The Universal Laws of Marco

by Carmen Rodrigues

  She runs out of ors and finally asks, “How are you feeling?”

  “A headache,” Pop mumbles. “Too bright.” He points to the fluorescent lights spilling in from the hallway. I close the curtains and the light dims. Pop nods his appreciation.

  Mom climbs into bed beside him and rests her head on his chest. She looks like she’s trying not to speak. Not to say what we are all feeling: that we’re scared. That we don’t know what this means. That to be back here, in this place where we almost lost him the first time, is too much for anyone.

  And yet, somehow, we continue to survive. To push our way through to the other side.

  I try to remind myself of this as Mom bites her lips and makes the murmuring noises she sometimes makes when she is overstressed. I sit at the edge of the bed and reach for his hand. It takes a Herculean effort not to cry, especially when I meet Mom’s eyes and she whispers, “You’re a good son, Marco.”

  “You’re a good mom, and you”—I squeeze Pop’s hand—“are a good pop.”

  Pop smiles limply, and Mom looks away, wiping at her face with the back of her hand.

  I run my hands through my hair, and with eyes wide open, I pray.

  • • •

  At some point I slip away for a few minutes and take the elevator up to the hospital’s rooftop observatory—an open deck that is closed late at night, but with my Grendel’s-issued pocketknife, I manage to jimmy my way past the door (a trick Diego’s dad taught us before he went to the resort).

  On the rooftop, it’s just me, the moon, and a smattering of stars. And it is here that I complete a ritual I started four years ago. I close my eyes, stretch up to my tippy-toes, and walk the perimeter of the deck, with the handrail as my guide.

  I name the star patterns, beginning with the asterisms: Summer Triangle, Keystone, the stars that make up the body of the Hercules constellation—Eta, Pi, Epsilon, and Zeta Herculis. On and on until the ritual—this prayer to let Pop stay with me and Mom and Lil’ Jay and Domingo—is finally complete. Then I return to solid ground and head downstairs.

  • • •

  An hour later Mom’s exhaustion has gotten the best of her. She is asleep on the chair beside Pop’s bed. We’re waiting on word from the doctor about tests and a transfer to another floor for further observation. It’ll be a while. The ER is hopping tonight. The examination bays are as full as the waiting room, and the nurse looks harried when he sticks his head through the curtain to ask, “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say, and Pop, who is trying his best to stay awake, offers up another meek smile.

  The nurse leaves, and I take Pop’s hand, settling onto the edge of the bed. “How you holding up, Pop?”

  “Eh,” he says. His voice is scratchy. “Seen better.”

  “You’ll see better again.”

  He nods but doesn’t look convinced. “Hey, you know, you know I’m real”—he pauses the way he always does when he’s forgotten the word he wants to use—“proud of you. I am.”

  “Yeah, Pop, I know that.” I lean over to give him a kiss on the forehead.

  “And you know, I’ll try to be there more. I’ll try to . . .” Again he pauses, looking for the words. “I’ll try to talk more, be less in here.” He raises a finger toward his head. “Be more with . . .”

  I wait a while and then say, “Us?”

  “Yeah. It’s hard sometimes to . . .”

  “Find the words.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That would be good. I don’t mind waiting for you to find them.”

  “Yeah, and I don’t want you to worry about this because you’ve got, you know, stuff . . . You got . . .” He stares off at the TV, his mouth trembling slightly, like the words are stuck on the tip of his tongue. His eyes are so focused—almost like a dead stare—on those words, on where they live in the distance.

  “With college?” I prompt, but he doesn’t respond, except his hand starts to shake. Then, suddenly, he jerks forward, and his whole body begins to convulse, like ocean tides are rolling inside of him.

  “Mom!” I hold him steady so he doesn’t fall off the bed. “Mom!”

  “What?” She sits up, looking from me to Pop. “Sammy? Sammy!” She reaches for the call button, shouting, “Nurse! Nurse!”

