What If a Fish

by Anika Fajardo

  Mama is quiet. She pretends to be fascinated by a bird on the feeder outside, but maybe she’s deciding whether this is something she wants to tell me. Sometimes it seems like she thinks if she tells me stuff about Papa, her memories will run out, get used up like the bottles of coolant she has to add to her car.

  “Even Papa,” she says finally. “When your father was your age, he was teased for being smart. Lambón. Teacher’s pet, brownnoser. You know—those kinds of names. There was a bully, he told me, who used to follow him home from school every day and throw rocks at him. He even had a scar.” Mama puts down her fork and rubs my back, just under my left shoulder blade. “Right here. But one day there was a radio announcement for an essay contest. The prize was money—I don’t remember how much—and the winner also got to read his essay on the radio.”

  I listen and hold on to this story of Papa, one of the few she’s told me over the last seven years. It’s like a birthday present to hear it.

  “Did Papa win?”

  Mama shakes her head and smiles. “Not quite. What happened, he told me, was that the bully was one of those show-offs and wanted to be on the radio. He and your papa made a deal: Eduardo would write the essay, and the bully would stop throwing rocks.”

  “That’s not fair,” I humph.

  “I don’t know if Papa thought it was fair or not, but he wrote the essay and it actually won the contest, so he was proud of that. And, anyway, he was pretty shy, so he wouldn’t have wanted to be on the radio. After that, the bully stopped throwing rocks even though he still called your papa names. But the names became just words. They didn’t hurt anymore.”

  “But ‘spic’?” I ask.

  Mama strokes my back in the place where Papa had a scar I never knew about. “Even that name is just a word. Some people use certain words to make people that are different from them feel bad.” She’s raising her voice now, not smiling. She’s not angry—or, at least, not angry at me. “But words are just words.”

  “What does it mean?” I push the zucchini around on my plate, hoping that she’ll forget to make me eat it.

  “It’s a jumble of letters taken from the word ‘Hispanic.’ You know. Latino. Latinx.”

  “Was Papa Latino?”

  “He was Colombian, so yes.”

  “What about Big Eddie?”

  “Him, too. And also you, Little Eddie.”

  I think of the Hispanic Heritage Month projects. I don’t feel Hispanic or Latino. Liam didn’t think I counted as Colombian. I don’t feel like Big Eddie or Papa. I look over at the kitchen window, but there are no birds on the feeder now. I don’t know who I am.

  “Be careful of anyone who uses that word. Any of those words—”

  The phone interrupts her. She grins wide when she looks at the number. “It’s your brother,” she says. “Mijo,” Mama answers with a smile, and I smile too, even though it’s kind of annoying when she speaks Spanish to Big Eddie and not me. But then her smile fades, and she seems to shrink a little.

  “What is it?” I ask, tugging at her sleeve. She bats my hand away and keeps listening, murmuring yes and no. I watch her like I watched the fish in the water at the lake, keeping my eye on her so I don’t miss anything.

  At last she looks at me and says, “Little Eddie.” Her voice is thin and strange. “I’m sorry, but… Big Eddie’s not coming.”

  7

  AT FIRST MAMA is upset at Big Eddie for not telling us sooner that his abuela has cancer. But then it turns out that he just found out. His grandmother had been keeping her illness a secret.

  “She’s been kind of weak,” he says. He’s on speaker, and Mama nods at the phone even though Big Eddie can’t see that.

  “How long has she been sick?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. She won’t tell me. She doesn’t want chemotherapy.” Big Eddie’s voice gets a snag in it like when a zipper catches on a sleeping bag. “She doesn’t want anything.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry about your abuela,” Mama says. She offers to do whatever she can. Then she starts asking nurse-type questions about the medication and the blood pressure and the oxygen levels. She asks so many questions, I quit listening.

