Don’t Make Me Turn This Life Around

by Pagán, Camille

  For once, they didn’t complain; instead, they threw their arms around me and buried their faces against my chest. I pulled them close, inhaling the scent of their strawberry shampoo and blinking to clear the tears from my eyes before they could see that I didn’t want to send them.

  “You still feeling okay?” I asked Charlotte. As I’d feared, her meter had indicated that her insulin was becoming less effective. She’d taken a corrective dose to get her blood sugar back down, and it seemed to be working. But given that it was already less effective, I knew we had mere hours before it stopped altogether.

  She nodded earnestly, all of her usual bravado long gone.

  “You’re going to be fine,” I said. “But if anything changes, you tell Papi or Hector right away.”

  “Or me,” said Isa, gnawing on a cuticle.

  “Or Isa, who will tell Papi,” I said, kissing Isa’s head. To her, I whispered, “Thank you, sweetheart. You’ve been so brave, and so good to your sister. I really appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” she said, pulling her hand out of her mouth to hug me again.

  “Okay, you guys,” I said. “It’s time to get moving.”

  Shiloh put his hand on my lower back. “Cutie, be so careful, okay?”

  “Me?” I pretended to scoff. But as our eyes met, my bluster evaporated. “I’m going to miss you.”

  His face got all funny when I said that. “You’ll see me no later than tomorrow morning,” he said. “Maybe even tonight, depending on how this goes.” He glanced back at Milagros, who was already on the boat. “Wish us luck.”

  “Good luck,” I said. I’d already hugged Milagros goodbye—gently, of course—but I called to her again. “Milly, let Hector and Shiloh take good care of you, okay?”

  “Sí, mija,” she called back. She looked less sickly than she had in the Jeep, but I knew better than to take that as a sign that she’d be fine. “Just watch my dogs for me.”

  “You know I will.”

  She smiled and waved weakly.

  I waved back, then looked at Shiloh. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you even more,” he said, leaning in to kiss me.

  I let his lips rest on mine and his arms stay wrapped around me, even though they needed to get out of there, oh, say, yesterday. Because even though I was not about to admit this out loud, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if it was the last time we had this chance.

  As they pulled away from Flor’s dock, I waved until I could wave no longer. Then I stood and watched the boat grow smaller and smaller in the distance until it was finally swallowed by the horizon. And I prayed that my myriad fears were not premonitions, which my mind was intent on convincing me they were, but rather just a string of terrible possibilities that would never come to pass.

  When I got back to the guesthouse, I looked around for a minute or two, unsure of what to do next. Then I remembered what my father had often told Paul and me: when you didn’t know what to think or say, it probably meant there was still work to be done.

  So I packed up all the things that Shiloh and the girls had not taken with them. Then I cleaned every inch of the place, and the patio, too. After that was finished, I went to Milagros’ and scrubbed her sinks and mopped her floors. I was about to start dusting when I heard a scratching noise.

  I froze.

  The scratching grew louder and more insistent.

  Adrenaline blossomed in my chest with all the warmth of rum but none of the pleasure. Was someone trying to jimmy the lock? It struck me then how very alone I was—I had no one on the island to call, let alone a way to call them, nor a way to defend myself. No wonder Shiloh was worried about me. I might as well have walked down the middle of the road with a target taped to my back.

  I looked around Milagros’ kitchen before slowly crouching down. Then I crawled to the cupboard and retrieved a frying pan. Still low to the ground, I crouched in the corner and listened. The scratching had stopped.

  Suddenly a sharp yell rang through the air.

  Except it wasn’t yelling at all. It was a bark.

  “Crap,” I muttered. I’d promised Milagros I’d care for her dogs, and what did I do instead? Molly Maid-ed the entire place while the dogs were probably out there gnawing on each other for sustenance.

  When I unlocked the dead bolt and peered outside, Pedro was peering up at me with his one eye, as if to say, “Are you done freaking out and ready to feed me?”