  And then the scrubs arrive, pushing us from the room. We stand in the corridor, watching as one holds Pop and the other turns him on his side, stretching out his neck. A doctor appears, spewing out a bunch of medical jargon. Bed rails are raised and pillows are shoved in the gap. Someone calls out, “We’re at three minutes. It looks like it’s winding down.”

  Pop’s eyes open. The shaking suddenly stops. His body sinks into stillness. Mom is next to me, crying. I wrap my arms around her and whisper, “He’s okay now. He’s okay.” But the words sound hollow, even to me.

  • • •

  “So, how is he?” Old Mrs. B asks when I stop by her house to check on the twins.

  It’s eight a.m. and I’m away from the hospital. Pop has been moved from the ER to another floor for further testing and observation. The seizures, his doctors say, are something that can happen years after a head injury, and because Pop had more than one seizure, they’re inclined to think that it’s not just a two-time deal but signs of epilepsy. Something else that can happen with TBI. There will be a neurological consultation later in the day, but for right now they’ve got him medicated and resting comfortably.

  I give Old Mrs. B the short version. I tell her about the other seizure. I don’t tell her about how it happened, how I was holding his hand when he convulsed, how I thought he’d bite off his own tongue because that’s what they always shout out in movies: Put something in his mouth for him to bite down on or else he’ll bite off his tongue! That the minute Pop was okay, I left to hit up a single-stall restroom and lost my shit, holding my T-shirt to my mouth to muffle the sounds.

  I only say, “He’s okay.” And then I give her the facts as briefly as possible, because this is the way I’m operating now: straight-up survival mode. And I need to talk about anything else, just for an hour, just until my insides stop shaking.

  Old Mrs. B takes the hint and moves on to taking care of basic needs: She feeds me. I scarf down three over-easy eggs, a pound of chorizo, and gulp my café con leche like it’s a cold glass of water after a hot-as-hell walk through the desert.

  “More bread,” she says, and holds up half a loaf of Cuban bread, toasted and smeared with butter.

  “Yes, please,” I say, and she hands me a huge chunk.

  “An appetite is important. Even when life is hard, it’s always wise to keep up your strength.”

  That’s never been my problem. My appetite increases with stress.

  “Oh, but slow down, okay?” she says as I swallow that chunk nearly whole.

  “Sorry. I’m starving.”

  “I know.” She clicks her tongue. “I know.” And then she touches my back and says, “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  And man, my heart pauses as those words wrap around me. Warm words, like a blanket right out of the dryer. When I’m fully sated, Old Mrs. B clears the dishes and tells me to follow her outside, to her front porch, where we rock on her old-fashioned rocking chairs. We don’t talk, just sip our coffee and enjoy the world as it is, in that moment: The moss-draped palm trees that shade the roadway. The family of ducks waddling through the front yard. The little girl that comes outside to draw on the sidewalk with chalk. Even Old Mrs. B’s broke-down mailbox, which I keep fixing, the one that random kids keep taking out with a baseball bat in the deep cover of night.

  Inside the house, my brothers sleep that sleep of children who are too young to feed a worry. And four houses over is Sookie’s home, where yesterday we sat around her fire pit. In the driveway is her rickety Dodge; Jade’s baby-blue scooter sits off to the side. Inside the house, Jade and Sookie are probably out cold. And somewhere farther out, Diego is most likely dreaming of how to be more managerial. I glance at my watch
. Erika’s dreams are about to end; her alarm clock is always set for nine a.m. on the weekends. In a few minutes, she’ll jump out of bed and hustle to get ready for her next shift at the diner.

  I close my eyes and let my mind continue to drift. And that’s when I allow myself to think of her—of Sally. Of what she almost said last night. The truth so close I could have reached out and grabbed it. But what did it matter anymore? The truth couldn’t change us. Couldn’t change Pop. No matter how far we stepped into the future, we couldn’t escape our past.

  Middle School

  14. UNTIL A PATTERN FORMS

  “WHAT IF . . . ? WHAT IF HE hits her?” Sally angled her body toward me so that our knees overlapped. This was Friday, day one and a half of Sally being my girlfriend, and new things were already happening. We went to the library during lunch, not only to finish studying for our English test but to have “private time.” That’s what Sally called it—“private time.” Just us, sitting in the far corner of the library, where autobiography turns into auto mechanic, alone except for Old Mr. B. He sat at his desk, hunched over a book, one finger robotically lifting a baby carrot to his mouth.

