Clap When You Land

by Elizabeth Acevedo

I’ve survived worse things than are behind those doors.

  “Thank you, Don Mateo. I’ll be okay.”

  He raises his bushy eyebrows & pats me

  softly on the arm.

  When I’m at the airport entryway

  I stop completely still. My feet feel stuck.

  The last time I was here. The last time I was here

  was not so long ago. It was a day just like today.

  It was the day that changed everything.

  I am not sure if I can go inside.

  Although I brace myself, I am not ready

  for the wave of grief

  that smacks me in the face

  as I enter through the airport doors.

  I immediately find the screen with information.

  The plane should be landing in twenty minutes.

  The information is right there,

  with a gate number & everything.

  There is an excited crowd of folks waiting for family,

  but none of them are crying. There is no one weeping,

  no loud upset yelling. The excitement & love & anxiety

  is like a breathing being in the terminal.

  I feel like I am trying to reconcile two very

  different pictures. My heart wants to make them whole,

  but my brain knows my father will not walk through those doors;

  my brain does not know if my sister will.

  What if something happens? Takeoff & landing

  are the most dangerous parts of flight.

  Ugh! I want to smack myself for even thinking it—

  I watch the monitor, counting down the minutes

  until descent. It feels closer to twenty hours.

  & then the board clears. No new information.

  My hands begin to shake, my breathing uneven.

  Did something go wrong? Did something happen?

  I grab a man in an airport uniform, but I can’t get out the words

  to ask him. I simply point up at the board. His annoyance

  shifts & he gently pats my hand; he must understand

  what I haven’t said. “It landed just fine. I think they

  are simply trying to update the arrival gate.

  A breath I didn’t know I’d bitten whooshes through my teeth.

  Before I know it, people trickle out of customs.

  Everything seems so normal, so unlike six weeks ago.

  They’ve all moved on. Or were never moved

  in the first place.

  People in business suits holding briefcases.

  Tall, shapely women in high heels

  & bedazzled jeans, grand-looking doñas

  with mahogany canes & skirt suits.

  & finally a beautiful girl, with tight curls:

  A morenita with a pink duffel in her hand

  looking pensive & determined.

  It is almost as if she does not imagine

  there will be anyone there waiting for her.

  Her eyes do a sweep of the people

  but pass right by me. A second later she looks back.

  Tears fill my eyes. I stare at the ceiling lights

  until the sting recedes.

  When I look back down she is standing before me.

  I was never afraid of flying in the past.

  But today, the rise of the plane made my stomach plunge.

  I had a middle seat, & the woman beside me

  kept the window shade open the entire time.

  I peeked once & saw the huge blue ocean below us.

  I kept my eyes shut completely after that.

  Even when the flight attendant asked if I wanted juice.

  Even when the man next to me farted loudly.

  Even when the pilot said we were descending.

  & there was a moment when the wheels first touched down

  that my heart plummeted in my chest, but then we were slowing

  & a smattering of passengers erupted into applause.

  The old lady in the seat beside me said in Spanish,

  “They don’t do that as much anymore. This must be a plane

  of Dominicans returning home;

  when you touch down on this soil, you must clap when you land.

  Para dar gracias a dios. Regrezamos.” & I smiled back.

  Although I’ve flown

  in the States for different

  tournaments, this is my first time

  in another country.

  In the airport, the messages

  are bilingual.

  The customs line is long,

  & I scan the form I filled out on the plane

  with all my information.

  I pay ten dollars for a tourist card &

  am afraid I will be rejected.

  I answer all the customs agent’s

  questions about where I am staying

  & why I am here.

  Her hard eyes soften a bit

  when I mention my father’s funeral.

  She scans my passport

  & then I am walking through the doors

  here. I am here. I am here.

  & then I see, that so is she.

  Camino reaches up & touches my cheek.

  “Te pareces igualito a él.”

  & it’s true I’ve always favored my father.

  But so does she. In real life, it’s not quite like looking into a mirror.

  Her eyes are light, a hazel color, her lashes long.

  She is supermodel thin where I am curvier,

  & for a moment I want to smack her hard.

  For wearing my face. For looking like

  a Yahaira-lite version of me.

  For so clearly being my father’s daughter.

  & then guilt swamps over me. I am the one he left her for.

  She said on video chat he called her “India linda.”

  & I wonder what he saw when he looked at her.

  Her eyes fill, but I know she won’t cry. She seems like

  the kind of girl who can will her eyes to unmake tears.

  “You look just like him. Except your eyes.

  Papi never knew how to hide what he felt,

  but you know how to draw down window shades.”

  & I know she means that all the anger I feel

  is locked inside. That I am blank-faced.

