Harbor Me

by Jacqueline Woodson

  I turned the recorder off. When we told Ms. Laverne we’d fight with the Lenape, she said, But then maybe you wouldn’t be here now? In America. When she asked that question, none of us said anything for a while. We just all looked around at each other.

  It wouldn’t be America, but it would look like us, Holly finally said. It would look like this classroom, I think. Because we would figure out how not to just take something. And the Lenape people would probably share with us too . . .

  And then we’d all mix together, Tiago said.

  Before Ms. Laverne talked about the Lenape, I hadn’t really thought about the people who came here before we did. Indians were just Indians with big crowns of feathers, hopping around in circles and hitting their hands to their mouths. But after we learned about the Lenape, the Lenape people, I couldn’t do that hand thing anymore. I couldn’t see the people wearing their feathers at football games on TV and on Halloween and not think that’s not right. That’s not . . . not the truth. When I told Ms. Laverne that, she smiled and said, Exactly. Then she smiled even bigger and said, I love this class SO MUCH! Which made us all feel amazing.

  I turned the recorder back on. Ms. Laverne said every day we should ask ourselves, ‘If the worst thing in the world happened, would I help protect someone else? Would I let myself be a harbor for someone who needs it?’ Then she said, ‘I want each of you to say to the other: I will harbor you.’

  I will harbor you.

  * * *

  • • •

  Somewhere in the house, my uncle was playing his guitar. Beneath it, I could hear the soft hum of the dishwasher. He strummed the same chords over and over, then moved up the frets and strummed something different. The music trembled through the house. I stared at the wall across from my bed. The only thing on it was a painting of a dark brown girl sitting at a piano, her back to me, her arms spread across the keys. There was something about the shape of her shoulders that made me think of Esteban. Something both sad and . . . and proud at the same time. I pressed the cold metal of the recorder to my cheek and stared at the picture for a long time. One day, it too would be gone. The one time we took it down, there was a pale square behind it, as though the sun had tanned the wall around the painting. And that, my uncle said about it, is all she wrote.

  Put the picture back, I had said to my uncle, turning away from it. Now, please.

  Calm down, Hales. My uncle gave me a what’s-the-big-deal look. It’s just a wall.

  But it was empty and I didn’t want to believe that was all there was. That when one thing went away, just the pale ghost of it remained. I wanted to believe in stories on top of stories. Always something else. Always one more ending.

  I put the recorder under my pillow. My hands were shaking. I knew Holly wouldn’t have a problem with letting me record her. But I didn’t know about the boys. One thing I wanted more than anything in the world was to hear what my mother sounded like. Was her voice high like mine? Did she have an accent? A lisp? I would never hear it again. Her voice was dust now. But if the others let me, I’d be able to keep a little part of us. I’d be able to keep this story. Forever.

  9

  The following Friday, we took our seats in the circle in the ARTT room. Amari took out his sketchpad. Ashton and the other guys started flipping through comic books, and me and Holly talked to each other. It was warm in the classroom. The school had turned the heat on and the tall radiators beneath the windows made soft hissing noises. We started peeling off our jackets and uniform sweaters. Even Esteban took off his Yankees jacket. Holly stood up and unbuttoned her school shirt. Underneath it she was wearing a gold T-shirt with the word MAGIC across the front.

  You still have to wear your uniform, Amari said.

  No I don’t. Not here. Holly folded her shirt and put it in her backpack, then sat back down again.

  Amari looked annoyed, like he wished he’d thought to wear a different shirt.

  You’re going to get Ms. Laverne in trouble.

  Teachers can’t get in trouble, Holly said. They’re like the God of school.

  Nah, the principal is the God. The teachers are the angels, Ashton said.

  I had a teacher who was more like the devil once, Tiago said. She was so mean! You couldn’t even crack a joke! She’d just, like, yell at you, for not even doing anything bad.

  Ms. Laverne never yells, Holly said.

  We all agreed.

  But jeez, it’s hot as the H-word in here, Holly said.

  Amari said the H-word. You can say it in here.

  Who wants to? Holly said. I got smarter words. Anybody can curse.

  Before Amari could get mad, I took out the voice recorder.

  Hey, guys. Can I ask you something?

  Speak, Red, Amari said. Holly’s mom had cornrowed my hair into a bun on the top of my head. I thought it looked less red when it was in cornrows, but I guess Amari didn’t think so.

  I explained to them about the recorder and played part of what I had recorded the night before.

  It’s like you’re trying to remember us. Amari leaned back in his chair. We’re right here, though. But I guess like in an hour we won’t be . . .

  And maybe next week we won’t even be in this room again, like that kid that moved away who used to be in our class—remember him? Ashton added. He looked at me. We don’t have his voice anymore.

  That dude never talked! Amari said. We never had his voice. If somebody asked me what he sounded like, I would be like, duh. You all remember his voice?

  The rest of us shook our heads.

  I remember his curly hair, I said. But that’s not something you can listen to.

