wouldn’t be the last.

  “Gracias,” I returned, grateful and determined.

  “Stop writing things down,” Mom ordered.

  We ate a breakfast of eggs, bread, and sliced bananas. There was no butter, and the portions were small, but it was delicious. We were only staying in Havana for the day before finding a way west to Viñales, where Mimi’s family had once lived and farmed. Mom and I really didn’t have a plan beyond getting here. We had three days, and it felt as if we were hoping for some grand sign from Mimi to tell us what to do. Spread her ashes? Take her back with us? We were flying by the beat of our grieving hearts.

  But I was still Rosa Santos, so of course I tried to make a plan.

  “We’re going to Old Havana today,” I said. I wanted to see the streets Mimi had woven together beneath her mysterious tent on our last night together.

  “Solamente en español,” Mom said, making Marisol laugh.

  “Vamos a visitar la Habana Vieja,” I said in a formal tone. Marisol clapped.

  The sidewalk outside was bleached white from the sun. Older cars cruised past alongside buses teeming with passengers. Laundry hung from the balconies above us, and kids kicked nearly deflated balls in rowdy games. Older teens—maybe my age—walked past, wearing backpacks, and didn’t even bother to look at us or the other tourists slowly trying to take panorama shots of the street.

  I fumbled with my camera.

  “Where are we, Rosa?” Mom asked.

  My head snapped up. Did she remember? I couldn’t see her eyes behind her dark sunglasses, but her smile was soft with memory. Somehow, against all odds, I was in Cuba.

  I wanted to fit an entire semester—life—in one day and see everything. I wanted to stay long enough to learn my way around and have someone sitting out on their porch recognize me as Milagro’s nieta and call me by name. I wanted to go to the university and sit in on a class before searching for some trace of my abuelo.

  Are you already here, Mimi? I tightened my hands around my backpack’s straps.

  “Let’s find a map somewhere,” I said.

  “Look at you still trying to plan our day,” Mom returned with a half smile. “Let’s find a shop first.”

  “You buy it, though. My Spanish feels clumsy.”

  A bicycle-drawn taxi drove by, with more tourists leaning out of it to take pictures.

  “Your Spanish is fine. Should we take a taxi?”

  “Tired already, vieja?” The morning was already warm. It would be hot soon.

  “Come mierda,” she cursed, grinning, and took off down the street.

  “Wait!” I was the one carrying the heavy bag.

  “¡Solamente en español!” she tossed back without slowing. My mother was ruthless.

  Several crumbling buildings were under construction, and the narrow streets surrounding all of that work were crowded with people. We passed older folks on plastic chairs in animated conversation, kids hollering about a game—some in shoes, others not—teens holding hands and disappearing down alleys. The tourists were easy to pick out as they posed against faded buildings, finding their best angles. A group of them stopped to sit beside and take selfies with women in bright dresses smoking cigars. They were reveling in the timelessness and beauty, and their pictures would be posted—once they found an internet connection—and everyone would see those shots as the story of Cuba. I knew this because these were all the photos I’d seen when I obsessively researched Havana. But standing here now, on this hot, humid street, I watched the stories happening around those pictures. The ones living beyond the photo filters.

  Mom was also watching the activity around us. She slipped her sunglasses up into her hair. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Another large tour group turned down the street. The guide held up a red umbrella, and he sounded Cuban. “I’ve been so focused on my place and whether I fit, and now I’m here.” I stepped back to let the group pass. “I worry at the end of all of this I’m just going to have more questions than answers.”

  “Sounds like you.”

  We found a city map and after roaming together for several hours, we stopped at a walk-up window to get something to eat. The man behind it was slicing a huge piece of roasted pork he was then splitting into small sandwiches. Mom bought us two, and as she paid, I glanced across the street at a small flower market.

  Mom handed me my sandwich, already biting into hers. Something about the flower market felt familiar, like I’d once seen a picture of it.

