“Is he still obsessed with that Sam Smith song?” Claudia asked one afternoon. She was never in town long enough to watch him, but she called from time to time to ask how he was doing.
“How’d you know about the song?” Isabel asked. He had been blasting it as if it were an anthem for days. It was a typical, desperate ballad, and the chorus was just the singer pleading someone not to leave, over and over.
“Mom’s always singing the chorus. And then it gets stuck in my head, too.”
“He’ll get tired of it eventually,” Isabel said, making her way to the laundry room.
“I hope. It’s really annoying. And depressing.”
“Well, he’s going through a lot.” She opened the washing machine and poured detergent in hurriedly, letting the water scorch her fingertips.
“I guess. I don’t know how you do it.”
“Well, lucky for you, you’re never around.” The lid fell forward and slammed shut, punctuating her words. It was the truest thing she had said to Claudia in years, and surprisingly gratifying. She tried imagining her on the other line: the shock and shame of it.
“It’s just work is crazy right now.” Claudia grew quiet, more subdued. “You know how it is.”
“I sure do.” It was hard for Isabel to stop, knowing she was in the right.
“I have to go. Tell Martin I said hi.”
“Yup. Sure thing.”
On her way back to her bedroom she stopped to ask Eduardo about the books Elda had lent him a few weeks ago. All his peers were reading from the same list that summer, and she had thought it would help him transition into his new school.
“I already finished them.” In his right palm he squeezed a stress ball Isabel had gotten from the hospital. It was blue, with the logo for an antianxiety medication in white, and he kept his eyes on it as he spoke.
“Which was your favorite?”
The ball wheezed in his hands as he thought it over. “The short one.” When Isabel didn’t respond, he added, “I’ll give them back to her. I promise.”
It was ten till seven, and Martin would be home soon. She decided to change the subject and asked if he had any clothes that needed to be washed.
Between patient rounds and on her lunch breaks, Isabel often scoured the Internet for answers to questions it seemed no one had ever asked. Not even Google autopopulated the blank search bar when, in a moment of desperation, she typed, how to handle immigrant child’s unaccompanied arrival. The list of lawyers and therapists was bookmarked on her browser, visited only online, because when they had finally approached Eduardo about it, he said he wasn’t ready.
Give him time was the blanket advice. They did what they could to help him adjust, rarely giving much thought to whether or not they were adjusting at all. They could hardly see through the fog of their exhaustion. It wasn’t that Eduardo had taken over their lives; it was like they had taken over someone else’s, and no one was coming to reclaim it.
Two weeks before the new school year, they went to Target and bought Eduardo a backpack full of fresh pens and pencils, a stack of notebooks, a set of highlighters, and a three-ring binder. As usual, the total came out to more than Isabel had expected. It was the same crazy math that was taking her by surprise recently at the end of month when she saw the water bill, the electric bill, and the credit card statement.
In the car, Eduardo thanked them and said it was too much, that he didn’t need so many school supplies. But Martin insisted.
“You’re going to be a Green Jay. And a junior,” he said, as if Eduardo needed reminding. Isabel had hoped the administrators would place Eduardo in tenth grade, a year behind his age group, but they hadn’t felt it was necessary.
“We just want you to have whatever you need to feel ready,” Isabel added.
He just stared out the window and chuckled as if he had remembered an old joke. “Being ready’s like learning to swim without water.”
“Worthless until you’re drowning,” Martin said. He took his eye off the road for a quick moment to look at Isabel. “It’s something my father loved to say.”
“Really?” It was the first time Martin had mentioned Omar since the day Eduardo went missing. She twisted in her seat to see if Eduardo also remembered. “Like when?”
Martin cut Eduardo off before he could answer. “Ever since I was little. He refused to put training wheels on my bicycle. Said I’d learn more from the fall than the safety.”
Eduardo looked like he wanted to say something, but just then the railroad crossing down the road lit up, its bells and red lights going off in tandem. A group of joggers along the sidewalk bobbed in place, and Martin put the car in park. They all grew quiet, watching the train approach.
