How to Build a Heart

by Maria Padian

  “Both,” she says, wandering into the living room.

  I join her, two bags and my own can in hand. I crack the pop top and take a long draw. The bubbles rush and recede in my stomach like an ocean wave. “Mami and Jack will be here in, like, half an hour,” I tell her.

  She flops on the Scrouch. Roz thinks I’m not supposed to have any friends over when Mami is out. She doesn’t know this is a Roz Rule, specific to her. In any case, she thinks it’s stupid and likes to tell me I’m a dork for letting my mother push me around. Still, she always slips out the back door when Mami pulls up.

  Roz doesn’t bother asking why they’re coming home early today. Which is good. I’m not sure what I’d tell her.

  Because it’s such a long shot. Like winning the lottery and getting struck by lightning simultaneously. This House Thing, which Mami finally revealed last night. After I freaked out.

  “Is he kidding right now?” I demanded when Jack spilled the beans that we were moving. Again. “We had a deal—”

  But she cut me off. “Isabella. It is not what you think.”

  “It’s never what I think! Or want. Mami, we’ve been over this! I hate moving and you told me I could stay for high school!” The tears rose. So unfair. I’m so sick of things being unfair.

  Which made what I said next even worse because it was totally unfair.

  “If Daddy was alive, we’d never have lived like this. Moving all the time. From one crap place to another.”

  Jack gasped and clapped a hand over his mouth. “Izzy swore!”

  I braced myself. Mami has some serious rules about bad language. But instead of berating me with a Gatling gun of Spanglish, she stared into her plate, picking at a very large bay leaf in her rice.

  “That’s right, Isabella,” she finally said, placing her fork on the counter and abandoning any pretense of eating. “So much would be different if your father were still with us. But don’t kid yourself: we moved a lot when Charlie was alive. That’s the military.”

  “We stopped being military years ago,” I shot back. Explain all the moves since then, I didn’t add. But I didn’t need to. Mami pressed her mouth into a thin line. She couldn’t argue with me.

  Jack tugged at my sleeve. “Izzy! It’s okay! We’re not moving far!”

  I shook him off. I wasn’t in a mood to humor him. “Oh yeah? How not far, Jack? Do you even know what ‘far’ is? Which is more far, Alaska or . . . your school? The Meadowbrook Market or . . . Grandma Crawford’s house?”

  Jack didn’t answer. He’s never been to Grandma Crawford’s house. Instead, he turned to Mami. “Tell her!” he insisted.

  Mami reached atop the fridge and pulled down a folder. She handed it to me. Across the top it read: Habitat for Humanity of Greater Clayton. At the bottom was this logo with little blue people beneath a green roof. Their arms were raised as if in some happy prayer, some “Say Amen!” chorus I haven’t heard since my last Crawford family reunion, back when Daddy was alive and we went once a year to North Carolina to see the relatives.

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get your hopes up,” she said. “But I applied for us to get a house. Every night for the last few weeks, after you two went to bed, I’ve been filling out papers. I had to show them all my records and pay stubs and get references . . . But the people at church have been helping me, and that’s why Mrs. Brenda was here. She says we passed the first part. She says that’s very good. It means we are close to being picked.”

  My head spun. The only thing I knew about Habitat for Humanity was that they built houses with smiling volunteers who looked like they’d never held a hammer before.

  “I’m sorry . . . what?” I said. “Picked for a house where?” I tried to imagine some alternate universe where free houses were doled out to Puerto Rican widows and their children.

  That’s when she told me about the Mystery Location. Some place in Clayton where Habitat had recently been given land. Mami had applied for us to be one of the first families to move there.

  She is taking me and Jack to see it this afternoon.

  I pop the Doritos bag and grab a handful. Roz does the same with the Cheetos. We munch in silence for a while.

  “So. ’Dyou get in trouble for being late last night?” she finally asks.

  “Nope. ’Dyour mom leave you anything to eat?”

  She flashes me the are-you-kidding? look.

  “How long has Shawn been back?”

