The Other Half of Happy

by Rebecca Balcarcel

  I elbow him. “Not boring the whole time.”

  “Yeah.” He’s shining even thinking about Seth.

  But Zuri just sighs. Jayden and I look at her.

  “My sister’s coming home from college for Christmas.”

  “What, is she an ogre or something?” Jayden asks.

  Zuri rolls her eyes. “No, she’s bringing a boyfriend.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ogre?” I ask.

  Zuri sits up straight. “Oh my god, don’t even joke about that! She better not! She’s way too young. She has her whole life to get married. It doesn’t have to be now.”

  “So . . .” Jayden makes sly eyes at Zuri. “I take it you’re not a fan?”

  “He’s going to ruin Christmas.” Zuri slouches. “He’ll eat all the pork—my mom’s special recipe from the island. I just know it.”

  “And that’s what you’re worried about?” I ask.

  “No. It’s just, I want to see my sister, you know? Not him.”

  I try to think of something helpful. “Can you do something with just her? Like go to the mall or ride bikes or something?”

  “Or could you send him on a long errand with bad directions?” Jayden says, smirking.

  Zuri lets herself smile. “I mean, she was my sister before she was his anything.”

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Jayden says.

  “I’ll switch with you,” I say, finishing the last bite of my sandwich. “We fly to Guatemala tomorrow.” My stomach still curdles when I think of it.

  “How long is that flight?” Zuri’s eyebrows pull together like she’s trying to see Guatemala on a map in her head.

  “Four hours.”

  “How’s your Spanish?” Jayden asks. “Is Señora Francés going to be proud of you or disappointed?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll sound like a two-year-old.”

  “You’ll be okay,” Zuri says. “We’ve been back to Barbados twice. Of course, everyone speaks English there. The hardest part for me was saying goodbye again.”

  “I think you’ll have fun,” Jayden says. “At least Guatemala’s something different.”

  “That it is,” I say.

  “If nothing else, just take a billion pictures and send them to me so I can live vicariously.”

  Maybe Jayden’s got a point. I still feel dizzy thinking of all the Spanish I won’t understand for two weeks, but part of me will be glad to be a different me in a different place, starting a new year. I somehow forgot that eventually, in just two weeks, the Guatemala trip will be done, and we’ll be back to school. “When we get back, it’ll be a new year.”

  “Everything keeps changing,” Zuri says, frowning. “Nothing stays the same.”

  I try to think of something that does. “Your own courage,” I blurt out, remembering a Cervantes quote.

  “What?” Zuri says.

  “The guy who wrote Don Quixote.” I can’t recall the exact words, so I paraphrase. “He says you haven’t lost everything if you keep your own courage.”

  “Mmm,” she says, unconvinced. I’m not convinced myself. Courage—that I could use. And how can I keep it if I don’t have it in the first place?

  The bell rings to send us back to class, but we can’t leave like this, feeling anything but courageous, on our last lunch together before break.

  Jayden rummages in his backpack. “Hey, look.” He holds up three Popsicle sticks.

  “Popsicle sticks?” I ask.

  “Extras from a project.” He pauses. “Or . . . they appear to be.” He says this in a magician’s voice.

  Zuri gives him a what-the-heck-are-you-talking-about look.

  “They might look like ordinary Popsicle sticks,” Jayden says. “But these—these are courage sticks.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Hold on.” He brings out a red marker. In all caps, he writes COURAGE on each stick. “This is for courage while sitting next to little brothers on airplanes, trying to speak Spanish in a foreign country, and eating food you’ve never seen before,” he says, handing me the first stick. “This is for the courage to handle boyfriends from hell, dwindling supplies of pork, and big sisters who forget, if only momentarily, how important little sisters are.” He places the second stick in Zuri’s hand. “And this one’s for hanging out with the Sethster, missing my friends, and facing the lineup of unplayed games I may have to try, now that there’s no homework.”

  Zuri and I look at each other with raised eyebrows. This is so cheesy, so silly, so Jayden. She breaks into a smile as she shakes her head. “You are such a goofball, Jayday.”