“Who can guess how many cars will pass?” Martin said. “I bet forty-eight.”
Neither Isabel nor Eduardo felt like counting. It seemed the cars were being dragged, so very slowly, down the tracks. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Eduardo’s head turn to follow them.
“Omar was right, you know. The first time we tried getting on the train together, I told him it was going too fast. He said the train would be gone by the time we were ready. He said the only right time to jump is when you think it’s too soon.” Eduardo rested his elbow on the door and his chin in his hand, his fingers stretched casually over his lips.
“We don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” Martin said.
Isabel unsnapped her seat belt, sending it flying across her chest and against the window. She shot Martin a perturbed look and turned to Eduardo. “But if you do, we’re here to listen.”
She could tell by the way his head moved that Martin had rolled his eyes at her. Eduardo turned away, which shouldn’t have been surprising. Of course he would follow his uncle’s lead.
“There’s not much more to tell. That’s it really.” The train finished passing, its cars uncounted as the trio headed home.
In their bedroom, Isabel turned on the radio and waited for Martin to step into their bathroom. It was the point farthest away from Eduardo’s room, and she didn’t want to risk him hearing them.
“How could you shut him out like that?”
“I was just trying to make him comfortable.”
She hated how innocently he said this. “You made yourself comfortable.”
“Didn’t you see him? The kid’s torn up into little pieces.” He rubbed his fingers together, as if he were sprinkling confetti over the bathroom counter. “Whatever happened with him and Omar fucked him up.”
“He’s not the only one.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” They were speaking in whispers now, quiet, calculated daggers.
“There’s something you’re not telling me. I’m not an idiot.” When he didn’t respond she thought of how much about him she didn’t know, and it made her voice shake as she chose her words. “Until you can work through whatever issues you have with your father, you won’t be able to help Eduardo. Not in any way that’s meaningful.”
In October the school began preparing for Halloween. Cheerleaders hung ghosts made from pillowcases on tree branches, and students lined the entrance with fake cobwebs. The long, narrow pickup area by the side of the building needed no such decorations; it was packed with cars, teachers, and students all seeming to know where they were going. Every time it was her turn to pick up Eduardo, just the sight of the campus filled Isabel with dread. She would spend the drive home asking him if he had learned anything new, or what homework he had been assigned—any question that didn’t warrant a one-word response. There was no predicting Eduardo’s moods. One day he told her that they were decorating his history classroom for el Día de los Muertos. His teacher had draped a band of marigolds over a fake gravestone and hung strings of papel-picado cutouts in pink, orange, and blue along the windows. He smiled and showed her the sugar skull he had made, but when she asked if they would be making altars, too, he just shrugged and stared out the window.
T
hey asked Elda what she thought about his behavior, and she suggested he see the migrant counselor at the school. “Trust me. I worked with high school students for more than twenty years.” (She always said this.) “His situation may not be exactly like the migrant kids’. But just because he’s not missing months at a time to work the fields doesn’t mean he’s not struggling with fitting in, on top of everything else he’s been through.”
All Eduardo ever said was that he would think about it.
Eventually, Martin began emailing his teachers and cc’ing Isabel in all his messages, which were riddled with the type of urgent but nonchalant corporate clichés that made it easy for everyone to not bother responding. The one teacher who got back to them answered in short, unspecific anecdotes that weren’t much help at first.
Eduardo keeps to himself, as can be expected for a new student, Miss Cantú wrote. A week later, I notice he seems more comfortable drawing attention to himself. And then, Mr. and Mrs. Bravo, it’d be helpful if you spoke to Eduardo about the right time and place for jokes. If he’s not careful, I worry he could be expelled.
The next day, Isabel and Martin somehow managed to move their schedules and arrange a meeting with Miss Cantú in person. It turned out Eduardo had become the class clown. On a day the students were particularly rowdy, she had told them they were acting like misfits, and he took it as a cue to tell them that this was nothing, that his last teacher had gotten held up at gunpoint in the middle of a lesson and never came back.
