Make Your Home Among Strangers

by Jennine Capó Crucet

  I tried my best. I said, I don’t know if we have any traditions like that, sir. My parents don’t really … read.

  He gave a short laugh like I’d just offended him, and, after blinking hard, grinned through closed lips. And I knew from that tightrope smile, from the slow way he talked me through what he presumed I meant to say, that he thought I was an idiot.

  And so now, as I navigated the city’s asphalt grid toward my old house, I fantasized that it would happen: that a parrot or an iguana would drop out of a tree and trudge over to me, talk in Spanish about my destiny and tell me what to do. Or maybe some palm fronds from the trees lining the street would reach down and cradle me, then ferry me to an old spirit woman who’d call me by some ancient name and inscribe the answers to my problems on the back of a tiger/dragon/shark. Better yet, maybe she would become my temporary mom, since Ariel was borrowing mine. I had high hopes for my old house as metaphor, my old house as fantastical plot element to be taken literally, my old house as lens via which I could examine the narrative of our familial strife. I was ready for what I’d been taught about myself, about what it meant to be like me, to kick in.

  But when I got there, the squat palm trees that had lived in a clump in our front yard had been cut down. I looked down the avenue, thinking I must be at the wrong place, but of course I wasn’t: Leidy had tried to warn me about this at Thanksgiving. The bars on the windows and door weren’t white anymore but had been painted black, which somehow made them less noticeable. The fence around the house—that was gone, replaced by a stronger-looking low wall that seemed not so much a gate but more a bunch of cinder blocks stacked in a row along the sidewalk. There wasn’t a carport anymore either, and the mango tree that had always dropped its fruit on that carport had been ripped out, a concrete slab covering the patch of grass in which it had grown. The sun bounced off these new cement surfaces, making the house look like it was burning. The stucco exterior was still painted bright green, but with the sun pounding on it like that—with no grass to absorb the glare—it seemed more like the irritating yellow of a glow stick swirling in a club’s darkness. There wasn’t a parrot or a fucking iguana for miles.

  I pulled off the street, the nose of the car inching past the cement wall. It felt like an accident, is the only way I can think to say it, like a bad copy of my house, or like a voice I was supposed to recognize but couldn’t place. I was of course alone in the car, but I said, Oh my god, look what they did! What should we do? to the empty passenger seat. My hands trembled on the steering wheel; out of nowhere I felt like I had to pee. I wanted to pretend I wasn’t alone. I tried one more time: Help me know what to do.

  The yard stood solid and still. No part of that concrete was going to speak to me. If I indulged this sorry excuse for magic and kept talking to imaginary people about imaginary choices, I worried I’d never go back to my mom’s apartment, or to the freezing dorm room a thousand miles away, or to anywhere I didn’t belong. I couldn’t let my imagination give me other options; it was too painful to admit they weren’t real. I shifted my eyes to the dashboard, refusing to look into the house’s windows or at the front door, and watched my hand as it forced the car into reverse.

  * * *

  Once I’d parked in the lot behind my mom’s building, I rested my head on the steering wheel before turning off the car. I’d wanted to see the house and be calmed by it, feel somehow like it was still mine, not realizing that the mere act of observing it in that way, like a particle under a microscope, meant it had changed. I shifted in my seat just like my dad had at the restaurant, lifting a hip to pull the envelopes out of my back pocket. They weren’t there. They weren’t there! I almost yelped with happiness—the spirit of my old house had taken them, relieved me of their burden; the TA was right and this is more than a metaphor!—until my hand slid toward the other pocket, almost as an afterthought, undoing the magic.

  19

  LEIDY NOTICED THE ENVELOPES IMMEDIATELY, said, What are those? as she tried to tug them from my grip seconds after I found her in our room, changing Dante on the bed.

  —No wait! I said, pulling them away and holding them behind my back. I have to tell you something.

  Her smile twisted off her face, and she went back to her wad of dirty baby wipes.

  —Those you and Omar’s divorce papers?

  She snorted as she crossed Dante’s legs at the ankles and lifted them with one hand, folded the dirty wipe in half with the other. She shoved the wipe, the crap smudge a shadow under its still-unused side, under his butt and pulled it toward her. More crap smeared its surface as she brought the wipe out from between an otherwise clean-looking pair of butt cheeks.

  —I didn’t see Omar. I went to see Dad.

  She dropped Dante’s legs, but they still stood up on their own for a second before curling back toward him. His face, along with his mother’s, was now set on me.

  —Papi? she said, like that wasn’t who I meant. What?

  —Don’t tell Mom, I said.

  She dashed behind me, dirty wipe in hand, and closed our bedroom door.

  —Are you kidding me? I’m not telling her shit. I freaking value my life.

  I flicked my thumb toward the door and said, She’s still here?

  I’d made enough noise coming up the vault of the building’s stairwell, then through the apartment’s door, then tossing the clump of my mom’s keys into the ceramic plate on top of the TV to draw people into the living room if they were home. Leidy had yelled, In here, and through my mom’s open bedroom door, the mountain of sheets topping her unmade bed didn’t look tall enough to be her.

