Everyone Knows You Go Home

by Natalia Sylvester

  But he didn’t remember everything.

  “You ever wonder why your sister and I stopped talking?” Isabel asked. She watched the car’s headlights turn the abyss ahead of them into road, her head heavy and swaying with each curve the car took.

  “I thought you just drifted apart. After you switched schools.”

  She caught his shrug in the window’s reflection. “You mean after my dad died.”

  “I didn’t realize that had anything to do with it. I’m sorry.”

  “You wouldn’t, I guess.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing. It’s just that, your sister didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, so why would you? It all makes sense now.”

  “What does?”

  “The way you all cope. Or don’t cope.”

  There’d been a few moments, during their honeymoon and ever since they had gotten home, in which Martin would grow quiet, and she would know he was thinking about his father. Each time, she’d ask if he wanted to talk about it, and each time, he’d kiss her on the forehead, as if she were the one in need of comforting, and say, “There’s really nothing to talk about.” Once, when she pressed him, saying she doubted this was true, he added curtly, “He left us without a word. Why would I give him more than that?”

  “Give me more than that,” she had wanted to say, but she had left it, like always, for later. Now her frustration had grown like a plant left in the dark, sprouting high as it searched for the light.

  She leaned into the headrest and turned to face Martin. “Our wedding night after you fell asleep, your father came back.”

  “Back? To our hotel?”

  They stopped at an intersection just off a frontage road. The Texas lone star etched onto the highway retaining wall loomed over them, and the lights beneath the overpass glowed blue and then pink, lining the edges of Martin’s face in neon. She could tell by the way he pressed his lips together that he was trying to control his emotions. Disbelief and anger, perhaps. Or a feeling of betrayal.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “I was waiting for the right time.”

  “Jesus, Isa. What did he want?”

  “Just to talk. He said he’d wanted to see your mother—”

  “My mother?” He started rubbing his hands against the steering wheel.

  “And your sister, too, but it didn’t work out. So he came to us. I was the only one awake,” she added, her voice trailing off upon stating the obvious.

  When they finally pulled into their complex, he shot her an expectant glance. “Well, what did he tell you?”

  “Nothing important. We just . . . got acquainted with one another.”

  A small huff escaped his nose. “How nice for you both.” He got out of the car and grabbed a few things from the trunk; everything shook as he slammed it shut. The lights inside the car dimmed, as if no longer sensing that Isabel was there, and she let herself, for that small moment, blend into the quiet parking lot. She saw Martin look back at her from the door of their duplex, but she wasn’t in a rush to catch up.

  By the time she went inside, Martin was in bed with an unopened book in his lap. He pretended not to notice as she undressed, washed her face, and dabbed the skin around her eyes with cream.

  When she finally climbed into bed, he fanned the pages of his book and sighed into their breeze. “So you like him?”

  She shrugged. “I barely know him.”

  He looked down at his lap and nodded, as if this were something he understood. “My mom used to tell me stories about my great-uncle on her dad’s side, how he died on a night there was a blackout because they hadn’t been able to pay the electric bill, and so that Day of the Dead and for years after, they would set up his altar and turn on all the lights in the house. They wanted him to be at peace. They wanted him to know they were all right.” Martin laughed, bringing his hands to his mouth. “I don’t know what kind of peace my father thinks he deserves now. But he’s not going to get it from me, or my mom and sister. And if he thinks he can use you to get to us . . .”

  “That’s not what he was doing,” Isabel said, picking at the lint on their bedspread. “No one called to tell you he died?”

  “Who would’ve? When I tell you he left, Isa, it’s like he might as well have died. One day to the next, the guy was gone. Nothing. It doesn’t matter now anyways.”

  But it did. “He said he’ll be back. To try to speak to you again.”

  Martin laughed. “He’d have better luck coming back to life.”

  “So that’s it? You’d turn him away? After all he went through to see you?”

