Come On In

by Adi Alsaid

  It’s hard to imagine it’s the same place where I would stand on that breezy balcony and watch the colorful birds fly by.

  Dad shuffles into the kitchen, a smile on his face like nothing is wrong.

  “Dad, what’s going on?” Clarí’s voice breaks and she swallows.

  Dad sighs and runs a hand through his thick curls. “Things in Caracas are...not good. You know already.”

  I know that my parents have been sending money to my grandparents for several years. And I know that’s why Clarí had to say no to half the schools she got into in favor of public, in-state tuition, and that there was no discussion of buying me a car on my sixteenth birthday like so many of my friends. But as things have gotten worse, sending money has turned into boxes full of grocery staples, basic household supplies, and finding an American doctor who could help us send Ito his heart medication.

  “Is everything okay with Ito?” Clarí asks.

  Dad nods and sits down on the stool next to mine. “Everyone’s fine. We just...have some news.” He turns on his stool to face us. “Your mother and I have been working with an immigration lawyer for several months. After this election, we asked her to fast-track everything. We weren’t sure if it would work out, so we wanted to wait until we knew for sure to tell you girls.”

  “And?” Clarí asks.

  “The lawyer called yesterday. We’ve got their visas.”

  “They’re coming to live here?” I ask, leaning on my elbows, like if I get closer to Dad, he’ll have to tell me more. “With us?”

  Dad nods.

  “When are they getting here?” Clarí asks.

  “Day after tomorrow,” he answers. “Plane tickets are already bought.”

  Clarí’s eyebrows practically retreat into her hairline. “That’s really soon.” But there’s a lot in that sentence that she’s not saying. Mainly, how long they’ve been hiding this from us.

  “Where will they sleep?” I ask.

  “In your room,” Mom answers. “You can move your things into Clarísa’s room, and you two can share while she’s home for the summer.”

  I nod. My room is bigger and the bathroom is attached. That’s obviously where they should sleep. But Clarí and I have never shared a room. We haven’t shared much, really. I love my sister, but we’re not like TV sitcom sisters. We aren’t really close, but we don’t really fight, either. We’re just...sisters. I’ve felt helpless for so long, watching my parents deal with this. At least I can do something to help.

  “I can move my stuff after my last final today,” I say.

  “I’ll help,” Clarí adds.

  “Are you going down there to help them move?” Ito and Ita are in their eighties now. There’s no way they can pack up all their things by themselves.

  Dad gets up from his stool and paces across the kitchen. “A few years ago, it was pretty simple for a citizen to sponsor a family member, especially elderly parents. But these days it’s...different.” I can tell there’s more he wants to say. He clenches his fists at his sides like he’s trying not to get worked up into an angry rant.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “The lawyer recommended I don’t go there right now.”

  “But why? How are they going to move all their things?”

  “Don’t be so naive, Val,” Clarí says. “Venezuela’s on the travel ban list.”

  I slink back in my chair. “I thought a judge blocked that?”

  “Temporarily.” She pushes the rest of the pancakes across the counter. “But they’re still detaining all kinds of people at the airport for no reason.”

  “But Dad has his citizenship now.”

  “Hasn’t stopped them from bothering anyone else.”

  “Clarísa,” Dad says. “Enough.”

  I look back and forth from my sister to my dad. “So, who’s going to help them?” I ask, feeling more helpless than ever before. All our relatives in Venezuela moved back to Argentina, where Ita and Ito are originally from, several years ago. And most of our family friends have spread across the world. Everywhere from Miami to Lisbon to Singapore.

  “No. They have to leave pretty much everything behind. Walk away from their home. Your sister is right. It won’t be easy for them.”

  “No,” I say as I poke at the last bite of pancake. “I guess not.”

  * * *

  Mom nudges my shoulder in the middle of the night—at least it feels like the middle of the night. I groan and roll over in the new twin bed Mom got at Costco. We set it up yesterday, across the room from Clarí’s. We didn’t have time to prewash the sheets, so they still smell kind of like plastic.