  Roz reaches for the Doritos. “Three days.”

  “I thought you said she pressed charges and had an order against him.”

  “She did. Then she dropped them. After he begged her forgiveness and swore he’d never hit her again.”

  “Isn’t that what he said the last time?”

  “Too bad Mom doesn’t have your memory,” Roz remarks. She rises from the Scrouch and crosses the room to the television case. There’s a framed eight-by-ten of my dad there, and Roz picks it up. “You look like him, you know.”

  “Bald?” I comment. She’s holding the formal headshot of my father in his dress uniform: blue-black jacket with red trim and brass buttons, white hat with black brim and Marine insignia. Buzzed hair. Sticking-out ears. Unsmiling. And even though he’s my dad and parents always seem old, he’s young in that picture. Too young to look so serious.

  Roz actually smiles. “The eyes,” she says. “The same green eyes. But with your mom’s dark hair.”

  “Mami says I have Crawford eyes.”

  She places the photo back on its shelf.

  No matter how many times we move and how much stuff we lose, break, or toss each time, that picture of Master Sergeant Charles Lee Crawford is preserved in Bubble Wrap, carefully unpacked, dusted, and displayed by my mother. Front and center. It’s the photo everyone thinks of when his name is mentioned. Besides our parents’ wedding picture and a few random snapshots, it’s Jack’s only image of him.

  And I don’t like it. As a matter of fact, I sort of hate it. I have my own personal picture of my dad (I’m the only one in the family who even knows it exists), and it’s nothing like that stiff military one.

  Roz has been in our place a gazillion times and never commented on the photo before. I’m wondering if maybe I should show her the good picture of Charlie Crawford, finally break down and share it with someone. But then, she stops me cold.

  “Did your dad have a gun?” she asks.

  The Dorito I was about to pop in my mouth lands on my lap. “He was a Marine, Roz. Of course he had a gun.”

  “No, I mean his own gun. A personal weapon.”

  “I don’t know. I mean, if he did, he never told me.” I try to make my voice sound matter-of-fact. But she’s actually freaking me out a little. “Why?”

  She runs her finger over the top of the television, almost like she’s checking for dust. “Shawn has a gun.”

  “Please tell me you’re kidding right now.”

  “I wouldn’t kid about that.”

  “He showed it to you?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. “He didn’t show me. He just . . . has it. Pretty much all the time. The other night he was watching television and pulled it out and laid it on the coffee table. Like it was a pack of cigarettes or his car keys.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  She finally turns to me, her expression incredulous. “Izzy. It’s not a toy. Of course it’s loaded. Except when I take the bullets out. Sometimes when he’s asleep. Pisses him off, but it helps me sleep.”

  My mind races. This is bad. Bad bad bad. Shawn Shifflett is a mean drunk. The cops have been called for more than one of his benders, and Roz’s mom almost got thrown out of Meadowbrook Gardens because of him. Now he’s got a gun?

  There’s a lot to say, but that’s the exact moment we hear the wheels of Mami’s car grinding on the gravel outside. Roz f
lashes me a knowing look and heads for the back door. She grabs the Cheetos and Doritos on her way out.

  “Hasta luego, chica,” she says.

  No sooner has she closed the back door than the front one swings open.

  My mother pokes her face in. “Isabella? Vamos!”

  My head is officially spinning.

  When I climb into the passenger seat, I find Jack sitting in the back, Piggie Pie open on his lap. He looks at me with an expectant smile.

  “’Dyou bring the Cheetos?” he asks.

  “Sorry, they’re gone,” I tell him, without getting into where they went. He begins to whine as Mami backs out. Every nerve in my body is agitated by the sound he’s making. “So. Do I finally get to know where this place is?” I ask Mami, trying to talk over him. For some reason she refused to get specific last night. Even though she knows I hate surprises.

  “Stop it, Jack. We’ll get something for you to eat on the way,” she tells my brother as she hands me a map.

  He opts for swinging his leg instead of whining, so now I’m getting kicked through my seat.

  “How do you stand him?” I mutter.

