She said, “You must be hungry after all that, love.”
I didn’t want to go into all that. So I ordered the macaroni—the cheapest meal in the entree section. It tasted like nothing, but I ate every bite of it. I guess I was hungry, or not wanting to waste more of Sally and Amanda’s money. Maybe both.
We’re celebrating. The judge said he would tell Immigration that Ari needs to stay, and that he doesn’t have a parent who can take care of him. Ari’s lawyer told us that with the judge’s order, he’s almost certain to get the special permission to stay in the U.S. And Ms. Rosales—the social worker—she found a foster home in California that’s ready to take him, which is awesome.
He wasn’t a bad guy, that judge. I don’t think he meant any harm with the “illegal” question. He didn’t know any better. Ms. Rosales said those domestic court judges don’t know much of anything about immigration laws. But the kids have to go through the domestic courts before they can get special immigrant status, to show that they don’t have parents to take care of them.
The judge came up to me after the whole thing was over and patted me on the back. “Son, you did a good thing today,” he said.
And maybe I did, today. Maybe it would be okay for me to let today be what it is—not to worry about what’s next, or to obsess about all the stupid stuff I did to get us here.
“Does that sound okay to you, Phoenix?”
Sally, Amanda, and Gretchen are all looking at me examining my fork.
“Sorry.” I look up. “I didn’t hear what you said.”
Gretchen’s elbow falls from the table. She reaches under and puts her hand on my knee.
“Tomorrow morning we can meet in the lobby at seven,” Sally tells me.
I drop the fork and let my hand find Gretchen’s. Our fingers intertwine, resting on my leg.
“I’ll drop you at the shelter so you can visit with Ari for a few minutes,” Amanda says, “while we have breakfast at the hotel. If you’ll get your bag ready tonight”—she takes a little plastic folder from the table and puts a credit card inside it—“we can get it from your room—I have the extra key. We will pick you up after breakfast and head straight to the airport.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That sounds good.” It doesn’t sound good, though. Nothing having to do with planes sounds good to me, and saying good-bye to my brother, for who knows how long? That doesn’t sound all that good either.
Gretchen’s phone vibrates, doing a little dance on the table.
“My dad,” she says, looking over at it. “I should get this.”
She lets go of my hand and stands up. Pushing her chair back, she lifts the phone to her ear. “Hi, Dad.” Her voice sounds healthy, strong. I know he will notice that too. She walks away from us, toward the glass doors that lead outside.
I watch her, feeling the absence of her body against mine. I feel my hand limp against my leg. I feel the empty space.
Sally and Amanda are talking about what happened in the court, and about how well I did up there, and I’m sort of listening and nodding, but mostly I’m watching Gretchen through the window, and it’s messed up, I know, but my heart feels like it’s gonna explode, watching her. It feels like I felt when I left Ari alone in that heladera. I guess I sort of know that it will all be over soon, and I don’t want it to end. I want to stay here with her, and with Sally and Amanda.
Christ, I don’t want for this to end.
Gretchen comes back to the table and lets me wrap her hand in mine, and they’re all still talking, waiting to get the check.
“I didn’t know your brother’s name was Arizona,” Amanda says to me. “I always thought Ari was an odd name for a little boy from El Salvador.”
I guess I look a little confused, because Sally breaks in with an explanation. “Ari’s a name that’s more common for Jewish men here in the U.S.,” she says. “And we knew that you and your brother weren’t Jewish.”
“Phoenix, Arizona,” Gretchen says. “Didn’t you say that’s where your mom went to work after you were born?”
The thing is, I don’t really want to talk about all this. I don’t want to talk at all, to tell the truth. I’m tired of talking. But Gretchen and Amanda and Sally—these people sitting around a table with me in some random restaurant in some random town in Texas because they care about me—I want to be known by them. I don’t even know if it makes any sense, but that’s what I want. I want them to know me. So I lean back in my chair and I tell them.