  I examined him for a moment, then opened the door. Pedro stuck his head through the doorway and glanced around—looking for Milagros, no doubt. Then he trotted inside.

  “Make yourself at home, Cujo,” I muttered, following behind him. “Sorry to disappoint you, but the woman you’re looking for is approaching Fajardo right now.” But as soon as I said this, I felt tears pricking my eyes. Was she? Or were they all stranded in the Atlantic—or worse, sinking toward the bottom of it?

  “Of course they’re about to dock,” I said, as though Pedro was the one who’d put this thought inside my head. “How horrible to even put that kind of energy out into the universe.”

  It occurred to me that I was talking to a one-eyed dog. It was better than a volleyball with a face painted on it—but still.

  I’d ended up back in the kitchen, though I hadn’t remembered walking there, and Pedro plopped down right in front of my feet and cocked his head, like he was listening. Maybe that’s why I added, “I’m not really used to being alone, if you must know. You’re welcome to stick around if you want to.”

  He whimpered a little.

  “You’re hungry, right?” I said, and he barked. In spite of everything, I laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes. We’re low on food over here, but I think Milagros has some dog food, and lucky for you, I have a key so I can feed you. Come on,” I said, like he was one of my kids.

  I found the food in a far cupboard and put it in a bowl, but when I set the bowl in front of him, he plopped down on his hindquarters.

  “She doesn’t let you eat inside, does she? And you’re not some dumb puppy, either. You’ve been around the block a few times.” I eyed him. He had a white little dog beard and—well, maybe this is a strange way to describe a dog, but he had an aura of knowing about him. “If I had to guess, you’re probably forty-seven in dog years. Midlife isn’t for the faint of heart, am I right?” I said.

  He looked down at his paws, then back up at me.

  “All right,” I said, picking up the bowl. “Let’s go outside. When you’re done, I’ll feed your friends.”

  I let us both out the back door and set the bowl in front of him on the patio. I’d say he ate the whole thing, but really, he inhaled it; the bowl was empty before I heard a single crunch. He glanced at me and licked his lips, or whatever it is dogs have over their fangs. Then he darted under a hole in the fence that I hadn’t noticed before.

  “Hey! Dine and dash isn’t allowed around here!” I called after him, but he was already gone.

  He was just a dog—I knew that—but I felt horribly alone after he left. I went to see if the other dogs were out front, but even after I waited on the porch and called for them, they didn’t appear. After some internal debate I left a couple bowls of food on the front porch, though I had a feeling that the iguanas would make a meal of it, and went back to Milagros’ to finish wiping down the shutters.

  Ten minutes later I was done, so I returned to the guesthouse. Without a fan running or air-conditioning, the air was oppressively hot, and though I had no way to tell time, the position of the sun suggested to me that there were hours to go before it set. Attempting to relax was out of the question; when I sat on the patio to try to read one of the novels stocked in the guesthouse the words blurred, and I found myself imagining Charlotte’s meter with a deadly number across the screen, and Milagros clutching her heart and keeling over. After ten or so minutes of this—or who knows, maybe it was an hour—I finally gave up and went back inside to arm myself so I could go for a walk.
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br />   I chose a fork with sharp-looking tines, stuck it in my pocket, locked the door, and then headed out.

  Milagros didn’t live in a neighborhood, not in a traditional sense; instead, the homes along her stretch of the southern coast were on large lots, each set back several hundred feet from the main road. It was eerie seeing so few cars out, and though I didn’t wander onto anyone’s property, I couldn’t hear a single person, either. I supposed I’d been looking to see if anyone needed help—or maybe I was just hoping to see another human being.

  No such luck. But I probably would have kept walking if I hadn’t started getting woozy. I’d never been the kind of person who had to be reminded to eat, but then again, I’d never had to send my family across the ocean without me, and so I hadn’t had a single morsel of food since the night before. I turned and began to walk back, hoping I wouldn’t pass out before I got home.