  “This is exactly what I was afraid of. Why are we still talking about him? Why does everything have to be about him?”

  “Because nothing is ever about him!” The words shot out of her. The silence between them trembled, failing to mask the shock of it. She placed his hand in hers, turning onto her side to get closer.

  “Is it really so much to ask? That I love you and I want to know all about you?”

  “I’m not my father, Isa. And he’s not some cheat sheet into who I am. I can’t believe you even think you’d need one.”

  This idea struck her as both painful and sweet, but that she didn’t know how her husband intended it only underscored what she had meant to say. Maybe this is what Martin had meant about his father. Some people trail nothing but trouble into others’ lives, and everyone is better off once they are gone.

  “This whole thing is ridiculous,” she finally said. “I’m sorry to dwell on it.”

  Slowly, he raised the back of her hand to his lips, giving it a cold, moist peck. “Don’t be. Just promise me you won’t tell anyone. I don’t want my mom finding out about him.”

  “You think he’d hurt her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he ever?”

  “I don’t know. Most people would have a yes or no answer to that question, but I have no idea. I’d believe it either way.”

  In time, she forced herself to push away the memory of Omar. Sometimes when she drifted off to sleep, and her thoughts went back to the night of the wedding, she wasn’t entirely sure if he was a memory or a dream. She would wake up and tiptoe to the kitchen, serve herself a cup of warm milk, and check her emails and read the day’s news on her phone. This act made her feel like she was replacing one kind of thought with another, the more ethereal with the more concrete, but when she finished, she always felt unsettled and unfulfilled.

  She tried to find subtle ways to ask Claudia about her father, but every time Isabel got up the courage to call, she got her voicemail. Call me when you land, she would text her, but Claudia would only text back, everything ok?

  Just calling to say hi.

  Thanks. Super tired can we talk at my mom’s? But they rarely did.

  With the coming of the new year, Isabel resolved to focus on her life ahead with Martin: now, next year, and the next five after that. They created plans, budgets, goals.

  They were driving to a movie one Sunday when Isabel saw a handwritten “Open House” sign and yelled for Martin to make a U-turn. She had nearly missed it among a sea of signs for the latest model-home development that had broken ground on what used to be a citrus farm.

  “We’ll miss the movie,” Martin said, but it was a statement, not a protest.

  A young real estate agent handed them flyers as soon as they walked in. The place was a relic, untouched since the early ’80s, but it had good bones. It felt familiar in a way that the scattered strip malls and gated neighborhoods that had sprouted in McAllen never could. Here—within these sun-yellowed walls and slanted ceilings that peaked like the perfect triangle in a child’s crayon drawing of a home—would be where life happened.

  CHAPTER 2

  MARCH 1981

  “Everyone carries their own water,” he told them, and then, when all he got in response were confused glances in his direction—six skittish sets of eyes refusing to make contac
t—he repeated himself slowly.

  “Agua. Cada uno carga su propia agua.”

  The migrants nodded in near unison. The two men stood up from the carpet, dragging their feet as they made their way to the small dresser in the motel room to collect a canteen for each member of the group.

  The coyote tried not to look at their cracked, dirty hands wrapping themselves around the shiny metal. The canteens, aside from the gas money he had paid a friend to drop him off on this side of the border, were his biggest expense. He had been told the migrants would likely bring their own, but anything could’ve happened to them during the long trek behind them. Some were robbed, others simply lost their belongings, too exhausted to keep track. So he brought extras. He would collect them upon arrival, along with the rest of his fees.

  The men returned to the corner of the room where they had all been huddling, each holding two canteens of water. One of the men’s wife, girlfriend, whatever, looked up at him with her arms crossed, mumbling something about bringing two more for their friend. Of the group, she was the only one not paired with a man. Instead, she clung to her little girl, who couldn’t have been more than five or six.

