“I’m afraid not,” said Carrie.
Joaquin and Elena scribbled away on the newspaper, unaware. Carrie tried to make sense of their drawings. Messy black clouds. Big red explosions.
“It’s possible he’d had a few drinks before getting behind the wheel,” the younger officer said, shaking his head with proper remorse. The older officer grimaced. Carrie got the sense the younger officer wasn’t supposed to have said that.
“Ma’am,” the older officer said again, “are you sure there’s no one we can call?”
Carrie shook her head no, but the officers didn’t want to leave her alone. To Carrie’s horror they knocked on a few doors in the complex, and soon a troop of the courtyard ladies showed up at her door in fussy rayon pantsuits and Dacron dresses to express their remorse. They eventually returned with covered dishes and faces full of concern, hungry with curiosity to get a glimpse of their reclusive neighbor, the one they referred to often and casually as “that strange Spanish girl.”
And as Carrie allowed her apartment to be taken over, allowed her children to be bathed and changed by strangers (“I don’t know if she’s given them a bath in over a week, the poor dears”), she sat on the couch and allowed the bustling women to bring her a plate with heaps of casserole and cocktail after cocktail—the rum was medicinal, the ladies told each other. Carrie didn’t care how fast they saw her drink them. Sitting there on the couch—as dumpy as the couch at Frank’s parents, if she was being honest, although she didn’t deserve such a dumpy couch—she was reminded of being in the salita back in Cuba, of being told by her beautiful mother and handsome father that soon she would be going on a journey to learn English. And as she sat there watching the women move about, she was reminded of sitting on the Finneys’ couch back in Healy when she was told that her parents were dead. So much of her life seemed to unfold on couches while she sat helpless. So much bad news was delivered while she was seated and surrounded by well-meaning people who thought they were doing right by her.
Her parents had thought they’d been doing the right thing to send her to America. The Finneys had thought they’d been doing the right thing by bringing her to their house to live with them. And these strange ladies thought they were doing the right thing by invading her home and fluttering about performing their charity. And once again Carrie felt the waves pushing her along, wherever they wanted. She couldn’t fight them. Sitting there on the couch she conjured up an image of Frank when he was very young, of him smiling shyly at her in the kitchen of the Finney home, his dumb grin taking up so much space. She pictured his well-worn, short-sleeved Oxford button-downs in Easter egg pastels. The soft curve of his Adam’s apple. The warmth in his voice when he promised he would take her to live by the sea. She must have felt something at last, because warm tears slid down her cheeks, and as she shut her eyes she heard one of the neighbor women exclaim in a jumpy voice—a voice that was almost proud for having been the first one to spot it—“Oh, good grief, look, the poor thing’s crying. I think everything’s just hit her all at once.”
JOAQUIN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I OWE CARLOS A MILLION FOR LOANING ME THIS CAR even if it is a Chevette that can’t get over fifty miles per hour with my foot all the way down on the gas pedal.
Thirty more miles to Healy.
I didn’t tell Elena. I walked out of Mami’s room, numb and foggy, like that one time I’d smoked pot at Kevin Anderson’s house, and I headed into my bedroom where I’d gotten a piece of paper and a pen and scribbled down the names of the Healy relatives that appeared in the obituary. I’d looked at the picture of my dad in the newspaper, his youthful face totally unaware that it was smiling happily at me above his own death notice. Robotically, I put everything back just as I’d found it. I shut the closet door. I aimed a middle finger in the general direction of my mother’s bed, and then I walked out of the house.
“Where are you going?” Elena asked from the couch, her eyes not leaving the television.
Our mom lied to us all these years.
“Out.”
Our dad is dead.
“Well, bye to you, too!” That’s what she’d yelled through the door as I walked through the screened-in porch and down the porch steps, patting my pocket to make sure I had my wallet.
Carlos will help you, I’d told myself. Carlos has a car.
So I’d hauled my bike out from behind the house and raced toward El Mirador. My legs burned as I pumped the pedals past the Whataburger and the DQ.
I opened the door to El Mirador. The smell of warm tortillas. The sound of conjunto. Carlos was at the bar, drying some glasses. He looked up at me, surprised.
