He stood at the edge of the table, his shirt stretched a little tight over his belly, faint yellow stains nestled near his armpits, his arms spread out wide to hug me.
—Come on, he said. And as I got up, deciding not to think and just reaching to him, my chair scratching the floor, he whispered as he squeezed me harder than he ever had, You look like shit.
I stayed tucked under his arm, smelling the mix of sweat and deodorant.
He clapped me on the back, squeezed me again, and then just as abruptly dropped me. As he pulled away his eyes were locked on the table, and I wondered how shitty I really looked; it seemed hard for him to face me. He scooted his chair in and pointed to my seat, as if he’d been the one here early holding this spot for us.
—Sit already! he said. When I did, he said, So what’s going on? You a doctor yet?
—Ha ha, I said. Not yet.
Like any good first-generation college student, I planned to follow up my biology degree with a stint at med school, followed by whatever came after med school, followed by me opening my very own clinic back home, where I’d see everyone for free and give kids shots without making them cry. It was a good plan, one I believed in even after I heard it come from the mouth of almost every other student at the Diversity Affairs orientation meeting.
My dad’s leg hopped under the table, making the water in his glass shimmy.
—Listen, he said. I know you’re busy up there doing your studies and whatnot. But me too, with work. It’s crazy how much I’m working these days. I mean, really crazy.
He ran his hands through his hair three times and said, I’m at five or six different jobsites in one week sometimes, so, you know, I’m not around, like …
He looked up at the lights sprouting from the bottom of a fan overhead. He shrugged. I thought of Weasel a day earlier, saying into his father’s refrigerator, You don’t know where he lives? as his brother tried to make excuses for both of us.
—I know, I said. People get busy. I’m the same. It’s okay.
I smiled and he nodded and said, Good.
He picked up his menu like something was finally settled for him, and with that action, he was, somehow and suddenly, the easier parent for me to understand. A waitress with a head covered in tight curls came over and took our full order: a second café con leche, two orders of buttered Cuban toast, two plates of scrambled eggs with thin slices of fried ham chopped up and mixed in.
—¿Revuelto? she asked after I said the number of the special I wanted. She raised a painted-on eyebrow at me, like I didn’t know what the word meant. It’s the only way I’d ever ordered it. Sí, claro, I said.
She hustled away and within seconds, the waitress who’d brought over my café con leche swept by with a matching set of beverage-assembling supplies for my father. He mumbled a gracias to her back.
—So you get straight A’s or what?
He poured the café into the milk, then streamed a line of sugar into it right from the dispenser, skipping the act of measuring it out into his spoon. In my hesitation, he looked up from the glittery trail tumbling into his cup and said, Oh no, did you get a B in something? He put the sugar down and laughed.
It wasn’t hard to do as well as I had at my high school. Our teachers ranged from the passionate (our saviors: those who’d started off as Teach For America recruits and stuck around long past their obligatory two years) to the supernaturally lazy (those who depended on movies to kill time: for instance, our Honors World History teacher, who over the course of one nine-week grading period, between classes devoted to “silent reading” from textbooks we couldn’t take home, showed us The Ten Commandments, Cleopatra, the entire Roots miniseries starring—as the teacher put it—“the guy from Reading Rainbow,” Schindler’s List, Good Morning, Vietnam starring “the guy who was the genie in Aladdin,” and, for some reason, The Fifth Element followed immediately by Stargate, which was the one he’d “meant to show us” when he accidentally brought in The Fifth Element. But if you passed an AP exam with a score of three or higher (a rare occurrence at our school but something I’d done, to my own shock, for the first time in tenth grade), or if a guardian managed to show up for parent-teacher night, those were ways you could end up on the list of “good kids” I imagined the teachers circulating. I don’t know when it happened, but my teachers knew me as a good student even before I’d decided to be one. It probably had to do with Leidy being a so-so presence in their classrooms, the teacher logic being that, when you have two sisters so close in age, they can’t both be disappointments.
—I don’t know my official grades yet. They get mailed out soon, I said, as if waiting for them wasn’t an ordeal. But it’s way harder to do good there, I said. Way, way harder.
