Make Your Home Among Strangers

by Jennine Capó Crucet

  Leidy told me all this when she got back from her half day at the salon, Dante in her arms, marker all over his hands and cheeks. She’d already paid for the week of daycare—was paying a little less overall now that he’d turned one—so she turned down my offer to watch him after our fight. I was secretly grateful for the chance to shower and then sleep through the late morning, though falling asleep had been an accident. I’d only meant to lie down for a few minutes before figuring out what to do next, but my body demanded the rest. I hadn’t slept well in Rafael’s bed.

  All afternoon, Leidy punctuated what she told me with I just didn’t want you worrying, and the bags under her eyes and the grayish tint to her skin made me finally believe her. While wiping off Dante’s face and then feeding him and then wiping him off again, she told me in one avalanche all the things I thought I’d have to pry from her. She just gave it all over, relieved to have someone to talk to, and I stoked the small fire of what remained of my anger with that thought: I could be anyone. She’s so lonely, I could be anyone.

  Leidy told me that in the days after what was my spring break, Mami’s supervisor at the city left messages on the machine giving first and second warnings about missed shifts, and a few more days passed before Leidy caught our mom in the apartment and played these messages for her, asking—gentle again but blocking the front door—if everything was going fine at work. I told Leidy we should call Mom’s supervisor, but Leidy sighed that she’d done that already, a week earlier. I got up from the couch and feigned wanting some water to mask how ugly it looked that I hadn’t asked if she’d called but said we should do it, as if the idea couldn’t possibly come to her on her own. From the sink I asked what he’d said, and she told me the only reason Mami still had the job at all was because her supervisor was Cuban, too, was in fact a Pedro Pan kid, sent alone by his family to the United States back when Castro first came to power. Of course he wasn’t happy about her missing so much work, but he told Leidy that Mom was calling in, using the sick days and vacation days she’d stored up for years. I sipped my water, my heart stinging from the new fact that she hadn’t used these days on me over winter break, but I tried to hide this from Leidy, who was spending almost half her paycheck on daycare and so had to deal with that kind of hurt every day. The supervisor told Leidy that he was relieved when Mami asked to switch to part-time—something Leidy didn’t know until he’d told her, but she played along like she knew, to keep him talking—and that he so admired her work with Madres Para Justicia and what he’d seen her say on the news that he’d only hired a temp to replace her, had told Mami that when everything was resolved, she could have her old hours back. That’s good news, I said, and Leidy said again: That’s why I didn’t say anything, no reason to worry you. It’s all gonna be fine, she said. But we both knew that me showing up meant everything was more serious than she wanted to admit.

  —I want to see Mom, I said.

  —They did an Easter egg hunt today at the daycare, she said. I’m thinking I should try to get a part-time there.

  The apartment looked the same as it always had, but when I’d poked into the fridge before showering, there was almost nothing in it. A carton of leftover white rice. Some jars of Publix-brand baby food—just the sweet ones, banana, peaches—and some Tupperwares filled with a couple different colors of mush. Half a two-liter bottle of RC Cola, which had gone flat. An almost-empty tin of Café Bustelo ground coffee.

  —I have money from my job too, I said. Up at school. It pays okay, if we need it.

  She nodded.

  I said, Don’t worry, okay?

  —You don’t worry.

  She left Dante on the couch with me and went to the pile of papers on the table by the front door, junk mail and bills and notices I’d planned to look at after Leidy left, thinking I’d need them as clues. The fact that I’d thought about it in those terms made me feel ridiculous, though it had seemed like the right word considering how much I didn’t know.

  —Do you think we can go find Mom? I said. Down the street?

  Leidy returned with a manila envelope the size of half a sheet of paper.

  —This came here for you, she said, handing it to me.