  “Tus propios pedos no huelen y tus hijos no son feos,” she replies, smiling.

  From the back seat, Jack bursts out laughing. “Your farts do too smell, Mami!” he shrieks.

  Typical. Jack always understands all her little Spanish words of wisdom, while I’m clueless. My annoyance deepens.

  I glance at the map. It’s one of those foldouts of Clayton, and she’s scribbled directions on it. Also drawn a big circle on a point outside the main city, with arrows leading to it. Like the Mystery Location is a buried treasure.

  “You know, if you upgraded to a smartphone like the rest of the world, instead of your antique flip phone, you could use Google Maps,” I inform her as I scan the roads leading to her circle.

  Mami frowns. She is so not tech savvy; she’s only just figured out texting. And I’m not a great map reader. But as I run my finger along the arrowed route, I get this funny feeling in my gut.

  “So use the map google on your phone!” she prods.

  “It’s home charging,” I tell her. And I wouldn’t want to waste my precious data, I don’t add. Last Christmas she got me the cheapest “smart” Tracfone possible, with the understanding that I would buy my own airtime and data cards. I’m supercareful about when I use them, always worried I’ll run out of minutes.

  “It probably wouldn’t help anyway,” Mami says. “There is no address yet. No street. Right now, it is just land.”

  I look out the window. We are definitely retracing the trip I took with Roz last night.

  This can’t be right.

  “I still don’t get why anyone would just give us a house,” I tell her.

  “Oh, they don’t give them away!” Mami laughs. “You pay. But here is the difference.” She counts on her fingers. “One: it is a very low mortgage and there is no interest. Two, you don’t need money up front, what they call a down payment. Three, instead of a down payment, you give them hours. Every family has to work so many hours building their own house. They call it sweat equity.”

  “Will I get my own hammer?” Jack wants to know. I try not to wince at the thought of Jack running around swinging metal tools.

  “Sure,” Mami tells him, winking at me.

  “Yes!” he exclaims, and fist-pumps.

  “But Mami, we don’t know anything about building,” I tell her. “We can barely screw picture hooks into the walls.”

  “They teach you,” she says. Simple as that. She glances at the map in my lap. “What do my directions say? Exit twenty-four A or B?”

  “I thought you said you’ve been to this place already!”

  “Yes, but I don’t remember if it was A or B.”

  “Wow, how awesome is this? Not only do we know nothing about building anything, but you don’t even know where we’re going!”

  “Ay, Dios mío, Isabella! A or B?!”

  I glance at her scribbles, then look up to see the exit looming. “B! B! B!” I shout.

  Mami swerves, and we practically two-wheel it onto the exit. More than one driver behind us lays on the horn. My mother glares at me. “Why are you so negative?” she demands.

  “Did you eat all the Cheetos?” Jack asks from the back.

  I decide I’m sick of both of them, so I shut my mouth and stare out the window.

  Mami leans forward and presses the odometer setting. “Our turnoff is seven miles from the exit,” she says.

  I glance at the map, and with my finger trace what I imagine is seven miles.

  “I’ve been once with Mrs. Brenda. It’s very pretty.”

  I decide not to let it slip that I know exactly how pretty this part of Clayton is.

  At mile six we pass the Shackeltons’ mailbox. At six and a half, we pass the entrance to the construction site where Roz and I parked. At seven, Mami slows, then turns onto a packed-dirt road. It’s mostly wooded. We pass one sketch house with a sad stable and even sadder bony horse standing in mostly mud. Finally, the woods recede and we dead-end into a field and a view I can only describe as Drop Dead Gorgeous.

  Horses graze on soft mounded hills, crisscrossed by miles of wooden fencing. At the horizon, a ridge of mountains glows blue in the afternoon light. It’s the sort of view you could stare at for a lifetime and never tire of it.

  The three of us climb out.