  Beside the market was a building with a small numbered sign that read 306. There was also a blue door with a papaya tree. The door had been painted onto the wall, and the graffiti was bright and wild with color.

  Mom gravitated closer and I followed. We’d passed several murals. A city controlled by so much censorship still exploded with art. Mom’s hand hesitated over the painted door. “I don’t think I could paint this.”

  Farther down the wall, another older woman sat at a small table. Her dark hair was pinned back and a lit cigar was clenched between her teeth. No one was taking a picture with her.

  “¿Estás buscando a alguien?” she asked us.

  “Oh, no, we were just looking,” I answered automatically in English. The woman cocked her head, and I burned with embarrassment. And sadness. This wasn’t Mimi who knew our bilingual rhythm. “Perdón—” I started, but the woman cut me off, and said, “It’s fine.” She shot me an enigmatic smile. “I can do both.”

  Mom was still wondering over the painting. The woman watched her for a moment before ashing her cigar. “You’re looking for her.” She exhaled a wall of smoke.

  Mom froze. I slowly looked at both of them, my mouth suddenly too dry to swallow my next bite. Excitement and disbelief rolled in my stomach with the sandwich. Just give me a sign.

  “You are looking for your miracle, no?” The woman continued to smoke. A skinny orange-and-white cat slunk over and stopped at her feet. My pulse picked up, heavy and fast. I was afraid to take my gaze away and find her gone or drawn from my own desperate imagination.

  She put down her cigar again. “I will take you.”

  “Where?” Mom asked, her voice rough.

  “I will take you to her.”

  It turned out that hope and grief could lead even a type A planner down some pretty strange roads. Mom and I were now driving into the setting sun while riding in the back of a Cuban cowboy’s truck, headed for who knows where.

  Mom, stretched out beside me in the bed of the truck, had been quiet ever since we grabbed our suitcase from the casita, followed the older woman to this truck, and climbed in against the advice of every travel horror story and Ana’s favorite murder podcasts.

  “Ana would kill me right now if she knew where I was.”

  Mom stared up at the sky and scoffed. “You’re with your mother.”

  “Exactly.”

  I glanced inside the back window again. The radio played Mimi’s beloved guajira music—the twangy, earthy sound of their country music. The top of the old woman’s head, now covered in a scarf, bopped along as the cowboy drove.

  “Do you really think she knows anything about Tía Nela?” I asked Mom, then lowered my voice. “We might be on our way to really meet Mimi, if you know what I’m saying.” I pointed my thumb at the driver, then mimed slicing my hand across my neck.

  “Morbid much?”

  I blinked. “I’m carrying my abuela’s ashes in my backpack while riding in the back of some stranger’s pickup truck at dusk, Mom.”

  “Latinx are exceptionally goth people.”

  City gave way to country, and beyond the dusty road were small towns with mostly one-story buildings, open fields, and tobacco farms. Rural, green, and open, it was another worl
d out here. Mom sat up and looked out at the farmlands around us, too. She looked so strong and proud, like a mermaid at the helm of a ship, even in the back of this truck.

  “Is this Viñales?” I wondered. I held back my wildly flying hair.

  “I think so.”

  The truck jerked roughly, and we threw our hands out as the cowboy pulled over. “Let’s not die,” I said to Mom, who agreed as we both hopped out. It was almost dark, and the truck’s back tire was flat. The old woman climbed out of the passenger side—she had to jump down from the seat—and ambled over to us. She sighed at the sight, thanked the cowboy, and turned for the field.

  “Wait, where are you going now?” I asked, following.

  “This way,” she said. Panic simmered, leaving an acrid taste in my mouth. I was too reasonable to be okay with any of this, but I was desperate for all of this to actually mean something. I could be patient. Well, I could try really hard.

  “There’s a house up ahead,” Mom pointed out. The squat yellow house was like a beacon.

  I wiped sweat from my brow. “Do you think they might help us?”