  Mostly what came to the apartment for me was credit card offers, but this letter was from California, from UC Santa Barbara. Postmarked three days before spring break had started, the envelope was sliced open at the top, very clearly opened. In it were all the forms I needed to complete for the internship—waivers, IRS papers, travel preference sheets, checklists I was supposed to consult and retain for my records. There was also a typed note from someone writing on behalf of Professor Kaufmann stating that they hoped getting the forms to me at my home address over break would help expedite their return. A postage-paid envelope, it said, was enclosed for my convenience.

  —Are you switching schools or what? Leidy said.

  It was like I was Roly and I’d cheated on her and she’d caught me: that’s what her face made me feel. But now I understood why Professor Kaufmann had seemed baffled by me in lab since spring break—because I never returned these forms. I’d never even seen them, but in lying and telling her I’d been home for break, she thought I had.

  —No, this was a job thing, I said. It’s nothing.

  —But then why’s it from another college? You want to go even farther away?

  —It was just for the summer, like a summer internship thing.

  —So wait, you’re not gonna be here this summer? You’re not coming back?

  I heard the panic, could sense beneath it all the times over the last few weeks she’d wanted to ask me this but hadn’t, thinking I was keeping something from her.

  —It’s not happening anymore. Don’t worry, I said. I promise.

  She stood stunned for a second, then let herself deflate, flopping on the couch next to me and Dante.

  —Oh god, I thought I was gonna die, she said.

  She pulled Dante onto her lap and squeezed him. He tried to worm away, more interested in the remote control.

  —You swear though? she said. You swear you’re coming home?

  I shoved the papers back in the envelope, some catching and creasing as they went in. I said it again, though I didn’t mean it for the reasons Leidy assumed: I swear. I promise.

  She kissed Dante, a big wet smack on his cheek.

  —Who wants to go to summer school anyways, she said to him.

  She stuck her finger down the back of his pants and pulled them away from his body, peered down into his diaper. The elastic band thwacked back into place, and she said, Okay, let’s do what you want. Let’s go find Mom.

  * * *

  Dante’s stroller crunched ahead, his butt sinking into the cloth, the seatbelt harness too tight against his chest. He sat in a daze, eyes half closed in the sunlight. My eyes were partway shut, too—Leidy was smart enough to wear sunglasses—and through hazy slits, in the ring of black-clad bodies linked hand in hand in the street, I first saw my mom. Then, two women down in the circle, I spotted her again. The shape from behind of a third woman could’ve been her, too.

  —I should warn you, Leidy said, she’s gonna be weird.

  —No shit, I said.

  The mumble coming from the group as we approached suddenly snapped into something recognizable—a prayer, one they all knew. An Our Father or a Hail Mary maybe: I didn’t know the difference, and they were praying in Spanish, which made it even harder for me to tell. The only place I’d heard those sounds before was whenever our parents dragged us to a church for some cousin’s first communion or confirmation, or to see some newly born relative get baptized. Me and Leidy always seemed a step behind, everyone else knowing when to stand, when to sit, when to shout back at the priest up front. My parents were raised Catholic but never prayed outside of these instances, so it always disturbed me to hear those words pour from their mouths without a thought, like some language they knew but kept secret from us, some voice that wasn’t theirs. And that’s how it felt,
once we were close enough to see which one was actually my mom—prayers falling from her lips, eyeliner wobbling across her closed, twitching eyelids, her hair pulled back into a tidy but shaking bun: that she couldn’t really be my mom. That my mom wasn’t there.

  We stood behind her in the prayer circle, onlookers stepping out of our way thanks to the stroller and Dante and the sacred nature any little boy within twenty miles of that house had taken on. Strings of rosary beads snaked around their palms and dripped into the air below their joined fists. I wondered where my mom had bought hers, if one even buys a rosary or if they’re given out at churches for free. We waited for the chant to end, and when it did (sort of—there was a natural pause and some of the women opened their eyes and looked around, but others didn’t, and my mom was in this second group), I leaned close to my mom’s bun and said, Mami?

  She opened her eyes and turned, hands still holding other hands on each side.

  —Lizet! she screamed.

