by Mara White
“Where’s my blue cup?” Luke asks.
“Auntie put it in the refrigerator,” I say and Luke takes off to retrieve it.
I gravitate toward a photo of Lucky that sits on top of a desk. I run my fingers over the glass, wiping off a layer of dust. My heart lurches in my chest when I look into the eyes in the photograph; he’s staring straight into the camera. One look into his eyes and I’m falling backwards through time. His eyes speak a whole universe to me even so many years later.
In the photograph he wears his uniform and a camouflage helmet. He’s smiling just a tiny bit, his teeth white, his complexion tan and healthy. I run my finger along the side of his face. I see a scar there that I don’t remember seeing before. It looks deep and newly healed in the picture, like it was a serious injury.
Lucky, what the hell happened over there? I stare into his image, trying to imagine what it was like. His eyes crinkle up in the corners more than I remember. In fact, Lucky looks much older in this picture compared to the last time I saw him. A fierce chill runs from the base of my spine up to the tip of my skull.
Titi and Luke walk into the dining room hand in hand. Luke has his blue cup and is eagerly making short work of the orange juice my aunt gave him.
“Was Lucky hurt over there, before the bad explosion? When was this shot taken? He looks so different and that scar on his face seems serious.”
Titi lifts up Luke and sets him in a chair at the table. She snatches the photo from my hands, opens the desk drawer and places it face down inside.
“He was hurt many times. It’s a dangerous place. War ages you like that,” she says. But she’s not making eye contact with me. The chills come again, trampling up my back, slipping down the lines of my ribcage to wrap all the way around me. My fingers begin to tingle then suddenly go numb. Words and thoughts both become paralyzed and can’t find their way out.
“Is there something you want to tell me, Awilda?”
She looks up and she narrows her eyes at me. Like she’s assessing the situation and what she wants to tell me. Why would she hide details of what happened before he died? Why would she hide anything at all unless what I know is wrong?
My tía is frozen with the strangest look on her face.
“He left me for someone else?” I make a wild guess as to why she would hide things from me.
“No, mi hijita. No.”
“His death wasn’t accidental, there was more going on than we thought? Is it classified? I want to know what happened to him!”
Tears stream down her face and my feet feel rooted to the floor. My roots stretch down deep into this land and connect with the history of my family tree that grew out of the spot on which I stand. Roots and bloodlines, veins and branches that twisted and intertwined, pushed through the darkness, birthing Mami and Titi, bringing Lucky and me into existence. The secret passageways of origin and the great burst of light at birth, cemented all of my family’s genealogy, DNA strands that can trump culture, nurture, or even taboo. We become who we were meant to be, no matter what we say or do.
“I have loved him my whole life,” I say. A sudden calm sweeps over me as I articulate the only thought in my head. As the words leave me, I can feel their impact and how they influence the air between us. Titi’s thoughts are shifting, she’s weighing things before she allows herself to speak.
“He wanted what was best for you,” she says. Titi’s voice is defensive.
“Nothing will ever be better than Lucky. Nothing will ever compare to his love.” Luke lets go of Tía Awilda’s hand and comes over to cling onto my leg. I scoop him up and he hugs me hard. “I love you, Titi, but I will not accept lies and secrets when it comes to my heart.”
“He thought he didn’t have a choice. He was so ashamed, felt like he’d taken advantage of you. He thought if he made the sacrifice it would lead to your happiness and safety. He wanted you happy, Belén.”
I need the truth from her more than I’ve ever needed anything. Air, food, water, shelter, all take second place to honesty. I can’t survive off of lies.
“I would walk from here to there even if it took me my whole life. I would spend years searching that desert, just for a glimpse of where his body shifted the sand. I would walk back through time and take the bullet for him. I’d go back even further and never let him leave my arms. I’d go back to the very beginning and tell him how I loved him from the first moment I felt it blossom in my heart.”
My words rush forth crazy and desperate, I’m yelling at her. I’ll say anything to show her how critical my need is.
