by Caela Carter
She brought him up. Perfect!
“My mom told me he moved with her to America so that he could be there when I was born. And then he had a disease or something and he died when I was only a few weeks old.”
Leonor tries to start the braid over. I can feel her fingers shaking as they comb through my hair.
“Oh,” she says. Then nothing for a long time.
Finally she says, “I wonder where that story came from.” She pauses. “He must have gone to Pennsylvania to meet you as a baby. And then come back here and disappeared. Maybe your mom assumed? Or maybe someone told her a falsehood?”
“What’s the real story?” I ask. I know she doesn’t have a reason to lie but how could he be alive this whole time? Where could he have been?
“I don’t know it,” Leonor says. “Not really.”
“Oh,” I say. “Why not?”
“Children are not supposed to have the details. At least that’s what my parents said. For a long time, all we only knew was that when I was very young, tio Jorge and avó had a big argument and then they didn’t talk for a long time. Tio Jorge disappeared and no one knew where he was for years. Then he came back and was around every once in a while, then he disappeared again. Then he came back, and on and on. Right now no one knows where he is. My cousins and siblings and I have always wondered . . . It is the family mystery.”
“I have to find out,” I say.
I turn. I don’t care if I mess up her braid. “You can’t tell avó I’m looking for him, OK?” I say. “Not yet. I need to figure this out.”
“We,” Leonor says. “We can figure this out.”
She starts to braid again. I sit quietly. I enjoy the pulling on my scalp. I focus on each strand of hair.
“Here you go,” Leonor says. “I think it turned out quite nicely.”
I can’t see it of course, because it’s on the back of my head.
“Let me run into avó’s room and grab her mirror,” Leonor says.
I nod. Then I’m alone in my grandmother’s living room.
If Jorge is alive, why does my mom think he’s dead?
The question runs in my brain over and over and over. I can’t make it stop.
“Alma,” Leonor calls from inside avó’s room. “I had a thought. Would you like to see a picture?”
A picture!
I stand and sprint to the outside of avó’s room.
“Come,” Leonor says. “Before she gets home.”
I walk over to the side of avó’s bed. It’s covered in a red duvet with brighter red flowers. The room smells like cinnamon. I feel sneaky walking into someone’s room like this. Someone I barely know.
But she is my grandmother. My avó.
“Here,” Leonor says, pointing up at a framed picture hanging next to the bed. It’s large and it has a bunch of people in it, all posed like a professional family photo. I can tell by the clothes they are wearing that someone took this picture a long time ago.
“That’s avó,” she says, pointing. “And vovô. And their kids. So . . . our cousin Beatriz is in the picture. See?” She points to a baby. “Which means my dad would have been around twenty-eight so your dad would have been around twenty.”
She points to a man sitting at his mom’s feet.
She didn’t need to point though.
I already knew it was him. His face is younger, but it’s the same face. The same as the internet version I’d found back at home.
My dad is Internet Jorge Costa.
Internet Jorge Costa who is a landscaper or something in Lisbon.
Internet Jorge Costa who isn’t married and has no kids.
Internet Jorge Costa who is alive.
My dad is alive.
And I already found him. I found him a long, long time ago.
I’m too stunned to react. Leonor just watches me stare at the picture.
He’s smiling in it. Just like he does online.
There’s the creak of the door in the other room and Leonor whispers, “Oh! Avó’s home!”
We rush out the door and into the hallway.
“Hello, avó!” Leonor calls. “A Alma está aqui.”
I know what that means. Alma’s here.
“Estávamos só à procura de um espelho no teu quarto para que ela pudesse ver a trança que eu lhe fiz.”
I panic for only a second. I hate being left out just because I don’t speak the language. When it happens with family it’s its own kind of loneliness. But right away Leonor turns to me and translates. “I just told her we were looking for the mirror so you could see your braid.”
Leonor smiles at me. It’s a kind of sly smile. The kind that’s almost a wink.
I smile back at her.
I feel warmth in my blood when I look at her smile.
Right in this moment I like Leonor.
Avó clutches her hands to her chest at the sight of me. She pulls me into her arms and my head floats above hers. It’s awkward but loving. She turns me around so she can see the braid. “Bonita!” she says.
“Beautiful,” Leonor translates, even though I knew that one.
Avó keeps her hands tight on my shoulders. She turns to Leonor and asks a question.
Then she pulls me close again.
Avó loves me. It’s so clear that she loves me. She must have been waiting twelve years to hug me like this.
“She says would you like to stay for dinner?” Leonor says.
I nod. “Yes,” I say. “Thank you. Obrigada.”
Avó says a bunch more in Portuguese, then turns and pulls her cell phone out of her purse.
“She’s texting your mom to make sure it’s OK,” Leonor says. “Then she wants to play piano with you while I make dinner.”
I turn to her. I thought avó would make dinner.
“It’s all right,” Leonor says. “I don’t mind. We’re family.”
A few minutes later my fingers are dancing on the piano keys next to my grandmother’s. The sweet and salty aroma of Portuguese dinner mix behind my head. There is so much love in the room you can smell it.
