When Tito Loved Clara

by Jon Michaud

  “I would have gone to Queens to see you,” he said, trying to be reasonable, trying not to get mad. “That would have been no big deal.”

  “I know, but I was really worried my father was going to find me, that he would come and make trouble for my mother. I felt like I needed to break all ties with the neighborhood. What did you think happened to me?”

  “I don't know. I guess I thought you'd just gone to Cornell early. I went up there, to Ithaca, looking for you. So I had no idea. They told me that you weren't at the school, told me that you'd never been there. I thought maybe something terrible had happened to you.”

  “That's why I wrote to you,” she said. “I didn't want you to worry.”

  “And then I ran into your stepmother in December that year and I asked her about you.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She went all crazy. Started yelling at me. I got the hell out of there.”

  Clara nodded again.

  “I wondered if maybe you'd killed yourself, but I didn't believe it. Man, so all that time, you were living in Queens. And you didn't try to contact me?”

  Her features fell. She looked spent. “I'm sorry, Tito. It was not an easy time for me.”

  He nodded. “It wasn't easy for me either, Clara. I was in love with you. I still am. I'm still in love with you.”

  She glowered. It was the same look he got when he hit on an unreceptive woman, a look that he was all too familiar with. “How can you say that? We haven't seen each other in so long. You're telling me you don't have a wife? A girlfriend?”

  “No, Clara. I don't have a wife. I don't have a girlfriend. And I can say it because that's how I feel.” Here they were, already at this point. He'd thought it would take longer to get there. “How do you feel, Clara?”

  “About you? Tito, I don't know you.” She brought her hand to her face.

  “Sure you do. I haven't changed much.”

  “You should have changed. It's been fifteen years. You want to know how I feel? I feel lousy,” she said. “I feel lousy that I had to do that to you, but I didn't know what else to do. I was eighteen years old.”

  “It's OK,” he said, trying to settle things down. He lifted his glass and finished his drink. Clara sipped her wine and looked around the bar. “It's OK. It's OK,” he repeated, under his breath. Then: “You hungry? You want something to eat?”

  “No, that's all right. I'll need to get going soon,” she said.

  “Already? You don't want to come to the wake?”

  “I don't know. It would feel a little weird. I bet there will be a bunch of teachers from the school.”

  “I think Ms. Almonte really wants to see you again. Come on. You said you felt lousy. Maybe this will help you feel a little better.”

  “I don't know,” she said. “A wake?”

  “All right,” he said. “I'm not going to force you. But maybe we could just pass by the apartment.”

  “What apartment?”

  “My parents' place on Seaman.”

  She looked unsure about this.

  “Come on, they'd love to see you. Especially my father.”

  He could tell that the idea intrigued her. “Did they know that . . . you and me?” she asked.

  “No. I never told them,” he said, and this seemed to make the difference.

  “OK,” she said. “But really, I can't stay long. I've got to get back to New Jersey.”

  They stood and left the bar. Outside, he had to blink about fifty times before his eyes got used to the light. He led her across Broadway and they walked up to Isham and turned left toward the park.

  “What the hell is this?” asked Clara.

  The intersection was blocked off by police barricades and each side of the street was lined with tables piled with produce and baked goods. One of the first stalls promised THE BEST PICKLE IN NEW YORK. Another featured tubs of fresh mozzarella. Farther along there were loose pyramids of Indian corn, apples, and tomatoes. People—Dominican and white, young and old—moved among the stalls pushing strollers, carrying canvas totes that said NOT A PLASTIC BAG, chatting while sipping warm cider and eating fresh-baked scones.

  “The farmers' market,” said Tito.

  “Inwood has a farmers' market? Since when?”

  “A couple years now,” said Tito. “It runs from Labor Day through Thanksgiving.”

  “Wow,” said Clara. She took it in as if the circus had come to town.

  “It's not the neighborhood where we grew up, Clarita. Things are changing.”

  “I knew things were changing, but not this fast.”

  “I'm going to get some flowers for the wake,” he said. “Do you think that's a good idea?”

  “Sure,” she said, and they headed for a stall that sold potted plants and fresh-cut flowers. Tito selected a bouquet of autumnal blooms in a plastic vase.

  The market had not been part of his plan. Nonetheless, it seemed to have relaxed Clara a little bit. Had she become such a suburbanite that her old inner city neighborhood freaked her out? It could be that she simply felt dislocated as you do when a bodega you are used to seeing every day is suddenly replaced by a bank. Or was it him? Probably me, Tito thought. Still, he was enjoying walking beside her, enjoying the possibility that the people milling among the stalls might assume that he and Clara were together, that they were married. As he collected his change, he saw something else that had not been part of his plan, something that was almost too good to be true. Coming toward them was the basic family unit: Tamsin, her husband, and Wyatt. The husband was giving Wyatt a piggyback ride. Tamsin carried a bag with purchases from the market. They looked like they were off to a picnic. Tito waited for, and registered with pleasure, the moment when Tamsin recognized him. As he waited, he put his arm behind Clara's back, not touching her, but holding it there, just behind the small of her back, in a possessive, guiding gesture. Tamsin looked startled, her mouth falling slightly open, but recovered quickly, smiling and pointing, while saying something to her son. Tito lowered his hand before Clara could notice what he was doing.