  I know that “abuela” means “grandmother.” But I don’t have one of those. Or a grandfather. Well, I suppose everyone does, technically. My grandparents would be the parents of Mama and Papa. But Papa’s parents died long before I was born. And last we heard, Mama’s parents lived in southern Florida, but they don’t speak to their only daughter. They didn’t like her Colombian husband. My dad. Long ago, even though they lived in Florida, where it’s hot, they used to send Christmas cards with winter scenes. Mama still has the cards saved in the box of Christmas decorations, and the glitter from the fake snow gets all over everything. But now nothing arrives. No cards, no birthday money, not even a condolence card after Eduardo Aguado León died. I know all this because Mama tells this story about her mom and dad—the people who should be my grandparents—in a sort of singsong voice, a practiced story. I wonder if I tell the story of not having a dad in a practiced, singsong voice.

  I hear my name. “You still there, Little Eddie?”

  “I’m here,” I answer.

  “I’m sorry I have to cancel my trip.”

  “Yeah,” I say quietly. “What about summer school? What about college?”

  “I’ll still go, just later. Abuela wants me to go, but I’ll defer for now. Maybe until September,” he says, brushing away my question like he’s batting at mosquitoes.

  “Don’t worry about that, mijo. I’ll call the university tomorrow,” Mama says to Big Eddie.

  “Right now, what Abuela would really like is for you to come here. Please come to Cartagena. She wants to see you.”

  My heart leaps. Colombia? Me in Colombia?

  “Abuela would like to invite you both.” Big Eddie sounds formal, like this is an invitation on thick paper in gold ink.

  “It’s impossible.” Mama sounds sad.

  “It would mean so much to Abuela to meet Little Eddie.”

  “Even if we could afford the flight, I can’t leave work. I started a new job—my first nursing job—and there’s no way I can get time off. And even if I could, the flight…” Mama trails off. She must be trying to figure out how it might work, but she’s also thinking about the rent on the duplex and the nursing school loans and the car with the strange smell. If only the Fourteenth Annual Arne Hopkins Dock Fishing Tournament were tomorrow. I would win it and use the prize money to buy our way to Colombia. To Big Eddie. To the abuela I’ve never met.

  “We can exchange the plane ticket. One Eddie for another.” My half brother’s voice is quiet but firm. “Send Little Eddie.”

  The sentence that Big Eddie lets travel through the phone, across the continents, over the distance, is so small and yet so big. Send Little Eddie. Something shifts in the room, and I can feel Mama sigh.

  Me.

  In Colombia.

  By myself.

  * * *

  Later, after I’ve scraped the uneaten zucchini into the trash and helped Mama wash dishes, I’m watching TV as if nothing has changed, but I’m holding my breath in case it really might be happening.

  Mama sits next to me on the couch. “Do you want to go?”

  “When would I go?” The tournament is in five and a half weeks. I need to be back by then. Because I need to win a medal like Papa’s. Don’t I?

  “Soon,” she says. “Abuela is very sick.”

  I’ve never been on a plane, much less to another country. And what do I know of Colombia? I know that Colombia is famous for illegal things like cocaine and other drugs, and for legal things like coffee. Thanks to my country report, I also know that Colombia is the only South American country to touch both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, that the capital city of Bogotá is more than a mile and a half above sea level, and that the condor is the national bird. When Liam and I handed in our Colombia report to Ms. Hanover, all she did was glance
at the poster and say, “You spelled it wrong.” We looked at Liam’s artwork (pretty nice, if you ask me) of coffee plantations and a hand-drawn map. There were large bubble letters (a little crooked) that I had drawn, spelling out the country’s name. “You spelled ‘Colombia’ wrong,” my teacher said again.

  “But that’s how it’s spelled.” I pointed at the letters.

  “He should know,” Liam said. “His dad is from there.”

  “I’m sorry, Eddie, but it has a U, not another O.” Ms. Hanover later deducted five points for the spelling.

  “Why me?” I ask Mama now. “Why does Abuela want me to visit her? She doesn’t even know me.”

  “She loved your father very much. He lived with Abuela and Big Eddie after his first wife—Big Eddie’s mom—died and before he went to graduate school here.” I hold my whole body still, listening with all my strength to Mama’s story about Papa. This is one of her memories she’s letting me have. “After we got married,” Mama says, “we went to Colombia for a while and lived with Ana María—that’s Abuela’s name—for six months.”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that Mama and Papa lived in Colombia. But it’s hard to imagine. My mom? In South America?