“Are you on the schedule?” He smiled. He fucking smiled. My father will never smile at me again. But my boss does.
“No, I’m not on the schedule,” I said. My voice cracked. So embarrassing. I tried to slide my hands into my pockets but I couldn’t because they were clenched into tight fists. I looked around nervously for Amy.
“Joaquin, you okay?” Carlos asked, stepping out from behind the bar. In a booth nearby, a family with three towheaded boys still in bathing suits dipped their French fries in the queso and looked up at me, curious.
“Yeah,” I said, and all of a sudden there’s Amy, popping up from around the corner where we do our side work, like a magic trick. My heart exploded. The rage released from my shoulders and fists.
“Hey,” I managed.
“Hey,” she said, all soft and surprised.
“Joaquin, are you sure you’re okay?” Carlos asked again. “You look pale.”
I walked back toward the bar, and the three of us ended up in the small hallway that leads to the staff break room. I stammered out a story to Carlos and Amy—something about finding my dad and needing to go to Healy. I don’t know if I made any sense. Carlos frowned. Amy’s eyes widened.
“You need to go to Healy?” she asked. “But where is that?” She took my hand in her hand. Her grip was warm. Gentle.
“Near Houston,” I said. “Like an hour or so west of it.”
Carlos and Amy exchanged glances.
“You want me to come?”Amy asked.
And I did. Damn, I did. But somewhere in me I knew I needed to face this all by myself. And anyway, I felt like I might cry. And I didn’t want to cry in front of Amy.
“I need to go alone,” I answered.
Amy just nodded, her face uncertain. Then she hugged me and kissed my neck, not even shy to do it in front of Carlos. Carlos just dug into his pocket and drew out a set of keys. “Take the Chevette,” he said.
I took them and nodded. I think Carlos knew that if I said thank you, I might have started to cry. At any rate, he just nodded back.
And so here I am. Twenty miles to Healy.
Every ten miles or so, I wipe the tears from my eyes.
As I arrive in town, I scope out the main drag. A couple of fast-food places. A hair salon called The Curl Up and Dye. A drugstore and a movie house. I’ve driven balls to the wall without even stopping to go to the bathroom since I left El Mirador, but I don’t have a clue where I’m heading. The only thing I’ve got going for me is that this seems like the kind of town where it would be super easy to find someone. Healy makes Mariposa Island look like a real metropolis.
Mami had mentioned growing up here with a foster family and that our dad was her foster family’s oldest son. They’d treated her awful, she’d told us. Made her sleep in the garage. Made her do more chores than the other kids. The few times she’d talked about them—usually after one too many drinks—she scowled, her face as twisted as a pretzel. She only married our dad to get out of Healy, she’d told us. Only he was a good-for-nothing who took off when we were small. And that’s it. That was the whole story, chapter and verse.
I spot a pay phone outside a gas station, and, pulling the wrinkled paper from my back pocket, I get out of Carlos’s Chevette and finally stretch, my back cracking like popcorn. I open the battered phone book and flip through the p
ages. There are three listings for Finney. I’m tempted to just rip the page out, but I don’t want to be a dick, so I have to go into the gas station and borrow a pencil from the guy behind the counter so I can copy down all three addresses. I decide to hit up the one for Francis Finney first. That must be Francis Finney Senior.
He must be my … grandfather? I can’t stop to process that right now. I can only keep moving forward. When I return the gas station guy’s pencil, I ask for directions, and soon I’m on my way, my stomach in knots. Eventually I pull up in front of a large, rambling two-story house with a wide porch. It’s big but the flower beds have seen better days. The roof, too. An American flag sags in the summer heat, not a single sign of a breeze to make it move.
Am I really doing this?
I glance in the rearview mirror to make sure I don’t look like a serial killer or a weirdo. Then I take a deep breath. I wish I had a beer to take the edge off. But I don’t, so the next thing I know I’m walking up the cracked driveway and toward the front door.
When it swings open, I’m greeted by a girl. A woman? She’s older than me, but probably not by much. Red hair pulled back into a ponytail. Black T-shirt. Bare feet.