  He had said no children, and here there were two. At least the other was a boy, a few years older, who looked about the same age as he had been when he first started working the fields. Boys can endure the heat, he thought, turning away from the little girl and the two women. Ninety-nine degrees in the middle of this desert, and they looked like they were freezing their asses off.

  It was 4:25 in the morning. He had already made them use the bathroom before they left. Soon he would check out of the motel room, and they would follow him seven blocks toward the highway. They would turn north, hugging the edge of the road before merging into the brush well ahead of the river. The rest was deceptively simple, miles and miles of walking and enduring what he knew they could not yet imagine. He had done it countless times, but today was the first trip he was leading alone.

  “Texas is not like back home,” he said, this time trying not to look at them. “It’s like being in an oven. Keep moving and you won’t bake.”

  This, the coyote didn’t have to repeat. But just as he placed his hand on the doorknob, he heard the deep voice of one of the migrants behind him give a few words of encouragement to the group. The migrant paused when he noticed the little girl also listening. He knelt to look at her and urged her to drink from his canteen.

  “Ready for a little adventure?” the migrant said to her.

  As if he had asked all of them, the group nodded.

  The migrant stood up straight, no taller than two or three inches above the rest, but leaner, with a much more athletic build than the other man among them. He wore a blue-and-gray-striped shirt and a black backpack that rested high against him, its top loop nearly touching the base of his neck.

  Mr. Hero, the coyote thought, and he knew that the nickname would stick, if only in his mind, because this was the one the group would follow.

  Himself, he was just the guide, the one who knew the way, and to cross they would need more than directions. It always happened this way: hope and strength had to spring from somewhere. He was just relieved to see it surface so soon.

  He watched them gather their canteens and plastic bags full of photos and clothes. As they stepped through the motel door after him, he counted their brown-haired heads. Six. He had been told to expect seven, but he knew better than to ask after the missing. He did the familiar math, counting the days and the hungry stomachs of his children waiting back home. Six could still be enough, so long as another group soon followed.

  “Vamos,” he said, louder than he should have in this kind of darkness.

  CHAPTER 3

  NOVEMBER 2, 2013

  YEAR ONE: PAPER

  On Saturday, the morning of her one-year anniversary, Isabel woke thinking of Omar. She doubted she would see him again, or at least, she convinced herself that she doubted she would see him again, because she knew that when one expects something it never happens, and when one doesn’t, it does. She rolled onto the center of the bed and placed her arm over Martin’s chest. Martin’s agency was shooting a commercial for one of their newest clients, and this was his first time managing such a big account on his own. Isabel hadn’t gotten the day off either, but she was grateful not to work an overnight shift so they could celebrate their anniversary in the evening.

  “Good morning, husband.” The sound of it hadn’t gotten old. Older couples were constantly warning them that marriage is hard work and full of surprises. Their first year had seen both. In April, the house flooded; in June, the raise Martin was counting on fell through; and in August, they had a pregnancy scare they never thought they would consider a scare.

  “Hold on tight and you’ll come out of it stronger.” That was what Elda loved to say. Isabel no longer brushed this off without a second thought.

  They got ready for work as usual. Their bathroom sinks were crammed so closely that they were constantly bumping into each other as they reached for a towel or a comb. Martin took the chance to punctuate each slight encounter with a peck. A kiss on the neck. One on Isabel’s shoulder. A tug of her arm as she put away her toothbrush, and he pulled her into a quick embrace.

  Normal mornings, there was no time for these things. But if she got no other gift for their anniversary, Isabel was grateful that her husband understood true romance is about infusing small moments with simple bliss.

  She waved goodbye to Martin as he backed out of the garage, then began gathering her things. She reached into the refrigerator and nearly dropped her lunch bag as she caught sight of a dark figure behind the door.

  A shriek scratched her throat. “Mother fucker!” she yelled, then cupped her mouth, eyes wide with embarrassment upon realizing it was her father-in-law.

