by Cyn Vargas
“You are not from around here, your uncle says.”
“No. I am from Chicago,” I said, watching her small feet take long strides. The rooms we passed by had no doors. I glanced in each one as I followed behind her, catching a glimpse of mismatched tiles and beds framed with steel bars.
“Ah, Chicago,” she said, pronouncing Chica-go with a hard ch. “Is this your first time in El Salvador?”
“Yes. I always wanted to come, but not for a reason like this,” I said. She didn’t answer, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she was thinking of how it must be to fly three thousand miles to see someone for the last time, or because my Spanish was so bad.
Adelina stopped in front of a room and waved through the doorway.
“He’s right inside in the corner bed. I have to tell you the same thing I tell all families going through this: please don’t get upset when you see him. It will only upset him more. He doesn’t look like the last time you saw him.”
“I haven’t seen him in fifteen years,” I said, The last time I had seen him, he and my Tía Diana were leaving Chicago to move back to El Salvador. Tía Diana had hoped the move, being back in his homeland, would help Tío Esteban quit drinking. We had said goodbye at the airport bar. Have a beer with me. Last one until you come and visit. And I did.
“You know your uncle has lost a leg, yes? We had to remove it last week. The diabetes was too advanced to save it, what with the gangrene.”
I nodded. Mom cried as she told me her only brother was dying, that I should have gone to see him sooner and needed to go now, in case I never got the chance. I tried not to think about Tío Esteban’s leg, or of him, unable to walk, his body ripe with pain.
“What you may not know, because we just told him this morning, is that we need to remove his other leg, too. It’s also infected,” The nurse paused. “He didn’t call anyone after we told him. He said there is no one left to visit him.”
I walked in. The room was square, with a line of narrow beds bordering the far wall, some empty, some with men that I was too afraid to look at. There was no roof over the room; the sky above was the bluest I’d ever seen. I wondered if the hospital staff placed the patients that were dying into the roofless rooms, so they could enjoy the sky before they went.
The smell of urine was overwhelming. There were buckets next to each bed, and some were partially filled with piss and shit. My instinct was to cover my nose, but I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want the patients or nurses to think I was judging them.
Cautiously, I looked at the beds. Some of the men were so still I was afraid they were already dead, but then I would see their nostrils moving faintly, or the slight flutter of their breath stirring the hairs of their mustaches. There was a man with half his head wrapped in bandages, and there were drops of dried blood on his face. I looked away and followed the nurse to my Tío Esteban, who was lying in a bed with empty beds on either side of him.
“Elizabeth!” he said when he saw me. He smiled and struggled to sit up.
“Tío, I got it.” I took the two flat pillows behind him and folded them over, so he could rest against them.
“Thank you, mija. You look wonderful. It’s so wonderful to have you here.” A single white sheet was tucked under his bare arms. I glanced at the sheet, at the empty space where one leg should have been, and then at the mound that was the leg he was about to lose.
When I was a young kid, hiding my crooked-toothed smile with my hands, Tío Esteban would chase the neighborhood kids by barking and making his hands into claws. His legs were strong from playing soccer, and he could run fast. The kids laughed and he laughed. Now he was lying on a bed in a country so far from that neighborhood. Now he couldn’t even stand.
Nurses in their off-white uniforms moved around us in a dance that took them from one side of the room to the other. Clearly, the stench no longer affected them. They bent to pick up the buckets, a few at a time, as if they were filled with water. I wondered when they were going to come and clean out Tío’s. How could he lie next to a bucket of his own shit every day, and have any hope that he would ever get better? “Sit down,” he said, but the bed he was on was too narrow. His skin was darker than I remembered, and he had many more wrinkles on his face. He had also lost all of his hair. “I’m OK standing, Tío. I just sat on a plane for so long. How are you?”
I immediately regretted asking him. He was sixty years old and dying. He had lost one leg and had just found out he would lose the other. That was how he was doing.
“I’m fine, mija. I can see you are a little upset. You have always been so nervous. Here. Sit right here.” He patted the bed next to him. “Who says losing a leg is a bad thing? When you’re in a bed this small, it makes room for visitors to sit down.” He laughed.
I couldn’t help it; I laughed, too. He always had the ability to do that. When my dad died I thought I would never smile again, but Tío Esteban was the first one to make it happen. A couple of months after Dad was gone, Tío had shown up at my house.
“Let’s go to the carnival,” he’d said.
Dad had taken me every year when the carnival was in town. We’d go on the rides and Mom would wave at us from the sidelines because the rides made her nauseous. I had known the carnival was back in town, but I didn’t much feel like going.
“Your dad never let you miss it. Let’s go and have fun. He would want you too.” He was right. As Tio Esteban careened around on the Tilt-a-Whirl, I thought I felt Dad smiling at us.
I sat on the bed, feeling the stiff mattress beneath me. He put his hand on mine and I saw it was covered with brown spots. I stared at his hand because I didn’t want to really look at his face. I didn’t want to see in it the things that had changed. I didn’t want to leave the hospital and remember him differently than when I had arrived.
“You were only fifteen the last time I saw you. You haven’t really changed,” he said.
“Man, I hope I have,” I said, making him laugh. A nurse came by and smiled at us. She took the bucket next to his bed with her.
He was very thin. Back in Chicago, my cousins and I use to call him Tio Panzón, the uncle with the big stomach. He liked the nickname. Said he was proud that his belly was full of beer and delicious home cooking.
“So, your mom came to see me last month. What a scene.” He shook his head.
“She told me that when she saw you she screamed. I had hoped it was in her head.” Mom could be dramatic. She didn’t mean it in a mean way, but it could be embarrassing at times.
“She screamed so loud that the guy who had just died over in that bed over there was shocked back to life.”