“That crossed a line,” Miss Cantú said. She was probably two years out of college but had the voice of a middle-aged smoker. “I told him next time, I’d have to report him for threatening a teacher. Gun violence is not taken lightly around here, and I won’t have my students making up stories just for popularity points.”
Like any parents would, they promised to speak with him, but they were more afraid that he might be telling the truth. That afternoon, they had him sit across from them in the dining room as they held each other’s hands under the table. Martin’s palm was sticky and dewy, but Isabel gave him a gentle squeeze and he exhaled.
“We spoke to Miss Cantú. She thinks you’re lying to the class to get attention.”
“Why would I do that?” Eduardo sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. His foot bumped into Isabel’s as he spread his legs across the floor, and he mumbled an apology.
“We know you wouldn’t,” she said. “But maybe you just have to be careful about the things you tell people. Bringing up guns in school . . . it’s not okay here. It can be taken the wrong way.”
“That’s funny. I thought the wrong way was holding a gun up to your teacher so you can kidnap a bunch of students and make them sell drugs for you. But I guess it’s just talking about it that’s wrong.”
“That’s not what Isabel meant. It’s complicated.”
She watched Eduardo pick at a dried-up grain of rice that’d slipped between the cracks of the wood. When he couldn’t get it out with his nail, he took a pen out of his jeans pocket.
“No shit. Because one minute everyone’s like, I’m too quiet, I should try to make friends, and the next no one wants to hear what I’m saying.” He pushed the rice around with the ballpoint, hunched over as if he were writing.
“Miss Cantú says the students like you,” Martin said.
“Yeah. They’re always laughing at my stories. They think it’s funny.” The grating of the pen grew furious, and then it stopped as he lifted his head to look at them. The room was so quiet, Isabel could hear the silence ringing in her ears. She tried to put herself in his place, in a new high school with no friends and nothing but a classroom full of strangers who heard you, but didn’t listen. It was not so hard to imagine, after all. Just a simple matter of remembering.
“Maybe you don’t need a lot of friends,” Isabel said. “Just one or two really good ones.”
Eduardo raised his eyebrows and gave her an incredulous smile. “You think I don’t try? What’s the point, Tía? I’d just rather be alone than feel alone.”
He excused himself, and they watched him slink away to his bedroom, as if he worried they might call him back and force him to sit across from them, studying him until some small part of him made sense.
CHAPTER 12
MARCH 1981
Her body was begging her: rest. But the air was burning her lungs. She tried to lift her head from the rough surface of the car’s trunk, thinking a new angle might get her more air. This only set off a wave of explosions in her vision; the darkness became peppered with dots of red and yellow flashes. They reminded her of buzzing bees, the way they trembled and disappeared. She tried chasing the flashes of light with her eyes, but each time her eyes moved, so did the light. It didn’t surprise her. No one ever waited for la gorda.
“Please. Just for a moment. Please stop.”
“¿Mamá?”
Marisol heard a voice from somewhere far away. She felt a tiny body press close. She tried to move her arm from under her, but it was tingly and so heavy, the effort was excruciating. Her body had begun to fall apart, just as she had feared. Her arm was a branch that had reached too far and snapped.
She knew what she had to do. Pick it up. Pick it up with the other one before it’s gone, too.
“Mamá, I’m scared.” The voice was persistent. It grasped at her shoulder and shook her whole body. Tears. Sobbing. She knew that was all it could be. When she was twelve she had watched her grandfather get buried in a wooden casket, watched as the thin plank of wood slid over his face, and she had tried to stop them, cried, “But he’s all alone!” Even after her mother and aunts and cousins explained that death is not a sleep, but an awakening, she couldn’t forget how perfectly sized the box had been, how neatly tucked away his body was, forgotten.
In the coffin he had lain on his back, hands over his abdomen. A tidily wrapped package, easier to send. It would be best if she positioned herself the same way, but when she tried to turn from her side onto her back, there was no space. It’s the wrong size. Oh God, it’s the wrong size.
