Love War Stories

by Ivelisse Rodriguez

  He starts to reminisce about the old times, even though I am sure he knows why I am here. He tells me about when they first met, and for the first time I can envision my parents as young people. My mother with long hair and long legs in a completely different world. How she snuck out to San Juan to hear El Gran Combo. And how those were the happiest days of their lives and they couldn’t be reproduced for all the love in the world.

  Then, he sits around and tells me jokes in Spanish that only someone who has spent all their lives in Puerto Rico can understand. And he laughs to himself when he delivers his punch line, and I, in turn, give him a strained smile.

  I try to be as patient as I can be, but I finally interrupt him, “Pop, I wanted to talk to you about something. You know we’ve been having this love war, and now my friends don’t want to fight anymore because their boyfriends left them. I figure if I can tell them why, then they’ll fight again. And well . . .” I shift in my seat, not sure how to get the last words out.

  “And you want to know from me how you leave and stop loving someone?”

  I nod my head.

  Even though I’m sure he knew this was coming, he has an uncomfortable smile on his face. He’s quiet for the first time today. He leans back in his chair and interlaces his fingers behind his head. He exhales and finally says, “That’s a tough question. Really tough.”

  “I know. I didn’t come to blame you or anything.”

  “Well, people think that because you’re the one who leaves it’s easy for you, but it wasn’t easy to leave your mother. I know it’s harder for the one who’s left, but it wasn’t right to stay anymore.”

  I sit silent for a second waiting for him to continue. “Yeah, but how do you get to that point? You left a woman you were married to for twenty-six years.”

  “Sometimes, oftentimes, you just stop loving people. That’s the truth. But when I loved your mother, I loved her.”

  “What do you mean?” I try to scramble back up. “How do you just stop loving your wife?”

  “It happens over time. One day, one week, one month, one year, I didn’t feel the same way.”

  “Did Mom do something? I mean she must have done something to make you stop loving her.”

  “I’m sure your mother and her friends tore us apart, said we were this and that, but you’re not bad because you don’t feel anything anymore. It’d be easy to blame her, like she blamed me, but loving someone or not loving someone doesn’t really say anything about who you are as a person, or even if you did a terrible thing.”

  “But don’t you think that if you love a person you love them forever?” At this point, I feel like I am eight again.

  “I bet you think love is all you need, huh?” He pauses and takes a deep breath, and is about to continue, but I cut him off.

  “Yeah, I mean, if you love somebody, you make it work. Doesn’t loving someone mean you do anything to stay together? That your love has some value other than just words.” And all of a sudden I feel like I am channeling my mother and asking the questions she would ask. Demanding the things she must know. And I start to wonder what her side of the story is.

  He laughs. “Love gets forgotten in daily living. When you are in the middle of a fight, trust me, the last thing on your mind is whether or not you love her. You know, we all say we want love, and we get there, and then one day it’s like it doesn’t matter, like it never mattered.”

  “Did you ever really love Mom?” I strangle out. I am aware that my chest is heaving like hers all those years ago.

  “Of course I did. Of course. But, Rosie, I don’t know if love can possibly last forever, and I don’t know if it should have to, but I think you’re right in thinking one should try.” He pauses and scratches his head. “People make too much of love. Everybody thinks it’s all you need, but love is a starting point. There is so much that comes after love, so much that you can’t even imagine.”

  He finishes and glances at me to see if I understand.

  I picture him and his buddies, sitting in their living rooms for the past six years, drinking Coronas or Bacardí Limón. They sit around a table and play dominoes and each time they throw a domino down—smack!—it is as if they are scattering the past. “I still remember how she looked back in 1963, how I thought I could live off of her smile,” my father may say. And he sweats through his guayabera, the one my mother bought from the Cuban man who used to live down the street. Lamenting the loss of these women, maybe they look at each other and judge who has suffered a greater loss and who is stronger for suffering less. Or perhaps they think too that they were told that marriage was forever and never imagined themselves walking out doors.

