Each Tiny Spark

by Pablo Cartaya

  “You get out of school at three fifteen,” she says. “What have you been doing since then? Just sitting in the backyard with Gustavo, I see.”

  “We were talking about our social studies project.”

  I never walk directly to the auto shop after school. Abuela knows that. We take our time and always make it by around four, when we each go off to do our homework.

  “Emilia?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Start now and finish the rest of your homework after dinner,” Abuela says, heading inside the house. I’m not far behind her.

  “Abuela?”

  She pauses. “¿Sí?”

  “I might need a little help with my math,” I say. I feel guilty for asking. It seems like Abuela always has something better to do than explaining subjects I don’t get. Subjects I should get. Mom tells me to not be afraid to ask. I have to at least try to ask questions when I don’t know the answer.

  Abuela nods. “Bueno,” she says, “I think it’s a good opportunity to ask your papi. I’ll text him.”

  I work for about twenty minutes before my dad comes home. He tosses his phone on the counter and paces around the kitchen. He must have finished whatever he was working on or maybe Abuela asked him to cut out early to get ready for dinner. Judging by the way he looked at his phone just now—like he wanted to throw it in the garbage—it was probably the second reason. That’s one thing Mom and Abuela have in common—both text, like, a thousand times until you answer.

  In the dining room, I take out my homework and spread it across the table. I wonder if Mom is going to text. She knows I start my homework around this time. I can do my homework by myself, but it helps when she’s around. At least to point me in the right direction. I check my screen a few times, like maybe Mom can see me through the phone.

  The numbers on my math sheets make me remember the emblem on the car my dad was working on. I didn’t recognize it, but it seemed like some kind of sports car.

  Tap-tap-tap.

  It’s Abuela knocking on the glass tabletop.

  My dad walks through the dining room to the living room, mumbling hello as he passes. He turns on the TV to the fishing channel. The fisherman is reeling in something that must be huge. The guy makes lots of “woo-hoo!” sounds. I guess he’s excited.

  Just as the fisherman catches a big fish, my phone buzzes across the table. It’s Mom!

  “Hey, mi amor!”

  “Hi, Mom! How’s San Francisco?”

  “Good! Lots of meetings. I’m taking a break now, though. Homework time?”

  “Yes!”

  “What’s on the agenda for math today?”

  “I have my worksheets right here. Video call?”

  Before I can wait for an answer, Mom’s face appears on my screen. Her hair is up in a messy bun, and she’s wearing eyeliner and pink lipstick that pops against her skin.

  “You look so pretty, Mom.”

  “Thank you, mi amor. I love this color. It’s called Blushing Caribbean Sunset. It’s from a company run by two colombianas from Barranquilla.”

  “I love it. Can I borrow some when you’re back?”

  “¡Claro! Want to get started?”

  “Let’s do this.”

  We’ve caught my dad’s attention and Mom notices.

  “Is that Papi over there?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “T! What’s up, honey?”

  “Hey,” my dad says without moving. “How is it going over there?”

  “Good,” Mom replies. I aim my phone at the living room. “I’ll call you after I work with Emilia.”

  Dad seems to smile as she says this. It’s a soft smile. I almost miss it because it disappears as soon as it starts. I turn the phone back to me.

  “How’s Papi doing?” Mom asks, concerned.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “He seems kind of lonely.”

  “He’s jet-lagged,” Abuela interjects, popping into the frame behind me.

  “Hey, Aurelia. ¿Qué tal?”

  “Bien,” Abuela says. “Everybody here is fine. Antonio was about to help Emilia with homework.”

  “¿No me digas? Cool!”

  Mom asks me to show her my math sheet. It’s like she didn’t even bother to consider what Abuela offered.

  She and I begin to go over some problems while Abuela watches.

  “Mi amor,” Mom says. “What are you looking at?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re not paying attention.”

  It’s the TV. The fisherman is having a good fishing day. “Yes, I am.”

  “Aurelia,” Mom says. “Can you ask Toni to turn off the TV?”

  “I was just going to tell him that,” Abuela says. She mutes the TV just as the guy pulls another large fish out of the water. “Antonio, Emilia needs a little help with her homework.”

  My dad doesn’t move his head. Only his eyes.

  “Isn’t Sue helping her?”

  “Sí, pero she’s going to get off the phone soon and then you can help la niña before we go to dinner.”

  She grabs the remote and turns off the TV while my dad watches me curiously. “Susanna, I think Antonio can help out so you can get back to work.”

  Mom checks her watch. “I can work with her through these math sheets and then Toni can help her with the rest of the stuff.”

  Mom and I go through statistics problems for about thirty minutes before she has to go.

  “I love you with all my heart, sweetie.”

  “Love you too, Mom.”

  “I’ll call Mrs. Jenkins to make sure they send me your homework.”

  “Mom, I don’t need you to call Mrs. Jenkins. You’re only gone for a few days.”

  “But it’s long enough to fall behind, mi amor. And I love helping my favorite girl.”

  “Fine.” I say goodbye and get a falling-in-quicksand feeling. My dad takes a seat next to me. Abuela pats him on the shoulder.

