Harbor Me

by Jacqueline Woodson

  C’mon, guys, Tiago said. E will be back. We don’t need to be fighting about it. He wouldn’t want that.

  Nah, we all agreed. He wouldn’t.

  28

  On Friday, Esteban was still gone.

  Amari came into the ARTT room saying, The great imperfect world continues to spin on a slant. He threw his hands up like he’d just said something amazing. We just looked at him, waiting for him to say something else. But he didn’t. He took his seat, looked over at Esteban’s empty spot by the window and took out his markers.

  Tiago reached for the recorder.

  We all froze. Even Amari, his drawing pad halfway out of his backpack, the colored markers gathered in their rubber band on his desk.

  Maybe for a millisecond, the world stopped spinning. Maybe Esteban, wherever he was, turned toward the ARTT room and smiled.

  Can I record myself today? Tiago asked.

  The four of us nodded, our mouths slightly open.

  He pressed the record button, cracked his left knuckles with his right hand. And started talking.

  So now it’s almost wintertime, right. And we’ve been coming here for so long, I feel like I know you guys and you’re sort of like my brothers and sisters and I know I can trust you, right?

  We all nodded.

  I feel like there’s love in this room. I know that sounds corny, but I feel it. He hit his chest. Right here I feel like we care about each other. Even Esteban. Tiago kissed his pointer and middle finger and raised them into the air. Wherever he is, he’s our brother and he’s our friend and a part of him is in this room.

  We kissed our own fingers and raised them into the air, nodding.

  I want tell you the story of Perrito. He was my dog. He was part Doberman, part Labrador. He was the best dog. He was my best friend. He spoke Spanish and English. Sometimes, when Ms. Laverne asks us to write in class, it’s hard for me. The words don’t want to come. I see you guys all writing and writing and I want to do that too. But the words I write want to come out in Spanish, not English. And people are always saying, ‘Speak English! Speak English!’ Not you guys! When you see me and Esteban talking in Spanish, you just say, ‘Teach me.’ You don’t say mean things. Once when me and my mom were walking down the block speaking in Spanish, this guy yelled at us, ‘This is America! Speak English!’ But I’m from Puerto Rico, and Puerto Rico is part of the United States of America too, so Spanish should be American, right?

  We all agreed. Amari was drawing but he kept nodding with the rest of us. Tiago’s quiet was beginning to make sense to us.

  But me and my mom didn’t say anything, Tiago said. Because that guy was big and he looked mad. If Perrito had been with us, I bet that guy wouldn’t have said anything. Perrito was big too. And the Doberman part of him was mad protective of us. When me and my mom got to the next block, we started talking again, but my mom was whispering and I was sad that that guy with his red angry face made my mom quieter.

  The four of you guys—he pointed to me, Ashton, Holly and Amari—you guys only speak English, and I’m not saying there’s something wrong with that—

  But, dude, Amari said, Puerto Rico’s a part of this country and you speak English too.

  Yeah, I know, Tiago said. But I only speak in Spanish with my family. And in PR, even though we had to speak English and Spanish in school, I still liked speaking in Spanish better. His voice dropped and he looked down at his hands. And because I came from Puerto Rico, I’m safe. I don’t have to worry. Not for myself and my family. Just for my friends.

  He stared at the voice recorder for a long time.

  My mom, when she’s at home, she loves to sing in Spanish. She talks in Spanish. She cooks in Spanish. It feels like she even laughs in Spanish, because her smile gets so, so big. But when she goes outside now, she is very quiet, because she’s afraid another person like that guy will look inside her mouth and see Puerto Rico there. Not the beach or the sparkling blue ocean. Not the awesome pastelillos or the quenepas that are so sweet, you can’t stop eating them. She thinks they’ll see her small town of Isabela, where her dad raised chickens and on holidays her abuela made arroz the old way, on a fire outside, and everybody begged for the pegao—the crispy rice that stuck to the bottom of the pot. She thinks people here will say, ‘Go back to your country.’ Even though this is her country.