  Last summer, the night before we went off to college, my mother came into my room to help me pack. As I had gotten older, our day-to-day interactions had become stiff. Two rivals in one house. But that night, we laid down our arms. It was a truce. She smoked in my room even though she knew I hated the smell of cigarettes and was super concerned about secondhand smoke. And I chewed gum even though she hated the noise and always said I sounded like a cow. She sat on my bed and watched me place my folded clothes into my suitcase.

  “I want you to be careful,” she said.

  “Be careful of what?”

  “Life. Boys.”

  I smirked. “I think I can handle that. There won’t even be any boys at my school.” I was going to Smith College.

  “There are always boys.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Even if you are not going to be bothered with boys, take care of your friends. Don’t be surprised if you need to mend a few broken hearts this year.”

  “Ha! They’ll be fine. We have fought long and hard.”

  “Yes, you have. You’ve fought very well.” She beamed at me and for a second I thought she was proud of me.

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  My mother looked up at me and stayed quiet for a few minutes.

  “Hija, I have told you everything about love. I have prepared you as best as I could, but you have not accepted it. So how do I advise a daughter who does not listen? What would make you believe me? I could tell you about how I’ve been hurt but that hasn’t shaken your faith; in fact, I think it strengthens it.”

  I asked her about Carmencita. “Do you think she still comes to those who believe in love?”

  My mother chuckled. “I don’t know. I know that was really our story, our story for our generation, but for you girls, in this world, I don’t know. I don’t know if she ever came to girls in Chicopee. But for us, me and my friends, it was a different story.”

  Anna Karenina, The Color Purple, Medea, The Joy Luck Club, The Odyssey, Madame Bovary, Native Son, The Scarlet Letter. Boogeywoman Carmencita. My father, El Malo. My mother’s library plaits together different cultures, different eras. No part of the world is left unscathed, unturned. This is how my mother has made her case.

  I sit in my mother’s living room—where her and so many of the neighborhood women spent so much time living, breathing, fighting. I remember how this room was normally closed off to us. How it was their gathering place and at one point we held superstitions about coming into this room. It was almost like catching cooties if we touched the door. Even after a year away though, I can still feel the ghosts of all the women suffocating me.

  Looking at my mother’s bookcase, I no longer focus on the texts. I can only pinpoint which woman in that text has been abandoned, rejected, unloved—all those adjectives for the way women are treated, none of them good. I almost want to eulogize these women. Dearly departed, here lies Anna Karenina, here lies Bessie, here lies Hester Prynne. Women who loved. Women who were wronged. Women dead in books, mere words etched into cotton. How my mother has breathed life into them.

  All those years we spent at war, every night, to stave off her life, I lay in bed and listened to the beating of my heart. Sometimes I could not wait to get to bed, to be alone with my heart. It heaved and spread a tingling wonder through
out my body. And it was in those few minutes, with my hand on my heart, that I felt the most absolute delight. And I always wondered how my mother could tell me not to believe, how she could have forgotten that this is how she once felt for my father.

  I didn’t fall in love on purpose this year. I didn’t fall in love because I wanted to love love for a little bit longer, hold on to it in ways that the heartbroken cannot. I would visit Yahira at UMass on the weekends, and every time I did, I was always reminded that boys existed in this world too. I met and met boys, sometimes I thought they would catch me, but I continued to cycle past them. All year. Because I worried that if I ended up brokenhearted, I couldn’t be here to stand up for love. I almost knew that we would be here this summer. That this would be our new battle. And regardless of how the rest of this summer turns out, I know I am ready for love. But right now, to save my girls, I know what I must do. I climb the steps to go to my mother’s room. I am ready to hear a different story.

  As my mother finished helping me pack last summer, I asked her, “Whose side do you think Carmencita would pick?”

  “Side?”

  “In our war.”

  My mother got up and put the remaining T-shirts into my suitcase, and she didn’t look at me when she answered. “I don’t think Carmencita would ever pick a side. We never choose one, even if we’re sure we have. We move back and forth, always back and forth.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my mother Lucy, sister Vanessa, and bff4eva Anieska for years upon years of support. My mother and sister always championed this statistically unlikely dream and have been excited at every step of this journey. Anieska writes to me every day, multiple times a day, and bakes me holiday treats, and is the bestest friend a woman can have. To my dog, Chocolatte, who makes me most human by making me care for a tiny furry thing with big brown eyes and the cutest black nose; even though she demands her pollito-chicken when I am writing, or she lies on my drafts, letting me know what she thinks of them.