  “Tío!” shouted Wyatt, clambering down from his father's shoulders and running at them. This was too much. Tito could not believe his luck. The kid jumped into his arms.

  “Hi Wyatt,” he said, setting the boy down and tousling his hair. “Where are you guys going?”

  “We're going to Fort Tie-Ron Park,” he said, enunciating carefully. By that time, Tamsin and her husband had caught up. Tito saw Tamsin take an appraising look at Clara before saying hello.

  “Hi,” Tito replied, and introduced Clara to them, deliberately not mentioning what his relationship to her was.

  “So, how have you been?” Tamsin asked.

  “Fine,” he said. “Really good, actually.”

  “Your mother said you moved out.”

  “I did,” he said. “Not far. I'm just over on Arden.”

  “We really miss you,” she said. “The building just isn't the same.”

  “Yeah,” said the husband. “Wyatt here asks about you all the time.”

  “I miss you, too,” said Tito, looking at the boy.

  “Can we ride trains together, sometime, Tío?”

  “You got it,” he said.

  “Can we go back to the airport?” asked Wyatt.

  “Sure,” said Tito.

  “Whoo-hoo!” said Wyatt, pumping his fist.

  “There you go, buddy,” said the husband. “Give us a call. We'll set it up.”

  “I will,” said Tito. “I'll call you tomorrow. I promise.”

  “Yay!” said Wyatt, bringing smiles to everyone's lips.

  “Well, we should get going,” said Tito, not wanting to push his luck.

  “Sure. Have a good day,” said Tamsin, and then to Clara: “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” said Clara, her only contribution to the conversation. She and Tito walked on, turning right on Seaman, going uphill along the boundary of the park where they had spent so many Friday a
fternoons together.

  “Who was that?” Clara asked.

  “Just a kid who lives in my papi's building. I looked after him for a while over the summer. The mother—Tamsin—was here by herself and needed some help.”

  “I see,” said Clara. “Where was the husband?”

  “Peru. He's some kind of scientist. Studies the chicken flu.”

  “You know . . . it's the weirdest thing.”

  “What?”

  “I think I saw you and that kid in Newark Airport a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month.”

  “Yeah. It was us. I took him there to ride the monorail. Wyatt's crazy about trains. So, you saw us? Why didn't you come over? Why didn't you say something?”

  “I was with my sister, rushing to catch her flight to D.R. Besides, it looked like the two of you were having a, well, a moment. You were holding him and stroking his head.”

  “Yeah,” said Tito. “That's true. I lost him for a minute in the airport. I thought he was gone for good.”

  “What do you mean, you lost him?”

  “He took off when we got out of the monorail. There was a big crowd.”

  “That must have been awful.”

  “Yes. It was pretty bad.”

  “My God,” said Clara. “Did you tell his mother?”

  “No,” said Tito. “She doesn't need to know that.”

  “Kids,” said Clara, shaking her head. “They can make you lose your mind.”

  By this time, they had reached the side entrance to his father's building and Tito felt that things were going well, that the farmers' market and the encounter with Tamsin and her family had helped him. He wasn't going to dwell on the airport thing, on Clara not coming over to him. He wanted to stay positive. He drew a set of keys out of his pocket and turned the locks. They went down the three steps into the apartment. Tito's father was sitting at the kitchen table dismantling a faucet with a wrench. The faucet was old and rusty and looked like it had been ripped forcibly from its fixture. He was probably salvaging parts from it, Tito thought. Thrifty as ever.

  “Papi, look who I've got with me,” said Tito as jovially as he could. He had not warned his parents that he would be coming by, not warned them that he might be bringing someone with him. His father looked up from the faucet and squinted.

  “Who?”

  “Clara Lugo.”

  Tito crossed the room and Clara followed him. His father stood up, wiping his hands on a grease-stained rag. He looked bewildered.

  “Hola, Don Felix,” said Clara, kissing his father on the cheek without hesitation. Tito felt the sting of jealousy. It was the greeting he'd wanted.

  “¡Dios mío! Hola, Clara. What a surprise!” Tito's father put his hand on Clara's arm. “You look more beautiful now than you did as a young girl.”

  Clara said nothing, but smiled at him. Tito had to admit that his father had a way about him. He could charm anyone.

  “I am very sorry about your papi.”

  “Thank you, Don Felix.”

  “We may have had our differences, but I knew him a long time—long before he opened that store. I wish we might have been friends again. Nobody deserves a death like that.”

  Clara nodded, and again said nothing.

  “You live in the city?” he asked.

  “New Jersey,” she said.

  “She came for the funeral of one of our old teachers from Kennedy,” said Tito, hoping to cut off his father's line of inquiry. “We're heading over there now.”

  “The mother of one of our teachers,” said Clara.

  “Right,” said Tito. He was no longer sure why he'd wanted to bring Clara here and was surprised by his father's obvious affection for and familiarity with her. It showed him up somehow.

  “Where's Mami?” he asked.

  “Out. Shopping, I think. Who knows? Are you married, Clara?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Any kids?”