  “Tell me you don’t feel better already,” he says.

  “I do.” She nods.

  I hold up my stick. “This goes in my carry-on bag.”

  “Mine goes here,” Jayden says, putting it in his coat pocket.

  “How about this?” Zuri tucks it into her bun.

  “Perfect,” Jayden says. “Now we’re ready for anything.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, we board the plane. I scoot to the window seat and look out over the wing. I watch suitcases ride a conveyor belt into the cargo hold. My roller-bag is down there somewhere, but my courage stick is tucked in my backpack under the seat in front of me, and I’m wearing both my mermaid necklace and my sea turtle bracelet.

  Mom and Dad talk in Spanish across their armrests, each in an aisle seat. Memito sits next to me, and the window seat I begged for feels farther than I want it to from my parents.

  “Don’t be nervous,” I say to Memito, but really to myself. He’s wearing a weighted vest to quiet his nerves and doesn’t look at me, but just flips through a book Mom gave him. Why should he be nervous? He doesn’t know where we’re going; he’s never talked to Abuela on the phone and wondered what she’s like in person; he doesn’t know that two whole weeks will pass before we’re home.

  Home. For Dad, Guatemala is home. I hope someone hands him a guitar while we’re there. He hasn’t played for almost a month now, and I know he misses it. He tries to serenade Mom over morning coffee and sing Christmas songs, but it’s not the same. More than once I’ve looked at the empty guitar hook and wished it could be filled again.

  And it will be. I’ll pay for it. Thinking of pet-sitting and raking leaves, I touch my mermaid necklace, my determination glittering.

  I think of Grandma Miller and one time when we were walking along the shore after dark. The waves, instead of black, glowed fluorescent blue as they crested and fell. “Is that real?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Magical, isn’t it?”

  The sand looked strewn with blue Christmas lights as the tide washed in and out. Wading in, our feet stirred the water’s surface and twinkles surrounded our ankles.

  “That’s bioluminescent algae,” she said.

  They looked like underwater fireflies. I didn’t know something real could be so fairylike.

  I fasten my seat belt. A tide of excitement rises through me as the plane pushes away from the gate. An announcement says to turn off our phones, and I see that Zuri’s sent a selfie with her sister in front of a Christmas tree. Quality sis time! I send her back a thumbs-up, You two look great!, and a Santa hat. Bon voyage, says Jayden. I power down my phone as Mom and Memito watch a safety video on tiny screens on the seat backs.

  But Dad leans forward and winks at me, and a glimmer passes between us. Sometimes I feel more like Dad than anyone else in our family.

  We roll down the runway and pick up speed. Memito grabs Mom’s hand. My mermaid necklace presses against my throat, and acceleration presses me against the seat. The plane’s engines roar. The nose tilts up, and we swim up streams of sunlight into the sky. No one can see it, but I’m sparkling.

  ALL MY LIFE the word “Guatemala” was an empty room. Now it begins to fill.

  Purple volcanoes. Pink flowers tumbling over walls. A blue bus chugging by, so overcrowded that men hang out the open door. A shoeshine boy, his brown box of supplies at his feet. The colors turn my eyes into ka
leidoscopes. It’s like Grandma said: You’ll see amazing things.

  We park at an archway that leads to my aunt’s front patio, and I bite my bottom lip. I hear a yell: “¡Están aquí!”

  Sun warms the top of my head as I step out of the taxi. Then my ears fill with musical voices as people run toward us and start a merry-go-round of hugs. I say, “¡Hola!” over and over. It’s practically the only greeting I know, but somehow, it’s all I need. Name after name rolls into the air until a streamer of names seems to drape from one end of the patio to the other. Each person speaks to me in double-speed Spanish and gestures. Raised hands, clasped hands, one hand stirring the air. I smile in reply until my cheeks ache from smiling.