  And it hurts her. It makes her sad and ashamed. Because if somebody keeps saying and saying something to you, you start believing it, you know. My mom has the past dreams of Puerto Rico and the future dream of this place. And this place acts like it doesn’t have any future dreams of us.

  In English, Perrito means ‘Little Dog.’ Our dog was just a tiny black puppy when we got him. He could almost fit in my hand, he was so small. Some people couldn’t say his name right because you have to kind of roll your tongue to say the sound of the two r’s together. Not everybody can do that.

  We all tried to do it—to say Perrito like Tiago did. Only Amari could say it right, though.

  I wanted to give him a name not everybody could say, Tiago told us. I wanted to make him even more special than he already was. I could whisper it and he would come running. His hearing was crazy good. When people called his name in English—without doing the right thing with the r’s—he wouldn’t even lift his head. When he was dying last year, I put his head in my lap and I just kept petting him. I said his name real soft, over and over and over. ‘Perrito. Perrito. Perrito.’ I wasn’t scared. He just kept looking more and more peaceful. And then his breath kept getting faster and faster like maybe in his mind he was somewhere winning a race. And then his breathing stopped. And his eyes closed. I put my face against his head and I said, ‘You won, Perrito. You won the race.’ And my mom let me stay like that for a long time. Just me and Perrito’s body and the quiet.

  Tiago stopped talking. He had tears in his eyes, but he wasn’t crying. Not really. Then the tears were spilling over. We didn’t look at him. It felt like it would be wrong to stare or say anything. He was in his own world. He was back with Perrito, his face on Perrito. Ahead of them both—the finish line.

  I know in my heart, Tiago whispered, the language we like to speak is music and poetry and even cold, sweet piraguas on hot, hot summer days. But it feels like this place wants to break my heart. It feels like every day it tries to make my mom feel tinier and tinier, like the size of Perrito’s head in my hands.

  29

  The next week, just as we were getting ready to do math problems, Esteban walked back into our classroom. Ms. Laverne didn’t even try to keep us from jumping out of our seats to hug him and slap his back and say Where were you? and We were so scared you had left forever and Is your dad home?

  He’s still gone, in Florida, Esteban said when we’d finally calmed down. But he sent me another poem. Amari had his arm over Esteban’s shoulder and Tiago was standing as close to him as could be. The rest of us had gone back to our seats, but we were all staring at E in wonder. It felt magical to have him back. It felt like we were almost perfect again.

  Ms. Laverne asked him to come up to the front of the class to read the poem to us, and when Amari finally let go of him, he carefully removed a piece of yellow paper from between his notebook pages. His uniform was clean but wrinkled, and the dark circles under his eyes looked like they covered most of his face now. He looked skinnier too.

  We moved to live with my aunt in Queens, he said. And one of my crazy baby cousins tried to eat this. He held up the poem. The edge had a tiny bite taken out of it. Esteban shook his head, but he was smiling.

  I’m going to read it in Spanish first, Esteban said. He read, and even though I didn’t understand the words, they were so beautiful they sounded like music, and I put my head down on my desk to listen better.

  Now I’m going to read the English translation that I made for you. He looked at the five of us, then at Ms. Laverne. He seemed older som
ehow. Like he had gone away and lived a whole life and then came back to us.

  And in the night, when the dog barks at shadows, tell him

  not to be afraid of what he cannot see

  or the things he does not yet understand.

  There is mystery everywhere.

  Beneath rocks, there is damp earth

  and an army of ants

  planning a revolution.

  Esteban stood at the front of the room, staring at the page. Then he lifted his head and looked at us. We cheered again, even louder this time. I don’t know if any of us really understood his dad’s poem. But for a long time after he’d finished reading, I thought about that army of ants, how they were coming together.

  Like us.

  30

  And in the night, when the dog barks at shadows, tell him / not to be afraid . . .

  In the cafeteria that day, Esteban asked if he could record the poems he had read to us. I don’t know if I’m going to be here tomorrow, he said. Or the next day or the day after that.