“Yeah?” she says. Not unkindly or anything.
“Uh …” I start, and I realize that maybe I could have spent the long drive up here rehearsing what I was supposed to say. “I’m looking for Francis Finney? Frank?”
She frowns. Maybe the address is old. Maybe my secret grandfather has moved to Cleveland or something.
“Um, I’m his daughter. What’s this about?” I see her brace herself in the doorway just a little more firmly, so I step back on the porch so I won’t make her nervous.
“This is really weird, but I think I could be his grandson?”
The red-haired woman’s eyes open wide, followed by her mouth.
“Wait …” she says. She stares at me. Examines me like I’m a specimen in a science experiment. “You’re … no. Wait, you’re Frank’s son? Joaquin?”
She knows who I am.
“Yes,” I say, at a loss for how to say more.
“Well, hell,” the red-haired woman says, and her use of the word hell makes me relax just a little. “I’m Deirdre Finney. I think … shit. I think I’m your aunt.”
A few hours ago, I didn’t know I had a long-lost grandfather, and if you’d asked me to picture meeting one, I wouldn’t have thought it would go much like how this is going. Me, standing awkwardly in the family room off the kitchen with this woman—this Aunt Deirdre—staring at a lump of a man in a recliner wearing a thin white T-shirt, brown slacks, white athletic socks, black sandals, and a vacant expression on his face.
“This is Dad,” Deirdre says, placing her hand on his shoulder. She speaks loudly, in the direction of his ear, which is covered with wisps of graying hair that someone—I guess Deirdre—has carefully combed. “Dad, this is Joaquin. Do you want to say hello?”
I crouch down, stick my hand out. Francis Finney Senior sticks his hand out without making eye contact. Pumps my hand once. Twice.
“Hello, sir,” I say. But all I’m thinking is that his blood runs through my veins. And I never even knew he existed.
Frank Senior drops my hand and shifts his own to his lap.
“Puppy?” he asks Deirdre. His voice sounds softer and more feminine than I would have imagined. Deirdre heads out of the room and comes back with a small brown stuffed dog, its ears worn thin. My grandfather takes it into his hands and smiles widely, revealing a few blank spaces where teeth used to be.
“Do you want to sit down?” Deirdre says, motioning to the couch. “Do you want a glass of water?”
What I really want is a beer, but I can’t ask for that.
“I’m okay,” I say.
Deirdre settles in on a chair next to the recliner. She gazes at her father for a moment, then switches her focus to me.
“It’s dementia,” she says. “I guess Alzheimer’s. It started a few years ago, after my mom died of breast cancer. Honestly, I’m glad she didn’t have to see him like this. It would have broken her heart.”
I nod, and Deirdre grimaces. “Damn, I’m sorry. I just told you your grandmother is dead. This is just …” She shakes her head, smiles ruefully. “This is a lot to take in.”
“I know. I’m sorry for springing it on you like this.” I watch as Frank Senior pets his puppy and smiles to himself. At least someone in the room is relaxed.
“It’s okay,” Deirdre answers. She tucks her feet underneath her and really looks at me, studying my face. “I haven’t seen you since you were a toddler. And my memories are pretty vague. I was just a kid then myself.”
I shift a bit in my seat. I’m not sure how to respond.
“I wish I remembered more,” I say. “But I just found out about you a few hours ago.”
Deirdre listens as I tell her about finding my father’s obituary, about living with my sister and mother on Mariposa Island, and about how I’ve always been told my father abandoned us by moving to California. At this Deirdre rolls her eyes.
“California? I don’t think my brother ever left Texas.” She looks at my grandfather, who has closed his eyes and drifted off into sleep. “Not to be weird, but … you wouldn’t want a beer, would you?”
“Please,” I say, and soon Deirdre and I are sharing cold cans of Lone Star. Bit by bit, a story unfolds.
“Like I said, I was little then, just a kid when my brother moved out and married your mom. I remember a few times when your dad brought you here for the day. We ate hot dogs, watched television. Right here in this room.” She motions to the neat, orderly living room with its worn-out furniture and stacks of National Geographic and battered paperbacks on the shelves. “Wait, let me get something.” She jumps up from her chair and scans the nearby bookshelves until she finds what she’s looking for—a thick photo album.