  Let me hear how I sound.

  I turned the recorder on and Amari started trying to rap.

  My name is A. Yeah. And that’s okay. ’Cause around the way, it’s like what’s up what’s up what’s up, A?

  Esteban looked like he was on the verge of laughing.

  I played it back and then all of us were laughing. Amari’s voice sounded off—too slow for rapping but too strange to be anything else.

  It just needs some music behind it, Amari said. You want me to sing?

  No! Holly said. Please don’t add more hot air to this already hot room. And plus, that’s not what Haley is asking us, right?

  I shrugged. I didn’t think anything we said into the recorder was going to be wrong. It all was a part of us. I would have liked to hear what Amari sounded like when he sang.

  It’s for stories, Holly said, grabbing the recorder from me, turning it on and speaking into it. It’s for us getting remembered when we’re not here anymore.

  It’s for you not grabbing stuff out of people’s hands, Amari said.

  Holly handed the recorder back to me and didn’t say anything. Sometimes her hands and mouth worked faster than her brain and made her say and do things she didn’t really mean to do—like grab stuff. And say stuff.

  I don’t mind, I said to Amari, pressing the stop button. Because I didn’t. Holly and I had been friends forever, and one thing about friends—they understood you.

  I like that it’s for memory. Esteban crossed his legs. He looked like the Buddha sitting there.

  I held the recorder out to him, hopefully. You want to try? You just push this button. Then you can tell the world about your dad. You can tell them your whole story.

  I don’t know if I want to do that. Esteban pushed the recorder back at me.

  My uncle says that when you tell stories, it’s like letting out all the scared inside of you, I said. It’s like you help stuff make sense.

  Esteban looked down at the jacket he had draped over his lap. Then he started touching it gently, like he was remembering something about it.

  It makes me too sad, he said. I don’t know if my papi is cold or hot or hungry or scared right now. He took a deep breath. I don’t
know anything. Nobody in my family does.

  But what about the stuff you do know, E? Amari asked. If you talked about all the stuff you know . . .

  And things you remember from before, Ashton added. Would that make it not so bad?

  Esteban shrugged.

  A-R-T-T, Amari said. A Room To Talk. We got you, E.

  Esteban reached out for the recorder. His nails were bitten so deep, there was a ring of pink skin at the top of his fingers. It looked painful. After a minute, he curled his fingers over the recorder and took it from me.

  Okay, he said. I think I do want to talk . . . about him. About my papi.

  10

  We could ask you questions, like in interviews, Holly said.

  Nah—that’s dumb, Amari said. Interviewers don’t do it like that anymore, anyway.

  Yeah they do. Holly glared at him. So who’s dumb now. How else are they going to get people to talk?

  Amari leaned back and folded his arms and said in a deep voice, So, Esteban, tell me about your dad. Give me the good, the bad and the ugly.

  Holly rolled her eyes. But before she could say anything else, Esteban started talking and I touched her hand to shush her.

  We think they took my papi when he was coming home from work, Esteban said. He works in a factory in Queens sealing video games in plastic. I don’t know how he does it exactly, but he was going to show me. He promised me he was going to take me there one day, but he said it would have to be on a holiday because I couldn’t miss school and he doesn’t work on the weekends. My papi said weekends are always for the family and every day in school is a gift from God. He said that where he came from, I wouldn’t be in school—I’d be working other people’s land or in a factory. ‘Imagine,’ Papi said, ‘a young boy like you with hands as hard as a man’s.’ He said since me and my sister were born in this country, we were born with the American Dream, like a silver spoon in our mouths. ‘You’re rich,’ he always told us. Not in money, ’cause money isn’t everything. But rich in dreams, ’cause in this country you can be anything.

  Esteban put his head down on the desk. I thought he was done and was going to take the recorder back when Amari spoke.

  Now, Amari said, looking at Holly. To go deeper in the story, you’re supposed to ask him a question.

  Then you ask him a question, Mr. Smartypants, Holly said. You’re so up on the interview game, go for it.

  See? Amari said. Why do I have to be the one to know everything. Yo, E.

  Esteban lifted his head again. Yeah?

  Did your dad . . . Like, I know he works in a factory, but if he could be anything in the world, what would it be, you know? I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with working in a factory—

  I know, Esteban said. He used to say he wanted to be a poet like Pablo Neruda. That guy wrote a whole bunch of love poems that my papi would read to the family. And another guy named Pedro Mir. He was from the Dominican Republic like us. My papi said Pedro’s poems were like the poems he wanted to write. They were about regular people and working and stuff like that. But you can’t feed your family with a poem, my papi said. ‘No se puede comprar un abrigo de invierno con un poema.’

  Tiago laughed. I got you, he said. Oh man, that’s like something my mom would say! ‘You can’t buy a winter coat with a poem.’

  Esteban put his hands in his pockets and pulled them inside out to show us the money you can’t get from writing poetry. My papi always says, ‘I wrote poetry because of love. I stopped writing because of love too. Because I love my family.’