  “Is that where you learned Spanish?”

  She nods. “I’m sorry I didn’t teach you.” She smooths down my hair. Her sadness seems especially thick tonight. It’s more like a dense fog than the usual light mist. I run my fingers through my hair, trying to keep the sadness from landing on me too.

  * * *

  On Friday the Kamp Kids counselors bring us to the lake and hand out Popsicles. This time Cameron and I aren’t the only campers on the dock. A group of younger kids has followed us. I guess those kids think it’s pretty cool to follow a black-haired boy and a purple-haired girl.

  “Last day, right?” Cameron says, biting off the end of her lime Popsicle. “No more Kamp Kids now that your brother’s coming?”

  “Um.” I lick my Popsicle. “Except—my brother’s not coming.”

  “What? Why?”

  “His grandma’s sick.”

  “That’s not fair.” She takes another bite of her Popsicle with her bunny teeth. Then she smiles with green lips. “But that means you’ll be back at Kamp Kids next week? Maybe tomorrow we can meet to practice our fishing. Now that we have your dad’s gear.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But we have to practice. We already sent in the entry form—and the money!” Cameron leans down and looks me in the eye. The purple ends of her hair tickle my nose. “Mr. Eddie, we have a tournament to win.”

  I bat her away. “No, I really can’t. Because… well, I’m going to Colombia.”

  Ever since Big Eddie told us about his abuela, Mama has been making phone calls and going to the library, where she’s been sending faxes to the Colombian consulate so that Big Eddie can change his plans. The university is letting him start the international student program in the fall instead of now, but he didn’t really seem to care about all that.

  Mama also dug out my passport that’s never been used. Once, a few years after Papa died, she was going to take me to Colombia, but it never happened. She says we’re lucky that my passport isn’t expired yet. Getting the right paperwork for me to travel out of the country by myself hasn’t been as easy. Mama had to write a letter and take it to a notary. In the N-O-P volume of my encyclopedia, I learned that a notary is basically someone whose job is to make sure people don’t cheat. That sounds like a useful person to have around.

  Cameron turns to watch the little kids screaming as one of their Popsicle sticks falls into the water. Then they all drop theirs in on purpose and scream some more.

  “Colombia,” Cameron says with her back to me. “Fancy.” She doesn’t say it like she thinks it’s fancy. Then I remember how she wants to visit her mom in California. “How many times have you been there?” she asks.

  “Never.”

  “You and your mom are going?”

  “No, just me. Since my brother’s not coming, we used his refund to buy my ticket. But my mom can’t go because she just started her job at the hospital. No vacation time.”

  Cameron rolls her eyes. “My dad never takes any time off. Ever.”

  A swarm of fish is clumped around the floating Popsicle sticks. The fish. That I’m going to catch. But not right now.

  “I guess that means you’ll be an unaccompanied minor?”

  “Yep,” I say. Mama had to pay extra for my ticket since I’ll be traveling by myself.

  “I’ve done it.”

  “What’s it like?” I ask—not that I’m worried.

  “You get a flight attendant to take care of you when you aren’t with your mom or dad. You get a sticker or button. Sometimes they give you extra snacks and blankets. Maybe you’ll get a really hot lady and you’ll fall in love and stay on the plane forever and ever.”

  I laugh, but my stomach feels like the Popsicle sticks are jabbing into it. Am I ready to go to another country by myself? Am I ready to leave Mama and Cameron and Lake Mad and all those fish? Am I ready to see my brother in Cartagena?

  Cameron squints at me and says, “Nah. I bet you get a crusty old man that smells like pee.”

  That would be just my luck.

  8

  I CLOSE MY EYES and submerge my head, careful not to let any waves splash over the sides of the bathtub. Through the water, I can hear Mama calling me. Is this what it sounds like if you’re a fish, all the sounds garbled together?

  I resurface and hear Mama ask, “Are you done in there?” She’s just outside the bathroom door.