“You don’t need to walk far. I promised him I wouldn’t, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He hasn’t seen you and the boy. That would change everything. He has so much guilt, Belén. That’s why he lies.”
“I need to know,” I say.
“Then I will give you the truth.”
Awilda pulls open the same drawer where she stashed the picture. Grabbing a Post-it and a pen, she scratches out something onto the paper. Awilda thrusts it at me and I take it, hands shaking, heart racing and aching, constricting and releasing in painful spasms Uncertainty. Bewilderment.
On the simple yellow square she’s written an address. I don’t know what it means, but I’m going there. No hesitation, no expectations, just the compulsion to walk toward the light.
“Watch Luke, will you?” I ask her as I shove my feet into flip-flops. The rain is starting. It drums on the roof of the house and washes down the gutters, flooding the yard. It’s pouring. Pouring like it only does in DR.
I don’t take my purse or an umbrella or even any change for the bus. The kitchen has a sliding glass door that opens onto a cement patio. I step out into the downpour and squint up at the raging sky.
“Wait till the rain lets up at least,” she says, running her fingers through Luke’s sun-kissed hair. My son stands at her feet, eyeing my quickly soaking form curiously.
“I’ve waited long enough,” I say.
There’s a bus stop just a few blocks away. I jog through huge puddles. Water splashes up and drenches my legs. I can see la guagua gliding down the busy street and I race down the sidewalk. One flip-flop becomes casualty to a particularly large puddle.
“¡Párese por favor!” I holler over the rush of the rain.
The guagua slows and I grab the handle on the side to swing myself up.
“¡Gracias!” I tell the conductor and show him my yellow paper. He nods and tells me “tres paradas,” probably too surprised at my condition to harass me for the fare.
I can’t sit so I hang onto the straps. The bus is packed and jerks through traffic, shifting us passengers in all different directions. I tug on the strap, struggling to hold my equilibrium. My clothes are see-through and although I’m being stared at, my mind races millions of miles away from them. A white cotton top, with just a bralette underneath. Tight jeans. One flip-flop.
I have no idea what I’m going to find at this place. Lucky’s real family, the one he had before he died? Death at a later date than was diagnosed by the military? The woman he really loves who knows the secrets of what happened? His children? His gravestone? A box filled with his personal belongings that sits in a sacred spot? Remains? It could be anything.
My brain keeps getting drawn toward the answer I want, one which I will not allow myself to have. I’ve been destroyed by grief once and I refuse to go down that catastrophic path again.
Three stops pass and I hurry off the bus. Everyone stares at my limp from the single sandal so I kick it off as soon as my feet hit the sidewalk. Wet hair obscures my view, so I wrestle it up into a ponytail and secure it with the elastic around my wrist.
Mangrove abounds as I make my way down to some cottages near the beach. Tropical birds squawk and lizards scurry at my bare feet slapping the sidewalk. I’m shivering. The clouds are moving so quickly in the sky it makes me dizzy. No blue, just gray and dark gray rolling like waves above me.
What are the chances any human b
eing has of finding true love? I feel blessed and grateful for my precious moments with Luciano; they are treasures I hold that fuel the fire in my heart and give depth to my soul—meaning to my life.
“Luciano!” I scream into the storm. I say his name as an incantation, as if I could conjure his spirit. Purple lightning strikes over the dark sky, brightening up the clouds for a moment as they rush out to sea. The roiling sea and sky are the same ominous color. Thunder reverberates in the angry heavens and I can feel its power all the way down to my bare feet. The boom sounds as if it’s cracking right above me and I scream and run for the cover of the little houses along the beach.
My soaked paper, which I’ve been holding onto for dear life, is now disintegrating in my hands. It reads 406, so I approach and rap my knuckles against the screen door.
“Luciano?” I holler. But no one answers the door. I twist the doorknob almost without thinking and the door gives and ushers me into a foyer. I step in and try to contain my wet drips to the mat behind the door.