  And then the smash of beads against my back, whips coming from both sides. My face was in my mother’s neck as she pressed her hands and the rosaries into me. The rest of the circle stood frozen and confused.

  She pushed me away and held me at arm’s length, then let me go.

  —Es mi hija, she said to the women around her. Everyone! This is my daughter!

  All the women in the circle gawked at me, like maybe I was a sign from God, or some evil visiting. Several of them whispered to their neighbors—only one or two words of shock—and I thought maybe I should twirl around or something, but all I did was pull my shirt down at my waist with both hands, which let me hunch my shoulders like a boxer readying for a blow. Mami tugged me closer to the circle’s center.

  —What are you doing here? she said.

  —I came down for Easter. I came down to get you.

  I worried someone somewhere was snapping a picture; Mami was grinning like this was a possibility. The circle collapsed in closer.

  —Another gift this Easter, she said. I am so happy you are here for this.

  My mom grabbed my hand and squeezed it too hard, like she’d either really missed me or was really mad: the kind of grip you’d throw on the shoulder of a misbehaving toddler as you dragged them around a corner to beat them. I had no idea what to make of her reaction and so searched for Leidy, to read her face and see if she was signaling anything to me: Get out now or You’re on your own or See, I told you or Oh my god you’re bringing her back single-handedly! I couldn’t spot her through the ring of women, so I looked all around me and ventured, This is so great!

  —Yes! Our faith is moving mountains. Do you want some water?

  I tried shifting a little away from her, just to get her whole body into view, but the women around us made that hard to do. Their black clothes radiated heat, and some had cheeks so red and foreheads so sweaty that I couldn’t believe they hadn’t passed out.

  —No, I’m okay, but can we – let’s go home, I said to Mami.

  The women all got silent and I said, Just for a little while. It’s so hot. It’s Good Friday. And I want to see you.

  —I can’t, she said. We’re here praying, we can’t stop. The court said yesterday that his family has the right to refuse his return, and we are giving thanks and praying it doesn’t get reversed. Because the others, they keep calling.

  —The others, I said.

  —Janet Reno, Bill Clinton’s people. They think they are bigger than the courts, than history. We are praying for God to intervene. He will. He has. We are praying all weekend and then Monday we’re marching to the courthouse to thank the mayor, God bless him.

  —From here?

  —He says Ariel will stay, and he told the news that the federal government can’t overrule him.

  —I don’t think the mayor gets to say that, Mami.

  A current twitched beneath her face, like when I was little and did something in front of people to embarrass her. It meant a secret viselike pinch to the back of my arm was on its way. But it never came, and the hard-line mouth slipped back behind the beatific face.

  I took the reprieve and said, But I didn’t know about all that, I was on the plane. I didn’t hear, Mami. Of course you have to keep praying. Of course. Now more than ever.

  The women began to spread back out. One close to me wore a large gold brooch in the shape of Cuba, and it pulled on her blouse and sagged at one end, the east end, so that it looked like a smear of metal dripping from her shoulder. It glinted in the sunlight like a just-brandished knife. My mother tugged my arm and pulled me to her, leaned in to my face, her breath another source of heat, and said, I’ll come by later, after I eat with them. When we rotate I can visit you. You’re at the apartment?

  She squeezed my arm harder. It was a genuine question.

  —Yeah, of course, I said.

  She kissed my cheek and hugged me again, the rosary beads rolling over my back and clinking together a second time. The circle around us was almost intact once more except for her spot, the place through which I would leave it. And just outside of it was Dante in his stroller and Leidy, standing stone still until I stepped toward her.

  As she charged away, the circle back to praying and safely behind us, Leidy said, What the fuck was that, Lizet?

  —I don’t know. You’re right that she’s weird.

  Despite the heat, my arms and legs were freezing. And I couldn’t walk fast enough. Neither could Leidy. For a step or two I was right next to her, and the sun shined off the tears on her face as they slipped from under her sunglasses, just before she swiped them away.