  Mami leads us a few dozen feet from the car, and we gaze out over the field. That’s when I notice the flags: little neon-orange flags, affixed to thin wires and stuck in the ground everywhere. There are tire-wide depressions in the soft earth where the grass is laid flat, as if trucks, and many feet, preceded us. Off to one side there’s a large wooden sign that reads Future Site: Habitat for Humanity of Greater Clayton. At the bottom are the little blue raised-arm people.

  “In your mind,” Mami says, “picture four houses out here. A paved road, maybe in a circle.” She gestures with her whole arm, tracing an imaginary cul-de-sac. “Nothing fancy. Three bedrooms. One bathroom. A kitchen big enough for a table where you can sit and eat.” Her voice trembles a little. “In my family, we always ate meals together. At one table. Not some counter, you know?”

  I nod. Mami never ceases to complain that we have no room for a dining table. And to remind me and Jack that growing up in Puerto Rico, it didn’t matter that they didn’t have a lot of money. They washed their hands, used cloth napkins, and said grace before every meal. At. One. Table. All. Three. Meals.

  This is more standing around talking than Jack can bear, so he begins to do laps, airplane-style, his arms outstretched like wings, around the field of flattened grass. Mami and I watch him run against the backdrop of slanting light and navy-blue mountains. I allow myself the fantasy: that this is the view out my very own bedroom window for as long as . . . I want.

  A soft breeze stirs the grass. I shiver, even though it’s not cold.

  “What are our chances, Mami?” I have to know. I hate to be negative, like she said—but just like Jack doesn’t do waiting, I don’t do disappointment. Not anymore. I’ve used up my lifetime’s quotient, and to be perfectly honest, I’d rather not get my hopes up.

  “The next part is they visit us at home,” she says. “They have to meet all of us, and see that where we’re living isn’t good.”

  I snort. “That shouldn’t be too hard.” Mami doesn’t laugh. “When?”

  “Three days,” she says. She counts on her fingers. “Jueves.”

  “I have a cappella tryouts Thursday.”

  She stares at me like I’ve just sprouted a Christmas tree on the top of my head. “Isabella! We have to all be there for this home visit!”

  “Well, I have to be there for tryouts.” I want to be there, I don’t add. The St. Veronica’s a cappella group is the cool
est thing—actually, the only thing—I’ve ever belonged to at a school.

  “They make you try out again? I thought you made it already.” She staggers a bit; Airplane Jack has just crash-landed at her hip.

  “We’re auditioning new members. We have two spots open.”

  Jack stares at us, squinting.

  “Tell them you can’t make it. This is more important.”

  “Mami! You tell me all the time to get involved. Make commitments. Follow through. So, that’s what I’m doing! Now you want me to blow this off?”

  “They will understand,” she says. “Especially when you tell them what it’s for.”

  Yeah. Somehow I’m not loving the idea of telling the girls at my private school that some charity group is interviewing me and my family.

  “Are you two fighting again?” Jack has had enough. “Can we go home? I’m hungry!”

  Mami doesn’t answer but begins marching toward the car. Jack trots behind.

  No one speaks as we pile in. Mami throws the car into reverse and glances at the gas gauge.

  “We need to make one quick stop. I’m on empty,” she says.

  Jack moans and hurls himself against the back seat. “I have to pee!” he wails.

  “You can pee and get a snack when I stop for gas,” Mami tells him. “If you are quiet now.”

  Jack sniffles. He’s close to tears. But the whining stops.

  In all of McMansion Land, there is only one place where you can buy anything: a little “country” store called Four Corners. It has two gas pumps. Roz and I stopped here once, and it’s actually decent. It’s the complete opposite from the Meadowbrook Market (located just outside lovely Meadowbrook Gardens Mobile Home Park), where I work a few hours a week. The Four Corners restroom isn’t gross, it doesn’t smell like spilled Everclear, and there’s a deli counter where they sell good sandwiches. There’s also a wide snack rack, so as Mami pulls up to the pumps, I hand Jack two dollars from the glove compartment, where we usually keep loose change and a couple of spare bills. He darts out before she’s put the car in park.

  As I step out of the car to follow him, she puts one hand on my arm.