  To my writing loves—Racquel Goodison and Kali Fajardo-Anstine: two of the best writers I know, and I can’t wait for the world to feast upon their writing. Love to all my Northfield Mount Herman classmates, teachers, and advisors, especially Brad Zervas, Mr. Fleck, Molly Scherm, Louise Schwingel, Geo—for changing my life, Enike, Missy C., Shelley B/Twinnie B, Framp, Squakaroos, Wanda, Joey, and my little boy Ralfy. To my Columbia chums: Maumau, Violeta, Catrell, Tiffany, and Angie. To my hermanas—the Oh So Fly Pi Chis of Latinas Promoviendo Comunidad, Lambda Pi Chi Sorority Incorporated: Adalisse, Tania, Diana, Joanne, Madelyn, Melo, Luivette, Jessica, Jude, and Rosie. At Emerson thanks to Dewitt Henry, Jessica Treadway, Stanley, and Corrie. Much love to my fellow AmeriCorps VISTAs from Miami who were there when I needed them the most: Dana, CCl, and AEK. At UIC thanks to my dissertation committee members: Eugene Wildman, Suzanne Oboler, Frances Aparicio, and Natasha Barnes, and my chums: David, Nneka, Janice, and Camille.

  Thanks to all my coworkers who offered support in a multitude of ways: Sacheen, Jose, Anne, Karen, Jackie, Aida, Joyce, Kelly, Rosario, and Carmen. And then there are all those writers (and editors) who taught me and supported me in ways they didn’t need to: Junot Díaz, Angie Cruz, Helena María Viramontes, Cristina García, Laura Pegram, Fred Arroyo, Metta Sáma, Joshua Cohen, Brian Cassity, Jina Ortiz, and Rochelle Spencer.

  Thanks to the journals and organizations who supported my work: Aster(ix), the Bilingual Review, the Boston Review, Kweli, Ragazine, Tammy (Chapbook Series 2), Quercus Review Press, Vandal, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Kimbilio, VONA/Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation, Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshop, Summer Literary Seminars, Writers of America Conference, and the New York State Summer Writers Institute. Special shout-out to Authors ’18 on Facebook—what a lovely community created by strangers who were on the same journey.

  And one million thanks to the readers of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the Feminist Press: Nayomi Munaweera, Melissa R. Sipin, Tayari Jones, Ana Castillo, and anyone else who read. Thank you to Jennifer Baumgardner for that most amazing call; to Lauren Rosemary Hook for diving in and really helping me strengthen this manuscript, especially the endings; to Alyea Canada for wonderful copyedits, which really do make all the difference in the world; to Suki Boynton, who I am sure has created the most beautiful cover that has ever existed and will ever exist; to Jisu Kim for being a wonderful hype woman—I know a million books get published a year, so the fact that anyone wants to read my book is largely due to your efforts; and to the yet unknown staff members who will take over from here. You all are dream makers!

  CREDITS

  “El qué dirán” was originally published as “Esperándote” in Vandal 1, no.1 (2009): 49–54.

  “Holyoke, Mass: An Ethnography” first appeared in the Boston Review 32, no. 1 (2007): 39–41.

  “The Simple Truth” was published in the Bilingual Review 33, no. 1 (2012–2013): 86–94.

  “Summer of Nene” was published in the Boston Review 30, no. 5 (2005): 53–54.

  “The Belindas” is also available in chapbook form as a part of Tammy’s Chapbook Series Two.

  “La Hija de Changó” first appeared in Kweli (Dec. 2009).

  “The Light in the Sky” was first published in Ragazine (May/June 2010).