  “¡Pasen!” someone shouts. Inside, we stow our luggage as one tío carries away the coffee table; another shoves the couch against the wall. Within minutes, a CD spins and marimba music bounces into the air. Uh-oh—Memito. But he’s just clutching Mom, and he doesn’t cry. Fingers snap, shoulders shift, hips swing. Spanish words fall like confetti around me. I realize I don’t need to know what they all mean. When the song ends, everyone’s talking and laughing. My body feels light, buoyed by the room’s high spirits.

  Platters of papaya and mango float toward the dining table over a sea of heads, and one of my tías and a cousin emerge from the crowd to set the platters down between a stack of napkins and a pile of forks.

  I bite into a mango and wipe the juice from my chin. Mangoes don’t taste like this in Texas! Then I look around the table at cousins of varying ages. Maybe I can give them something, I think. I pick up a napkin and start folding. I make a bow tie for each of them, and their eyes shine. A boy of about ten keeps meeting my eyes, then looking away. Finally he says, “May the Force be weeth you.”

  English! I guess the whole world knows Star Wars. I flash him a smile. I try: “Obi-Wan.”

  He cups his hands over his mouth and breathes loudly.

  “Darth Vader!” Several voices join mine, and I’m ready to go through the whole character list when Tío Marcos claps and hands a guitar to Dad. Dad grasps the narrow neck, sets the instrument on his knee, and strums with a flourish. His smile reaches his eyes.

  Tío Marcos has his own guitar, too, and the men sit facing one another, adjusting the tuning pegs. When all the strings sound like one guitar, a melody flies up from Dad’s fingers. Four weeks, and his fingers haven’t forgotten a thing. Tío plays chords and a baseline. I’ve never heard a guitar duet before, and it leaves me breathless. The harmonies intertwine and cast a spell over the room. The littlest cousins sit still and listen. Even Memito is rapt. Dad and his brother look at each other and not their guitars; they must have played this song many times. As I watch them, rhythms perfectly in sync, each anticipating the other’s strum, something heals inside me. This, this is what my father was trying to give me the day he brought his guitar to my room.

  I can finally picture him here. Mom’s always talked about how he and Tío Marcos started a band. I’ve heard how Dad shined shoes, played street soccer, and knocked on the door of a famous newspaper columnist just to meet a living writer. Now it all becomes real.

  A familiar-looking woman with a long, gray braid steps through the open doorway, and the music stops abruptly. Dad sets his guitar down and crosses the room in two steps. He takes her in his arms. “¡Mamá!”

  They share a hug forever, her eyes gleaming brightly. Is she crying? I can’t imagine not seeing Mom for years and years in a row. I’d be crying, too.

  People make way for Abuela and offer their seats. She chooses the middle of the couch, and little cousins scramble up to kiss her cheek. I hang back, not knowing if I should approach her.

  Mom brings Memito and sits beside her. Abuela’s careful not to startle him. She speaks to him in upswinging phrases. At first, he burrows into Mom’s shirt, but soon he turns his head to watch Abuela. Finally, he reaches out to touch her braid. She hands its end to him and says something that makes everyone chuckle. Then her eyes search the room and find me.

  “Abuela,” I say, hoping my one word is enough.

  “Ven acá.” She stands and spreads her arms wide. After a strong hug, she takes both my hands in hers. “Quijana,” she says. “Mi Quijanita.” I breathe in her rosewater scent as she studies my face. “Como la mía,” she says, which immediately translates in my head: Like mine. And it’s true—her nose is the shape of mine, her face the same oval. She sits on the couch, pats a tiny space next to her. I thought I would be nervous when this moment came, but all my jitters melt in her warmth.

  Putting her arm around me, she gives a little squeeze, then notices my necklace. She holds it in her palm and tilts her hand to make the colors shimmer. “Qué bonita.” How pretty.

  What is “mermaid” in Spanish, I wonder. She answers my unspoken question.

  “Sirena.” She nods toward the mermaid and meets my eyes.

  “Sirena,” I repeat. “Mermaid.” I pronounce the word slowly.

  “Merr-med,” she says back. “De tu Abuela Miller.” From your Grandmother Miller.

  A mist springs to my eyes. She must have heard the story from Dad. I nod, not trusting my voice.