  The way I was at the chessboard.

  “We look just like him.

  You must have gotten your coloring from your mother.”

  She nods & sucks in a deep breath,

  the mention of her mother wiping the softness from her face.

  She drops her hand. We both take a step back.

  Without my asking, Camino takes my duffel in hand

  & swings it onto her shoulder.

  We leave the coolness of the air-conditioning

  & I’m immediately swarmed

  by a heavy humidity & a flurry of movement.

  All around me people in slacks & colorful dresses hug,

  babies cling to their mothers’ legs, & other teens in shorts

  & caps walk around selling Chiclets gum, green mints.

  Camino weaves with ease by crying couples & parents

  toward a slim man leaning against a broke-down car.

  He has the kind of smile that would have made

  Papi fidget with his big gold ring.

  The same ring he said he would plant in the face

  of any man who messed with his daughter.

  In other words, he looks like trouble. I don’t smile back.

  & instead stop in my tracks. “Is this our taxi?”

  Camino shrugs. “The unofficial ones tend to be cheaper.”

  I shake my head at her & weave back toward the taxi line.

  The one with marked & labeled cars,

  where an old man with a kind smile helps us with my bag

  & holds the door open as we climb in.

  Camino’s mouth is in a hard line.

  I stare at the window as we driv
e & try

  to ask Camino about the scenery.

  She smirks at my Spanish

  & responds to me in English.

  I hope my face does not show surprise

  at her vocabulary & accent:

  I mean, she sounds like an English professor, with her

  perfect pronunciations, but she must have worked hard

  to speak so fluently. My Spanish

  is nowhere near as good, & it’s my first language.

  I feel like I am losing to my sister & it’s only the opening.

  The cabdriver slows the car in front of

  an aqua house with a fenced-in front porch.

  Before Camino can reach into her wallet

  I thrust some dollar bills at the driver.

  I’m hoping this will make Camino feel better;

  I don’t need her to pay. But instead

  she makes a sound low in her throat

  & hops out the car without a word.

  It seems my money offends her.

  There is a woman hunched over a side garden

  pulling up some greens by the roots.

  I cannot imagine my father in this

  little, cozy house.

  He was a man who loved his luxuries.

  & this is a barrio house.

  A nice barrio house, but a barrio

  nonetheless: stray dogs walking the streets,

  garbage piling into the gutters.

  Mud stretching up the stone walls enclosing the casita.

  My father would have hated

  getting his freshly waxed shoes dirty.

  The tiny woman by the garden straightens up,

  & when she glances at me, all the herbs she’d been picking

  fall from her hand. She is staring, at me, I think,

  until I realize she is staring beyond me.

  “Camino, muchacha del carajo, what have you done?”

  Camino’s Tía Solana’s body shakes as she hugs me.

  & I lean into the arms & warmth of this woman who is a stranger.

  I want to ask her so many questions

  but her eyes are wet when she pulls back,

  & I realize I want to fight her

  for what are actually my father’s sins.

  “Where is your mother, niña?”

  I glance at Camino, who indicates with a shrug

  that I am entirely on my own. I rub my earlobe.

  Camino’s Tía takes a hard look at her before

  she guides me into the house as if I am a fragile old woman.

  She seats me at the small round table in the living room.

  She sets a bowl of sancocho before me, with a plate of concón.

  “Tell me the whole story,

  but first eat what your sister made for you.”

  I am helping Camino pick herbs for tea,

  the act of picking the fresh leaves reminding me of Dre.

  The mangy dog that sits outside the gate sniffs

  the metal bars from where he sits. Camino opens it for him,

  & he settles quietly into a patch of weeds.

  “Does the dog follow you everywhere?” I ask her.

  I do not tell her Papi did not let us have a dog,

  despite how much I begged or even as Mami argued it’d be good for me.

  “No, Vira Lata doesn’t really leave his spot near the house.

  He won’t go that way.” She gestures to the right.

  “It leads to a busy street. He got hit by a car once,

  & I think it made him shy of too many vehicles.

  He likes it here because the neighborhood kids

  leave him scraps, & Tía’s little fruit trees offer shade.

  The man next door, Don Mateo, built a little doghouse

  on raised legs for him to climb into if the water rises.”

  But I notice that when Camino goes to close the gate,

  & it seems she’s turning left, the dog stands at alert,

  wagging his short stub tail.

  Camino catches my raised brow & laughs.

  “Oh yes, if I’m going in that direction, he sometimes follows;

  he loves the beach. He likes to chase

  the salty air as I swim. When we are riled up,

  the beach soothes us both, doesn’t it, Latita?”