  I was nearly at Milagros’ when Pedro came shooting out of the bushes. His little legs were going so fast I thought for sure he was going to charge me. But when he reached me, he immediately began running circles around my feet.

  “No more running away and then surprising me!” I scolded as he continued to spin. “I almost peed myself.”

  He cocked his head.

  “Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe I did already. But you try giving birth to two children at once and see how your bladder holds up.”

  Pedro circled me for a moment, then started for the house.

  “Right,” I said, following him. “Let’s go hold down the fort.”

  As the sun began to set, I was forced to admit that Shiloh would not be making it back to Vieques that night. I wasn’t worried about being on my own, though; I just feared his absence meant something terrible had happened to Milagros, or Charlotte, or maybe all seven of them. Worse, I would have no way of finding out for at least the next eight to twelve hours.

  Why wasn’t the electricity back on yet so I could charge my phone and call them? Was there some magic carpet I hadn’t thought of that would get me out of here? Maybe Flor had another boat, or a rich friend who could lend me one, as well as a captain with a jaunty cap—or maybe just someone who knew how to navigate a boat through choppy water.

  I let myself continue down this pointless path for a few minutes. Then it occurred to me that it was probably cocktail hour. I wasn’t feeling particularly festive without Milagros there, but I knew she’d have wanted me to keep up her tradition, and anyway, I had nothing else to do. So I let myself back into her house to get some rum. I was prepared to down the stuff straight, but I located an unopened container of guava juice in her cupboard and decided to see if it made a decent mixer.

  Spoiler alert: indeed, it did. An hour later I’d finished two tumblers of island elixir, and the guesthouse had started rotating faster than the earth. It was not unpleasant, in that at least I couldn’t focus long enough to obsess about the terrible string of possibilities that my mind was insistent upon bringing to the surface. Maybe that’s why I decided a third drink was in order.

  “I appreciate you not judging me,” I said to Pedro. Though his furry friends still hadn’t shown up to have their food, I’d been pleasantly surprised when Pedro decided to stick around the guesthouse. Now he was on the table—I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten there, exactly, but sanitation had quickly made its way down my list of priorities, and I had convinced myself his perch made him more effective as a watchdog.

  “I’m not sure if anyone’s ever told you this before, but you’re a pretty good listener,” I said, and I may or may not have been slurring. It was nearly dark, and I’d had to position a flashlight to shine on my makeshift cocktail station—so I couldn’t be faulted for missing the glass once or thrice. I added a splash of guava juice, mixed it with my finger, then lifted my tumbler to the dog. “Here’s to us.”

  But as I put the concoction to my lips, I was forced to admit that no amount of alcohol was going to make me forget how much I longed for my family. I abandoned the glass on the counter, walked to the sunroom, and before I could chastise myself for being dramatic, threw myself down on the pullout sofa. The cushions still smelled like the girls’ strawberry shampoo, so I buried my face in them for a moment and inhaled deeply. When I finally came back up for air, I was crying like a baby. Or, you know. A woman who had no idea whether the people she loved most were alive.

  I was crying so hard that I didn’t see Pedro hop off the table and trot over to the sofa, but he whimpered to let me know he was waiting just below my knee. I stopped midsob and looked down at him. Then I put my hand on his back, wondering how he’d react.

  He closed his eye contentedly, but feeling his mangy fur beneath my fingers only made me cry harder, and he opened his eye again and jumped up on the sofa beside me.

  “Well hey there, buddy,” I said, but he was regarding me rather skeptically. “You’re right,” I conceded. “You’re a tough little guy. I feel like you can handle the truth.”

  He stared at me and waited.

  I wiped my face on my T-shirt. “The truth is, I am so freaking tired, Pedro. I’ve been trying to keep it together for . . .” I was about to say weeks now when I realized what a vast understatement that was. My chest shuddered as I tried to take a deep breath. “Since my dad died,” I admitted after a moment. “I know he lived longer than lots of people get to live, but it doesn’t seem right that the only parent I had for most of my life is gone.”

