“I got picked on all the time,” Martin said. “Kids saying I should change my name to chicken, stuff like that.”
“I almost didn’t take the name,” Elda said. “And then I thought about changing it back to my maiden name after Omar left, and once all my papers got sorted out. But I didn’t want there to be any confusion for the kids.”
Elda stared at the cow nursing her young. Her giant glassy eyes were fixed on the two women, and then she blinked, slowly and lazily, as if from pleasure or sleepiness.
“I almost didn’t take the name either,” Isabel whispered. “But I liked the bump up in the alphabet.” She wiped at her forehead with the back of her sleeve; the air, laced with the smell of hay and droppings and deep-fried anything, stopped short inside of her.
Martin had moved on to the shorthorn station. A boy, no older than twelve, posed for pictures by the pen, holding a bright blue ribbon close to his chest.
Martin pointed it out to his mother. “It’s like the ribbon you made me.”
“What ribbon?”
“The one you made the night Tío Julio left and you had Martin hide from the cops.” The words escaped Isabel’s lips before she had a chance to taste them. She cringed, and everyone looked at her skeptically. She was making no sense to Martin and perhaps too much sense to Elda, and she felt the familiar trappings of questions she couldn’t answer sinking into her chest, squeezing out what little air she had left.
“What are you talking about?” Martin smiled the way people do when they don’t understand a joke.
“Never mind. You meant the time you won hide-and-seek. Right?” She rubbed at her temple and blamed the heat for her confusion, saying she had gotten it mixed up with a story a patient once told her. As they walked away, Elda placed her hand on Isabel’s elbow.
“Who told you that?”
“What?”
“About Tío Julio.”
The words wouldn’t come. A million lies raced through her mind, but all she managed to say was, “Omar.”
Elda’s grip on her arm went loose. She studied Isabel’s face—every crevice and wrinkle and blink—as if it were the first time they had met. Crowds parted around them, and voices boomed through the PA system.
Isabel blinked back tears. “He told me.”
“Who did?”
“I did.” From nowhere, Eduardo’s voice cut between them.
Elda let out a deep sigh, bringing her hand to her chest. His appearance seemed to amuse her more than it startled. She fanned the dead air over her face, pretending to laugh as he explained.
“Omar told me years ago, and I told Isabel a while ago. I thought everybody knew.”
“Not Martin. And I’d rather he not find out.” She gave them a stern look and went searching for her son.
“Why did you do that?” Isabel asked, half grateful, half resentful of the interruption.
Eduardo kept his gaze on Elda’s small figure shrinking away in the distance. “You can’t just tell her he’s been coming. Not like this.”
So it was true, then. He had been visiting Eduardo as well. He was no longer a secret for her to keep, and the small part of her that thought she was his only hope began to dissolve. “How can you be so sure that’s what I was going to tell her?” she said.
“Just be careful, okay? He’s not everything you think he is. Not even close.”
Maybe it was the heat, or the overlapping conversations that surrounded them, swallowing her thoughts and concentration. Maybe it was that Martin had gone on to the next station without her, not bothering to wait or ask where she had gone. Or maybe it was Eduardo’s young smile, that one teenagers give adults when they’re convinced they know more than the adults do.
Something inside her snapped. “I don’t even know what to think anymore.”
She turned around and walked straight out of the tent, barely registering the sight of Martin holding up a young yellow chick in front of his mother’s face, or the sound of their voices calling after her. The carnival grounds were uneven and muddy in places, and out of pure instinct she hopped over spots to keep from falling, even though she felt like the earth was no longer solid beneath her.
CHAPTER 41
DECEMBER 1987
Today of all days, there was sunlight. Omar lay on his side with the pull of sleep still heavy on his body. His eyelids opened and closed, like breathing. He placed his arm over Elda’s waist, beneath their pale yellow comforter. Elda always slept like the dead. He often joked that waking her was like watching an egg hatch—it takes time to see movement beneath the surface.