  She is gentle with the dog. & I have to look away from the tenderness.

  Through the gate I see a tall man standing across the street,

  but what brings goose bumps to my skin

  is the way he’s watching Camino,

  like he wishes he were the dog beneath her hand,

  like he would love to sink his teeth into her.

  I turn to point him out,

  but by the time she follows my whispered words

  & pointed finger,

  the man is already gone.

  The night is not over before the house phone rings.

  Yahaira & Tía sit on the couch like old girlfriends,

  & I know my “Aló?” is laced with salt.

  A woman speaks rapidly & I only catch

  that she wants to speak to Yahaira.

  She sounds exactly how I imagined

  my father’s other woman to sound:

  high maintenance, demanding. Una chica

  plástica all the way through.

  I pass the cordless phone & Yahaira raises a brow.

  The woman is yelling before she gets the receiver

  up to her ear. Tía pats Yahaira softly on her back

  & I just can’t. This girl needs no sympathy.

  At least she has a mother. At least she has choices.

  She has been well fed her whole life. She is clearly loved.

  I bet you no one ever forgot her birthday.

  & given the burial plans & Yahaira’s arrival,

  I’m sure Tía has forgotten that in a few days

  it will be mine. I try & fight back the bitterness.

  I know I know better.

  But it also feels like my life is a careening motoconcho

  on a rain-slick road rushing rushing toward

  something bigger & madder.

  Fifty-One Days After

  Mami is on her way to DR

  tomorrow, & she is pissed.

  Apparently she knocked on the Johnsons’ door, panicked,

  thinking something had happened,

  & when Dr. Johnson asked Dre,

  she stayed quiet for as long as she could

  before she broke down & told the truth.

  Honestly, I’m surprised Dre waited

  that long. That she didn’t call Mami

  as soon as my plane took off.

  Maybe she realizes there are other

  shades besides black & white.

  But even as Mami yells at me over the phone,

  all I can feel is the sweetest relief.

  No one can force me to go back home.

  The funeral is in three days,

  after the remains are cleared at customs

  & delivered here to this house.

  Three days to figure out my sister,

  my father, myself.

  Do you believe

  in ghosts?

  What kind

  of question

  is that?

  I don’t know . . .

  it’s just that—

  Of course I believe in ghosts.

  There are spirits

  everywhere.

  You

  for real?

  Anyone

  who says otherwise

  es un come mierda.

  Mami doesn’t

  believe in ghosts.

  Maybe you don’t

  have them

  in New York City.

  So, you think Papi’s ghost

  will live in DR?

  I think his ghost

  will live

  wherever we carry him.

  Can a ghost be

  in two places at once?

&n
bsp; Definitely:

  if it’s

  Papi’s ghost.

  Papi’s ghost would have had

  a lot of practice.

  Fifty-Two Days After

  It has been a whole day

  where I wait for Mami to arrive

  & get to know my sister’s aunt

  who insists I call her my aunt—

  & watch my sister pretend

  she isn’t watching me.

  Nothing is familiar.

  Not the whirring ceiling fan,

  or the loud generator.

  Not the neighbors who keep coming by

  to hug Camino & reminisce about Papi.

  The Dominican Republic

  is like everything I imagined

  & beyond anything

  I could have pictured.

  I am awakened from the bed

  I share with Camino

  by a fruit-cart guy yelling

  mango aguacate tomate.

  On the porch,

  when I’m rocking in the chair

  I watch little pink & green

  salamanders run up the blue walls.

  I have never seen so much color,

  every house its own watercolor painting.

  The papaya Tía Solana cuts for breakfast

  is tender between my teeth.

  I take picture after picture on my phone,

  sending everything to Dre.

  I cannot imagine having grown up here.

  Cannot understand how my father

  flipped himself back & forth.

  Tía Solana tells Camino she should show me her beach,

  & Camino flinches as if someone raised a hand to hit her.

  I pretend not to notice, but she must see the way my face falls

  because when Tía Solana turns her back, Camino leans to me.

  “The beach isn’t safe. There’s this guy who hangs out there;

  I don’t think he would be very nice for either of us to see.”

  It is the first time I’ve seen Camino be anything but sure,

  the way she bites on her lower lip & won’t look me in the eye.

  I think I know what kind of guy Camino must be describing,

  & I tell her so. How we have disrespectful dudes in NYC, too.

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth,

  Camino moves away from me,

  making a noise of disgust deep in her throat.

  “You think you know so much, Yahaira.

  But what you know wouldn’t sweeten

  a cup of tea.” She huffs off toward the patio,

  & I wonder what she means & where she learned to judge

  so harshly someone she barely just met.