  —No, she’s down at Ariel’s house. Leidy scrunched her eyes shut and shook her head at this. But still, she said.

  She sat back next to a naked-from-the-waist-down Dante. He reached for his toes and made faint grunting noises as he opened and closed his fists, missing his feet with each flail. Leidy’s mouth was open a little, the tip of her tongue perched just behind her bottom teeth, the hand not holding the wipe now gripping her opposite shoulder.

  I said, Are you mad?

  She blurted out, No! Then said, I mean, I don’t know. Just tell me what happened. Where’s he living now?

  I almost let out a gust of Oh-thank-god. She didn’t know where he lived—she hadn’t known all these weeks and been keeping it from me. I felt like a turd for ever thinking otherwise, for assuming that, like me, Leidy could be a terrible person.

  —We met at Latin American.

  —The one by the old house?

  —Yeah, I said.

  —So he doesn’t want us to know where he’s staying. Freaking asshole.

  —Have you ever asked him? I said, accidentally sounding a lot like Weasel, so I said, Sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.

  She tossed the wipe in a plastic bag hanging from a knob on her nightstand and then waved that hand at me, saying, No, it’s fine. She grabbed Dante’s legs and spun him ninety degrees on the bed, then pulled the clean diaper by her pillow to him, unfolding it and sliding it under his legs. You’re right, she said, shrugging. It’s not like I ever asked him. Did you?

  If all I did was answer this specific question, it wouldn’t be a lie. She was not asking if I’d been to his apartment, how I’d found that apartment. This kind of logic—this tendency to reason away a question so that I kept certain facts only for myself, making me feel special over her, as if I didn’t have enough to make me feel that way: that’s what made me a terrible person. No, I said.

  —So we both suck. What else is new?

  She pulled the sticky tabs of Dante’s diaper so tight around his belly that I thought it must be uncomfortable for him, he had to feel too cinched in, but he smiled at her and flapped his arms. I held the envelopes out in front of me.

  —He gave me these, I said. Christmas presents.

  I added to this explanation what I knew to be true, what I’d understood as hovering between Papi’s words from the way he’d talked about all t
hose different jobsites.

  —He said he didn’t have time to get actual presents. He’d planned on it, but just ran out of time. His hours are crazy. He’s working on schools again. He’s really sorry.

  She held out her hand.

  —Sure he is, she said.

  I gave her one of the blank ones and the one marked Dante.

  —This other one’s for him, I said.

  She held the two of them in front of her face. She sucked in air—sharp—through her nose, held it in as if a doctor were about to give her a shot.

  She said, This one says Dante on it.

  —I know, I said.

  —He got something for Dante, she said.

  She turned the envelope over, still unable to open it, still somehow not believing it: our dad acting in this small way like an abuelo; our father doing something that in her book counted as sweet. She fingered the seal, tugging at the taped-down corner, then shook her head and shuffled the envelopes so that the other was on top. She turned the unnamed one over in her hands, too, ran her fingers over its wrinkles, its beat-up looking seal. Then she stopped and pulled her face away from it. She handed it back to me.

  —This one says your name on it.

  —No it doesn’t, I said.

  But as she passed the envelope back to me, I saw it—faint and small and in pencil, trapped under a slice of clear tape, in the blocky caps he always used—the letters scribbled on the back along the angle of the tattered seal: LIZET.

  I turned the one I still held over and saw the word LEIDY scribbled in the same faint handwriting, also in pencil. He’d written these out at a different time than the one he’d done for Dante. Dante had been an afterthought.

  —If he gave you more money than me I’m gonna be pissed, she said.

  She snatched her envelope from my hand and tore it open. For a quick second, it was almost the sound of wrapping paper being shredded by small hands, but it was over too soon.

  I opened my envelope slowly, peeling the tape from a corner instead of ripping through it, to keep my name intact. A fifty-dollar bill, crisp from the bank, sat in there. And on the inside triangle of the seal’s flap, more words, more of my father’s block letters.

  —Fifty bucks, Leidy said, the money between her fingers, another perfect bill. You?

  —Same, I said.

  She tossed the envelope on the bed and I leaned toward it. I stuck a finger inside to see if there was any writing. There wasn’t.

  —What, you don’t believe me? she said.

  She’d already folded the money.

  —No, I said. It’s just … it’s weird. What about Dante’s?

  She ripped open his envelope and pulled out another fifty.

  —Great, she said. What’s a baby supposed to do with fifty bucks? Eat it?

  She smirked at me and held that face, actually waiting for me to answer.

  I closed my eyes and then opened them, and she shoved the bills—both now folded over and over like an accordion—in my face.

  —Leidy, are you for real?

  —Whatever, she said. It’s the thought that counts, right?

  She dropped the bills on the bed but then grabbed them back not even a second after tossing them away. I reached for Dante’s envelope, picked it up along with hers. No writing in his either.

  —Let me throw these away, I said.

  She started undoing the crinkles she’d only just made, unfolding the bills and smoothing them against her thigh.

