What If a Fish

by Anika Fajardo

  “Maybe. Or the next day.”

  “But the tournament, the one I told you about, it’s on Saturday. At two.”

  “Vale,” he said, spraying cologne onto his chest. He held the bottle up as if he were about to spray me too. I shook my head. “We’ll go. I promise.”

  Big Eddie smiled. It was still his sad smile, though. A smile that made it look like he was pretending to be happy. I thought of what Mama said about grieving.

  I pictured the fish leaping out of the water and back in.

  * * *

  At night when my bedroom door is closed but the lights are on in the hallway, a thin line shines underneath. The sliver is like a lightsaber. In my room in our old apartment, I believed it really was one, that it protected me from monsters and ghosts. Goes to show you how dumb little kids are. Because I know that nothing can really protect you.

  Tonight I’m looking at the lightsaber in my new bedroom and listening to Mama and Big Eddie argue in the kitchen.

  “Where have you been?” Mama asks him now, her voice squeezing under the gap.

  “Out,” he says. Even through my closed door I can smell his cologne.

  “Big Eddie, you need to be home by ten or at least check in with me.”

  I glance at the clock on my desk. It’s eleven thirty.

  He asks, “Can I borrow your car tomorrow night?”

  Listening to the silence that comes before Mama’s no, I can feel my brother careening around the corners of Cartagena.

  “When you get your international driver’s license, you can use my car,” Mama says. This is the same argument they’ve been having since he got here. The only one, actually.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t get stopped.”

  “Your abuela would want you to be responsible.”

  “You don’t know what Abuela would want, Liz!” The z in Mama’s name comes out hard, and I flinch.

  “Big Eddie,” Mama says softly. She has been saying his name this way almost every day since we got back.

  “Me voy,” he says, and the front door slams.

  I throw back my covers and peer through the blinds. I can see the outline of my brother in the glow of streetlights. Where will he go? He has no car, and the buses don’t go very far this late. Maybe he’ll walk to Lake Mad. That’s what I would do.

  * * *

  The next day when Mama gets home from work, she stands in front of us, hands on hips, and asks, “Have you two been sitting around all day?”

  Big Eddie grunts from his place on the couch. I don’t answer either. We’ve been watching TV since breakfast, something Mama would never allow if she were home.

  “Take him to Lake Madeline,” Mama says, removing the big clogs she wears at the hospital and lining them up next to the door. “It’s a beautiful day. Get outside, both of you.”

  When I first found out that Big Eddie was going to stay with us and go to college here, I imagined me not going to Kamp Kids. I imagined us going swimming and fishing, watching baseball on TV, and taking bike rides and bus rides around Minneapolis. He would volunteer to be a chaperone on field trips at school in the fall, and when it started snowing, I would teach him about sledding and ice-skating and make sure he wore two pairs of socks. I didn’t imagine that I would end up in Colombia or that Abuela would die or that, when he finally came to Minnesota, he would lie on the couch all day and go out every night.

  “Maybe if we could take your car…,” he says.

  She just shakes her head. “You don’t need a car. Besides, I need to take it to a mechanic.”

  “I can take a look,” Big Eddie says. His voice sounds a fraction lighter, and I remember him working on Arturo’s Kawasaki KLR in Cartagena. Maybe she should let him look.

  But Mama shakes her head. “Take him fishing. Swimming. Something.”

  “Not now, Liz.” He doesn’t look at her.

  Mama doesn’t get mad very often, but this might be one of those times.

  “I know you’re upset, Big Eddie, but I need you. And right now you need to take your brother to the lake.”

  “I don’t need a babysitter!” I say. I’m mad at Mama for making me sound like a little kid, and I’m mad at Big Eddie for being mad and sad all the time. I’d almost rather be dumped back at Kamp Kids than wait around for him to want to hang out with me.

  Big Eddie lurches off the couch. “I’m going out.”

  “Fine!” I holler after him. I’m so sick of Big Eddie going off by himself. He didn’t do that in Colombia. He stayed home, took care of Abuela. He took me to El Centro and he took me fishing. Why doesn’t he want to hang out with me?