“Hello?” I ask into the silence. It’s a sparsely-decorated space without many attempts to make it homey. A couch, a rug and table, television and stereo. Blinds, no curtains, a mirror but no pictures on the wall. The paint job is excellent and from where I’m standing it looks like each room is painted with a subtle but tasteful color difference. The living room is seashell tan and the kitchen buttercup; the dining room looks ecru with a dark gray trim on the woodwork. I step down the hall and into the kitchen. This room is sparse but clean, too—a calendar, no pictures, some fruit in a bowl. Who lives here? How is it related to Luciano and what in the world is my aunt lying to me about? This beach cottage is the truth I’ve been searching for?
The rain stops, not tapers or slows. It stops like a heartbeat, shutting off just as suddenly as it started. From sunny sky to downpour, to not a single drip in the big, quickly blue-turning sky. This house has a glass sliding door just like Titi’s, except the view here is a sprawling beach and vast stormy ocean. There’s a group of men in the water at the wave break who appear to be battling an errant fishing boat with nothing more than a rope and their bare hands. I watch them work and realize that one of them probably fought overseas with Lucky. That’s whose house I’m standing in now and this is the person who will tell me the terrifying truth about what happened to my cousin.
I slide the door open and step out into the balmy air. The sun wants to shine and is pouring rays of light through the retreating clouds. I bring my hand up to shield my eyes and the dog tags one of the bare-chested men wears glint off of the sun and momentarily blind me.
I stare at his chest and can almost feel the contour of the muscles there, how his abdominal muscles tighten and the sharp taper at his waist creates so many different shapes I could trace with a fingertip. His strong biceps and forearms look familiar, like a hug I remember. A hug I can’t forget no matter how hard I shove it away. The angle of his jaw, the lift of his cheekbone. His stance pulls me in like a magnet and I float down the beach, feeling like a ghost who has suddenly crossed over. I’m new to the afterlife, I don’t understand the rules yet.
I don’t trust myself. I’ve had episodes before and I know my senses lie to me.
My footsteps accelerate as I come close enough to see his features, the full lips and cupid’s bow that were the absolute torment of my young adult years. Those lips cursed me and caressed me, could calm me or ignite me like no other. Another mouth has never held so much power as Lucky’s did over me. And a body that made me feel ways I’d never imagined—ecstasy, bliss and life-squeezing heartache. His hands. His mouth. His breath-robbing eye contact. A gaze that made my thighs weak, a smile that felt like a summer heat wave spreading through my nerve endings, making my muscles soften and my body open like a blossom.
Luciano, my cousin, the love of my whole life.
I’m so lost and I don’t understand what is happening; my mind trips on the idea that it was Lucky who had a twin, not Adam. Lucky died in the war and his twin lives on. He’s here in DR, a copy of the boy who from the very beginning of my life held my love in the palm of his hand.
“Luciano!” I scream because my hysterical heart doesn’t want to believe my more rational mind.
I don’t breathe. I don’t blink.
He looks up immediately at the call of my voice. He sees me. My lover’s eyes catch mine and swallow me up.
Luciano
My ma always told me there are three ways to cure a broken heart. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll are not them. Believe me, gave it a good try back at home and that shit don’t work. Ma said you pray. Then you focus on something else. Like work or goals or becoming a better person. The last step she says is letting go. Easier said than done.
How the fuck you supposed to let go of someone who is everything you want? Let go of the one thing that makes you feel like you got a grip in this world and something you can actually hold onto, a person you can count on. My therapist told me it was time and distance that works. I did that shit too and let me tell you, it doesn’t. There’s one trick to surviving it and I only know cause I been there. You do it for the one you love and suddenly it gets easier.
