After she goes to sleep my stomach is still growling so I pour ketchup into some water and pretend I’m drinking tomato juice. I thought I could handle being hungry all the time, but lately it’s been hard. Some nights I can’t sleep because my stomach aches so bad, and later when I do sleep I always have crazy dreams about eating tons of food. Then I’m sad when I wake up in the morning and that feeling of being full disappears.
When I’m lying in bed at the end of the night, I’m still thinking about Trini. I wonder how much she understands and if she knows she’s not coming back here. She’s the same age I was when Mami left me in Puerto Rico and all I knew was that Mami was gone and she didn’t take me with her. We moved in with Abuela in the house where Papi grew up, and I slept on a cot in his old bedroom. All I had was a bear she left me and my baby blanket, and I remember looking at the ceiling for hours, crying while I tried to fall asleep. One night I cried so hard my nose started to bleed and when I woke up Papi, he told me to use my shirt to wipe it up. In the morning there was blood all over my pajamas and when Abuela came in she fell to her knees at the side of my bed and started screaming. When I sat up she closed her eyes and crossed herself and said Gracias por Dios again and again until she lost her voice.
Tonight Trini will go to sleep in a room by herself for the first time in her life. When she loses her blanket in the middle of the night, nobody will be there to cover her back up. She won’t know what’s wrong or why she’s cold, but a part of her will know that something’s missing.
In three months our family’s been cut in half. If that happens again, I’ll be the only one left.
Miss Valentín
The best thing about not being pregnant is that I can have a drink whenever I want. The worst thing: I’m still alone. I give myself the first week of summer to mourn the baby I never had. I sit around in my pajamas and watch tapes of General Hospital and eat entire packages of Entenmanns’s coffee cake. I listen to gospel music and stare at a journal I bought years ago but have never written in. Then, on the eighth day, I make myself get over it. I shower and get dressed and thank God for sparing me the phone conversation with my parents, the morning sickness, the midwife checkups on my own, and the hours of drug-free labor I would have guilted myself into enduring. I tell myself I’m okay, maybe actually happy, with not being pregnant. But there’s a part of me, the smallest, quietest, most frightened part, that still wants a baby.
That’s when I decide to research adoption. I look into the options in Rhode Island and internationally, and then I contact the state about how to get started. They tell me there are classes I’d need to take and home studies to be done, but that if I wanted a child in my house, if I wasn’t picky about race, sex, or ability, then foster care would be the fastest way. They say that some placements become permanent if the match is right, but others only last a few weeks or months. They ask me if I’m okay with that, or if I’ll find it impossible to say good-bye.
“Well,” I tell the woman over the phone, “I want to be a mother, not a boardinghouse.” There is a long pause before she responds.
“You’re looking for TPR kids then, the ones whose parents have already lost their rights. Those are the kids who are free.”
Before she hangs up she asks if I have any other concerns. I can’t help but laugh.
“Lady, I bet I have as many concerns as you’ve got kids in the system.”
She doesn’t laugh. “I doubt that.”
It takes me several minutes to list all my worries. She tells me I’ve cut into her lunch hour so she has to go, but I should bring my concerns to the orientation meeting. “Write them down so you don’t forget them,” she suggests, her voice lighter now that she knows we’re almost done.
When we hang up, I’m alone with my anxiety once again. I worry about all the standard problems: behavioral, emotional, and psychological. I worry about the child not attaching to me. I worry about wanting to send him back. I stay up many nights wondering if I’m brave enough to really do this, if I’m dumb enough, rich enough, smart enough, loving enough, desperate enough, hopeful enough to take a stranger into my home and love him like he came out of me. Some nights I don’t have an answer.
What saves me is thinking about my class, all my kids, and how I love each one of them. Even the troublemakers, the whiners, the perfectionists, and the merely average. And I think about Cristo. If that kid can still show love after the life he’s seen, imagine what you can do with a baby, or a three-year-old. You can practically start over. You can give them the life they deserve.
When César gets shot it makes me more certain—even the children who have homes aren’t always safe. I take Cristo to the hospital as often as I can, but I also go on my own, in the off-hours when César’s alone in the room and seems to be suffocating under all those tubes. I bring him the books we read in class last year, even the ones he hated (which was most of them) and read to him under the fluorescent lights of the stale hospital room. When he regains consciousness I bring him comic books, and even though he can’t read yet he holds them tight by their glossy covers and won’t let go. That’s when I know he’s going to be okay.
I’m not there the day he starts speaking, but two days later, when I show up with lollipops for him and doughnuts for the nurses, the first thing he says to me is, “Damn, Teacher, you just missed Jerry Springer,” smiling with the remote control in his hand.
As the summer goes on César continues to get stronger. After they take him off the ventilation tube, he starts to walk and feed himself. The seizures decrease and his headaches, while frequent, are generally less intense. His eyesight in the left eye comes back and he starts playing video games on the Game Boy the nurses got him for his birthday. Sure, he’s stuck in the hospital for the whole summer, but at least he’s alive—and at least his personality is back. That’s a blessing in itself.
In all the times I visit, I only see his grandmother once. It’s during the first week, when he’s still unconscious and we’re all nervous and speaking in hushed voices, not sure which way it will go. She comes into the room while I’m reading to him and places a bouquet of white flowers in the plastic pitcher by his bed. The room fills with the scent of magnolia. I smile at her and she drops her head in response. She hums a song I know from my childhood, from visits to my abuela’s apartment on Sunday mornings when I thought every beautiful song in the world was recorded on one of the albums she stacked like books on her shelf. His grandmother leaves before I can ask her the name of the song.
When I walk out I see her sitting in a chair by the elevators, knitting what looks like a baby blanket. I try to make eye contact but she won’t look up. She keeps her eyes on her work, tying the knots so quickly her fingers blur together as if her hands were as soft and pliable as yarn, as if she were weaving pieces of herself into the pattern.
I get back from Puerto Rico the Friday before Labor Day, tanned and rested and excited about the new school year. I decide to go grocery shopping, the perfect activity for an overweight girl on a Friday night, and my plan is to spend a quiet evening watching the Yankees destroy the Twins. I soon find out God had other plans.
It’s after eight when I get back from the store and the game has already started. I carry the bags from my car to the back door in one trip, setting them down in the dark. I’d forgotten to leave the porch light on, still not used to the night coming on so quickly, and I see an odd shape in the corner, something that looks like a body. I’m so startled I bang into the screen door and almost fall right off the porch. At first it looks like only one person, a man, I think, homeless or maybe just drunk and lost, but when I see it move, see it break apart like a magic trick into two smaller bodies, two children’s bodies, only then do I recognize them. Cristo and Luz, huddled together like seals on the beach, attempting to sleep under a canvas tarp meant to cover firewood.
“Sorry, Teacher, we didn’t mean to scare you.” Cristo stands up quickly, struggling to fold the tarp into a neat square.
“Jesus Christ.” I lean against the house to catch my breath.
My groceries have spilled all over the porch, cans of beans and olive jars rolling along the dusty wood floor. Luz starts to repack. She picks up several bags of chips.
“You having a party, Miss Valentín?”
“They were on sale,” I tell her, which is a lie. It tumbles out of my mouth before I even know I’m forming it. As a child I often lied to my parents about food, but since college I’ve lived alone, so I’m not used to answering questions about my eating.
“Here, we’ll help you carry everything inside.” Cristo grabs the remainder of the bags and leads the way up the back staircase. He knows my kitchen like he lives here, even though he’s only visited twice, and he puts everything away without my help. When Luz asks to use the bathroom I take her there myself, showing her where the light switch is hidden and how to jiggle the handle on the toilet so the water stops running. Back in the kitchen, I ask Cristo an obvious question.
“What’s going on?”
He shrugs and looks out the window into the dark. “Nothing.”
“You just happened to be in the neighborhood?”
He smiles that half-crooked smile. “Yeah.” He nibbles on the chips I set out, pretending he’s not hungry.
“Have you eaten?”
“Today? Sure.”
“I meant dinner.” I look at the clock on my microwave, which reads 8:42.
“Oh. Not really.”
“I’ve got some rice and beans and leftover chicken from lunch. I’ll heat it up for you.”
“No, you don’t have to go to any trouble,” he says. “Unless you were already going to do it for yourself.”
I put my hand on his perfectly round head, the buzz cut now grown out, and turn his face to look at me. “Are you hungry or not?”
“Yes.” He blinks as if to punctuate it.
I put the leftovers in the oven to heat up and get some plates from the cabinet. He watches me while I set the table.
“How was your trip?” he asks.
“Nice. A little long, but it was good.”
“How are your parents?”
I look over at him, gesturing with a handful of silverware. “Can we stop talking about me for a minute? How are you, how is your parent?”
He looks down and shrugs. “Not so good, I guess.” He picks up his soda, takes a small sip, and puts it back down. “I’m in trouble, Teacher.”
“Why? What happened?” I try to keep my voice calm.
“It’s a long story.”
I pull out a chair so I can sit down next to him. He talks quickly, looking at his hands the entire time.
“Lucho left and Scottie took Trini and we can’t stay in the house anymore because he called DCYF and this lady is looking for me and we don’t have anything or anywhere to go.”
“Okay, okay, hang on a minute. Back up and start from the beginning. Lucho left?”
He nods.
“When?”
“A few weeks ago. Maybe a month.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought she’d come back. Every other time she came back. But this time, I guess not.”
“Where have you been staying?”
“At home.”
I cover my face with my hands. “Please don’t tell me by yourself.”
“It’s okay, Teacher. We were fine until Scottie found out and took Trini and called the social worker.”
“He did the right thing calling them. I would have too if you had told me.”
He plays with the salt and pepper shakers on the table. “So I was right not to tell you.”
“Maybe you were.”
He leans back in his chair, the front legs off the floor, just like he used to do in class. We listen to the clicks of the oven as it warms, saying nothing. Finally, he brings the chair back down, dropping it onto its front legs without making a sound.
“Well it doesn’t matter anyway because we left and now I don’t know where to go.”
“What about your mom’s cousin, can’t you stay with him?”
“Chino and Kim are in New York for the weekend. Their place is locked, I already checked. And Scottie doesn’t want us, and our neighbors have their grandkids in town and there’s nobody else.”
“Cristo.” I touch his hand. “If you’re worried about where you’re going to sleep for the weekend, don’t. You can stay here, you know that. But once school starts… You need a real solution.”
“I’m not going to a foster home, Teacher. They’ll split us up.” He pulls his hand away from mine. “They always split up older kids.”
“Relax, we won’t let that happen.”
He shakes his head. “I promise you, I’m not going.”
“I’ll talk to Chino and Kim. We’ll work it out.”
“Why can’t we stay here, Teacher? You’ve got room. And it would only be for a few months.”
“It’s not that simple.” I stand up to check on the food. “I can’t just keep you like a bird I’d watch for a friend. There’s paperwork to fill out and laws we have to follow—”
“Do you want money?” He pulls some crumpled bills from his pocket. “How much do you need?”
“Dios mío, put your money away. I don’t want your money.” I inhale deeply and look up at the ceiling. “We have to do what your mother would want. And what the social worker thinks is best.”
“Mami wanted us at home, with Lucho. That’s why she made her our guardian. She wanted us to stay together.”
Luz walks in and stands in the corner against the wall. She sucks on the end of her braid like it’s made of honey.
“Come on, time to eat.” I open the oven door, shocked by the rush of dry heat. I close my eyes quickly, before they start to water, and blindly pull out the dish.
I serve them on TV trays and we sit in the living room watching the Yankees beat the Twins, seven to four. When Jeter hits a home run we cheer like we’re at Yankee Stadium, sharing a three-way hug. After the game I make up the guest bed and tuck them in, leaving them together in the dark.
A long while later, when I’m certain they’re asleep, I go back into the kitchen and serve myself the bowl of ice cream I would have eaten for dinner if they hadn’t shown up. I eat it quickly, standing against the kitchen sink, and then I wash all the dishes, making sure to dry the ice cream scoop and hide it in the back in the utensil drawer so nobody sees it. I feel stuffed and guilty now, so I decide to go to bed, hoping to fall asleep before I start listening to the voice in my head that tells me how weak I am, right before it tells me to go eat some more.
I check on Cristo and Luz just once during the night, peeking my head into the room to make sure they’re still there. They sleep in two straight lines, not touching each other, with the covers folded down at their waists, as if they don’t want to mess up the bed or take full advantage of the heat that the blankets have to offer.
The weekend is surprisingly warm, so I decide to take them to the beach. Not to Narragansett, where lots of city employees go, but all the way down to Galilee, where we’re less likely to run into anyone we know. I don’t let myself think about it, but I’m breaking the law by keeping them; I’m harboring runaways. On the other hand, it seems absurd that there could be anything wrong with what I’m doing, which feels like the most simple and correct thing I’ve done all summer. I don’t think of myself as a risk-taker, but on a scale of one to ten I’d say I’m right at thirteen—my lucky number.
As is my tradition, we eat clam cakes and chowder from Iggy’s and watch the ferries come in from Block Island. Luz stands on the breakers and waves at each passing boat for so long her arm must be sore afterwards. We got here late so the beach is mostly empty. Cristo stays in the water all afternoon, but he runs up to me occasionally, dripping cold salt water from his goose-pimpled body, and asks me if I saw him ride to the shore on a big wave, do a handstand in the shallow water, or hold that dead fish by the tail and
toss it out to sea. I say, “Yes, of course,” even if I missed the entire thing, and he beams with pride, like he has created every wonder in the ocean all by himself.
When he gets out to warm up we talk about everything but school. He asks questions about my childhood, my parents, and why I have no siblings. He wants to know how many countries I’ve been to, and why the Puerto Rican flag and the Cuban flag look so much alike. He wants to know about my favorite musician, the best meal I’ve ever had, who I dated in college, the name of my first pet, when I was the most scared in my life, how I knew I wanted to be a grammar school teacher, my birth date, my middle name, and how come I don’t wear any jewelry. He also wants to know who I love most in the world.
I do my best to be honest, but many of the answers are things I don’t want to admit to myself, let alone to one of my students. I turn the questions around and he tells me he’s never had a pet, has only been to Puerto Rico and the States, loves hip-hop, wants to be a DJ when he grows up, and gets scared anytime it’s too quiet.
When I ask him about starting school on Tuesday and going into the fifth grade, his face falls and his mood changes dramatically.
“I don’t want to go back, Teacher.”
“Come on, it’s not that bad. That’s how everyone feels in September.”
He sits down next to me, soaking the edge of my towel. “Why do I have to change teachers every year?”
“Because you get smarter every year and you need more challenges. You wouldn’t want to be fourteen and in the fourth grade would you?”
He runs his hand over the sand, smoothing out the peaks and valleys.
“But why does changing grades have to mean a new teacher? Why can’t you move with us?”
“My job is to teach the fourth grade. If I moved up to fifth, what would Mrs. Reed do?”
“You could switch with her.”
I adjust myself on the towel, bumping into his body. His skin still holds the temperature of the ocean, which cools my leg like an ice pack.
“And what about when you get to junior high, would you want me to change schools?”
This Side of Providence Page 12