  I grab the remote control and punch up the volume. Mama clatters in the kitchen, angrily washing the plates we’ve left in the sink all day. Outside, a car drives past, its muffler chugging. I look at my phone. No messages.

  No word from Liam after that picture of him with his new family. I texted Cameron, but she hasn’t answered, not since I got back from Colombia. I know she’s at Kamp Kids during the day, but even at night she doesn’t text back.

  Where are you? Are you going to fish with me on Saturday?

  My texts pile up, one little bubble of unanswered words after another. I’m just waiting, always waiting. It’s like having my line in the water and waiting for a fish to bite. But I don’t know if there are any down there.

  “Can I walk to the lake?” I ask, coming into the kitchen. “I won’t go on the dock,” I add in case Mama wants to make me wear the life jacket again.

  She has her back to me, rinsing a pot in the sink. Out the kitchen window I see the bird feeder with one chickadee, the tiny rectangle of green that should be grass but is actually weeds. Who will teach me to use that push lawn mower in the garage? When Papa was still alive, we lived in an apartment so there was no lawn to mow.

  “I wish your brother had taken you with him.”

  “Yeah, well.” I wish he had taken me too. I wish I could get him to go fishing. Not only because I need to practice but also because I remember how calm and peaceful he was on the boat, how excited he got when I caught that fish, how he didn’t seem to mind that it got away.

  Mama wipes her hands on a flowered dish towel.

  “It’s still light out,” I say. In Cartagena the sun would have set already.

  “Oh, all right.” Mama hangs the towel on the oven door handle. “Go ahead, Little Eddie.” She doesn’t mention the life vest.

  The shore of Lake Madeline is ringed with trees. Some are so close to the water that they’re practically swimming. Dead leaves and trash caught along the water’s edge make the shoreline stink. I kind of like the smell, though. I watch the sun turn the water yellowish-reddish-orange and keep a lookout for purple hair—I can’t help myself. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the old man with his cane and shaking head, the one who sits on the bench every day. He looks as lonely as I feel.

  Two fishermen on the dock cast their lines and make arcing rainbows of water droplets. I picture the green tackle box and Papa’s rods in the garage at home. When a mosquito bites my ear, I turn back.

  When I get home, I call out, “Mama? Big Eddie?”

  I don’t see my brother, but Mama is in her room folding sheets and towels into neat, square piles.

  “Is Big Eddie back?” I ask.

  She catches the edge of a sheet under her chin and holds her arms out, stretching the fabric taut. “He’s out there,” she says.

  Mama’s bedroom overlooks the corridor of yard between our duplex and the neighbor’s garage. On the edge of the weedy patch of grass is a red lawn chair that the last family left behind. I peek out the window and see my brother, his elbows resting on his knees.

  “Is he okay?” I ask.

  “Maybe you should check.”

  I leave Mama to her chores and creep out the back door through the kitchen. I tiptoe, careful not to let the screen door slam. Big Eddie’s back is to me. The tag of his shirt is sticking out. His hair needs a trim.

 
He doesn’t hear me. Or maybe he does, but he doesn’t turn around.

  And then I realize that his shoulders are shaking like they were during the funeral. His face is in his hands now, and he’s sobbing. I stop breathing for a moment and hear a choking sound, deep and dark, coming from my brother.

  I take Papa’s medal out of my pocket. Big Eddie reminds me of a wall, like the wall that surrounds Cartagena, one that doesn’t move, doesn’t talk. I wonder if the reason why he’s been a wall, the reason why he hasn’t talked to me and Mama about how sad he is, is the same reason why I didn’t show Papa’s medal to Mama. There is so much sadness in our house. I flip the medal.

  Heads: I talk to Big Eddie. Tails: I go back inside.

  The disc flashes in the air. I catch it and cup it on the back of my hand. The long tail of the fish. I back up slowly. Big Eddie doesn’t turn around as I slip back inside.

  24

  TODAY IS THE DAY. The chickadees’ chattering wakes me up. I sit up in bed, reach for the D-E-F volume of my encyclopedia, and reread the entry for fish as if the words will help me win this unwinnable contest.