  But I thought you were back, son, Amari said.

  Esteban looked down at his empty tray. He had eaten everything on it so fast, Amari handed over his milk and I gave him my leftover beef taco.

  We don’t know what’s going to happen, he told us later when we got to the ARTT room. They might be trying to deport my mami too, and that’s why we moved to my aunt’s house. It’s like my mami has to hide now.

  But why? Ashton asked.

  Esteban shrugged. She’s from the DR too. My aunt, she was born here, and her husband is from America. My mami said if she gets sent back, me and my sister can stay with my aunt, but I don’t want that.

  He climbed up to his place by the window, but he didn’t get quiet and stare out. He turned toward us and crossed his legs. When he did, I saw the holes in the bottoms of his shoes. His socks, which were probably bright white when they were new, were grayish and barely covered his ankles. His uniform pants were too short now.

  I turned on the recorder and put it on my desk. Esteban nodded, repeated what he had just said and continued.

  They took my papi. They came to his job when he was leaving and they said he didn’t belong in this country. Maybe always in his heart he knew the day was coming. When I was little, he used to always say to me, ‘Every day is a blessing from God, Esteban. Even if it rains or gets so cold you can see your breath and think your own bones are going break beneath your skin—this too is God’s blessing.’ My papi said, ‘One day, your days are all gone. And then—that’s when you have nothing.’

  I was probably a stupid little kid whining because I wanted a toy or ice cream. I don’t even remember. But now I know something. I know we had everything we needed. We had food every day. And coats. And boots and warm socks. And water.

  Before, you used to hear the word immigration and it sounded like everything you ever believed in. It sounded like feliz cumpleaños and merry Christmas and welcome home. But now you hear it and you get scared because it sounds like a word that makes you want to disappear. It sounds like someone getting stolen away from you.

  What’s gonna happen, E? Amari asked.

  Esteban shrugged. My mami says you have to pay for lawyers and stuff to fight it, but we don’t have money for that. I think . . . I think we’re all going to have to go back to the DR. And that would suck, because I would miss New York and I would miss all of you guys.

  We sat there, silent, all of us looking at Esteban. It felt like he was already almost gone. And we were trying hard to remember him.

  31

  After Christmas vacation, everyone returned looking a little bit different. But the thing that mattered the most was that Esteban had come back too. Tiago came back wearing glasses, thin wire frames that he took off to show us how they caught the light and bounced rainbows around the room. They reminded me of my uncle’s glasses. I watched Tiago place them gently back over his nose. Years from now, I thought, there’ll be people who never knew Tiago before glasses.

  Those are nice kicks, Ashton said, staring longingly at Holly’s sneakers. Those are the ones I asked for for Christmas. But I got these instead. Ashton made a face and held up his feet. His sneakers were white and cheap-looking, like the kind they sold in discount stores. And my mom started singing that ‘you get what you get’ song when I complained. He put his feet down. You lucked out, Hols.

  It’s not luck, Amari said. Holly’s a rich girl. Everybody knows that.

  No I’m not, Holly said. Don’t start in on me, Amari. But Holly pulled her feet back like she was embarrassed by her sneakers.

  I had gone with her and Kira the day she got them. Her mom took one look at the price and called on Jesus. Nobody in their house is religious, but for some reason, that’s what came to her lips when she saw the price.

  But I love them! Holly said. And they can be one of my Christmas presents. And plus, those are what everybody’s wearing.

  I waited for Kira to say what she always said to Holly— If everybody jumped off a bridge . . . But she didn’t. I’m going to get you these, she said really soft so that Holly had to stop tying the sneakers and look up to hear her. But I want you to know that everybody is not wearing them. I want you to understand what that means.

  Holly nodded. A look came over her—as though the words were finding a room in her brain. Jeez, Ma. I know, she said.