“My mom left for Phoenix when I was a baby, and she stayed there until I was five. A lot of people in my town had to do that—go work in the US. There weren’t any jobs in Ilopango—at least not jobs that paid enough to support kids. So every family had somebody who went to the US to make money.”
“She knew she was going to Phoenix?” Amanda asks. “That’s why she named you for the city?”
“I guess,” I say. “She used to always say that she wanted to remember me every time she saw a street sign, or whatever. So she decided to call me Phoenix. She came back for a while, when I was five—to live with me and my grandmother. She said that she missed me, that she was tired of taking care of other people’s kids. She wanted to be with me, to watch me grow up.”
“Why didn’t she stay?” Gretchen asks.
“She was hanging out with a guy—I remember him. He was nice, not a troublemaker or anything. He used to bring me little presents, toy cars and candy and stuff. But he didn’t have a job either. When my mom got pregnant with Ari, there wasn’t anybody to pay for us kids. My grandmother was making pupusas, but that didn’t cover everything, I guess. So after my mom had Ari, she left us with my grandmother and went back to work in Phoenix—for a different family. That guy went too. I guess maybe he was Ari’s dad.”
“And she called your brother Arizona,” Sally said, “so she would see his name everywhere too.”
I shrug. “I guess her plan to remember us didn’t work out all that well. We haven’t heard a thing from her since Ari was three.”
“Do you think she’s still here?” Gretchen asks me.
“I don’t know. All I know is that Ms. Rosales, the social worker, said they had to run a bunch of ads in the papers all over Arizona to make sure that Ari didn’t have family that wanted to be with him, and nobody’s claiming him, so…”
“Maybe she moved to another state?” Amanda says.
“Maybe.” I run my hand through my hair. “Doesn’t matter. We don’t need her anymore.”
* * *
A half hour later we’re in the hotel elevator. Sally is hugging me, and Gretchen is standing next to her, looking down at her hands. I think she’s waiting for me to tell her what I want—which should be pretty damn simple, but it’s not.
The door slides open.
“Tomorrow at seven?” Sally asks.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” I tell her.
She nods, holding the door open.
“You did a great thing today, Phoenix,” Amanda says.
“Thanks.”
Gretchen looks up from her hands, right at me. Then she leans over and kisses me on the cheek.
“Good night,” she whispers. “I hope you get some rest.”
I feel the warm place where her lips touched me. I watch her hug her chest and follow Sally and Amanda out of the elevator. I’m leaning against the rail, grasping it with both hands. The door slides shut while I stand there like an idiot, letting her go.
My hands launch me from the wall of the elevator. I’m throwing my body between the closing doors.
“Gretchen!” I call out, probably too loud.
She turns to look at me, her eyes bright.
“Wanna hang out—like, get some Skittles from the vending machine or something?”
My heart is pounding in my chest, and Gretchen is smiling and not clutching her chest anymore.
“Yeah.” She turns around, heading straight for me.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she tells Sally
and Amanda.
They both nod and smile and the doors of the elevator close and then she’s standing close to me again.
“I don’t really want to be alone,” I tell her, my voice gravelly.
She leans into me. Christ, she feels so amazing, pressed against me.
“And I don’t want to get Skittles,” she whispers. “I don’t even like Skittles.”
“You don’t?” I’m laughing. Madre de Dios, I’m laughing. It feels so good that I throw my arms around her and squeeze her tight. “What about all those Skittles we shared at the gas station, when you took me to get pupusas?”
“That was a mercy share.” She puts both hands on my chest, pretending to push me away. She doesn’t want to push me away, though. I may be an idiot, but I know that much.
“Oh, so you feel sorry for me?” I whisper in her ear. “That’s what this is all about?”
“Yes,” she says, “I feel so sorry for you that I’m going to let you take me to your hotel room so we can raid the minibar.”
“The minibar? You wanna get drunk?”
“No.” She laughs. “I want to eat peanut M&M’s and Hershey bars and maybe some Pringles, too. But no Skittles. You can have those.”