My dad is alive.
He should be here.
I should have been here all along.
I have a family who acts like a family.
Maybe they only meant for my mom to believe he was dead.
Maybe I was supposed to be in on the secret from the start, only they couldn’t get to me because my mom took me so far away from my people.
Maybe I never needed Mom and Adam anyway.
Maybe I was supposed to be on this side of the world all along.
That thought stays with me all through dinner and getting ready for bed. I settle into my bed barely saying good night to Mom. I am warm. I am happy. I am whole.
I am Portuguese.
I stay warm and comfortable like that until late into the night when I wake with a jolt, a question banging inside my head.
What happened?
If my dad didn’t die . . . If he’s still alive . . . where is he?
What happened?
Twenty-One
What If?
LAST NIGHT, I FORGOT TO ASK Leonor if she would keep coming home from school with me on the trolley after my Portuguese tutoring, even though I ran away from her yesterday. Still, the minute I see her standing in her usual place waiting for me to walk to the trolley in the morning, I know she’ll say sure.
Or she’ll say something like “Certainly, I’d be honored.”
She smiles at me as I approach and it’s different. It’s not a big and broad and overeager smile. Instead it’s a small, knowing smile.
Leonor is still not someone I would have made friends with back at home. But maybe it’s OK that I didn’t have a choice here. Maybe it’s good to have different sorts of friends that you wouldn’t connect with unless you need to.
Maybe that’s the entire point of cousins.
I ask Leonor if she’ll escort me home. “It would be my pleasure,” she says.
; I smile to myself at her formality. I’m finding it a bit amusing. Maybe it’s a little less annoying.
The truth is that I don’t actually have to go to Portuguese tutoring after school today.
It takes me a minute to remember to tell Leonor that.
“Actually, I don’t have Portuguese after school today. I just . . . I have to go back to the graveyard. To get my bag.”
“Oh!” Leonor says. “I didn’t realize you left it there.” She looks worried.
I have to let her in. Just a little. If we’re going to be the kind of close cousins she wants to be, I have to let her see how weird I am.
“It’s OK,” I say. “You don’t have to come with me. I don’t mind being in graveyards by myself.”
“You don’t?” she asks, surprised. “You don’t find them creepy?”
“No,” I say. “I actually like them. I went to graveyards all the time back home. But don’t tell my mom that.”
Leonor smiles. If she thinks I’m weird she doesn’t let me know. “OK, then,” she says. “You run to the graveyard after school to see if your bag is there. I will wait for you in the school yard.”
“Perfect,” I say.
When we sit on the trolley, Leonor leans into me to whisper in my ear. “I plan to call my mother as soon as we arrive home today. My father is consistently . . . what do you say? Tight-lipped. But I can sometimes get a fact or two out of my mother.”
My eyes go wide. “Thank you!” I say.
She nods. “I am going to help you. We are going to find him. Whatever it is that happened, he is your father and you need to meet him.”
The school day ticks by slowly. The lessons and lunch and recreation go on around my head. Inside all I can think about is my dad.
It’s like the first day of school all over again. Except now, my dad is alive.
At the end of the day I slip out the front doors to the school in the wave of my classmates. Leonor said she’d wait for me in the school yard so I’ll go find her there in an hour or so. First I sneak through the woods and follow along the concrete wall until I’m at the entrance to the graveyard again.
I take a deep breath and my heart calms down. There’s still a pulling on the middle chamber. I walk to where I left Leonor yesterday and there’s my bag in a wet heap on the grass. I pick it up and there are goose bumps running up and down my spine despite the sun shining above me.
I must be crazy. He’s alive. I know he’s alive now. But I still feel him in this graveyard.
When I get home, I open my tablet to Skype Julia. I’ve known my dad is alive for twenty-four hours and I still haven’t told her yet.
I also haven’t talked to her in days.
I miss her desperately.
But when my finger hovers over the Skype button, it starts shaking.
What will Julia say if she finds out he’s alive? Will she be mad about all the time I made her spend in graveyards this summer?
Will she say terrible things about my mom because she didn’t look hard enough for the truth?
Will she say I’m not safe with my Portuguese family because somewhere in the midst of it there’s someone who lied?
Or will she say something worse . . . something about my dad and why everyone told me he was dead?
I can’t do it.
I can’t let her ruin him before I’ve found him.
In my heart he’s perfect. I can’t share him with anyone who might not see him that way.
I open up my email and send her a short note instead, about Portuguese tutoring and today’s school lunch and playing piano with my grandmother. I leave out the parts I’d usually want to tell. I give her a nice, normal email like I’m the nice, normal best friend she deserves.
Then I go downstairs.
Leonor answers the door again. She pulls me inside, then locks it behind me like we are spies trading top secret information.
A little rush of happiness goes through my blood. Looking for my dad is fun with Leonor in a way it was never fun with Julia. The thought makes me feel guilty.