  Mama interrupts me, simultaneously knocking and entering, something she yells at me for. “Big Eddie’s not in here?”

  I snap the book closed and wave at my bed, desk, closet. I shake my head as if to say, Obviously. I hope he’s here by two o’clock, when the tournament starts. He’s got five hours.

  I’m about to go back to reading about types of fish, but Mama pauses at the door. “You really like the encyclopedias, don’t you?”

  I shrug. Nod.

  “I’m glad we kept them. Your dad would have been glad you’re using them.”

  “Papa?”

  “He always insisted on reading them to me. All sorts of random facts.”

  “I didn’t know these belonged to Papa.” My voice sounds very small.

  She raises her eyebrows and runs her finger along the spine of the book in my hands. “I thought I told you. Well, I’m glad you kept them, Google or not.”

  She turns and pads into the kitchen. She didn’t notice Papa’s medal on my desk. The smiling fish stares at me. Water runs in the sink. I remember how badly I wanted to keep the encyclopedias when I first found them. Was there some Colombian magic working? Did I somehow know they were Papa’s?

  I open the encyclopedia again. I read that fish, like frogs and snakes, are cold-blooded. I already knew that. I knew about cold-blooded animals, but I didn’t know that my encyclopedia set belonged to Papa. I slam the book shut and glance over at Papa’s medal.

  You’ll never catch me, the fish seems to say.

  I hear Mama opening the front door to get the newspaper that’ll be waiting on the stoop like it always is.

  “Little Eddie!” A shriek from the living room.

  The encyclopedia thuds to the floor.

  “Little Eddie!”

  I bolt out of bed.

  “Where—” she yells. “Where’s the car?”

  * * *

  Some days are magical, like when you see a huge fish eat an ice cream cone or when you make a purple-haired new friend or see a ghost. But some days are the opposite. And today, the day someone stole Mama’s car, is the opposite.

  She’s outside in her gray terry-cloth bathrobe and bare feet. Where last night the car dripped on the driveway, this morning the space is empty except for the stains on the asphalt. No car.

  “Where’s my car? Where’s Big Eddie? Did he take the Honda?” She circles the driveway as if the car is going to suddenly reappear.

  “Big Eddie wouldn’t take the car,” I say, grabbing her arm. “He wouldn’t.” I say it, but I’m not sure it’s true. He kept asking, kept bugging her. He’s been acting strange. But would he steal a car?

  Then, while Mama and I are looking at the spot where the car should be, a basketball lands with a thud in the empty driveway. Mama is still standing there in her robe. I’m in my pajamas. I tiptoe on bare feet around the greasy stain and sharp gravel of the driveway and pick up the ball. Because our house is on the route to the lake, random toys and junk are always ending up in front of the duplex. Beach balls, sippy cups, jump ropes, sidewalk chalk.

  I bounce the basketball once and then catch it as Mama goes back into the house, muttering something about Big Eddie.

  Then I hear a shrieking laugh, and someone calls out, “Loser!”

  Two curly-haired boys on bicycles are shouting. One of them is riding no-handed. Mason and Ivan Schmidt. And there’s Alyssa on a bike too, with a beach towel over her shoulder. Behind her comes another girl with a towel.

  I stand there with the ball, like a paralyzed squirrel thinking about diving across the freeway to my death. They skid to a stop in front of me.

  “Having some mommy time before you go back to your country?”

  My face feels hot. “This is my country.”

  Ivan snorts, and a little snot comes out of his nose.

  I wish Big Eddie were here. I wish I weren’t here.

  “How’s your throw, spic?”

  I toss the ball underhand, but he doesn’t even try to catch it. Alyssa lets her bike tumble, and she runs for it, throws it to her brother.

  I whip around to go back into the house. But when I finally figure out who the other girl is, I freeze. Short blond hair. Slightly bucktoothed. The purple has been chopped off, but I still recognize her. Barely. She’s wearing jean shorts and a stack of bracelets. Her earrings are so long, they brush the towel slung over her shoulder. She doesn’t look like someone who’s going to win a fishing tournament later today.