  My father was seventy-four years young, as he liked to call himself, and had been staying with us in New York for the twins’ birthday. Except he never did get to see them blow out their candles; the night before they turned twelve he bundled up and went out for a walk after dinner, and around the time he should have returned, a stranger called me and said she’d found him unconscious in the middle of a snowy sidewalk. We thought maybe he’d slipped on ice, but it turned out that he’d had a massive stroke.

  Later I would tell people that at least he was with Paul and me in New York when it happened, which gave us a chance to say goodbye to him.

  That was true. But to be clear, it was awful. When we could finally see him at the hospital, he was barely conscious, and half his face was just hanging there, like it had forgotten what his bone structure was for. The worst part was that he’d always said he wanted to go out with a bang when he was a hundred or while he watched the Tigers win the World Series—whichever came first (though he was the first to admit that the former was far more likely, as his beloved baseball team had been disappointing him for as long as he’d been a fan).

  Come to find out he’d end up exiting this world the same way my mother had: tethered to a hospital bed, forming a final memory that involved leaving behind everyone who loved him most and being unable to do a damn thing about it.

  But just before he slipped out of consciousness for good, his eyes met mine and he tried to speak. I couldn’t understand the first part of what he’d been trying to say. But his last words—there was no mistaking those. They weren’t Goodbye, or Get Paul, or even Charlotte, which was my mother’s name.

  They were Libby Lou.

  It was the name he’d been calling me since I was old enough to respond to it, and it was synonymous with I love you.

  And he had.

  How could I live without that?

  I didn’t even bother wiping my tears away as I looked at Pedro again, because in spite of all my worries and heartache, it felt good to let myself go—to admit the truth, even to a dog.

  “You know what really sucks?”

  He tilted his head as if to say, Go on. So, naturally, I did.

  “After Charlotte was diagnosed with diabetes, I thought, ‘Okay, we’ve used up our bad luck for a good long time.’ But only an idiot would think it works that way, because six months later my dad died. And guess what, Pedro? Dunderhead that I am, once again I thought: ‘We’re finally in the clear!’ But it turns out that this existence is just a bottomless well of bad things, because my brother just announced
he’s getting a divorce, and my husband is being as sneaky as my ex-husband was, and my family might be dead right now because I was so insistent on dragging us here and acting like everything was fine. But as anyone who lives on Vieques can attest, there’s no amount of wishful thinking that’s going to change that it’s not fine at all. Life is just so damn hard. No matter how good you have it.”

  He barked once, but it wasn’t a mean bark. It was almost like he was agreeing with me.

  “Thanks for listening to me, Pedro,” I said, blinking back new tears. But for once they were tears of relief, not sorrow. “Maybe honesty really is the best policy. Or something.”

  The sun had slipped beneath the horizon, but the moon was high and bright, and its reflection on the water filled the guesthouse, so I flung an arm over my eyes to block the last of the light. And then, before I could think any more terrible thoughts, my brain took mercy on me and shut off.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The next thing I knew, Pedro was barking his mother-loving head off and someone was banging on the door.

  My sleep-crusted eyes sprang open, but it took me a moment to remember why I’d woken up on the sofa. “Coming!” I tried to yell, but the rum and weeping must have taken a toll on my vocal cords, because I sounded like a bullfrog at the height of mating season.

  Pedro was still yapping and running back and forth in front of the door. I tried to shhh him as I reached for the lock. “Who is it?” I called, because my mental fog was slowly lifting, and it had occurred to me that Shiloh, who I’d been expecting, had a key and would have let himself in.

  “It’s me, you lunatic. Open up.”

  “Paul?” As thrilled as I was to hear my brother’s voice, I had no idea what he was doing here. Sure, I’d sent him a telepathic cry for help. But where were Shiloh and the girls?