He finished a sip of coffee and said, Oh yeah?
I didn’t let much spill out. To give him the entirety of what I’d been through academically would require me to back up way too much, to admit how far I now was from his idea of me when it came to school. To tell him everything, to let so many feelings just plop onto the table, would make him so uncomfortable that I wouldn’t be surprised if he left his coffee behind and walked out to his van. He’d done much worse before.
—It’s really intense, I finally said. The professors – our teachers? They’re like obsessed people about their subjects. They are crazy.
—Sounds like people here with the Ariel Hernandez bullshit, he said. Sounds like your mother.
He sipped his coffee, twisted his napkin with his free hand. I waited for a laugh, for some indication he was joking. He put the cup down and said instead, Are you in any clubs like before you went over there?
His changing the subject almost worked, as the question got me thinking about how the high school version of me had been a member or officer of almost every club our school had to offer—even, for one very misguided summer, the JV cheerleading team (I liked the exercise and the stunts but hated the idea of actually cheering for something; I quit after the first game of the regular season). I’d forgotten how that version of me spent most lunch periods not eating at Taco Bell with Omar, but in front of a classroom counting raised hands voting on where to go for our senior trip or on the various theme days for spirit week. That Lizet stayed after school every day but Friday, making banners to hang in the building’s central plaza, bossing other girls around and complaining later to Omar about how nobody cared about anything, coming home with marker-smudged hands and glitter speckling my knees. I’d almost forgotten that girl. And as I tried to answer my dad, I realized I had no idea what clubs, outside of sports like Jillian’s intramural softball, existed at Rawlings. There were so many flyers on the bulletin boards around campus that to me they blurred into one huge flyer advertising colored paper.
—No, I said. That’s how hard it is there, that I don’t even do any clubs.
He was about to ask me something else when I said, But wait, what do you mean about Mom and Ariel Hernandez?
He drank more coffee as an answer. A new waitress stopped to toss two plastic baskets filled with parchment-wrapped slabs of squashed Cuban bread on our table, her arms piled with maybe six more baskets headed for other customers. As he tried ignoring my question by ripping a hunk of tostada from his basket and shoving it into his mouth, I said, Have you – I didn’t know you’d talked to her.
—I haven’t, he said, chewing.
He wrapped his hands around his mug, laced his fingers together around it, each finger coming to rest in the nest of black hair on the backs of his hands. A couple of his fingernails were splitting from his habit of biting them down so severely, and lodged in the swirls of the calluses on his fingertips were smudges of what I figured was tar: when we’d hugged, I’d smelled Irish Spring soap, so the black stains filling those creases couldn’t be dirt—dirt would’ve washed off. He swallowed the bite of tostada and said, Do you get any news up there? At your school? Like on TV?
I barely ever stopped to watch the TV in the dorm’s lounge on my way in f
rom classes—I didn’t have time—but I said, Yeah.
—But do you get Univision or Telemundo up there?
His leg started to rattle under the table again.
—I don’t know. Maybe? I haven’t really checked.
He slid the mug close to his body. He looked at another one of the ceiling fans and said, I’ve seen her on some of those reports, the stuff they tape right at Ariel’s house.
He shook his head at the fan and then looked back at me, right at my face.
—I’ve seen her on there a bunch of times, he said.
—So what? I said, though I couldn’t match his stare. So she’s making the best of our new neighborhood. How is that her fault?
I sipped my own coffee as he had, giving him space to defend himself. But he didn’t hear it—the blame. He pushed flakes of bread around on the table with his pointer finger.
—That’s one way to put it, he said to his plate. Forget I said anything, fine.
Him even bringing it up meant he was very, very worried about whatever he’d seen, and that made me worried, but I couldn’t help that my instinct was to defend her: he was the reason she even lived in Little Havana now, whether I could make myself say that or not.
—Just tell her, he said. Look, just tell her to relax, okay? She needs to relax.
He ripped off another piece of bread and plunged it into his coffee. I did the same. I let the piece dissolve in my mouth, swallowed the sweet mush.