  “Did you get my texts?” I ask as quietly as I can. “What about the—”

  Cameron moves toward me, but then glances at the Schmidt kids and laughs an Alyssa-style laugh that isn’t quite a laugh.

  “Loser,” Ivan repeats, and pedals away furiously, the basketball tucked under one arm. “Come on, guys.”

  I watch Cameron adjust the towel and align her pedals like she’s stalling. Maybe she’s giving the Schmidt kids a head start. What if she’s waiting to talk to me and we’ll be friends again?

  Instead she takes off, coasting down the slight decline toward the lake. At the end of the block, she turns back once to look at me. And I’m left alone in the empty driveway.

  * * *

  “Did he say anything to you?” Mama comes back outside holding her phone, more worried about her car than the fact that I may die of embarrassment this morning before I even get a chance to catch some fish.

  “Did who say what?” I’m not sure if she heard the Schmidt boy call me a spic. She would be mad if she did. She would track down their parents and embarrass me even more.

  “Your brother. Did Big Eddie say anything to you? Was he planning on going somewhere?”

  I shake my head, but I’m not really listening. I can still see Cameron biking down the street with those kids. The image stays in front of my eyes like the spot you see after you look at a lightbulb without a shade.

  Watching Mama walk to the end of the block in her robe makes me wish she would get dressed. She peers around the corner and shakes her head. No car. She sits on the front step. I slump next to her as she calls Big Eddie’s phone. The line rings and rings. Then the automatic voice mail message plays, then a robot repeats Big Eddie’s number until she hangs up.

  “Are you going to call the police?” I ask. That’s what they do on TV shows.

  She shakes her head. “He must have the car.”

  I nod. I’m sure he has the car too, but I don’t believe he stole it. He must have needed it for something. Something important. And then I think I know: he’s going to help me at the tournament, and he needed to buy supplies. Maybe a new fishing rod? Maybe some special kind of bait you can’t get at the neighborhood hardware store?

  After I get dressed, Mama tells me to walk to the gas station. The one Big Eddie calls the store. “Maybe he went there,” she says.

  “Why would he take the car there? We can walk in tw
o minutes.” I don’t add that earlier this summer she wouldn’t let me walk to the lake by myself, and now that she’s looking for Big Eddie—who’s an adult, in case she forgot—she’s fine with letting me go off by myself. It feels like the world has flipped upside down.

  “Just go,” she says, her voice as hard as concrete.

  When I get back from the gas station (where, of course, Big Eddie is not), Mama is in the living room on the phone again. She got dressed, but she’s put together an odd combination of frayed, cut-off sweatpants and a pink striped button-down shirt. Just as embarrassing.

  “His grandmother died recently,” she says to someone on the phone. “The one who basically raised him. So I understand that he’s upset, but I thought being here with us would help. What should I do?” She reaches up and smooths a spike of blond hair that stands on end at the back of her head. It pops back up. “What if he gets stopped?” she asks whoever is on the phone. “The cops are always pulling over black and brown kids. And he doesn’t even have a license.”

  I stand very still. She hasn’t seen me standing in the doorway. The cops? Brown kids? I’m not sure what that means, but the catch in her voice tells me it’s not good. I look at my own arm. Am I brown? If I could drive, would I get pulled over?

  Sometimes English words are just as confusing as Spanish ones.

  “No ID, either,” Mama says. “I checked. His passport is still here. He doesn’t even have his passport. Nothing. If the cops pull him over, what will they do?” She sighs and shudders, the sound making my toes curl. It’s sad and desperate and nothing like the Mama I know. This is a different kind of sad, a worried sad. A hopeless sad.

  “Remember when that happened with Eduardo?” she asks the person on the phone. I think I know who it must be. It’s Sarah, Liam’s mom, on the phone from New York. She knew Papa; that’s how long they’ve been friends. Will Liam and I be friends that long?

  “Eduardo got pulled over by the cops. And for what? For nothing. A brake light, they said. Poor Eduardo spent hours at the police station. And that was after a ride in the squad car— Oh God.” Mama hiccups; her shoulders shake. “My Civic needs a new taillight.”