There was a twitch, and then the pop of a knuckle. He sat up and watched Elda’s hand search for him under the sheets.
“Don’t make a sound,” he said. “If we hold still, maybe they’ll sleep through the whole day.” She smiled with her eyes still closed. Soon, there would be balloons to blow up, gifts to open. Songs would be sung and games would be played. All would become splashes of color and bursts of sound, but for now Omar wanted to stay in Elda’s calm. Just a little longer.
“What time did you get home last night?” Elda whispered.
“Two thirty.”
“And my kiss good night?”
“I kissed you. You started sleep talking. You said, ‘Cover the roof with sugar and come to bed after you’ve showered.’ What I wouldn’t give to be in your dreams, mi amor.”
She pulled him closer, and felt the tips of his chest hair brush against her back. “Who says you aren’t?”
“There was a time when my kisses were enough to wake you.”
“And now your lips are as intimate as my deepest sleep.”
“Don’t forget sweet. They must be, with dreams of sugar and showers.”
She stifled a giggle. The kids were constantly on alert for such noises. “And how do you explain my dreams about the radios riding bicycles?”
“Mmm . . . that one is easy. Estás loca.”
“Careful!” She sat up and lifted her pillow, making like she was about to hit him with it, and he let out a yell. They paused and listened. Claudita’s footsteps were the quickest and loudest, accelerating by the millisecond. Martin’s were five confident stomps.
“You woke the monsters! What did you do?” He looked to Elda, who only shook her head and laughed.
“We’re being invaded. ¡Socorro! ¡Socorro!” She lifted the sheets to let them crawl under.
“No one can save us now. Except for la cumpleañera!”
“Yes! The super birthday girl,” Elda said. “But where is she?” She propped herself up and scanned the room, her hand over her forehead like a visor.
“I’m here! I’m here!” Out popped Claudita, wearing the end of the comforter like a cape, her feet bouncing so high off the mattress she seemed to fly.
Omar caught her and kissed the back of her head. In just the last few months, her hair had changed from a fine mist of light brown to black silky strands of night. When he pressed his lips against her, he could still feel the softness of her skull cushioning his kiss. He wished all children would stay like this, never hardening.
“Who wants their gifts?” Elda pointed beneath their bed, and Martin dove under, pulling out several boxes wrapped in checkered paper and an impossible amount of tape. Omar shot her a confused expression, but he could tell she was trying not to look at him.
“These three are for Claudita, one for every year. And this one is for Martin, for being a wonderful big brother.”
Claudita opened her gifts slowly and quietly, as if they were made of glass. The first was a set of tablitas. She tried holding the wooden tablets together in one hand, but a whole group of them, held together by thick strips of red, green, and purple cloth, slipped from her grip and cascaded onto the bed.
“Mira, así.” Elda restacked them and held the top tablita between two fingers, lifting it into the air slowly as the rest dangled beneath it. “Now, pay attention.” She bent her wrist to fold the top wooden tablet over the one direct
ly under it. It toppled, sending the others flipping over one another until the very last one shook like a fish just pulled out of the water. “Try it. Fold it in this direction. See? It’s like magic.”
It seemed that way to Omar. He couldn’t understand where the gifts came from. They had agreed they couldn’t afford any, and as the kids moved on to the next boxes, Omar studied the tablitas more closely. He smiled and caught Elda’s eyes as it dawned on him. They were old coasters, and the strings were ribbons from a bow Elda often wore in her hair. The satin was dull and stiff from the dried glue, but he remembered the color combination, how Elda had bought the ribbons years ago, saying they reminded her of home.
The rest were toys the kids didn’t recognize, because Elda had disguised them as new. Fresh strings of yarn for hair and a dress made out of an old blouse revived a forgotten doll. A bent clothes hanger with a mesh laundry bag attached to its rim formed a butterfly net.
His wife was a marvel. Omar hoped their son would be equally amused.