—Listen, he said, pointing a shard of bread at me, I know it’s hard for her to hear what people are saying and what he’s going through. I can barely listen to it, okay? And I was fourteen when I came here, so I remember more than her. She was only twelve, thirteen.
He leaned back and lifted his hands as if being held up at gunpoint, one fist still gripping the bread.
—But listen, the way she talks about it? She has to admit she’s not, whatever, that he’s not her kid. That’s not her life. Besides, she’s got two kids, and she’s got Dante now too, so that’s plenty.
—Me and Leidy aren’t really –
—You know what I mean, he barked. He shoved more bread in his mouth and said, crumbs flying out with his words, And you know how she gets. So tell her to relax about it.
I choked my fork in my hand to keep from saying No duh the way Jillian would. Another waitress came by and slid two identical plates of scrambled eggs on the table, the pink flecks of ham scattered atop each heap like wet confetti. We both looked down and sat up straight, away from our plates, neither of us seemingly very hungry at all.
—I don’t have to tell her anything, I said.
—¿Todo bien? the waitress asked, and we said yes without looking at each other.
He unwrapped his silverware, tossing the little paper band off to his side. Digging into the eggs, mixing them even though they were already very much mixed, he said, You know what? Do whatever you want.
—She’s just volunteering, I said. But I couldn’t even convince myself: my mom would say exactly that in her own defense. I pushed my eggs around my plate.
—Volunteering. Sure she is. If that’s what she calls what she’s doing.
He waved one hand like a blade across his throat and shut his mouth, started over.
—Like I said, do whatever you want. It’s not my problem.
I shrugged and said, Fine, not mine either then.
He didn’t speak again until his eggs were gone, though that was only maybe a few minutes. About halfway through them, with me still on my fifth or sixth bite, I faked a mean laugh and said, Hungry much? But the only response was the clank of his fork on the plate.
When nothing but specks of egg were left, he grabbed his napkin and pulled it to his face. He wiped around his mouth in a wide arc, and from that move, I knew he’d shaved recently; he was still used to a goatee, to a big food-catching swath of hair clinging to his face. The empty feeling was still new to him.
—So the party’s at Zoila’s house again?
I had a freak flash of panic—he was planning on coming and making a scene. My dad had missed Noche Buena only a couple times before: one time because of a fight with Mami, after which he went instead to Fito’s apartment and hung out there; and one time because his grandmother was dying and he wanted to spend it with her, since she’d pretty much raised him. I imagined him making his last stand in Zoila’s driveway, but then he leaned back in his chair and let out a puff of air—a muted burp.
—Yeah, I said.
As he rubbed his belly through his shirt, I searched for what to say next: What are you doing for Noche Buena? Are you sad you aren’t coming with us? Where did you even go before you came to Mom’s family’s party? Do you feel bad now that you aren’t invited? As bad as we felt when you decided to make us homeless?
—I have something, he said.
He sat up in his seat. A present, I thought, and something shot through my hands, the pinkie and ring fingers going numb. I hadn’t gotten him anything—hadn’t expected anything from him. I hadn’t gotten gifts for anyone, not even Dante. I’d planned to explain that I was going to shop the day after Christmas—I was so busy up at school!—but I’d forgotten to give this explanation to anyone.
—Papi, you didn’t need –
—It’s nothing, he said.
He lifted himself from the seat a bit and reached his hand behind him. In his fist, when the hand returned, was his wallet. He flipped it open.
—No, really Dad.
He shushed me. From the gap where money went, he tugged out three bill-sized crumpled envelopes. Two were blank, but scribbled on the third was the word Dante.
—It’s not a lot, so listen, just take it. There’s one for Leidy and one for the kid. You give it to them for me, okay?
He held the envelopes out across the table, the three of them fanned out and trembling a little. Please, he said. It’s fine, just take it.