  —For real though? she said. What the fuck does he want me to do with this fifty bucks? If he wanted to buy Dante a toy, then buy him a toy. Or if he means it for Pampers? Buy him some Pampers.

  She covered her eyes with the hand not holding the money against her lap, and I opened the door and backed out of the room, all three envelopes in my fist.

  I hid behind the wall that marked off the kitchen from the living room, tossing the two other envelopes onto the counter and holding the one meant for me with both hands up against my chest to steady it—my hands made the paper shake. I pushed the flap open with my pointer fingers and pressed my chin to my chest to read, the whole note seemingly underlined by the money still inside.

  Lizet: I forgot about your sister’s “accident” (ha ha) and had to take half your $ for him at the last minute—I know I had to give him something. But YOU were supposed to get more—I know you need $ up there. $50 for your nephew = $100 for your sister = That’s not fair. Call me so I can give you the $50 I owe you before you go. YOU deserve it.—DAD

  I read it again, half listening for Leidy’s footsteps in the hallway. He’d meant to give me twice as much as he’d given Leidy, and even though he’d done the right thing by giving the money to Dante instead, he equated that with rewarding Leidy and punishing me even though we’d both disappointed him, the only difference being that my choices had no way of evoking for him the very origins of our family. They hadn’t added a whole new person for him to feel wary of loving.

  And the note meant more than what it said: I really thought their anger at me applying behind their backs would dissipate once they saw me preparing to go, once the reality of their youngest daughter leaving home set in. I kept waiting for either of them to say they were proud of me. My teachers had said it, but in an automatic way and always using the plural: We’re so proud of you. That phrase, in the overanimated voice of an assistant principal, had boomed over the PA system during fifth period AP English one day in April after the main office got word that I’d been admitted to Rawlings: Teachers and students, he’d said, pardon the interruption, but we’re proud to announce that we’ve just learned senior Lizet Ramirez has become the first student in Hialeah Lakes history to be accepted to Rawlings University. We’re so proud of you, Lizet, and we hope other students follow your example and start taking school seriously. As if all you had to do to get into Rawlings was take school seriously. As if calling it Rawlings University over College was somehow a needed upgrade. The administration was so overwhelmed by what I’d done that they couldn’t help gushing via loudspeaker to almost five thousand completely uninterested people: I thought that pride had to infect my parents eventually. But when my dad said goodbye to me months later in front of my mom’s building, he hadn’t said it. When my mom, who’d insisted no one could come with her to the airport to see me off, pressed her thumb to my cheek to smear away something that wasn’t even there, she hadn’t said it. In phone calls, at the end of recorded messages, no one said it. And now, right there in my hands, I had written proof—I could see it between the small print, the words in their crammed blocks building to what I’d been waiting for one of them to say: I’m proud of you.

  I pulled the money out, then folded the envelope into a tiny square and shoved it in my pocket, and, to make facing Leidy again even possible, I told myself I would not see my dad again, especially since he’d think it was just to get more cash. And what was the point, when I’d already proven at breakfast that I lacked the guts to confront him about the house? I took leaping steps down the hall to try to cover the fact that I’d been gone for a few beats more than I should’ve, only to find Leidy not wondering what took me so long, but with her back to me as she stood by the dresser. She was holding the bills with both hands by their corners, rubbing them against each other and then pausing to watch them, as if waiting for a message. She rested her wrists on the edge of the already-open top drawer; she must’ve pulled it open slowly so I wouldn’t hear from the kitchen. She took one hand off the money and pressed it to the stack of her underwear in the drawer, pushed them to the side; she pressed the same hand to the stack of bras and swept them over, too. She laid the two almost-crisp-again bills, one at a time, at the very back of the drawer, then slid the bras and the underwear back into place, everything right where it belonged.

  Fifty dollars once seemed to me like a lot of money, and it still did as I stood there in the doorway, watching my sister slowly close that drawer before she turned and saw me and pretended to be m
essing with the stack of diapers piled on the dresser. But I knew that in a couple weeks I’d be gone again and it wouldn’t be enough: there was no way his present to us could cover all the things we needed. And because Papi hadn’t written anything to Leidy, because she only had those two pieces of paper now tucked behind and under the thinnest things she owned, he’d given her even less than he’d given me.

  She squared the stack of diapers and placed the box of wipes next to it, then said in the most bored voice she could find, So did Papi say what he was doing for Noche Buena?

  —He didn’t, I said. But I don’t care so I didn’t ask.

  I slipped my shoes from my feet and lined them up outside our bedroom door against the wall. Down the hallway and through Mami’s half-closed door, clothes—shed like snakeskins—dotted the floor in complete-looking outfits, pairs of shoes in their centers, each outfit apparently created in its entirety but then declared wrong for whatever she’d be doing.

  —We should start getting ready soon, I said to Leidy’s back. I looked down at the scuffed fronts of my flats and said to them, Why is Mom even over there today?

  When Leidy didn’t answer, I said, You want to shower first? I can watch Dante.