  “We’re leaving for the airport,” Mom says in a whisper even though everyone in the house is now awake. “We should be back in a couple hours.”

  “A text message would have been sufficient,” Clarí whines.

  “Oh, no,” Mom says. “I want you girls up and dressed when we get back with your grandparents. You want them to arrive to two zombies just shuffling out of bed instead of their lovely granddaughters? What kind of welcome is that? Come on. Up.” Mom flips the lights on and we both groan. I throw my hand over my face, letting my eyes adjust.

  “Evil, evil woman,” Clarí mutters, rolling back over.

  “Uh huh,” Mom says, like she’s proud to bear the name. “Just get your butts up and throw on some decent clothes. No pajama pants.”

  “Eeeevil.” Clarí kicks the covers off her bed, seemingly in protest.

  I sit up and yawn. “Do you need to pee?” I ask my sister.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, go now. I’m going to take a shower.”

  “No.”

  “Okay, but once I get in there, you’re gonna regret that you didn’t go before I got in.”

  “No,” she groans again.

  “Suit yourself.” I stand up and make my way to the bathroom in the hallway that used to belong to just Clarí, but now is ours. I’d just go take one last shower in my bathroom, but it’s pristine with a new shower curtain and everything. Mom will kill me if I mess it up.

  Halfway through my shower, there’s a bang on the door.

  “I have to peeeeee!” My sister’s voice rings out over the running water.

  “What did I tell you?” I yell back. “Go use Mom and Dad’s!”

  Sharing a bathroom is going to be so much fun.

  * * *

  The squeal out of my grandmother’s mouth when we open the front door is so loud, I’m surprised the neighborhood dogs don’t all start barking. She beckons to me and I can’t help but run to her. She grabs my face with both her hands and searches my eyes. I smile as she talks to me; some I can understand, some I can’t. Something about how I’m beautiful, and my guess is how grown-up I look. She hasn’t laid eyes on me since I was little, so I’m sure it’s as strange to her as it is to me. She squishes my cheeks again before crushing me to her chest, and I can’t help but let out a laugh. I sink into her hug and breathe her in. She smells like peppermint and the stale cabin air of an airplane. And she’s so thin that I worry my hug might crush her.

  I get one more cheek squish and a kiss before she wipes her lipstick off of me. She turns to Clarí and does the same thing—sweet words and kisses until all her lipstick is on Clarí’s cheeks instead of Ita’s lips.

  I turn to Ito to say hi and he gives me a shy smile. He looks so much older than the photos we have of him. His hair is whiter, and the skin around his eyes and mouth is more wrinkled and weathered. I lean in to give him a hug and he puts his long arms around me. He kisses the top of my head the way Dad always does and holds on just a little longer without saying anything. Ito is a man of few words. Right now that suits me just fine.

  Dad tells us all to grab a suitcase—in Spanish, but with his gestures it’s easy to understand what he’s asking—as Mom l
eads my grandparents inside the house. I watch as Ita walks inside, keeping a hand on the underside of Ito’s elbow, like he needs the stability. Dad says something I don’t understand and points down at the threshold, and I realize he’s telling them to watch their step.

  After I set the last suitcase down in their closet, conversation in Spanish floats down the hallway from the kitchen and I follow the sound. When I walk in, Clarí is showing Ita around the kitchen, which Mom and Dad just updated a bit last year when all the nineties-era appliances started dying one by one. Ita runs her hand along the stove, saying something complimentary. She looks up at Dad and says something else, and everyone else laughs. I get from the way Dad looks half amused and half affronted that it must be a joke about him—his cooking I guess? But it’s hard to know for sure.

  * * *

  My stomach growls as I walk into the kitchen, surveying a mess of flour and dishes.

