I picked up the fat envelope yesterday & taped it
to Papi’s picture on Tía’s altar in the living room.
So I tell her I will be at the airport.
I don’t tell her I’m unsure how I’ll be getting there.
Is this what sisterhood is?
A negotiation of the things you make possible
out of impossible requests?
Camino Yahaira
Mami won’t let me see the real remains.
The airline representative mails us
a catalog of all the bits of cloth,
& bone & hair & suitcase things
that probably belong to my father.
I stare at the photos. All the bits & pieces
that will be buried of Papi.
& I think about everything my father
left behind that won’t be in that box:
the swollen questions
that are bursting the seams of our lives.
The huge absence that stretches over
every waking moment.
The disrepaired—the broken that fell apart
long before his plane did.
I look at the scraps of a body
they have piled into a casket & called a man.
I know the remains are strewn around us.
In this everyday life of the left over.
Forty-Nine Days After
Before Papi is shipped to DR
Mami decides we need to hold a wake.
The funeral parlor that will ship his body
prepares for the event. No viewing.
Although Tío Jorge
seems upset with Mami
for how she spoke to him last time,
he picks us up for the wake.
When he opens the car door for me,
he grabs me up in a tight, tight hug.
I find it hard to look at him,
to smell his scent. Sometimes
if I let myself forget my father is dead
I can look at Tío Jorge & see him here
standing before me, looking so much like my father.
Tears are gathered in his eyes.
& in his choked voice.
He waves a hand in front of his face
as if it will clear both.
He tells me “I love you, Yaya. Bella negra.”
I bury my face in his neck & to myself I whisper,
Bella negra. Bella negra.
Papi’s right here. He’s with us.
Papi was embalmed in sea salt,
like an ancient insect caught in honey,
unmoving, from a different time.
Papi was always in motion,
his smile bursting forth,
bursting the way my heart feels
when I kneel at his casket
& every big emotion inside me
makes my chest shake.
But I blink away tears,
& I throw my shoulders back.
“Never let them see you sweat.
& even if you have to forfeit, smile.”
As Mami & I sit in the front row,
people come up to us to pay their respects.
Such a funny phrase, pay respects.
As if suffering is a debt that can be eased
by a hug & a head nod.
I have no need for this currency of people’s respect:
My cousins shuffle awkwardly
from foot to foot.
Dre, with Dr. Johnson beside her, sits behind me,
her hands in her lap ready to jump to my rescue.
Wilson stands with his fiancée in the back of the funeral parlor,
his big hands full of white carnations.
I cannot fold any of their respects into my dress’s pockets.
I cannot tie these respects together into a bouquet
to lay at my father’s headstone.
Their respects are quick-footed
& I am sludging through this hardened mud of loss.
Wilson is wearing a black button-down
& slacks, & on a different day,
I would joke that he looks like he’s
going to a job interview.
But, today, my father is dead.
His body that held so much noise is in a box.
& so I don’t diss Wilson,
I don’t reach for his hand;
I give him a small smile
& sit with my mother.
Papi always liked Wilson, & I wonder:
would he have been upset Wilson asked for money?
I’m not sure he would have been. He was a generous man.
I wonder if maybe I should be less angry
about something neither one of my parents
would have been angry about. But I don’t know.
I could always anticipate Papi’s moves.
His every feeling flashed across his face
like the digital ads at the bus stops.
For the rest of my life I will sit & imagine
what my father would say in any given moment.
& I will make him up:
his words, his advice, our memories.
Tomorrow morning the funeral director
will ship the body out to DR; ship the body,
as if it is an Amazon order of toilet paper or textbooks.
People come & people leave.
But Dre stays until the very end,
presses drooping carnations
into my hands, & I know she bought them
outside the train station & carried them
through rush hour & bus transfers & a walk
to give them to me. “I just wanted you
to have something . . .”
& the knot in my throat swells to twice its size,
my tongue bloated & still in the coffin of my mouth.
I nod & take them from her.
She gives my shoulder a small squeeze.
They are beautiful. I love them. I love you.
You are the only thing that does not hurt.
I try to say with my eyes since I can’t
get my mouth to make a single sound.
I don’t want to tell Dre
I am accompanying my father’s body,
but since I can’t keep a single secret from her
I blurt it out anyway. & then ask her not to ask me anything.