  “A boy. Guillermo.”

  “Aha! You have a picture?”

  “Yes,” she said, and brought out her wallet, unsnapping the clasp to show a photograph of the boy posed on a white stepladder in a photographer's studio. It was cute beyond belief and seeing it ignited a slow-burning rage in Tito's gut.

  “He's beautiful,” said his father. “God bless you. There's nothing harder than raising a child.”

  “Thank you, Don Felix.”

  This was unbearable for Tito. What a fool he had been to bring her here.

  “You know any nice girls out there in Jersey for Tito?” asked his father. “My boy wants to die alone and childless.”

  “Papi, that's not true!” Tito protested.

  His father looked at him. “What? You got some master plan you're not telling us about? You got some new girlfriend we haven't met?”

  Tito looked at Clara, who smiled and lowered her gaze, not answering the question about girls in New Jersey. She snapped her wallet closed and put it back in her purse. “Didn't you have to get something here?” she asked Tito.

  “Yes, hold on,” he said, and went into his old bedroom and opened the closet he and his father had always shared, the closet in the master bedroom being given over to his mother's wardrobe. Tito's room had become a storage space for deliveries and supplies. There were two UPS boxes and a big white carton with a diagram of a sink on the outside. In the closet, he found the jacket and an old black tie that he hadn't worn since the last funeral he attended—for one of his mother's cousins. He quickly knotted it and put the jacket on and went back out.

  His father and Clara looked up, as if they'd been disturbed during a confidential meeting.

  “OK,” he said. “Let's go.”

  “Thank you for coming to visit,” Don Felix said to Clara. “It is good to see you.”

  “You too,” she said, and kissed him again. “Tell your wife I said hello.”

  “I will. Look after that boy of yours.”

  Tito was drifting toward the exit and Clara at last began to follow him. Outside, as he locked the door, Tito asked her, “What was he saying to you?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “It didn't look like nothing.”

  “He's worried about you, Tito. They both are. Don Felix and your mother.”

  “He hasn't seen you in fifteen years and all of sudden he's talking to you about stuff like that? He's telling you he's worried about me?” He tried to contain the anger in his voice.

  “Yes, that's what he said.” She looked at him. “Listen, Tito, I'm not sure I want to go there—to the wake.”

  “Why not?”

  “I'm just not comfortable with it. I made my peace with all of this a long time ago and I don't want to go and reopen the wounds.”

  “That's great for you, Clara, but some of us haven't made our peace. My wounds are still open. The old ones are still open and new wounds keep opening up, too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I know why you don't want to go to the wake. I know why you don't want to talk to Ms. Almonte.”

  “Why is that?”

  “She told me something else about you.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She told me that the last time she heard from you—that summer—you were pregnant.”

  Clara turned away from him. They had walked up to the waist-high park wall on the corner of Indian Road and Seaman Avenue. By turning away, Tito noticed, she appeared to be looking down into the playground where he had taken Wyatt earlier that summer, the same playground where he had once kicked her in the mouth. He suddenly wanted to change the subject, to ask her about the scar on the inside of her lip—to know if it was still there. He remembered how talk of that scar had loosened her up on the afternoon in the Bronx when he'd helped her gather the swirling papers from her binder, the day all of this had been set in motion. He'd taken the wrong approach with her. It was stupid. He'd rushed into it again. The whole thing with his father had made him so mad. He shouldn't have mentioned
the pregnancy. That should have come much later. Instead, he should have talked about the good things they had done together, not the regrettable thing Clara had done on her own, leaving him like that. But it was too late now. He felt everything tipping over, his hopes spilling onto the ground and washing away like a pail of water, impossible to gather up.

  “I was,” she said. “I was pregnant. I didn't realize it until after I'd moved in with my mother.”

  “It was mine.”

  “Yes, Tito. It was yours.”

  “And what happened to that baby? Is Deysei that baby? Is she my daughter?”

  “No.” Clara shook her head. “I'm sorry,” she said. “Deysei is not that baby.”

  “Clara, what happened to that baby? Ms. Almonte said you were going to put it up for adoption. Did you put our baby up for adoption?”

  “No, Tito.” A sob escaped from her and she brought her hand to her face as if to hide behind it.

  “What happened to that baby, Clara?” he asked her again.

  “It was never born,” she said, her hand still at her face.

  “Please, Clara. Please. Tell me you didn't.”

  Slowly she lowered her hand and looked at him, nodding, the tears running in quick succession down her cheek. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

  “How could you?” His voice sounded strange to himself. It sounded weak. It sounded like a child's voice. “I would have married you. I would have raised that baby with you.”

  “I know,” she said. “But that was not the life I wanted.”

  Now it was his turn to look away. He took a few steps back from her and placed his hand on the wall. Even on this warm afternoon, the coarse surface of the stone was cold. “How can you say that to me, Clara?”

  “I can say it because it is true, Tito. I'm sorry. I don't think it's the life you wanted. To be a father at eighteen.”

  “How do you know what I wanted? How do you know that wouldn't have been a better life than the one I have now. Any life with you would have been better than what I have now. Any life with that baby alive.”