“Sounds perfect,” I tell her.
When we get to my room, I dig the key card out of my pocket and lead her inside.
Soon we’re both sprawled out on the floor. Our shoes are off, and we’re surrounded by empty candy and junk food wrappers, laughing our asses off because Gretchen’s telling me this crazy story about how her dad had to send a checkout lady into the bathroom of the Whole Foods to rescue her from a panic attack, and I’m describing all the insane shit they sell at Whole Foods, and how much they’re ripping people off—I mean, a hunk of cheese for eighteen dollars? Who the hell needs an eighteen-dollar piece of cheese? Is it, like, laced with sterling silver or something? And it feels so damn good, to be doubled over laughing, even if my stomach is a little sick from all the Skittles and chips. It’s one of those times—when being able to really laugh is like letting this enormous floodgate open up inside of you, and it’s making all the bad stuff rush away, pushing it all out, and leaving nothing but the fresh air you’re sucking in between laughs. It’s like it’s making me clean again, making me new, to be doubled over on this floor and uncontrollably laughing, Gretchen stretched out on the carpet next to me, clutching her gut because she’s laughing so damn hard too.
She stops and sits up, suddenly serious. “You can’t leave me,” she says.
And just like that, we’re climbing over all those empty wrappers, clamoring for each other. My lips find hers and my hands weave through her hair and I feel her, searching, and I’m searching too. Wanting to pull her in, to bring her in so close that she can’t ever be far away.
She loosens the tie that Amanda bought, and tugs it off. She unbuttons my shirt, and I let her. I struggle to get the cuffs unbuttoned, and then shrug it off. I’m in my undershirt, and she reaches out to touch my scar. I feel the strange tingle of her finger running across it. Then I take her hand away from the scar and kiss it.
I move her hand to my chest, so that she can feel my heart beating under it. We stand up together, moving to the steady rhythm of my heartbeat.
She pulls her sweater off, over her head. I watch it fall to the ground and then I look at her. Her body is so beautiful, so perfect that I want to cry.
Oh, Christ, I think I’m gonna cry.
I take her by the hands. She kisses me again, sitting on the edge of the bed. Her lips are on my jaw, my neck, my collarbone. I’m filling up with heat and light and the smell of her, clean and bright. And I want her so much, but that’s not all it is—that’s not even the beginning of it.
She looks at me, directly in the eyes, and I try to focus on that brown spot in her right eye, because my vision is starting to blur and my heart is about to explode. She pulls me on top of her, gently, slowly.
I push her hair back from her face and kiss her, feeling our bodies pressed against each other, feeling her hair against my hands and her lips against mine and then I feel her face, wet with tears. But they’re not her tears; I think maybe they’re mine.
“You’re crying,” she whispers.
I nod, but I don’t pull back from her. I let the silent tears keep falling onto her face, and she doesn’t flinch or move away from them.
I don’t have to say it, because I know that she knows.
I can’t leave her.
I pull away and wipe my tears from her face. “Can we maybe just—”
“Whatever you need,” she whispers.
I roll off her and take her hand. I pull her up onto the bed and we crawl under the covers together.
“I need—I want so much to be close to you, but—”
“We can wait,” she says. “There’s still time, Phoenix. We have time.”
Under the covers, we take off most of our clothes, because we need to feel the other’s skin. I fold myself around her, and I pull up my undershirt so I can feel her back warm against my chest. I wrap my arm across her, and our hands intertwine above her waist. I bury my face in her hair, and the tears keep coming, silent. I’m crying myself to sleep, but it’s okay, because Gretchen’s letting me hold on to her, and every time I take in a breath, I’m taking more of her into me. And I know she isn’t judging me—no matter how weak, no matter how beaten down I am, she will let me hold her like this. And maybe, one day soon, there will be more.
But for now this is what we are.