Leonor pulls me into her bedroom and sits me down on her bed. “I’m afraid I don’t have any more information as far as where or how to find him,” she says. My heart falls. “My mother either does not know or is refusing to give me that information.”
“OK,” I say. My brain starts to spin. There has to be another way.
“However,” Leonor says, “I did acquire one small idea as to why tio Jorge disappeared from the family in the first place. And why avó can’t seem to forgive him even though she keeps trying.”
I look up at my cousin who is standing above me, twin braids framing the sides of her face. “Yeah?” I say.
“The first fight,” she says. “The one that caused a rift in the family that has still not mended . . . she told me what it was about.”
“And?” I say.
Leonor swallows. “You,” she says. “The fight was about you.”
“Me?” I say.
Leonor nods. “Tio Jorge lost you. That’s what my mom said. By the time avó knew of your existence, he had lost you to America. And avó has missed you ever since.”
He lost me.
Part of my brain tells me it couldn’t be that simple, but the sentence makes me feel good. He lost me. That’s all. If he only lost me, he can find me again. He can Google my name and he’ll see my picture in the paper from my piano recital last year. Or he can Google Mom’s name and he’ll see her contact information for her business. Or he can . . .
I look up at Leonor.
“Oh my gosh!” I say. “I have a clue.”
“You do?” she says, shocked.
“Do you have a computer?” I ask.
She nods.
“I found a page on him,” I say. “I Googled. I found him on social media.”
“Really? Truly?” Leonor says.
“Yes!” I say. “Really and truly.”
“My family has tried this . . . He must have blocked—”
I don’t want to hear that. I interrupt her. “Let’s go get my tablet then,” I say.
We rush upstairs and into my bedroom. I pull up his page in less than a minute. “But it’s all in Portuguese,” I say.
Leonor smiles a sneaky half smile. “Well, I know Portuguese,” she says. “Let’s email him now.”
“Email him?” I ask. “How?
Leonor points to the side of the screen, some more words in Portuguese. “That says ‘send a private message.’”
My eyes go wide. But then I nod.
That night I barely sleep.
Instead, over and over again, I picture Internet Jorge Costa opening his PMs and staring at Leonor’s words. I don’t even know what exactly she said. In the end I was too scared to be in the same room with her as she wrote the email.
The email to my dad.
My dad who is supposed to be dead.
What if he doesn’t want to see me?
What if he doesn’t check his messages?
What if? What if? What if?
The questions are running through my head the whole next morning. Mom keeps asking me what’s wrong. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says.
I haven’t, not yet. But I’m trying to.
“I’m just tired,” I tell her, and rush off to meet Leonor at the trolley stop.
“Cousin!” she says as she sees me walking though the crowded, narrow streets of Lisbon.
“Hi,” I say, walking up beside her.
She won’t know anything yet. I remind myself. She only emailed him last night.
She leans close to me and whispers, “Do you have tutoring after school today?”
I shake my head no.
“Did you tell your mom one way or the other?”
“No,” I say.
My hands start to shake. What is she getting at?
“Well, good,” she says. “Then you’re going to meet him.”
“What!” My jaw drops. “Today?”
Leonor nods. “Today. He wrote back right away. He will meet you after school.”
I take a deep breath. My shoulders relax. Of course he did. Of course he wrote back as soon as he found out I was here.
He’s my dad after all.
He’s my dad.
“Where?” I say.
Leonor smiles. “I wasn’t sure where to suggest. He says he has a job landscaping somewhat near to our school. And since we are only children, we are limited as to where we can go.”
I nod.
“So, I suggested, perhaps . . . Well, I hope this idea sits well with you. I suggested he meet you in the cemetery? The one you were searching for him in the first place.”
I smile. “Cousin,” I say for the first time. “That’s perfect.”
The school day passes in a blur of nervous excitement. I’ve arranged to meet Leonor in the school library at four thirty. She offered to come with me, but she also said my dad speaks English. I decided to go on my own. I decided I didn’t want any filter, anything getting in the way of seeing exactly how much he loves me.
When the school day is finally over, I walk slowly and carefully to the graveyard. Part of me wants to run there, but I don’t want to show up sweaty and out of control. I want to look put together. I don’t want him to see how desperately I’ve missed him.
Not first. Not until I see how desperately he’s missed me.
My heart is pounding so hard I can see it shaking my uniform shirt. My palms are sweaty as I walk through the gate to the graveyard.
I have to remind myself not to read the headstones. He is here, but he’s above the ground.
I walk down the main street toward the grave-mansion. I don’t see anyone, so I walk around to the back.
There is a man bent over behind a tree. Big scary boots. My heart somehow finds a way to pound harder.
“Excuse me?” I say.
The man straightens up. He’s not so tall and he’s too young and his hair isn’t gray at all. It’s not him. “Não falo inglês,” he says. “No English.”
“Oh,” I say.
I think for a minute.
This is not what I’ve been picturing all day. This is not what I thought it would be like when I imagined returning here to actually find my father.
Then I realize I do know what to say.
“Jorge Costa?”