“Open it,” he told Martin after his sister was done, and Martin ripped at the paper, revealing a blue thermos with a Star Wars label wrapped around it. It looked brand new. He was so excited, he leaped off the mattress and ran to his bedroom to find his matching trading cards. Claudita quickly followed.
Elda explained. “Yessica sent a package of school supplies home to Agustín, but it was going to be too much weight, so she separated the lunchbox from its set and gave us the thermos.” She shrugged and smiled, as if it were no big deal, though they both knew it was.
In the afternoon they went to the diner. Jimmy had insisted the meal would be on him and told them not to worry about a cake, either.
“Birthdays are special, especially when kids get to three,” he said as he gathered the menus. “That’s when they start remembering things you’d never expect them to.”
Which was strange to think about. All Omar and Elda seemed to worry about was how to build a life for their children. Every effort, every decision, revolved around protecting them from grief, exchanging it for moments of happiness. He had forgotten that each time he embraced Claudita or made a face to get her to laugh was a moment he couldn’t guarantee she would remember. Would her memory start today, surrounded by nothing but smiles? Or would she hold on to him at his worst, with his “not nows” at the end of a long day, the attention he gave in scattered fragments?
As she blew out the candles of her strawberry-shaped birthday cake, Omar wished for the strength and energy to be a better husband and father. His family, and nearly everyone in the diner, burst into applause, and Claudita bounced so hard in her seat that her pigtails slapped against her cheeks. He laughed as he caught Elda’s eyes from across the booth, but was quickly distracted by a small figure pacing outside the restaurant. Its silhouette floated back and forth across Elda’s shoulders. Probably just a customer waiting for someone to join him for dinner. When he looked away and let the figure slip into his peripheral vision, he recognized its cadence, the slight limp that Tomás liked to affect, as if he were carrying an old wound in his side pocket. A numbness came over him, a peaceful recession of his breath and heartbeat, as if one could stop and not miss the presence of the other.
Omar patted at his pants, the pockets of his shirt. “I think I left my wallet in the car. I’ll be right back.”
“But Jimmy said—”
“What if someone breaks in?”
Outside, the air was wet and piercing. Tomás had stepped away from the window and was pushing all the buttons of the vending machine to the side of the entrance.
“Tomás. ¿Qué pasó?” He tried to sound casual and unbothered, not wanting to provoke the boy into an argument. They’d had so many lately. Tomás was always putting words into Omar’s mouth, convinced that, like his aunt, Omar was trying to rid himself of the boy, because life would be easier without him. “Is everything okay?”
He could tell he had been crying. The tip of his nose was red and bloated, and his eyelashes clumped together from catching tears. “I came by yesterday, and they said you’d be back today.” Tomás leaned over to look through the window. They could see the side of Elda’s face over the top of the booth, and her right hand, wiping the frosting off Claudita’s mouth. He nodded in their general direction. “That her? Your wife?”
Omar wondered if he really needed to ask—had it been long enough for Tomás to forget?—or if he was simply trying to match her face with the one that haunted his last days with his father.
Omar placed his hand on Tomás’s shoulder. “What’s really going on?”
“My aunt wants to kick me out of the house.”
“Is that it?”
“What do you mean, ‘Is that it?’ That’s not a big enough problem for you?”
“I mean, what else happened? She doesn’t want to kick you out for nothing, does she?”
“She’s been waiting long enough for an excuse.”
“Tomás. What’d I tell you last time?”
He stopped short of rolling his eyes, but said nothing.
“I’m serious. ¿Qué te dije?” Omar knew he was pushing his luck, but he didn’t have time for games, with his family waiting for him.
Tomás kicked the bottom of the vending machine in one clumsy, weak motion. “You’ll help as long as I tell you the truth.”
“Okay. So tell me what happened.”
“It’s not a big deal. My cousin started it. He’s always rubbing things in my face, and he got this new stereo he always plays super loud like he’s deaf or something. And my friends threw a party the other night, so I borrowed it.”