  “I’ll let you two study for a little bit.”

  She heads upstairs to her room and leaves us to stare at each other.

  “So . . .” Dad says.

  “I’m okay, Papi,” I tell him. “You can watch fishing if you want.”

  “It’s fine,” he says, but I’m not convinced. He sounds like he doesn’t want to be here. “Do you understand this stuff?”

  That’s a question I’ve been asked in one way or another, my entire life. When I was in third grade, my teacher, Ms. Gretchen, was worried that I wasn’t learning enough to show “mastery of grade-level content” to pass to the fourth grade. The thing is, I knew more than I was supposed to know. I could fix the computer when Abuela did something to it. I could multiply in my head. I could put two-thousand-piece puzzles together. I even changed my first tire when I was nine!

  “Do you have a lot of homework?” my dad asks.

  “Not too much,” I tell him.

  “Abuela says that if you’re doing your homework, the TV should be off,” he says. “Is that true?”

  I nod. I focus on my dad’s really short hair. There is a little red stubble appearing on his cheeks.

  “So, what are you studying?” he asks.

  I take out more of my folders, binders, and my agenda and scatter everything all over the dining room table.

  I plop my workbook on top of it all to look through the language arts pages I have to complete tonight.

  “Pretty messy on that table,” he says. “If you were in my unit, we would’ve had to wake up at 0300 and run ten miles in the freezing cold ’cause of that mess.”

  I must look worried, because he shuffles around, trying to explain himself.

  “That was a joke,” he says.

  We’re both missing each other’s laugh tracks.

  “Sorry,” I res
pond. “I usually put my papers everywhere and then little by little I organize what needs to go where.”

  “Hmm,” he says. “Do you still like puzzles?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I still do.”

  “Cool,” he says. “Maybe you can think of all these papers like a puzzle. Put them together so they’re neat and make sense.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Papi’s hand is on the table. He’s wearing his wedding ring.

  Tap-tap-tap. Tap. Tap.

  “Emilia.” Abuela reappears in the room. She hovers over Papi’s shoulder. I get the urge to talk to Mom again, but she said she had to go. She’s exactly two thousand, four hundred, and eighty-six point two miles away if you go from Atlanta to the Golden Gate Bridge. I Google Mapped it.

  “I’m not sure she understands the homework,” Papi says, getting up.

  It’s not that I don’t understand. I just need to be able to talk about the problem out loud.

  “Emilia,” Abuela says, putting her arm on me. “Do you need to stand up?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say. I stretch while looking at the little short stories and multiple-choice questions that follow.

  “That’s not right,” he says. “None of these answers are correct.”

  My dad paces. He’s frustrated. I can tell because he keeps rubbing the stubble on the side of his head just above his ears.

  “I hope you’re getting good grades,” he says. “Don’t want you falling behind.”

  “I’m not!” I bark.

  “Emilia, no le hables así a tu papá.”

  I don’t usually talk to anyone like this, especially my family, but something about Dad hovering and questioning my work wakes up my anger for an instant.

  I grab my eraser and rub out the choice I made so hard, it practically rips the paper. I sweep away all the tiny pieces of rubber and pick up my pencil to underline the sentences in the story. I write thesis statement in bold and then skim the story before looking back at the question-and-answer section.

  “So,” I start to explain out loud, without looking back at him. “Because the story began with James Oglethorpe coming to Georgia, then the answer is C. And here it says he established trade . . .”

  My dad watches me work. I use the pencil to make dark circles around my choices. “The answer is B on question two and D on question six. Those are the correct answers.”

  Abuela pats me on the back. Papi’s eyes move from my language arts sheet to me.

  “You see?” Abuela says. “When you focus, you get the answer.”

  It wasn’t focus that got the answer. It was anger. Frustration. Abuela doesn’t get it. It’s not that easy.

  She leaves me and my dad alone at the table again. Papi eyes the pile of work I have spread out, and I think the mess makes him nervous. He starts gathering the papers into one pile. Once he realizes he can’t organize it all for me, he decides to leave.

  “I’m going to grab something to eat,” he says.

  Papi returns with a Coke and a plate of potato chips with cheese sauce. He stands next to me, crunching on the ruffled chips. A little cheese sauce falls on his chin. Why is he eating before dinner?

  “Your room is a little messy too,” he says. “Please tidy it up before we go.”

  Dad walks into the living room and plops down on the sofa. He takes a long drink of his Coke and finishes it in one gulp.

  I don’t really know what else to do, so I study the statistics homework sheet I completed with Mom. We’re supposed to explore and become familiar with what available data we have in order to find meaning in the samples. I can’t seem to find meaning in any of the data my dad is giving me.

  * * *

  When I’m done with my homework, I go upstairs to my room and shove as much stuff into my closet as I can. It doesn’t quite look clean. I decide to take everything out again and clean up for real.

  As I fold a pile of clothes, I start to get mad again. It feels like Dad has forgotten who I am. I tried to tell him on my videos, so he wouldn’t forget. I sent thirty and he didn’t respond to any of them. Not one. Over the last year, we would talk briefly on the phone, but he never mentioned having received them. I know being away from us wasn’t easy, so on top of being mad, I also feel kind of guilty.