“Here,” she says, the cellophane pages crackling a bit as she flips through them. She points out people in snapshots—another aunt, my grandmother, Deirdre herself when she was little, a few cousins. Everyone peers out from the pages with big grins. The men stand near charcoal grills, proud of both their beer bellies and their burgers. The women have been captured mid-laugh at Christmas parties, their mouths wide open and their eyes shut.
“That’s you!” Deirdre shouts, stabbing at one picture with excitement. “And your sister.” And it is us, playing in someone’s backyard—maybe this one—sitting in a sandbox, Elena chewing on a red plastic bucket. Me diligently working on a castle. I blink once. Again. All these years of living with Mami, this little artifact, this proof that, however briefly, we belonged to another family has been here in this photo album. There’s nothing to say. I just stare at it. Deirdre leaves it open on the coffee table.
“So from what I’ve been told, and from what I remember,” she says, sitting back, glancing at her father, who is still sleeping, “your mom and dad had some huge fight about something. Keep in mind my parents were not thrilled about them getting married.”
“How come?”
“Your mom … I mean, again, I don’t want to sound rude or whatever …”
I shake my head. “Just the truth. You won’t hurt my feelings.”
Deirdre nods, but she waits a beat before she keeps talking. Like she’s trying to figure out how to say what she wants to tell me. “From what I heard, your mom just never adjusted to coming here. To being in America. I mean, look, I was a baby when she lived with us, so I have no memory of it. I think I can be objective about it. She was young. She came here not even knowing English. Then her parents died.” Her eyes widen. “Wait, you knew all that, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, reassuring her. “The Cuba stuff I know.”
“Good,” she says. “Anyway, you know, I guess she came from money. And we’re, you know, working class.” She shrugs, motioning at the living room for proof.
“Yeah, she came from money,” I say. “She even had this debutante party back in H
avana that was super fancy and in all the papers.”
“Oh, my family heard about that party,” Deirdre says, her voice rueful. “Anyway, you know, she just never fit in. She never got acclimated. But my brother—your dad—I guess he fell in love with her. From the pictures, you know, when she was young she was really pretty.”
I think about Mami. Her birdlike body with bloodshot eyes. But there was a time when she had been pretty. I know that. She had been beautiful.
“So anyway, they got married,” Deirdre continues, and I realize I’m settling into this story like it’s about someone else, not me. Like it’s the plot of one of those movies of the week that Mami and Elena watch on TV. “Your mom wanted to live by the ocean because it reminded her of Cuba, so they move down to Mariposa, my brother drops out of college …” She’s interrupted by a cough from her father.
“You okay, Dad?” she asks. My grandfather opens his rheumy eyes and looks around like he’s trying to remember where he is, then shuts them. We wait a moment until he’s asleep again.
“He spends most of his time like that,” Deirdre says, sighing. “I think he prefers sleeping to being awake.” She takes a sip of her beer and continues her story. “So anyway, they move to Mariposa, they have you guys, and your mom … the way I understand it she just didn’t want to have anything to do with us. She didn’t even want to bring y’all up to visit or anything. The few times we saw you, it’s because my brother brought you alone.” She stops her story and looks at me. I wait for her to continue until I realize she’s waiting for me, waiting for some sort of explanation.
“My mom is … I don’t know,” I say. “I think she just never got over Cuba, like you said. I think she’s … something’s not right about her.” It’s the first time I’ve ever said something like this out loud, and immediately I know it’s the truth.
Deirdre nods, shakes her can of Lone Star to make sure it’s empty, and sets it on the coffee table. “That’s what it sounds like. Anyway, one weekend your dad came up here all by himself. He and your mom had some huge fight over something. He said he needed a break.” She chews a thumbnail, just like I do when I’m thinking. Are habits genetic? “I was, like, ten years old, and I remember him and my parents sitting at the kitchen table, and my folks were telling him he had to go back down and get you two and bring you back here. That they could get a lawyer. Say your mom was unfit.”
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