  “Your dad decided to help your grandmother make empanadas, so it’s taking a while,” Mom says. “Of course, it doesn’t help that he’s spent most of the time telling your abuela that she’s doing everything wrong.”

  I laugh. “Isn’t she the one who taught him how to make them?”

  “Yes, but of course, he says he’s perfected them over the years and so she should do it his way now. I swear, that man.” She says that every time Dad is being stubborn, which is at least once a day.

  We finally sit down to eat in the dining room with a huge spread in front of us. There are empanadas as far as the eye can see. Dad informs me that the ones on the white platter are his and the ones on the platter with the flowers are Ita’s and I’m to eat some of each and compare.

  Mom bites her lip, visibly resisting the urge to say something. I catch her eye and she shakes her head, mouthing I swear.

  They’re both delicious, but the table erupts into arguments about which one they prefer. Or at least, I think that’s what they’re talking about. The conversation flies back and forth so fast that I barely catch a word.

  Clarí jumps up and puts a napkin ring on Ita’s head and she laughs. When I hear her say “La reina,” I finally get the joke and laugh along with everyone else. Clarí has crowned her the queen of empanadas.

  But it only gets harder to keep up after that. The conversation flows easily between everyone at the table, with laughter and raucous interruptions and gestures. Ito says something to Dad, then looks at me with a smirk on his face. Dad throws his head back and laughs right from his belly.

  I look from Ito to Dad to try to figure out what they’re saying about me. Clearly it’s amusing. When I don’t get a clue from them, I look to Mom, but she’s laughing too.

  Dad finally catches his breath and looks to me with tears in his eye from laughter. “¿Recuerdas ese viaje?” he asks me.

  I blink and try to decode what he’s asking me. If I remember something. But what?

  “Of course you don’t, you were so little,” he says, switching back to English for a second at my confused look. But then he switches right back, turning to Ito, and I’m back to not knowing what in the world anyone is talking about.

  I grab another empanada off the tray—one of Ita’s, because they are better by a slim margin—and pick at the braided edge of the pastry as the conversation goes on around me.

  * * *

  I sleep in the next morning, because it’s summer and I can. But when I go to get some cereal around noon, Ita and Clarí are in the kitchen. My sister is chopping something green while Ita gives her directions, motioning with her fingers to chop it in smaller pieces.

  “What are y’all making?”

  “Chimichurri,” she says without looking up. “To go with dinner tonight.”

  I walk across the kitchen and lean over to hug Ita.

  “Buenos dias, Tinita,” she says, giving me a kiss on the cheek. Tinita was always her nickname for me, which makes me smile. Mom and Dad used to use it, but since we moved here, I preferred just Valentina or Val, so I’d asked them to stop. Now I kind of wish I hadn’t.

  “Buenos dias, Ita,” I tell her. I hope my pronunciation was okay. I’m trying to keep my mouth open more when I pronounce my vowels. I read that online somewhere. Hopefully it’s not terrible advice, but it is the internet, so who knows.

  I gesture to the pile of herbs Clarí is working on with Dad’s best knife. “Can’t you just make that in the food processor?” Dad always does. Chimichurri is an Argentine sauce we keep around all the time; Dad probably makes a batch every week or so. I had to laugh when it started to become trendy and we suddenly saw it everywhere. But Dad says no one ever gets it right. That Texans always add cilantro.

  Apparently he doesn’t either, according to Ita.

  Clarí shakes her head. “Ita says that’s, like, sacrilegious. Hand-chopped is the way to go.”

  “Si,” Ita responds. “A mano.”

  “She was mad that Dad doesn’t have a mortar and pestle, but I think that’s way too old-school for him.” Clarí laughs.

  “Can I help?” I ask, but it looks like they’re almost done.

  “You can grab the oil.” Clarí nods toward the pantry.

  I grab a couple of bottles, not knowing which one they want to use. To be honest, I never paid much attention when Dad was making it before. Cooking was always more Clarí’s thing. “Which one?” I ask.