  I don’t like having so many feelings sloshing around inside me. I’m starting to feel like the lemon–Coke bottle rocket again.

  Abuela catches me sitting inside my closet. She steps over a few LEGO boxes I put out to give away. I’ve already assembled and reassembled every Star Wars, Harry Potter, and Marvel and DC Comic LEGO I’ve ever received. Dad got me the Death Star a few years ago, and I put it together by myself in three days. I haven’t touched them lately, though.

  “Tu papi prefiere quedarse en casa,” Abuela says.

  “What? Why did he change his mind about dinner?”

  “I think he’s still a little tired,” she says. “It’ll take a few days. I told him not to fill up on comida basura like chips and soda before dinner.”

  Abuela starts to leave, but I stop her before she does.

  “Oh, Abuela?”

  “¿Sí?”

  “You can give those to the church,” I tell her, pointing to the boxes of LEGOs.

  “Your LEGOs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” she replies. “I can take them to the church this Sunday. You and your father can help out.”

  “Sure,” I say.

  Abuela leaves and I start piling the LEGOs neatly in a corner. When I’m done cleaning my room, I go outside to watch the sun set over the town. It’s the time of day when things don’t feel so rushed. When I can just be quiet with my thoughts.

  I’m surprised to find my dad out back, sitting on the porch swing. He’s staring over the grassy hill, barely moving a muscle. I go to say hello and notice that his eyes are only slightly open, but he doesn’t respond to me as I get closer. I know he’s not awake. I don’t want to wake him, so I just smile, hoping he is having a nice dream. It seems like maybe he needs one.

  I had to stay after school to speak with Mrs. Jenkins, who asked about my homework and if I needed any help. “No, thank you,” I told her, but she still said she wanted to send a note to my teachers.

  I know Mom called her to make sure I didn’t forget anything. I felt my throat dry up and my cheeks burn. “I told my mom that she didn’t have to say anything to you.”

  “Emilia, I’m here for any additional support you need. Anything. Oh, and let’s talk about the electives for next year.”

  I promised her I would have an answer at our next meeting so she would let me go.

  When I arrive at the library, Gus is already waiting for me outside. He’s filming a redbrick building. He pans the camera to me when he notices I’m next to him.

  “I really like this place,” he says.

  The library is an old converted schoolhouse with enormous wooden beams, one huge window, and carpeting that appears to have been stepped on for years. The whole room smells like old books. It’s kind of stuffy and mildewy, but not in the lonely, nobody-lives-here way. There’s something about the smell that feels like it’s whispering secrets to you. Like there’s something to be discovered within its musty old walls if you just listen.

  I browse the local history section while Gus reads a book called Myths and Legends of the American South.

  “There are chapters on different regions!” he says, a little too loudly. I check to see if the librarian is going to shush us.

  It feels like there is a chorus of stories about to sing out from these books at any moment, and I get to choose the songs to listen to. The librarian comes over and asks if I need any help.

  “I’m okay,” I tell her, but she must see the look on my face because she asks me more questions.

  “Are you in Mr. Richt’s sixth-grade soci
al studies class?” she asks.

  “Yes,” I tell her.

  “A few of your classmates have come in this week asking for information for a project y’all are doing. My name is Mrs. Becker,” she says. “But you can call me Liz. Liz the Librarian!”

  Mrs. Liz lets out a hearty laugh and stops abruptly. She puts her finger to her lips, hushing herself even though the library is mostly empty.

  “Whoops,” she says.

  I laugh a little.

  “Imagine a librarian hushing herself in her own library!”

  I wonder why I haven’t seen Mrs. Liz around. I know a lot of people because everyone needs an oil change at some point, and I’ve spent most of my life in Abuela’s auto shop. Maybe Mrs. Liz doesn’t drive. There was a bike locked out front.

  “Well, I can help you out,” Mrs. Liz says. “What’s your name, dear?”

  “Emilia,” I tell her.

  “Okay, Emilia,” she says. “What are you looking to research?”

  I tell her that I don’t have a project topic yet.

  “Well,” she says, “let’s see. The project is supposed to introduce an imaginary visitor to Merryville, right? To our places of interest.”

  “Right. But everyone around here already knows Merryville, so that’s hard.”

  “Well, what’s your favorite thing to do in town?” Mrs. Liz asks.

  I think.

  “Café con leche. I drink it every morning with my mom before school. That’s when we talk.” My heart aches a bit when I mention Mami.

  “What else?”

  “My dad just came back from service and my abuela and I made him a special sandwich to welcome him home. So, also that sandwich. But a visitor can’t just go to my house to eat a sandwich. That would be a boring trip.”

  “If you invite them, it wouldn’t! But it might get a little tiresome having all those people over at your house, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, what makes that sandwich so special? Where can a visitor get a sandwich like the one your grandma made for your daddy?”

  “Well,” I start, “it’s got a kind of pork you can only buy in one store across town. It’s where we get our café, too.”