“I knew you were going
but lying to your moms is too much.”
Dre shakes her head with frustration.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Yaya.
We aren’t like white girls in movies
who fly off & have adventures. This sounds reckless.”
I want to agree with her, I do;
I even nod. But all I can think
is that it seems wild to me
that our family would let Papi fly alone again.
As if dying alone wasn’t enough.
Nah. I don’t tell Dre a thing.
Not as she helps me clean & collect
the condolence cards,
as Mami makes arrangements for the flowers
that will never rest at a grave.
At one point, Dre holds my hand
gently in hers, & it thaws
a part of me I didn’t even know
had been left cold.
A funeral parlor is not a romantic place
or a warm place or a place to cuddle.
Especially when it’s your own father’s death
you are there to mourn.
But curl into Dre is exactly what I want to do.
“Can I sleep over later?”
I ask her, my hand still in hers.
She gives it a squeeze. “I’d love that,
but maybe you should talk to your mom?
She seems really upset,
& you know how she is about that kind of thing.”
Mami hates the concept of sleepovers,
says our house has enough beds
&nbs
p; & what kind of sheets does someone else have
that I cannot sleep in my own?
I know what ugly looks like
when it departs from your mouth fully formed.
How the words can push space between two people;
how it’s close to impossible to collapse that space.
After the viewing, we are in a cab headed back to Morningside,
& I am hoping Mami does not say anything
but of course she does utter words:
“I think we should take a trip. For your birthday.
I think we need to get away. Somewhere far, far.
He would have wanted you to celebrate.”
& I don’t say my father also would have wanted
me at his funeral. She knows this.
I understand she’s angry at him. I am too.
But my father was a man of commemorations;
no way he would have wanted to be buried
without his child there to make sure they lowered
his casket properly; that they laid the bouquet of flowers
over his grave with the appropriate amount of respect.
& now I know my feelings flash across my face.
That is the dumbest transition I’ve ever heard.
Who is thinking about a birthday when they’re thinking
about a funeral? What could I want? What could I want?
“That’s stupid to think about.
I just want to be left alone.”
& there goes that ugly again. Like a picket fence risen
between us; we can still see each other,
but it’s a barrier too high to climb.
I tell Mami
I’m sleeping over
at Dre’s house.
I do not ask
for permission,
& although her jaw
tightens,
she does not say
a word to me.
I climb through
Dre’s window,
hauling the duffel
I packed.
Dre asks me if I
told my mother
about my plans
for the morning.
She must feel
how I get stiff
in her arms,
because she turns
on her night-light
to look at me.
“She deserves
the truth, Yaya.
I don’t want to lie.
& you know
she’s going to ask me.”
Tears prick at my eyes.
Everyone spends
years, my entire
lifetime, lying to me
about my family,
but I’m the one
who supposedly
owes people the truth?
“Dre, I don’t want
you to lie; just let me
get a head start.
I know it seems
unsafe, unkind, but
I do think it is
the right thing
for me to do.”
She doesn’t respond.
But she turns off the light
& holds me close
the whole night.
I kiss her gently
in the morning
when it’s time
for me to leave.
Fifty Days After
At the airport I stand at the check-in line
trying not to draw attention.
I’ve done the research & because I’m
sixteen going on seventeen, I fly as an adult,
not an unaccompanied minor. The only hitch
is if they ask for my mother to sign a letter of consent.
But I heard this is hit-or-miss; it just depends
on the person checking you in.
I tried to get my ticket electronically, but it kept saying error.
I am not nervous. I am not nervous.
When the man at the desk calls me forward
I hand over my passport without saying a thing.
He looks at the picture, then at me. “You’re underage.
Will you have a guardian with you?”
I shake my head no. He shakes his head sadly. “If you were
seventeen we could waive it. But as it is . . .”
Panic bubbles in my body. I can’t not go. I can’t not go.
I have to get on this flight.
I look the man at the desk straight in the eye.
He is youngish & seems new at his job.
I think of the best way to play this & decide to be up-front.
“I’m going to bury my father. My mother didn’t know
I would need a guardian.” I make myself sound confident.
I push the next words out. None of them are lies.