A shriek. It was like a cat whining. “You’re hurting me, Mamá. Please, I can’t move.” It sounded so much like her daughter. She wanted, more than anything, to comfort the sound, but she knew she couldn’t. The voice was nothing more than the residue of her deepest longings, her only tie to a world that had slipped away.
“Please, Mamá. Please wake up.”
And then, another voice, deeper, gruff, came from beside her daughter’s.
“It’s okay. You just have to stop crying. Just hold still and try to stay calm. Try to slow your breathing.”
Yes, she thought, this is a good idea. She must go slowly, peacefully. Within moments the space around her shifted, and she felt the wall pressed against her back give way, just an inch. The box vibrated and hummed, as if pummeled by millions of particles of dirt. All alone. Like I said.
“Mamá, please.” It was smaller this time, farther away. A spot of warmth the size of a hand landed on her arm, became a blanket as it traveled up and down its length.
Gently. Yes. This is how it happens.
“We’re almost there, I promise. Just hold on a little longer.” It was a whisper in her ear, and then it was quiet, because it was true.
Not much longer. The flashes of light stopped and the ground went still and the air left silently. She thought of her daughter. She let go.
CHAPTER 13
NOVEMBER 2, 2014
YEAR TWO: COTTON
There’d been death in the ER tonight, in the early hours past midnight, when the weekend partiers hit the road heading home with too many drinks in them. They trickled in slowly at first—the tipsy and clumsy who had broken an arm or hit their head—but once the bars closed and Isabel still had hours to go of her shift, the EMTs kept coming. The waiting room swelled with the stench of vomit and vodka; she barely noticed when the fluids spilled onto her clothes as she helped pump her patients’ stomachs. She’d hoped this was as
far as it went, but inevitably the criticals arrived. Tonight there were three, their bodies partly charred from the car that had flipped off the highway and burned.
When they lost the first patient, Isabel imagined the soul joining Omar’s. She searched the mourning faces of the loved ones left behind in the waiting room. She could spot them by the criticals’ items that they held in their hands: a bloody sweater, a purse, a torn hat. Their pale faces were drenched in tears and sweat. She wanted to believe there was still hope left for all of them, that soon Omar and all the night’s lost lives would reappear.
It was nearly six when Isabel finally stumbled through the quiet of her house. She felt raw and sore. Her hair was dripping wet; she had showered at the hospital and rushed home. She grabbed a set of matches from the kitchen and stepped into the backyard.
When they had first closed on the house, Isabel had complained that the toolshed was wasted space; all the tools they possessed fit into a yellow toolbox. They were not a power-tool couple. They paid others to mow their lawn and repair appliances. Any furniture they had ever assembled came with the usual Allen wrench from IKEA. The toolshed was dark and musty, housing only hardware, a spare tire for Martin’s car, and a pile of empty ceramic pots.
Which is why, since the middle of October, Isabel had been using this lonely appendage on her property to build an altar for her dead.
It was a small, understated tribute. At first, she had thought to make it for her father and Omar, but as she’d gathered remnants of their lives (black-and-white school pictures of her father, the silver pen he had used to write checks, a stack of Nancy Drew books he had read to her when she was a child) Isabel realized she had come up short of the equivalent for Omar. She had no pictures of him, and she didn’t want to raise Martin’s suspicions by asking. She had none of his personal belongings and no idea what he had enjoyed doing for fun.
In an attempt to mask her ignorance, she kept the altar vague and unspecific. Atop a large cardboard box covered by a green bedsheet, she had placed a couple of sugar skulls she had bought at a meat market down the street. A framed art piece from Bed Bath & Beyond created a focal point for the arrangement; in restaurant-style cursive against a chalkboard background, it read A Father Is a Superhero Without the Secret Identity. She’d filled a mug with coffee beans, rationalizing that all fathers enjoyed a strong cup of coffee, and by this same logic, the next day, she had bought a small bottle of whiskey.
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