  Sometimes I thought Kira didn’t know Holly like I knew her. Some days I saw her looking at her daughter like she couldn’t believe they were related. But it wasn’t Holly’s fault that she had always known she could walk into a store and ask for expensive sneakers and get them. And Holly was really generous. Even when we were little, she made sure I had whatever she had—from candy to new comic books to time with Kira. She made her mom buy two of things and always had one waiting for me. I don’t want to have this alone, she would say. That’s not even a little bit fun.

  Wish I had such nice kicks, rich girl, Amari whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. He was not going to drop it.

  Delete you, Amari, Holly blurted out. Why are you even in my ear?

  You two just love to argue, I said. My uncle says that sometimes two people come into the world having the same fight they left the world having.

  Holly looked at me. What does that even mean?

  I pointed to her and Amari. You two. Maybe in another life you guys were having this fight. My uncle says people just keep getting reincarnated into each other’s lives until they figure it out.

  Tiago laughed. You guys been fighting since the days of dinosaurs.

  I don’t know. No offense, Amari, Holly said, but you better not be getting all up in my next life. I don’t even like you in this one.

  What’s not to like about Amari? Ashton said. There’s Not Really anything not to like about him.

  Yeah, Tiago said. He’s Not Really. I mean he’s not really a bad guy. Not Really.

  The boys laughed. Even Esteban, who was sitting in the window seat watching the sleet come down. He had draped his Yankees jacket over his shoulders like a cape.

  Amari smiled. I shouldn’t have ever told y’all about that name, he said.

  But Amari wasn’t really laughing with his friends. He was studying Holly. It dawned on me then, clear and loud as a siren, that it mattered to Amari what Holly thought about him. Her words had stung. And just like our tilting earth, Amari was off balance, hurt by her words.

  I touched Holly’s arm. Couldn’t she see it? The way Amari’s face had dropped?

  You don’t really not like him, right, Holly? I tried to get her to look at me, to see me pleading with her.

  She shrugged. The room got eerily quiet. Before I could say anything else, Holly said, Nobody chooses where they get born or who they get born to. Maybe my parents are rich, but that doesn’t mean I am. I mean, I am now, I guess, but . . . Holly looked up a
t Amari. It’s not my fault.

  I don’t think Ms. Laverne wanted us to not like each other in this room, Tiago said. I think she wanted us to get closer. Not more far away from each other.

  Holly picked up her knitting needles. She knitted slowly now, like her mind was someplace else. Her feet were still tucked beneath her chair. If anybody in this room wanted these sneakers, I’d give them to you.

  My uncle says our lives are dashes—from birth to death. And each day is a new dash, another day, another chance. I wanted to tell him that people are dashes too—each a tiny bit of a connection to the next.

  Holly glanced over at Amari, then down at his drawing and back at him again.

  I don’t like when you call me rich girl, Mar, she said.

  Amari shrugged. Then I won’t anymore. That’s all you had to say. You didn’t have to come at me all mean and whatnot.

  Dash to dash, my uncle would say. Holly to Amari. Me to Holly. Perrito to Tiago. Esteban to his father. Amari to Ashton. Ms. Laverne to all of us. My uncle said when people come together and they all care about the same things, it’s called a Harmonic Convergence. He said all that energy together can shift a whole planet.

  The sleeting stopped. The sun came out.

  We good? Amari asked.

  And Holly said, Yeah, Amari. We’re good.

  32

  How come you haven’t talked about your dad in the ARTT room? Holly asked me.

  It was Friday night and almost nine thirty. My hair was washed, oiled and cornrowed. Kira had finished it while me and Holly ate spinach pizza at the kitchen table. Now Kira had gone off to a movie with Holly’s father, and the babysitter was downstairs asleep on the couch. How many Fridays had I spent in this house? In this room? So many, I had lost count. If someone spun me around a hundred times and drove me all over Brooklyn, then walked me blindfolded back into Holly’s house, I would know it. I would know the smell of it—oil soap and fireplace wood. I would know the sound of it—a creaking fifth step between the second and third floors, creaking banister between the first and second. And if Kira held out her hand to me, I would know it was hers by the softness of her fingers, the length of her nails, the many, many times I’d felt its weight on my head.