“My father was a passenger on flight 1112.
My father died on flight 1112. They’re flying his body,
what is left of it, out today.”
It’s the first time I’ve said the words. Although reporters
have called the house & it was all over CNN
a few weeks ago, this is the first time I have said the words.
My father died on flight 1112.
For the rest of my life I will be known by that fact.
I wipe at my eyes with the heel of my hand.
The man at the desk blinks rapidly.
He squints down at my passport.
“Looks like you’ll be seventeen soon. & really
the age restriction is more a recommendation than a requirement.”
He hands me back my passport.
Prints out a ticket & circles my gate.
Camino Yahaira
I start the sancocho
while Tía delivers a poultice
to a viejita with arthritis.
I brown the beef & chicken,
peel & chunk the yucca
& plantains.
This is the stew
we make for welcome,
& although I don’t know
if I even want this girl here,
it seems the right thing to do.
I don’t think about the money at the altar.
When Tía comes home,
I am chopping cilantro. Mashed
garlic sits in the mortar.
Usually when I cook
it’s quick things:
pastelitos, bacalao with rice. Tostones.
But sancocho is a daylong dish to make.
It has many steps; it’s making a pact with time
that you will be patient & the outcome will be delicious.
It is browning & boiling. Blending & straining.
It is meat & root vegetables. Herbs & salt.
It is hearty & made from the earth & heart.
Tía puts her bag away, turns on the kitchen radio.
Xiomara Fortuna’s voice bellows out, & soon
we are both singing along.
If Tía suspects anything, she does not let on.
She cuts avocado & puts on a pot of rice.
She removes pulp from a chinola for juice.
Tía is a tight-lipped woman with few friends;
she says she only shares her secrets with the Saints,
her silence laid out like a dance floor for magic.
Yahaira is on the same flight as Papi’s body.
I know exactly where she is in the air
without having to glance at a clock.
I’ve memorized this route
throughout my sixteen years. I don’t check
my tablet. I don’t worry about the plane.
Of course I worry about the plane.
I am sick with worry about a girl I don’t know.
My hands shake as I wipe down the kitchen counter.
I should tell Tía. But I know if I do, she will call
Yahaira’s mother. & I know if she does that,
her mother might learn about the money,
might learn what
I’ve been planning.
I light a candle at Tía’s altar & pray for safe passage
& that the crossroads be clear. & then with an hour left
of flight time, I make the phone call I’ve been dreading.
But sometimes a girl needs a favor.
I spend the entire ride in Don Mateo’s car
berating myself for agreeing
to this Yahaira’s crazy plan.
My hands are sweating. & it’s not because
the AC in Don Mateo’s car doesn’t work.
He was gruff as usual when he let me in the car
but I can tell even he’s shaken by how eerily
familiar this all seems. Last time we did this
it seems like the world ended.
I told Don Mateo I need to receive my father’s body,
not that I was picking up his other daughter.
I know he’d have told Tía immediately.
We are silent the entire ride. The closer we get
to the airport, the more I feel like I might throw up.
I try to distract myself with plans for Yahaira.
What am I going to do with a sister?
She’ll have to sleep in my bed.
She’ll probably have that gringa Spanish
& require me to translate for her.
She’s probably a comparona who will expect
me to cook & clean.
Well, I will fling her back to the States
like a bat out of a cueva if she doesn’t
act right. I should have never offered to help.
It is wrong, I know; my sister is not a comparona.
She seems kind, & thoughtful. The pain in her eyes
is a twin for the ache in mine.
I am so afraid of liking her.
Of wanting her to be my family.
My heart cannot afford any more relatives.
I realize too late I’ve bitten off half the polish on my thumbnail.
Now my manicure looks like un relajo.
I try to bite the rest of the polish off
so at least my nails will match. But it was a stupid reflex;
now I have five fucked-up nails instead of one.
Don Mateo pulls the car up to the terminal,
but I can’t get out. I reach for the handle, but
it’s like my hand gets stuck there. I can hear my breath
shudder in & out of my body, loud in my ears.
“I can take you back home, Camino.
It’s okay if I’m a little late for work.
I’m sure the officials will understand.”
I shake my head & roll my shoulders.
I’ve faced worse things than an airport.
Clap When You Land Page 13