  Esteban got quiet again. In the hallway, some kids were dragging their sneakers across the floor and laughing about the squeaking sound. Holly put her fingers in her ears. An adult voice said, Where are you supposed to be right now?

  The squeaking stopped and Esteban started talking again.

  But my papi had another dream too. If you ever went to the park by the bridge on Sundays, you might have seen it. He can hit a baseball out of that park like nobody else. Everybody says so. They say, ‘How can such a little man have so much power in his swing?’ But he just pulls the bat back and WHAM! The ball goes flying and the guys in the outfield don’t even run or lift their gloves in the air because they know that ball is gone. It keeps going and going like it wants to try to meet God. Then everybody starts cheering and jumping around Papi and telling him that he should be playing for the Yankees and pulling down the major dinero because, man, even A-Rod, who probably makes a million dollars, can’t hit a ball like that. But my papi would just laugh. He said if you go to the Dominican Republic, you can find twenty more like him in the same park. He says like Pelé, they don’t even have balls to play with, but they can hit rocks and cans and even once an old broken shoe, gone!

  When he comes back, I want to see that, Amari said. I need him to teach me.

  Esteban almost smiled. Then he didn’t. But what if he doesn’t come back, he said. At night, when I’m dreaming, I dream that the Yankees recruited him and that’s where he is. But then it’s morning time and my mind is not dreaming so much anymore and the day is just like the day it was before—a day without my papi in it. And our apartment feels darker and more quiet. My little sister doesn’t even cry when Mami tells her she can’t watch television. She just climbs into Mami’s lap and puts her thumb in her mouth.

  He’s coming back, Tiago said.

  I bet there’s going to be a happy ending, Esteban, I said. I bet he comes home and everything ends up fine.

  Yeah, Ashton said. I bet by the time it’s baseball weather—all of us are going to be sitting on the bleachers watching your dad hit that ball out the park. He swung his arms back like he was batting, then shielded his eyes. There it goes. There. It’s gone!

  Esteban turned off the recorder and whispered, Mami thinks that maybe they sent him back to the DR.

  None of us said anything. We didn’t have to. We knew who the they people were. We knew what Esteban was afraid of. We knew why he turned off the recorder.

  Mami says that if they sent him back, then even though we came here for the dream of America, we’re going to have to go back too. Because without Papi, we’re not a whole family. We’re just like pieces of family. Like my little sister’s wooden puzzle, the one that’s supposed to be four puppies but it’s only three and a half puppies now because the corner part that’s the last puppy’s neck and face and ears—that piece is gone. Papi is like the neck, face and ears of our family. When they took him, they took a little piece of all of us.

  When Esteban handed me the recorder, I put it in my backpack. Then, without even thinking about it, I got back up and hugged him. It was a quick hug, but in that minute, I inhaled deep and he smelled like soap and cinnamon candy. I wanted to remember him—everything. I wanted to tell him that if he had to go away, I’d remember all the little things about him. But I didn’t. I went back to my desk and stared down at my shoes.

  Amari coughed the word crush! and everyone except me laughed.

  Do you think it recorded the whole story, Esteban asked, except for the part I didn’t want to say in it?

  I nodded. It’s digital. It has a ton of memory. You can transfer the files to a computer and upload and stuff like that. I realized how fast I was talking and stopped. Because now there was a sadness in the room like a thick gray ghost at my shoulder. I had been talking fast to cover it with words, send it hurling through the window, but I couldn’t. I tried to imagine the ghost surrounded with sunlight and baseball games and poetry—good stuff that would push the ghost away.

  When you talk, Esteban, Holly said, it’s like I can see everything you say. Your words draw pictures for me. I know that sounds crazy but they do.

  Esteban smiled.

  That’s what Papi says too. He says poems are tiny pictures.

  I just hope you don’t have to move away, Amari said. It would just really suck.
>
  Both Tiago and Ashton said, Yeah, it would.

  Esteban looked around at us like he was seeing us for the first time. His smile dipped down, then up again, then faded.

  I know, he said. But I want to be where my papi is. I want us to be a family again.

  11

  It’s like every day gives me something new to miss about my papi, Esteban said the week before Halloween. There’s all these holidays coming now.

  He left the circle and went over to the windowsill. Someone, maybe Ms. Laverne, had put pillows along the ledge, and bright sun was coming in. When he climbed up onto the ledge, he looked like a silhouette, like someone Amari could draw. Like someone who would make a beautiful painting. Amari took out his colored pencils and his sketchpad.

  We heard that my papi’s somewhere in Florida now, Esteban told us. It’s like a jail. But my papi didn’t do anything bad. He was just working in the factory and they came and took him.

  Amari cursed and the word came out like a punch against a wall. None of us said anything because we all wanted to curse or punch a wall too. The word was stuck in our hearts and throats and mouths.

  But they’ll let him go, won’t they? Ashton said. I mean, they can’t just take people away like that. And keep them! That’s just all kinds of unfair, bro.