  Omar burst into laughter, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down at her crudeness. “I’m sorry. It’s just that hearing you curse is like catching a ballerina farting.”

  “God, Omar.” She tried to hide a smile as she stood over the sink. Her arms felt conspicuously still—it didn’t seem right to hug him, but it didn’t seem right not to. They had only met one day, exactly a year ago.

  “I know you’re late for work,” he said. “I just thought I’d catch you alone, just a minute or two.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be back.” She wondered if Omar could sense white lies, if there was a tangible difference between them and deceit.

  “You’re in a hurry. I understand. Go, go.”

  “Where will you go instead?”

  “Oh, you know. Maybe haunt some old girlfriends. Help a couple of friends cheat at poker.”

  One tremble of his lips was enough to make Isabel call in sick. Everything else seemed unimportant. Not giving Omar a few hours of her time would be like turning down a beggar’s plea for the pennies she had found along the sidewalk. How unfair that we dispose of the indispensable.

  “Give me a second, okay?”

  After she finished dialing work, her first instinct was to offer him something to drink.

  “Ten years ago I would’ve asked you for a scotch, straight.”

  “But you can’t drink anymore?”

  “Can’t, don’t need to. The body becomes unimportant, you know. I’m not sure how else to explain it.”

  “Can you not feel anything?”

  He smiled. “On the contrary. Sometimes I think I feel too much.” He pulled at his shirt collar, loosening it as he twisted his neck side to side. He was wearing a thin, long-sleeved shirt that reminded her of the pages of an old library book, and worn, dark jeans with a brown-leather belt that had a buckle the size of his fist. There was not even four feet of space between them, and as she watched his movements, she realized they were muted. No bones cracking. No clothes scratching against themselves or even the small release of a sigh, though she could see his chest expanding as he looked into her eyes.

  “Does it hurt? Coming here?”

>   He paced their living room, tracing the perimeter of their wooden shelves and the glass doors that led to the backyard. It was ten in the morning, and the sunlight bathed the room. He passed framed pictures from their wedding, honeymoon, a Sunday dinner at Elda’s with the family, and a snapshot of Isabel and Martin sitting on the grass at an outdoor concert. Each image held his attention for a few seconds before he moved on to the next.

  “It seems to take an eternity while I’m gone and passes in a flash once I’m here,” he said. “But I guess that’s no different from life. Tell me what I missed. How was your year?”

  If anyone else had asked, she would have said, “Great,” and she would have been satisfied with this simple word substituting for a conversation of any substance. Sometimes it was just easier than being honest.

  “I guess when we look back at our first year, decades from now, we’ll only really think of one or two definitive moments. The rest will be a blur. It’s sad, if you think about it.”

  She served herself a cup of juice and moved to the couch, hoping he would do the same. But he seemed determined to keep some space between them, the way a stranger maintains his distance in a crowded line.

  “So tell me, what are the one or two moments that come to mind for this year? Don’t think too hard about it. Just the first two that come to mind.”

  Of course she couldn’t just give him her thoughts, unfiltered.

  “When we moved from our apartment, the day we had to turn it over to the landlord, I took the day off from work, but Martin couldn’t. So we rented a truck the night before, and since he didn’t want to leave it full of all our belongings overnight, we woke up at four in the morning to load our boxes and furniture. I don’t know why I think of that now. We were so careful to keep quiet. It felt like we were thieves, stealing our whole lives away. The sun was just rising by the time we finished. I remember watching Martin stretch his arm to pull down the truck door and being amazed that this is all we amounted to.”

  “Amazed or scared?”

  “Both,” she admitted. “I was scared that we could leave it all behind. But it was comforting, too. The idea of just us and a clean slate. That it would still be us no matter where we went.” She remembered watching him latch the lock on the truck door, with baby rays of sunlight hugging his back. “Most days I think of Martin as an extension of me. It’s an oversimplification, but just in the everyday, when I think of us as a whole, we’re this unified front.”