“Tio Goofball,” I said.
“So, you’re a big time doctor now?” he smiled and his eyes glimmered. He and Tía Diana never had children. I think they considered their nieces and nephews the next closest thing.
“I wouldn’t call it big time, Tío. I’m a veterinarian at a small family-owned clinic.”
“You’re happy, no? Since you were little that’s all you ever wanted to be.”
“I am very happy.” I paused. “Tío, I’m so sorry I didn’t come sooner. With school and then working and other things, I just thought I’d have more time. That we’d have more time.” I turned away from him and stared at the empty bed.
“Remember when your Tía Diana died?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for that, either.” I started to cry.
“But you were, Elizabeth. You called me. You called me at night when you knew I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway because I couldn’t, not with her gone. You sent letters, too. You were there for me.”
We were silent. He closed his eyes for a bit, and I could tell he was tired. The nurse came back with an empty bucket, then hurried away, probably to clean another. I looked around; the room had filled with visitors. There was someone sitting at nearly every bed. The room felt more humid, and it seemed to be filling with more flies.
/> After Tía Diana and Tío Esteban moved back to El Salvador, Tía Diana called Mom to tell her Tío Esteban was doing much better. He was drinking less. But then a few years later, Tía Diana had a stroke and died. And Tío Esteban went back to drinking, and refusing to take his insulin. And now he was here.
Tio Esteban slept quietly next to me. I wasn’t sure how he could, what with the heat, and the sheet, and the other patients groaning, and their visitors talking loudly, and the nurses chattering and cleaning.
I wished I could take him away, back to the States. I could set him up in a room of his own with air conditioning and nurses with call buttons, and his own bathroom, and a roof, but he had already told Mom that he was going to die in his homeland, where he had met his wife, and where she had died, so he could be buried next to her.
“I’m sorry,” Tío Esteban grumbled as he began to wake up.
“That’s OK. I know you’re tired.” I forced a smile and squeezed his hand.
His eyes began to well up, and he turned away. “Because I didn’t listen,” he said. “Because I got myself in this place.”
I didn’t know what to say. When I started to cry, he wiped my eyes and motioned for me to put my head on his chest. We lay like this until the muffled conversations, and the cries, and squeaking of the nurses’ shoes grew quiet again, and all that was left for me to hear was his breathing.
I saw Tío Esteban every day for the next three days. After the second amputation procedure, I stayed at his bedside, even though he wasn’t awake much. I stared at the emptiness on the bed and wondered how he would feel when he woke up.
Over the next two days, we talked about our memories from Chicago. He told me Tía Diana was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
“Do you have someone special back home?” his eyes looked more alert than they had been.
“Yes. Ryan. But we’re just close friends.” I smiled.
“Don’t be so nervous, Elizabeth. See if there is something Ryan feels too. A lot of us men won’t make the first move when we really care for someone. Thank God, your Tía Diana asked me out to the beach. That day was so beautiful. I couldn’t imagine how I’d be without her.”
On my last visit, he looked sad. He didn’t hide his tears this time.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said. I wiped his tears away.
Right before I said my last goodbye, he said, “Did you hear? They are finally going to put a roof over this place.”
“Well, that is good,” I said.
“No. I like being able to look at the sky. If they put the roof up, I will never see the outside again.”
Three weeks later, Mom called to tell me Tío Esteban had died. I imagined him as Tío Panzón with his big belly, standing on two strong legs. I imagined him on the beach, his arm around Tía Diana, the ocean waves rolling in at their feet, smiling and looking at up at the sky.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank:
Doris Cole. My cousin by blood. Sister by choice.
Leigh Deutsch. For listening to my spewing soul over Monday morning coffee.
Adriana Galvan. Here’s to meeting in the FALL OF 1996.
Tanya Foster. For always having my back. I owe you so many margaritas and tacos, my friend.
Jennifer Jackson. #Twynlyfe. Fo’ Sure.
Gloria Rodriguez. Our pumpkin should have won. It was as amazing as you, woman.
Edward Thomas. Fellow Guanaco. Transferable Work Husband forever.
Vita & Vito. My Guatemala.
Vita Sara. For all the poems you wrote in my birthday cards.
My brothers. If I had to be a middle child, glad it was with you two. Most of the time.
Mom. For being a survivor.
Jerry Brennan and Tortoise Books for not letting my first book die. Thank you for the new home.
To those that recognized these stories before they were a family: Glimmer Train, Guild Literary Complex, Hypertext Magazine, Split Lip Magazine, Chicago Reader, Chicago Literati, First Ink!ing, Silvertongue
Ellie and Yandu. Our two shelter fur babies. Thanks for trusting and loving us. #AdoptDontShop
Cesar and Viviana most of all. For board games and movies and laughs and family meals and crafts and hugs and discovering and enjoying life together in love.
ABOUT TORTOISE BOOKS
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cyn Vargas’ short story collection, On The Way, received positive reviews from Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Heavy Feather Review, and Necessary Fiction, among others. Book accolades include: Book Scrolling’s Best Short Story Collections of All Time, Newcity Lit’s Top 5 Fiction Books by Chicago Authors, Chicago Book Review’s Favorite Books of 2015, Bustle’s 11 Short Story Collections Your Book Club Will Love, and the Chicago Writers Association 2015 Book of the Year Honorable Mention.
Cyn’s prose and essays have been widely published and she received a Top 25 Finalist and Honorable Mention in two of Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers Contests, is the recipient of the Guild Literary Complex Prose Award in Fiction, Core Faculty at StoryStudio Chicago, on the Board of Directors for Hypertext Studio, and twice selected as artist-in-residence at the Ragdale Foundation. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and is currently working on her first novel.