  “Love War Stories” was originally published as “A Different Story” in Quercus Review 10 (2010): 146–59.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, IVELISSE RODRIGUEZ earned a PhD in English and creative writing from the University of Illinois at Chicago and an MFA from Emerson College. She has published fiction in All about Skin: Short Fiction by Women of Color, as well as Obsidian, Label Me Latina/o, the Boston Review, Kweli, Aster(ix), and the Bilingual Review, among other publications. She is the founder and editor of an interview series focused on contemporary Puerto Rican writers, which is published in Centro Voices, the e-magazine of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College.

  ALSO BY FEMINIST PRESS

  BLACK DOVE: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me

  Ana Castillo

  “Paloma Negra,” Ana Castillo’s mother sings the day her daughter leaves home, “I don’t know if I should curse you or pray for you.”

  Growing up as the intellectually spirited daughter of a Mexican Indian immigrant family during the 1970s, Castillo defied convention as a writer and a feminist. A generation later, her mother’s crooning mariachi lyrics resonate once again. Castillo—now an established Chicana novelist, playwright, and scholar—witnesses her own son’s spiraling adulthood and eventual incarceration. Standing in the stifling courtroom, Castillo describes a scene that could be any mother’s worst nightmare. But in a country of glaring and stacked statistics, it is a nightmare especially reserved for mothers like her: the inner-city mothers, the single mothers, the mothers of brown sons.

  Black Dove: Mamá, Mi’jo, and Me looks at what it means to be a single, brown, feminist parent in a world of mass incarceration, racial profiling, and police brutality. Through startling humor and love, Castillo weaves intergenerational stories traveling from Mexico City to Chicago. And in doing so, she narrates some of America’s most heated political debates and urgent social injustices through the oft-neglected lens of motherhood and family.

  ANA CASTILLO is one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Chicana literature. She is the author of So Far From God and Sapogonia, both New York Times Notable Books of the Year, as well as The Guardians, Peel My Love like an Onion, and many other books of fiction, poetry, and essays. Her novel, Give It to Me, won a 2014 LAMBDA Literary Award; her collection, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma was re-released as a 20th anniversary edition in November 2014; and the award-winning Watercolor Women, Opaque Men was re-released in a new edition in the fall of 2016 by Northwestern University Press.

  Castillo’s teaching posts have included the Bread Loaf program with Middlebury College, the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at
DePaul University, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Visiting Scholar post at MIT, the Poet-in-Residence at Westminster College (UT), and the Lund-Gil Endowed Chair at Dominican University (IL). Other awards include a Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago, and the Lifetime Achieve Award by Latina 50 Plus.

  AUGUST

  Romina Paula | Translated by Jennifer Croft

  Traveling home to rural Patagonia, a young woman grapples with herself as she makes the journey to scatter the ashes of her friend Andrea. Twenty-one-year-old Emilia might still be living, but she’s jaded by her studies and discontent with her boyfriend, and apathetic toward the idea of moving on. Despite the admiration she receives for having relocated to Buenos Aires, in reality, cosmopolitanism and a career seem like empty scams. Instead, she finds her life pathetic.

  Once home, Emilia stays with Andrea’s parents, wearing the dead girl’s clothes, sleeping in her bed, and befriending her cat. Her life put on hold, she loses herself to days wondering how if what had happened—leaving an ex, leaving Patagonia, Andrea leaving her—hadn’t happened.

  Both a reverse coming-of-age story and a tangled homecoming tale, this frank confession to a deceased confidante. A keen portrait of a young generation stagnating in an increasingly globalized Argentina, August considers the banality of life against the sudden changes that accompany death.

  ROMINA PAULA is one of the most interesting figures under forty currently active on the Argentine literary scene: a playwright, novelist, director, and actor. Her two novels to date (¿Vos me querés a mí? and Agosto) have enjoyed extraordinary popularity and critical acclaim. The plays she has written and directed (including El tiempo todo entero, based on The Glass Menagerie, and Fauna) have been positively reviewed in every major publication in Argentina. As an actress, Paula appeared in Santiago Mitre’s 2011 The Student, Gustavo Taretto’s 2011 Sidewalls, Matías Piñeiro’s 2009 They All Lie, as well as his 2014 The Princess of France, which played at the 2015 Chicago International Film Festival.