* * *
I wake up, disoriented. It’s dark, and my undershirt is bunched up around my chest. The air feels cold against my bare skin. The covers are thrown off the bed, and Gretchen’s not near me anymore. I sit up on the edge of the bed, searching for her. I can’t see her, but I hear a soft whimper, like a small animal caught in a trap. My eyes adjust to the light streaming through the open bathroom door and I find her, curled into a tight ball in the corner of the room, staring at me like she’s seen a ghost.
I stand up and rush toward her, but she holds her hand out, gesturing for me to stay away. Her eyes are wide, and she’s pointing at my abdomen.
“You lied to me,” she whispers. “I trusted you and you lied to me.”
I look down and see it, the stupid fucking tattoo I’ve been so desperate to get rid of.
“It’s okay, Gretchen. It’s not what you think it is—”
“I know what it is.” She’s pressing her back against the wall, like she’s trying to push through it. “That tattoo, it’s his tattoo.” She’s shivering, wrapping her arms tight around her bare legs.
“I don’t understand.” I’m kneeling in front of her. “I don’t get what you’re saying.”
“That boy … his chest … the bullet holes.” She’s crying. “That hand, those terrible fingers. I know how you get that hand.”
I reach out, not even thinking, just wanting to still her shivering arms. But before I can touch her forearm, she flings it violently.
“Don’t touch me! You lied.” She repeats it, again and again. “You lied. You lied to me. How could you lie to me? I trusted you.…”
I’m frozen, kneeling in front of her, unable to come up with anything to say to her. “I didn’t—”
“There’s only one way to get that tattoo!” She thrusts one leg out of the tiny ball she’s in and kicks me. “Liar! Get away from me!”
“No, Gretchen.” I’m trying to keep my voice calm. “I can’t do that. Please, just let me—”
“Go away! Leave me alone!”
Her teeth are chattering and she’s sucking in breath, rocking back and forth, back and forth.
You did this to her.
“Please, let me—” I reach out again. It’s like I can’t stop reaching toward her, trying to make it okay. But it’s not; she’s not.
She thrusts one hand out to stop me. She gets quieter, and her eyes squeeze shut so she doesn’t have to see me. “Go,” she says, turning toward the wall
. “I can’t look at you.”
She’s curling up into a tight ball, sobbing. Her body heaves.
You did this to her.
“Stay here,” I beg her, standing up. “Please stay, Gretch. I’ll get help.”
She doesn’t look at me. She keeps rocking back and forth, sucking in air. I take off. I throw the door open, run down the hall to the emergency stairwell. I take the stairs two at a time to the fourth floor, trying not to think about the fact that I’m in my boxer shorts—or the boxers some stranger gave me. It doesn’t even matter. When I get to Sally and Amanda’s door, I beat on it, hard.
“Sally! Wake up! Oh Christ, Sally. Please!”
My hands and my head are all beating against the door. “It’s Gretchen! She’s—oh God, she’s—”
The door flies open. “Where is she?”
I take Sally’s hand and we run back up the stairs. She doesn’t ask any more questions. When we get to the room, the door is still open, and Gretchen’s cries are pouring into the hallway.
You did this to her.
“Let me,” Sally says, heading through the door. “You stay here.”
I stumble back into the hall until my back hits the wall. I feel my body sliding down into a crouch.
I hear Sally’s voice, soothing, calming. I hear them moving around the room together.
The door opens and they walk out, Gretchen wrapped in Sally’s arms. She’s holding her shoes in her hand, and her face is pressed against Sally’s head. She doesn’t look at me when they walk by. They stand and wait for the elevator, and she still doesn’t look at me. She can’t even look at me.
I love her. And I did this to her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GRETCHEN
I WAKE UP in Sally and Amanda’s room, freezing. I pull the covers up to my neck and stare at the ceiling, stippled white. What I see, though, is that horrible gnarled hand—the fingers curled inward, the long, sharp fingernails. I see the photograph from Karen’s computer screen—tiny black bullet holes spattered across it. And then I see that very same hand tattooed onto Phoenix’s perfect, smooth chest.
The Radius of Us Page 22