  “Muy especial.” Very special. Her eyes pour love into mine. I’m relieved that I’ve been able to understand her so far, but I can see that words don’t matter as much as I thought. I feel like I’ve known her always.

  In Mom’s arms, Memito’s eyes keep closing. Dad comes to stroke his hair. “Mientras estoy dormido, yo nunca tengo miedo.”

  I recognize the quote from Don Quixote: “While I’m asleep, I’m never afraid.” His words bring back Grandma Miller’s message, Don’t let fear narrow your life. That’s what she said when I complained about coming here. I remember thinking I would hate Guatemala. I look around at the friendly faces—como la mía—and feel Abuela’s warm hand on my shoulder. I don’t hate it. It feels like a place where I could belong.

  Mom and Dad start down the hall to put Memito to bed. The guitar lies against the arm of the couch. An idea flashes. “Dad, wait.”

  Everybody looks at me. I try to stay confident.

  “Um, quiero cantar para usted,” I say, looking at Abuela. I want to sing for you. I pull the guitar onto my knee and try out the strings. They’re metal, which means they’re stiff and hard to press, but I try my three chords. They come out clear. The room hushes. I take a deep breath and start. I know my song is a little cheesy, but the words take on new meaning, saying them to Abuela:

  The more I know you, the more I want to know you more.

  And when you fix your eyes on me,

  I feel my heart expand, fly free.

  Without your love, I’m incomplete.

  Togetherness makes life more sweet.

  Your life inspires; I want to bloom.

  A better me lights up this room.

  The more I know you, the more I want to know you more.

  “¡Me encanta!” Abuela clasps her hands in front of her heart.

  Dad’s eyes dance.

  “Me gusta mucho tu cancion,” Abuela says. Her smile lights up the last dark place inside me. I want to be nowhere in the world but here.

  A late supper brings savory scents from the kitchen. In the kitchen doorway, two older cousins, a boy and a girl, stand patting tortillas and flipping them from one hand to the other.

  “¿Puedes hacer tortillas, Quijana?” He’s asking if I can make tortillas. I think back to Tía Lencha’s, and Mirabel teaching me how to use enough water to shape the harina.

  “Sí,” I say, standing up. I can.

  GRANDMA MILLER’S WISE WORDS

  P. 56

  “Make your day amazing!”

  P. 90

  “Figure out what makes you interesting.”

  P. 91

  “Don’t let fear narrow your life.”

  P. 240

  “Act like the wonderful person you are.”

  P. 246

  “When you’re ready to hear advice, listen to y
our heart.”

  P. 300

  “Do everything for joy.”

  P. 301

  “Embrace the adventure!”

  QUOTES FROM DON QUIXOTE

  BY MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

  P. 17

  “In last year’s nests there are no birds this year.”

  P. 152

  “Hope is born at the same moment as love.”

  P. 246

  “Fortune always leaves some door open to admit a remedy.”

  P. 270

  “A lie always surfaces, as oil floats on water.”

  P. 287

  “You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch on his throne.”

  P. 290

  “Hunger is the best sauce in the world.”

  P. 307

  “He that loses courage loses all”

  P. 316

  “While I’m asleep, I’m never afraid.”

  QUIJANA’S POEM, “APPLE-JUICE POPSICLES,”

  based on Ms. May’s assignment to write a poem inspired by “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell

  I love to go to the freezer in late July

  and paw among the ice-cube trays and bags of broccoli

  to find the upside-down, tapered sweetness of apple-juice Popsicles,

  the handles standing at attention, their sugared plastic spines

  holding crystalled ice. As I yank one Popsicle and lift it to my tongue,

  drips of juice trickle, the slushy tip gives way between my teeth,

  and a syrupy cold melts in my mouth, leaving it stunned

  like tunes sometimes do, certain sappy songs that sashay and slide,

  which I hum, sing, and slather on the air in the juicy, sweet silences

  after Popsicle-eating in late July.

  POEMS QUIJANA HEARS

  P. 46

  Gustavo Adolfo Becquer’s “Rima XXI”: “¿Qué es poesía?”