  The front door opened, and another older woman came outside. She wore dark pants and a pink blouse. I straightened my shirt and tried brushing my hair into less disarray. This poor lady was going to think we were tourists who’d lost their minds. Which, come to think of it, was a fair assessment. The greeting was humble but warm between the two women ahead of us.

  The owner of the house turned to us and introduced herself as Gloria. She invited us inside, holding the door open for us to follow.

  The old woman we came with said, “This family needs what you bring. Strong shoes, toothbrushes, the girls need help with their cycles.”

  I was tired, hungry, and wanted to cry, but more than anything, I wanted to believe. “What is your name?”

  “No importa. The question is if you will help.” She passed me to head inside.

  I leveled a look at Mom. She looked as tired and overwhelmed as I felt. “I don’t know, either,” she said in answer to my silent question, “But I do know this is how Mimi would do it.”

  I thought of Mimi’s mysterious tent. Her notebooks of answers she carefully fed me in small bites. Tinctures that took months and candles lit only when the moon was in just the right place.

  Mom sighed. “Just once I’d like for something to be simple.” She heaved the suitcase behind her into the house. “And she called me the bruja of the family.”

  Gloria also opened her home to tourists, although she didn’t have any at the moment. She walked us through the airy home with open windows that offered a cool breeze and breathtaking views of the valley. She showed us to a back bedroom with a small bathroom.

  With nothing else to do with this surreal moment, I took a shower. When Mom went to take hers, I sat at a small desk in our room to make note of our day in my journal. I was in Viñales. The golden hour was right out of a painting, but this wasn’t a computer screen. I placed the urn on the desk beside me and opened the window. This was where Mimi had been born.

  “What do you think?” I asked. Silence, because it was an urn. I used to hate that I was such a crier, but this last week had shown me how good crying could feel. I was always a little stronger and sturdier after.

  Mom returned to the room, drying her hair. She stopped behind me and gazed outside at the green hills. The orange sky deepened into a bronze rust. “I wonder if I’d have liked being the daughter of farmers.”

  I imagined a younger version of my mother running through that valley. So wild, green, and alive.

  Mom bent to kiss my head. “But then I wouldn’t have you.”

  The next morning, Gloria’s neighbor brought over three horses.

  I looked from them to our little old lady. “Are you serious?”

  “Claro que sí.” She somehow defied gravity and smoothly hopped right on. Surprised, I looked at Mom, who shrugged and said, “Guajiras.”

  We got on the horses and set off down the dirt road behind the woman.

  “Stop making faces,” Mom said, trotting along beside me. “You’ve been on a horse before.”

  “No, I haven’t.” I held on with a firm, but hopefully not panicky death grip. Animals could smell fear. “Be cool,” I murmured just before the horse shook its head a little. I stifled a cry. “What did I just tell you?”

  “Yes, you have,” Mom said plainly. “We were in Colorado, I think. You rode a pony. We spent the whole week on that cowboy ranch.”

  I sort of remembered purple cowboy boots and a cabin with a thick blue quilt. We’d cuddled beneath it by a fire while she’d talked to the cowboy. “Wait, was he your boyfriend?”

  “Not really.”

  “Did he know that—You know what, don’t answer.”

  “Forgive me for not getting serious about every Tom, Dick, or Harry that came around.”

  “Please don’t say dick,” I begged.

  The valley around us was out of this world. Small, bright houses with thatched roofs surrounded on all sides by grassy hills that became mountains. The fields were alive with rows and rows of tobacco. Donkeys pulled farm equipment as the farmers walked alongside. Kids played and worked, and somewhere around here my abuela once ran.

  There were more tourists, too. Lots of them. They traveled in groups on horseback as they stopped to visit the tobacco farms. Mom and I watched them move across the countryside as we settled into an easy pace.

  “Years ago, I sold this painting to a woman who knew I was Cuban, and she told me she was planning a trip here.”

  “Let me guess, she wanted to come before everything changed?” I’d heard that line and it always made me want to gnash my teeth. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want things like a failed economic system, censorship, and food shortages to change. Can’t have a free press killing the vibe.”