“You borrowed it?”
“Yeah I borrowed it. I even invited Chris and everything, okay? But he shows up with all his friends, like I fucking stole it or something, and he turns off the music and ruins the whole party. My friends didn’t like that.”
“¿Qué pasó? Did they hurt him?”
“His friends started it, okay? And he goes and tells on me, like a little bitch.”
“So your aunt kicked you out?”
“Not yet. But the stereo broke. And she says if I don’t buy Chris a new stereo, I better start looking for a new place to live. That thing cost like three hundred bucks.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“That’s how spoiled he is.” Tomás rubbed his hands together and blew into them. The sun had started to set, and the flaming sky made Omar feel exposed. He could see his breath in the air, and he thought of how much warmer he would be, how much safer things would feel, if he were back inside the restaurant where he belonged.
“I’m not asking you for money, all right? I just . . . I just thought since you always know what to do . . .”
Omar shook his head, trying to piece together his thoughts, but he was tired. Tomás was always making excuses and putting blame on whomever was nearest.
“You know, after a certain point, I don’t believe in bad luck. I don’t believe in bad things always happening to people for no good reason. I want to help you, but . . .”
“I can work for it. You’re always talking about how I need to learn responsibility. I’ll do it. I just, I really need to get that stereo back.”
“I’m sorry, Tomás. I have to get back inside.”
“Maybe ask your boss. Just to see if he’s hiring.”
Someone opened the door, and for a brief moment Omar heard Martin’s voice come and go, a fragment of his laughter. He began stepping toward it and stretched out his arm to hold the door. “I’ll try. I can’t promise anything.”
Tomás nodded and stepped away from the light of the restaurant. “Thanks, man.” He ran away, looking so much more like a child getting lost than a teenager looking for trouble.
“¿Lo encontraste?” Elda asked when he rejoined them.
“It was in my jacket the whole time. I guess my wallet is just so light, I forget I’m carrying it.”
Elda didn’t laugh. She kept glancing over her shoulder. After a few sec
onds she sighed and pushed a plate of cake toward Omar. “Claudita didn’t want to finish her slice without you.” She turned to their daughter and smiled. “It was practically like waiting forever, wasn’t it, mija?”
When they were done eating, Omar stacked the dishes on top of one another and gathered the spoons, forks, and cups.
“¿Qué haces?” Elda asked.
“Sorry, it’s a habit.”
“See? ¿Qué te dije? You’ve been doing this too long, amor.”
She had told him this countless times, and it always ended with Elda saying he was too good for it. Tonight, she only placed her hand over his and rubbed it with her thumb while she turned her attention to the kids.
And then it hit him: she was done dwelling on the idea of something better for him.
Omar stood up and excused himself. He made his way to the kitchen, wordlessly looking through the steam and the mist rising off the water hoses, the shelves stacked with white plates and bowls and saucers, all crooked and ready to fall at any moment. He found Jimmy where he always did, hunched over his desk with a calculator in one hand and a pile of diners’ tabs in the other. When he gave his two weeks’ notice, Omar offered to stay however long it took to train his replacement. He told him Tomás was interested in the job.
That evening, after they had tucked the kids into bed and sung them to sleep, Omar stood across the bed from Elda, undressing, and told her about his decision. She nodded and raised her eyebrows as she unbuttoned her blouse. She took some time to think before saying anything. Omar couldn’t take the time to wait.
“I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“Of course it is.” She gave him her most encouraging smile. “It’s just I’d always thought we’d talk about it first. Plan things out a little better. Are you sure they’ll give you more shifts at the new office building?”
“That’s what they’ve told me all along.”
“I just don’t want any surprises. Every time I think I’ve got our bills under control, the car needs new tires, or Mamá gets sick, and we have to start over. It’s like that toy the kids play with. The one you shake, and it erases all your drawings? That’s how I feel every day. Like I’m just waiting for the shake.”
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