Coming up whenever I saw her there was an explosion under my skin. My heart beat out the letters of her name like a Morse code and I couldn’t do nothing else but listen to it. Ma always said that because of the circumstances of my birth, I was full of fire—hot blooded, naturally drawn to the fight. But what she didn’t know was that my fire burned like a beacon, but it was always for Belén. Guess I didn’t realize until it was too late, that an untended flame can burn so low it goes out. So I can pray, I can focus my life on something else. But I can’t let go, cause if I let go—the fire will go out and I’ll have nothing left to stick around for.
I’d like to believe that there’s a bigger meaning behind everything. Maybe Len and me were born into the same family for a reason. Maybe our names matched so perfectly because that’s who we are, my fire was her ray of light and her arms were my refuge. She was my place to surrender when everyone else gave up or turned me away—and my light was meant to guide her, lead her to a safe place.
But now I don’t know if I fucked with destiny when I decided to play dead. I thought I had it all figured out and that the pain would go away once I knew she was happy. But freedom isn’t real unless we fight for it ourselves. When someone tries to hand it to you the value goes down, it feels empty and stale. So I left Bey behind thinking she could pick up the pieces. But then I realized when it was too late and I’d already gone too far, that the same pieces Belén needed to rebuild herself were locked inside of my heart.
When ma told me about her divorce I couldn’t help but feel responsible. I left Len to fight on her own. I was a coward at best. Un cobarde who deserved a broken heart and whatever I’d been left with.
“¡Luciano, ayúdanos!”
“¡Voy!”
My elderly neighbor, who fishes every day, hasn’t moored his boat yet again, only dragged it halfway up the beach. You’d think a lifetime of subsistence fishing would teach you to regard the moon tides, but the guy is old and at least a little drunk at all times. His grandson calls to me for help, the second time this week. I’ll cut him some slack because the storm came on so quick, it was enough to knock anyone on their ass. I toss my shirt down onto the sand and yank up my jeans. Jogging toward the raging ocean feels natural, like entering into battle with the beast. I don’t got a problem with running toward the fire. My sense of self-preservation has never been the best.
My skin prickles at the shock of the cold water and the onslaught of rain. Life is like this, a struggle to take control of forces bigger than we are. One man and a decrepit boat against the angry raging sea. We try to move it out of the wave-break and the water crashes against our spines and the backs of our knees.
“Luciano!” I hear above the call of the waves.
Luciano.
I know how my name sounds when it comes from Belén, when she scr
eams it as a curse or whispers it in prayer. I know when it comes from her because it means something real. No one else says my name like that because no one else is her.
Belén
Lucky?
My heart comes to a screeching halt, just like the rain. The ocean stops too, and so does the sky. The whole world closes off while we pass universes between two sets of eyes.
“Luciano?” I say in a regular speaking voice.
Am I dead?
Did I not realize that on the way here I’d fallen off the edge of the earth? I have no words or tears or heartbeats or air. Just confusion. Blankness. Somewhere on the way from Titi’s house to here the world ended.
No reasoning or excuses can fill up the loss that’s been consuming me for the last five years.
He moves out of the water, his soaked jeans rolled up to his knees. He walks onto the sand and starts slowly toward me. He still walks with that swagger I know in my bones. This is no lost twin. No ghost. It’s Luciano.
Alive.
Living.
Breathing.
Walking toward me in the flesh.
“Liar!” I shriek and I’m a flash of lightning streaking down the sand. I run harder than I ever have in my life and I slam my whole body into his chest.
We go down.
“Liar!” I scream. I scratch at his face. I will kill him for not being dead. I will torture him for every moment of sorrow he put me through.
“Len, calm down,” he says as he grabs my wrists and rolls me under his bodyweight.
“Liar!” I sob. My chest heaves with ragged breaths that hurt and ravage my lungs. “Liar! I died! I died with you, Luciano! I died for you!” I scream. The words tear at my throat. Sand and tears cover my face and I buck under his weight so that I can throw him off. I’ll destroy him, I’ll hurt him—just like he hurt me. I’ll rip his fucking heart out, eat it alive piece by shitty, beating piece.
“I loved you. I love you,” I wail. “You asshole!”