  “Careful,” the old woman said. “Cubans do not have the freedom to speak so loudly.”

  Guilt sank its claws into my chest. I wanted peace and dignity for the people of this island. Power to make their voices heard, even when they were dissenting. I wanted them to eat.

  Pa’lante, Mimi had whispered.

  Two hours later, I realized it was absolutely useless asking our old-lady guide where we were going next. I asked her when we stopped to get water for the horses and then at the stand that sold sugar cane juice. I asked her when she stopped at a riverside for rocks, and then in a field to pick wildflowers. We were running out of time. Our plane home was tomorrow night, and still this impossible woman only pointed ahead of us and said, “That way.”

  “Are you really picking flowers again?” I demanded, sweaty and delirious.

  “Impatient,” she growled, and lit her cigar.

  I marched back to Mom, who was digging into a ripe mango. I paced in front of her. “You think she’s just taking us back to Havana?”

  “Well, this is an island. Sometimes you have to go back to go forward.”

  It was the story of my life these days.

  We returned to the horses and set off again. The island grew wilder around me and I gave myself up to it and stopped trying to track our direction or time. I could be wild, too.

  Finally, we reached the end. Somewhere beyond the tree line ahead of us, the ocean roared. We carefully navigated our way through the trees, and past the last ones I gently pulled my horse to a stop as I faced the bluest water I had ever seen.

  I wanted to cry but laughed instead. “Mimi was right.”

  The old woman climbed off her horse, and we followed. She stopped at the water’s edge and said, “She left from here.”

  My gaze shot to the empty beach in front of us. “What?”

  “The one you carry. He waits for her.”

  I took an automatic step back. My next breath whooshed out of me, and I looked at Mom. We had come to find some kind of peace over Mimi, and I thought I’d been prepared to spread her ashes. It seemed the Thing to Do when faced with death. But after traveling with her
like this, I didn’t know if I was ready to give her back. I was still trying to find her again.

  Mom’s eyes watered, and she looked at the sea before marching right up to it.

  I stayed where I was and glanced at the old woman, who was also watching Mom. “You could have at least warned her we were coming here.”

  She sighed. “Warnings never help.”

  Mom paced the beach. She kicked at the sand before stomping into the waves. When she began to scream, the wind picked up, fast and strong, and swallowed her words. I stumbled in the sand, then crouched down and watched, full of worry, as my mother unleashed. When she finally stopped, the wind settled. She turned and looked at me.

  Her chest heaving, she asked, “Now what?”

  The sound of an engine broke the silence. In the distance I spotted a boat headed toward us. My nerves took flight. It couldn’t be Mimi. I logically understood this, but as I stood on that beach and stared out at the blue waters, something tickled my consciousness, sounding so much like Mimi’s wind chimes.

  I swallowed hard as the boat came closer. I was so light-headed I wasn’t sure whether I would throw up or pass out. When it reached us I saw it was just a young boy on a single engine boat he steered from the back. The engine stopped and he directed us to climb inside.

  I held the urn, but the decision wasn’t mine. “What do you think, Mom? What you say goes.”

  She stood stiffly and bit her shaking lip. I didn’t know if she or the sea would look away first. “I want to know who’s out there,” she finally said to the old woman before looking at me. “Come on.”

  We waded out into the warm water, and the young boy helped us climb aboard. The engine kicked on, and we were off. The momentum nearly knocked me sideways, but Mom caught me and said, “I’m on a tiny dinghy with my daughter, helmed by some eight-year-old boy, to toss my mother’s ashes into the sea.”

  “I am thirteen,” the boy corrected.

  Mom’s laugh was wild with emotion.

  The boat coasted as the engine turned off. According to our guide, we were now three miles out. I wasn’t sure what came next. Did we just spill the ashes and say a few words? I needed a cue from my mother, but she held the urn to her chest and watched the horizon. Her dark hair played in the soft sea breeze. The boy looked away from us, offering what privacy he could.