  “Almost.” I pull out the rubber stopper in the tub. The water makes a satisfying sucking noise. In the old apartment, the shower stall drain never did that.

  “We’ve got to get you to the airport soon.”

  I lurch out and grab a towel just in case she decides to barge in. “Okay!”

  “Twenty-five minutes, Little Eddie.”

  I pull on my jeans and yank on a T-shirt. There’s so much I still have to do: find a place in my suitcase for all the presents Mama has suddenly decided I need to take, fit the C volume of my encyclopedia into my backpack, find my flip-flops that I said were not lost, and scrape the goose poop from my left sneaker. And then I’ll be on a plane. I wipe the steam off the mirror and comb my hair out of my face. First flight, first time out of the country. Twenty-five minutes sounds as short as a blip and also as long as the month I’ll be in Colombia.

  After much badgering from Mama, we’re finally out of the house with my backpack on my back, my flip-flops found and in my suitcase, and my sneakers clean. When we arrive at the airport, Mama does her fast walk across the parking ramp. She’s already at the glass doors of the elevator vestibule by the time I catch up. You would think she’s the one catching a flight.

  We rushed to get to the airport, yet now that we’re here, we have to wait. First we wait for the ticketing agent to sign me in as an unaccompanied minor. They check all the paperwork Mama gives them and then they give me a sticker to wear, just like Cameron said they would. It has wings as if I’m the one who’s going to do the flying. Then we wait for Mama to get a special pass so she can come with me to the gate. My suitcase gets weighed and sent by itself on a little conveyor belt. She buys me a bottle of water and a packet of red licorice to take on the plane.

  After we get through the long security lines, Mama waits with me in the low-ceilinged departure gate filled with other sons and brothers, aunties and cousins, leaving for Miami. I know that not all of them are continuing on to Colombia, since I have to change planes before I get to Cartagena, but I look around to try to guess who might be. Maybe the grandma and grandpa with three teenage girls speaking Spanish? Maybe the man in a white hat and wearing a goatee? Maybe the guy with blond curly hair and a huge dirty backpack? Who knows? The only one I know for sure is me.

  “Are you positive you have everything?” Mama asks, and then she uses her thumb to wipe somethin
g away from my cheek. She reaches into the outside pocket of my backpack and checks for the ticket. I look it over. Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Cartagena, Colombia. Two Os.

  Mama now rummages around in her big purse. She pulls out a phone—her old cell phone—and hands it to me.

  “For me?” I’m the only kid in the whole world who doesn’t have a phone. I click on the camera and, before she can say anything, I snap a picture of her.

  “This is for me to know you’re safe,” she says, taking it out of my hand. “Big Eddie helped set up the calling plan.” She opens the call feature and hands it back. “See? I put in our numbers. Me and Big Eddie.”

  “Thank you!” I wrap my arms around her neck.

  “Here’s the charger,” she says, digging into her bag again.

  I open my backpack and take a folded-up piece of paper out of the inside pocket. Cameron’s phone number is written in orange crayon. She gave it to me on my last day of camp. I type it into my new phone. Now I have three contacts.

  “Do you want Liam’s number?” Mama enters it into my phone without waiting for an answer.

  Four contacts.

  I switch to the app store. “Can I play games on the plane? What apps does it have?”

  “It’s only for calling me and, when you have Wi-Fi, texting,” Mama says in her you’re-going-to-get-in-trouble-if-you-don’t-listen voice. “It’s not going to work very well since it’s old, and in Colombia you’ll need to find Wi-Fi if you want to use the internet. Your brother says that texting will be the cheapest.”

  Sometimes Mama really knows how to get a guy down. But I nod. At least I have a phone.

  “Can I text my friends right now?”

  Mama nods, but doesn’t look away. So while she’s watching me, I type a message to one of the four contacts in my phone:

  Hi, Liam! I got a phone and I’m going to Colombia!

  I add a miniature red, blue, and yellow Colombian flag emoji and hit send. He doesn’t answer right away. Then I remember that he might not recognize my new phone, so I send another message: