“I thought you only like junk food?” she says, noticing the food spilling from my bags and onto the sidewalk.
“No, I like real food, too.” I bend down to pick up the onions that slipped out, each one hard like a baseball. “I just don’t like to cook it.”
“So who’s going to cook all that?” She reaches for the twine before it rolls into the gutter.
“Mami. Who else?”
“She’s back?” Graciela’s kneeling next to me now, helping me repack the bags. I feel my face starting to get hot, but I try to keep my voice calm.
“What do you mean ‘back’?”
“Nothing. I just heard she was away for a while.”
I look over at her. I can tell by the look on her face she’s not trying to be mean.
“My uncle went away once,” she says. “For a long time. And when he came back my cousins didn’t even recognize him.”
“Well, Mami wasn’t gone that long.”
“That’s good.” She stands up and brushes off her knees. Then she holds out her hand to help me up. I don’t want her help, but I take her hand anyway, just to touch her.
“You wanna come over and meet her? You can eat dinner with us.”
I want to keep holding her hand, but she pulls it away to pick up her backpack, putting both shoulder straps on like she’s about to go hiking.
“You sure it’s okay?”
“Course it is. It’s my home, too.”
I don’t really want her to meet Mami yet, but I do want to show her that I live in a real apartment with heat and electricity and a TV that works. When some other kids from school found out I was living in the shelter they teased me about being homeless until Mrs. Reed threatened to send them outside to pick up garbage. Graciela wasn’t part of the group that messed with me, but I still saw pity in her eyes when she looked at me that day during recess and I want her to know she can save that for someone who really needs it.
She offers to help me carry something, so I give her the smallest bag, with green bananas, a half gallon of milk, and the pork shoulder, and we decide to ditch the bus and walk to my house together. It’s dark by now and there aren’t a lot of people on the street. An old lady passes us and smiles, probably thinking we’re brother and sister, or maybe the youngest married couple in America. The thought of marrying Graciela, of being old enough to marry anyone, gives me butterflies. I smile at her but she’s looking for a break in the traffic and doesn’t see it. When we step into the street, she puts her arm in front of me, to make sure I don’t step out too far, like a mother would. Normally, someone trying to take care of me like that would piss me off, but I like when she does it. It’s only her jacket that’s touching me but it still feels good.
“You never told me if you liked the valentine,” I say, when we’re a few blocks from the house.
She stops to look at me. “Wait, that was from you?”
I nod, watching her face change as she pretends to get mad. She swats me on the arm. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or at least sign your name?” She hits me again, softer this time, and we both start to laugh.
“I thought you could figure it out.”
“Well, yeah, I kind of thought it was from you. But I didn’t want to embarrass myself by saying anything. I thought it might be a joke, from one of the other boys.”
“It wasn’t a joke,” I say, shifting the weight of the bags in my hands.
“Good,” she says. “It was beautiful. I still have it, in my locker at school. But I already memorized it.”
Damn. I copied it over a bunch of times, and even I don’t know it by heart.
She starts walking again. “I didn’t know you liked poetry.”
“I don’t, not really. But it just made sense to me. Even in English.”
“Your English is good now, you’re just too close to hear for yourself. I bet you could take the test for Regular Ed and pass just fine.”
I shake my head. “I’m not taking that test. Ever.”
“That’s too bad,” she says, slowing down to let me catch up. “They’re switching me next fall. They said I could go now but I wanted to stay with Mrs. Reed, just to finish out the year in one place.”
“I guess everybody moves up eventually.”
“Isn’t that the point? We are in America now.”
“You say that like this place isn’t filled with immigrants.”
“Of course it is,” she says, laughing. “It was founded by immigrants.”
“Right. And sometimes I think if enough of us keep speaking Spanish then maybe we won’t have to get rid of it completely. We can somehow keep both.”
“I don’t think they want us to keep both. My father says the government thinks we’re disloyal if we don’t speak their language. He could get fired if they ever hear him speaking Spanish at work.”
“If they did that in this neighborhood nobody would have a job.”
When we come around the corner I see the green Honda from the liquor store parked in front of our house. No sign of the guy who was driving. I walk up the steps quickly, forgetting to let Graciela go in front of me. I unlock the door and walk into the living room. The apartment looks empty. My heart is beating so fast I think I’m going to faint. All the lights are off except for the ones in the kitchen. A six-pack of beer sits on the table, missing two bottles. Corona Light, just like Lucho used to buy. Lucho. Of course. Anger floods my body and I feel like I’m gonna faint. She must be doing good if she got a new car.
I check Mami’s bedroom from the hallway, see the door closed. I don’t call her name, my plan is to just open the door, but at the last second I get scared and decide to knock.
“Oh, fuck,” somebody says, and I hear the sound of glass clinking and bodies shuffling around.
“Mami?”
“Just a sec, Cristo.”
I try to open the door but it’s locked.
“Mami, open the door. Who’s in there with you?” I pound on the door. “Is Lucho in there?” I kick the door a few times, leaving gray smudges on the paint. My toes start to hurt but I don’t stop kicking.
When the door opens I see Lucho first. She’s standing next to the bed, trying to look relaxed. She has an empty beer bottle in her hand. The other one, half full, is on the nightstand.
“Hey kid, how’s it going?”
I ignore Lucho, figuring that’s better than what I want to say to her. Mami’s leaning against the wall behind the door. She’s wearing pajama bottoms and a shirt that’s only buttoned halfway. Her eyes are small and her face looks flat, like she was just slapped.
“What time is it?” She pushes her hair out of her face several times. “You must be starved.” There’s something small tucked into her shirt pocket, and she touches it a few times to make sure it’s still there.
She walks by me, picking up a glass of water from the dresser before leaving the room. The air is filled with a sour heat, and I can smell cheap incense burning. There’s something horribly familiar about this moment.
“What the hell is Lucho doing here?” I ask, following Mami down the hall. “When did she get back?”
She stops short in the dining room. “Who’s this?” She points at Graciela, standing in the middle of the dark room, still holding the bag of groceries. I forgot she was here.
I take the shopping bag out of her hand and put it on the floor. “Thanks.” I grab her sleeve and walk her to the front door. “You should go now, okay?”
“Is everything all right?”
“Sure, of course. I just forgot we had plans. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
“It’s not a problem—”
“Okay, good. See you later.” I close the door on her face.
When I get back to the kitchen Mami is unpacking the food. She keeps putting the same items in and out of the bag.
“I don’t see any meat,” she says. “I thought I told you to get meat.”
“It must be in the other bag.”
“Can you brin
g it to me?” Her voice is sharp. “It might be nice to get a little help around here.”
I’m so shocked I can’t even say anything. I get the other bag from the floor and carry it into the kitchen. When I come back in, Lucho has her foot on a chair and she’s bending over to tie her shoe. Just seeing her do something that casual, as if she lives here, makes me furious. My voice comes back suddenly, spraying out of me like vomit.
“You want this bag? Here, take it. Take it all.” I dump it onto the kitchen floor, watching the pork roll over the bananas, splitting their green skins, as milk spills from the dented carton.
“Cristo, what the hell are you doing?” Mami stands there, an onion in each hand, and for a second I think she’s going to throw them at me.
“What am I doing? I’m doing your errands, that’s what I’m doing.” I pick up the six-pack, waving it in front of her face. “What the hell are you doing, Mami?”
Lucho drops her foot onto the ground. “Hey, watch your mouth.”
I step toward her. “Are you kidding me? You can’t tell me what to do. You don’t live here.”
Mami looks at Lucho and shakes her head. “Leave him alone,” she says.
She walks over to the spilled food, her flip-flops making tracks in the milk. When she bends down, two bottle caps fall out of her pocket and roll under the oven. She hurries to pick them up, tucking them back into her pocket without even wiping off the dust.
“Get out of our house,” I yell, walking toward Lucho. “You don’t belong here.” I shove the six-pack into her hands.
She takes a few steps back. “Come on, Cristo, you just need to calm down. Can’t we talk about this?”
“You wanna talk? Okay. Let’s start with why you left us. Let’s talk about that.”
Lucho looks at Mami, who is still kneeling on the ground, now counting the green bananas.
“Don’t look at me,” she says to Lucho. “This is between the two of you.”
Lucho turns back to me. She clears her throat before speaking. “I’m sorry, kid. I wish it hadn’t turned out like that. I really do.”
“Save it for someone who cares.”
Lucho shrugs. “Listen, if I could go back and change things I would. I hope you believe that.”
“Are you kidding me? I don’t believe a word you say.”
Lucho stands there for a minute, then picks up her sweatshirt and walks out of the room. Mami follows her to the front door, carrying the bananas in her shirt like she used to do when I was little and we’d pick our dinner from the vegetable garden. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but I see Mami put her hand on Lucho’s chest as she says good-bye. That’s the only time I see them touch.
After Lucho leaves, Mami locks the dead bolt and pulls the chain lock through a deep groove carved into the wood, a homemade security system. She rests her head against the door, tapping it repeatedly, a little harder every time.
“Knock it off, Mami. You trying to give yourself a concussion?”
“I’m just trying to wake up,” she says.
I pull her away from the door. “You’re awake,” I say.
Her eyes fill with tears and she looks away from me.
“Don’t do that,” I say. “You don’t get to cry yet.”
She closes her eyes and sniffs loudly, trying to pull herself together. I soften my voice, so I don’t sound like I’m yelling at her, but it doesn’t work. The anger can’t seem to find another way out of my body.
“When did it start?”
She shakes her head.
“When?” I ask again, my voice suddenly louder.
She looks down, like she’s reading the answers off the floor.
“It’s only been a few weeks,” she says.
“The drinking?”
She nods.
“And the rest?”
She closes her eyes.
“Don’t make me check your room.” I sound like I’m her father, which would make me laugh if I wasn’t so pissed off.
She looks at me and then looks away. “It’s just a slip, Cristo. It’s not going to happen again.”
“Why’d you stop going to those meetings? I thought they made it better.”
She takes a deep breath, refusing to look at me. “Sometimes they did. But sometimes just being there made me want to kill myself.”
“Don’t say that, Mami.”
“It’s just an expression. You know what I mean.”
But I don’t know what she means. She sits down on the couch, leaving room on either side of her. I want to sit down, but something tells me I have to stand to make it through this conversation.
“Are you still taking your medication?”
She nods. “Most days.”
“I thought it was bad, to mix drugs together.”
She exhales. “I’m sure it is.”
I see my reflection in the windowpane and for a second I think it’s someone else. Someone I recognize but haven’t seen in a long time.
“What about probation? Couldn’t they send you back if they found something?”
“They’re not going to find anything. This is it, it’s over.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe you.”
She looks at me, her eyes filled with tears again. “I don’t want to be like this. You have to believe that, Cristo.”
I look at her feet, which are so small she’s wearing a pair of Luz’s shoes. “I do,” I tell her. “I believe you. But it’s not enough anymore.”
“Don’t say that, Cristo.”
I stare at my reflection again, trying so hard to recognize myself. “I thought being here would make it different, better somehow, but it’s still the same.”
“No, it’s not.” She shakes her head again and again like she’s in a trance. “I’m not the same.” She looks down at her hands, like they can prove what she’s saying is true. The skin is dry and wrinkled like an old lady’s. “I promise I’m not,” she says softly.
I can feel myself wanting to cry, so I bite the insides of my cheeks. I’m still mad, but her voice is starting to break me.
“I know you tried, Mami. I can see that.”
“I did it for almost nine months. I was clean for nine whole months.” She locks her fingers together, cupping her hands around her knees like she’s giving herself a hug. I wish I could comfort myself like that. “I can do it again, Cristo. I can get back there.”
“But I can’t, Mami. I can’t go back there.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” She leans onto her knees. Her elbows are so bony it’s got to hurt.
“Do you know what I did every day, when I was waiting for you to come back home? I don’t mean school or taking care of Luz and Trini, I’m talking about what I did in my head?” She looks at me like I’m speaking in another language. “I tried to forget.”
“Forget what?”
I take a deep breath but no words come to me. Instead, I see old clips running through my head: the loud, angry fights Mami and Scottie used to have, and later, the long, drawn-out silences with Lucho; the empty fridge when there was no money or all-night binges when there was too much; strangers stopping by in the middle of the night, asking to borrow things they would never return; the sound of television turned up too loud; flowers rotting on the kitchen table; the smell of cheap cigarettes and liquor, of men with dirt or blood under their fingernails and women with too much perfume, covering not just body odor, but sickness and the dried-out smell of a hunger that will never go away; the constant sight of Mami in pajamas, not able to shower, dress, or leave her room for days, chewing on her fingernails, on ice, on one of Trini’s old pacifiers—anything to keep her mouth busy, to keep her from having to explain it all to us.
“It’s not fair,” I finally say. “None of this is fair.”
She shakes her head. “You’re right, mijo.”
Not fair to ask me to forget, but also, to ask her to change.
“I don’t think I can stay here anymore.
Not when you’re like this.” I’m surprised that the words come out of me, and that my voice sounds so calm.
She drops her head into her arms. “Dios mio,” she says softly.
“I’m sorry, Mami.”
She keeps her head down. “Where you gonna go?”
“I don’t know yet. But I can’t stay here. I can’t watch you do this anymore.”
“You were the one I trusted. To stay with me. To never leave.”
And now I want to take it all back. I want to hug her and say it’s okay, that I will stay, that I’ll never leave, but something won’t let me do it. I have to blink to keep myself from crying.
“Just until you get clean, okay? When you’re ready, we’ll all come back. Trini, Luz, all of us.”
She lets out a small laugh, but her face isn’t smiling. “Okay,” she says. “I guess you know what you want.”
“I want you to get better,” I tell her. “So you gotta promise me one thing, okay? That you’ll keep taking your medicine. No matter what.”
She nods. A passing car catches her eye and she squints against the headlights. She stands up and pulls the shades down. With her back to me she says, “Will you put all the pills into that box you got me, with the different days? It helps me remember.”
“Sure, I can do that.”
When she’s done pulling the shades she turns around to face me. Her eyes are glassy but she doesn’t allow herself to cry.
“You know what’s messed up? Using hurts just as much as not using did.”
It’s one of the only things she’s said all day that I believe.
“So why do you do it?”
She tucks her hands into her armpits, twisting back and forth like a little girl.
“I can’t control it. It’s an addiction, you know, like when you want something really bad and you have to have it, even if it’s not good for you.”
“Like too much candy on Halloween?”
“Exactly like that. It controls you. It takes over your mind and makes you think you can’t live without it.” She scratches her arms, leaving long red streaks on her pale skin. After she rubs them away, she starts the scratching all over again.
“But I thought you were okay before, when you got out. You seemed fine. I thought you didn’t need it anymore.”
This Side of Providence Page 34