The one marked Dante was on top. The name was written in all caps, with the D written over and over again, like the pen had stopped working. Almost every Christmas before this, he’d sneak off in the days leading up to the holiday and buy Leidy and me something that he hadn’t discussed with my mom: when I was nine, it was a Nintendo; the year before Leidy got pregnant, he bought both of us a really nice Seiko watch. The next year, with Leidy three months away from having Dante and Roly still staying away, it was nothing. Later, I understood that his not getting us something on his own was a sign he was planning on leaving, even before I made it easier for him by confessing what I’d done. And later, his choice to forgo gifts would be vindicated when I showed him the acceptance packet to a school he didn’t know I’d applied to, that he didn’t even know existed. But now, with these envelopes, a new possibility opened up: he’d been too disappointed in Leidy, by her and Roly’s choices—too angry at how little control he had over anything—to pick something out.
He placed the envelopes, still in their fan, down on the tabletop. The corner of one poked a small puddle left by the glass of water. Darkness rushed into the paper, the envelope’s corner absorbing the water faster than he could slide them away and mutter, Shit.
—Papi, I said. You should do it.
He was putting his wallet back in his pocket. Do what?
—Give them to Leidy and Dante yourself.
—Oh please, he said. He searched the dining room for any waitress willing to make eye contact with him. I’m not interested in the drama, Lizet.
My knuckles were white, wrapped around the handle of my mug. Maybe I was going to throw it across the table. Maybe I was ready to be explicit—to bring up the woman from the bank, the drama of that act. Maybe I just wanted more coffee and was waiting for any of those waitresses to see me.
—Are you kidding me? I said. Yes you are.
His eyes darted from a waitress to me, then moved away again just as fast. He mumbled whatever and I let go of the mug.
—All I’m saying is you should come see them. You should give them this yo
urself.
He looked down at the dregs of his café, the bottom of his mug home to clumps of bread and undissolved sugar, same as in my cup.
—I can’t, he said. He stopped his search and said, You know I can’t.
I shrugged. Do whatever you want, I said.
He didn’t answer, just placed four fingers on the envelopes and pushed them even closer to my side of the table.
—Listen, you’re not gonna steal this, right?
I blocked them from coming any closer. You know what, Dad?
—I’m joking! he said. Jesus! I’m asking because maybe you need money for stuff up there at that school.
I did. I always did. But I said, I don’t.
He tapped the envelopes and said, Just tell me if you do, okay?
His fingers left them then and touched my wrist. My hand clenched the mug’s handle and then just as suddenly released it, and his hand encircled my wrist completely. He squeezed it too hard, not a comfort but a warning—a parent seizing an arm to wrench a child from an intersection, from the path of oncoming danger. Then he let go, and as he pulled his hand away, I felt the traces of his grip on my wrist, like small rounds of sandpaper taking something with them, leaving only the idea of softness behind.
—Okay, I said. I will.
—Good, he said. Because you can. You can tell me. But you know that, because you’re the smart one.
I didn’t really mean it then but I felt I had to say it: Papi, Leidy is smart, too.
A waitress dropped a small plastic tray with our bill between us. My dad took the same four fingers from before and pulled it to him. He lifted the slip, examined the numbers.
—Sure she is, he said, glaring at the receipt.
* * *
The envelopes were in my back pocket. In the restaurant’s parking lot, where we said a goodbye that felt more like a see-you-later, my dad warned me against putting the money in so unsafe a place, but I wasn’t worried about losing it: I was worried about how I would explain the money at all when I’d supposedly spent the last hour eating toast and eggs with Omar. I turned the wrong way out of the lot automatically, heading home out of habit, and I figured maybe that was a sign—maybe seeing the old house would give me the answer. The house will tell me what to do, I thought: I’d learned about magical realism in my writing seminar, when the TA had made weirdly consistent eye contact with me during the two class meetings where he was in charge and where we discussed it. He held his palm out to me at the end of every point he made and kept saying, Right?—his assumption being, I guess, that I knew what he was talking about because pronouncing my last name required the rolling of an R. At one point he referred to magical realism as my literary tradition and asked me to explain that concept to my classmates. He held both his hands out to me then, like I was supposed to drop my genetically allotted portion of magical realism into them, pass it between us like an imaginary ball at a rave.
Make Your Home Among Strangers Page 17