  Ita takes the bottles from me and inspects them. After taking a taste from each one, she settles on the olive oil and sets it next to the bowl already full of the chopped herbs, garlic, and red pepper flakes.

  Clarí scoops up the parsley and dumps it in the bowl. She asks Ita something in Spanish that I don’t understand, and the two of them start talking. Their voices get louder, gestures more pronounced. They both take food pretty seriously.

  “Mírame,” Ita says, pointing to the corner of her eye. Watch.

  She perches the bottle of oil in one hand, thumb over the top to control the flow. With the other hand she begins to lightly stir the mixture as she slowly streams in the oil. It’s just stirring, but she does it with flair. Like a Top Chef contestant sprinkling salt in the pan.

  Clarí has more questions. And the two of them are off again on their intense foodie conversation. The more excited they get, the faster they talk. And the faster they talk, the less chance I have of picking up even a single word.

  While they’re distracted, I stick my finger in the bowl and then lick it.

  It’s good.

  Better than Dad’s.

  I lick off the rest and forget about the cereal I came for. I just wipe my hand on a kitchen towel and go back to my room. The chatter continues in the kitchen. Ita and Clarí don’t even notice I’ve gone.

  * * *

  “What crawled up your butt?” Clarí asks as she comes into the room. “We were having fun and you just left.”

  No, you were having fun, I don’t say. “Nothing.” I grab my clothes out of the drawer and try to stomp past her to take a shower, but she grabs me by the shoulder.

  “Just tell me what you’re mad about.” Clarí always wants to hash things out as soon as they come up. Doesn’t she get that some of us like to stew in silence for a while?

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to breathe through the lump rising up in my throat. “Just let me by.”

  “No.” She steps out wider to block the doorway.

  “Ugh. Clarí. I really don’t want to talk about this right now. Especially with you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you couldn’t possibly understand what this is like for me. You and Ita are, like, best buds.”

  “We were trying to include you. You’re the one that walked off.”

  “Well, you were doing a crappy job.”

  Clarí doesn’t have a clever retort to that one. She leans against the door frame and I take my chance to squeeze by h
er.

  I finally let myself cry once I shut the bathroom door, hating that Clarí can probably hear me anyway. Of course she doesn’t understand why I’m upset. She hasn’t lost what I’ve lost. She hasn’t had to grieve for something she doesn’t even remember having. I let the steam fill the tiny bathroom, fogging up the mirror while I hide away and let the water wash away the tears.

  * * *

  I wipe the sweat off my forehead as I walk in the back door. Walking over to my friend Amy’s house in June was clearly a terrible idea. I always forget how hot ninety-something degrees is until summer comes around again. But I needed to be out of this house for a while, and I didn’t feel like bugging Clarí for a ride after our fight yesterday.

  When I step into the kitchen, Mom looks up from sorting through a bunch of plastic bags spread across the table. “Oh, good. There you are.”

  “I went to Amy’s,” I say. “What is all this?”

  “Oh, I took Ita to the art supply store to get some things so she could paint.” She pulls a tube from one of the bags. “We dug your easel out of the box under your bed,” Mom says. “Hope you don’t mind.”

  I shake my head. “No, it’s fine.” I survey the stuff spread over the kitchen table. Mom even got out the old tablecloth I use when I paint at home.

  My tabletop easel is set up, and there are several new canvases stacked on the counter. “You guys didn’t need to buy all this stuff. I have plenty of paint and brushes she can use.”

  “Ita likes to use oil paint,” Mom says. “She says that you don’t use the same type of brushes for that.”

  “Oh.” I guess that’s true. I never thought of that. No one at school uses oils. Someone asked our teacher about them once, but she went on a tirade about the smell of turpentine, so no one ever asked again. Plus, from what I know about it, you have to wait a whole week for one layer of paint to dry so that you can work on top of it again.