  —Oh my god, are you crying? I said. Why the hell are you crying?

  Instead of stopping to answer me, she wrapped her fists tighter around the handles of Dante’s stroller and seemingly shifted into a higher gear. Her silver earrings rocked back and forth like angry kids on swings.

  —You know how many times I came down here to ask her something and she acts like she can’t hear me? Like I’m not even there?

  I was walking so fast to keep up that it would’ve been easier to just jog. I managed to huff out, Leidy, she sees you all the time.

  —Whatever, she said. It’s not like you got her to come home. A lot of good you did, gracing us with your presence. All the way from New York.

  —What the hell, I said to her back. I halted in the street. I said, You’re jealous that she stopped for me and not you? Is that really so shocking?

  My armpits were drenched, and my sweat-soaked shirt nudged itself cold against the insides of my arms. She kept walking, the stroller’s wheels scuffing ahead of her. She got smaller and smaller until a car honked beside me; I was blocking a driveway.

  By the time I locked the apartment door, she was in the shower with Dante—the stroller and her sunglasses and her clothes and his clothes and his wet diaper all in a trail from the front door to the bathroom. She came out over an hour later, all wrinkled and with her hair in a towel, had stayed locked in there long enough to make it weird for me to bring up what had happened. She spent the evening wandering around the apartment, playing with Dante and then feeding him and then hanging out in our room with him, leaving me with nothing to do but watch TV in the living room, though what I was really doing was willing the phone to ring, willing my dad to call and say he’d changed his mind and would help. Or willing Omar to call and just talk to me. I kept almost hearing it—the shrill bell about to make me jump—but I knew my dad wouldn’t call, that Omar wouldn’t call. Omar couldn’t, not after the way he’d driven off, and I didn’t even really want him to—what would I say to him? I just wanted the distraction, the chance to whisper with someone the way Leidy did to Dante, to feel less lonely for a few minutes. I turned up the TV’s volume, pretending not to be listening for the phone or for Leidy’s hushed voice spitting my name at her son.

  * * *

  Mami came home maybe an hour before the sun went down. Leidy had put Dante to bed, and she volunteered The baby’s sleeping once it was clear Ma
mi wasn’t going to ask about him. Mami nodded at her and grabbed my wrist, tugging me up from the couch into the kitchen.

  —I don’t have a lot of time, she said. I don’t feel right not being there if I can be there.

  I let her keep her hand clasped around my wrist.

  —But I’m visiting, I said. Can’t you tell them I’m visiting? I’m never here.

  —It’s not them, it’s my feeling.

  She raised my hand with hers, made it look like we were both pointing at her chest.

  —You don’t know what it’s been like, she said. This is so important.

  A wrinkle formed between her eyes, like she was concentrating or trying to beam a thought into my head. She looked like me for a second, like the face in the mirror the night I’d practiced in front of it, almost a year earlier, after sending in my paperwork to Rawlings, saying to what seemed like a serious, determined reflection, There’s something I need to tell you guys. It’s about my future. Though in the end, I hadn’t said any of that, only: I’m going to college in New York and it’s too late to stop me, starting the whole thing off even more wrong than it already was. Mami’s tired face shined at the nose and forehead in the white light of the kitchen. She was trying to seem greater than herself, mustering up what little energy she had left to convince me of something.

  —It’s okay, I said. I understand.

  She let out a breath I was scared to see she’d been holding. She said, So you’ll come back with me?

  —What?

  —I just think, it must be a sign that you’re here. Come back with me for the vigil.

  Leidy, now steps closer and behind my mom’s left shoulder, scowled at us like we were high school bitches in a hallway talking shit: You hear she’s pregnant? Yeah, you hear he’s not gonna marry her? She waved her hands in the air, a huge No.

  —I just got here, I said to my mom.

  —But you’re here for this, she said, her grip tighter. Come tonight, keep me company. I have to be up the whole night for the prayer.

  Her grip loosened and her hand slid down my wrist, her curled fingers hooking mine.