  We were also studying, our backs pushed against the stacks, knees tented so that the spines of our books hung in the gaps between our thighs. But it was hard to concentrate with her being so close. Hard not to reach over and kiss her. Hard not to say, “Hey, you” and have her say, “Hey, you” back.

  Because when you got together, words like “hey” and “you” meant so much more. They meant, I like you I want you I’m here with you. Sally must have felt the same way because she kept touching me—a hand reaching for mine, a squeeze of my knee, a finger sweeping my hair from my face.

  I didn’t want her to stop.

  But she did.

  She stopped at that part in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time when Christopher uncovers the letters from his mom, proving that she is still alive. That his dad had lied. That’s when Sally twisted her body toward me and said slowly, “What if . . . ? What if he hits her?”

  “You think the mom ran away because she was afraid of Christopher’s dad?”

  “No. I’m talking about Jade, about her dad, about that night he was out-of-his-mind drunk, about the bruise at the beach. About the sweater. It’s too hot for sweaters. Why is she wearing a sweater?”

  Jade had worn a sweater the whole week. A hot week. A week where most kids were trying to sneak by in as little clothes as possible. And there was Jade in long sleeves.

  I shut the book. “Maybe she gets cold?”

  “Suddenly she gets cold?” Sally sounded agitated. “Okay, then explain this to me: Why, in the locker room today, when she took off her shirt, did she have a huge bruise on her arm—like a huge bruise—”

  “A new bruise?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because, cheerleading?”

  “Except cheerleading is over. Their practices ended before track’s did. And what about that bruise at the beach? She changed the subject when I tried to ask her.”

  “You’re sure? There’s no way it could be cheerleading? They couldn’t be practicing inside? Because it’s hot?”

  “No. That’s not it,” Sally said. “Today, in science, I asked Genevieve about the last time they had practice. It was weeks ago.”

  “I don’t know.” As far as I could tell, everything had been quiet on Jade’s home front. But maybe there was something I missed? I scanned my memories of the last few weeks, looking for anything that stood out. Now that I’m older, I see that our brains work like that, picking up pieces of information, storing them until a pattern emerges and a picture forms, solving a puzzle you didn’t even know existed. Which explains why people say, I knew, but I also didn’t know. That’s because the subconscious mind slowly gathers information while the conscious mind remains unaware of the investigation.

  That’s where I was right then, in the library, somewhere between my subconscious and conscious minds—a bridge being built between the two as I sat there. The puzzle pieces moving around until the pattern formed a picture. A picture that I couldn’t quite see. Just fragments:

  The sweater.

  Mr. Acosta and his drinking.

  The bruises.

  What if he hits her?

  My stomach turned, my conscious mind reaching for something that was still too far away to grasp.

  But there was something I knew for sure—there were repercussions for suspicions like ours. In our neighborhood hitting wasn’t all that uncommon—kids got smacks to the head, swats to the butt. But that was survivable. That wasn’t hitting until there were bruises. Bruises meant kids got taken away from their parents, put into “the system.” And if we weren’t right, an accusation like that would make a bad situation worse for Jade. And I didn’t want that.

  The bell rang and with it came the sound of Old Mr. B from the other side of the library. “Time to go,” he called out. “The books will be here just the same tomorrow.”

  I helped Sally to her feet. When we stood eye to eye, she paused, her legs slightly bent.

  “I’d feel better if you talk to your dad. See what he thinks.”

  “Pop?”

  “Yeah. He’d know what to do.”

  I thought this over. If I moved quickly, I might be able to find him in the custodian’s office. Even if he wasn’t there, I had the electronic key code and could wait for him. Give myself a moment to be alone and think.

  “You’ll ask him?” Sally pushed.

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled. “Okay. That’s good. I feel like we’re doing something.”

  We. My mind stuck on that word. We—like someone had taken an invisible rope and bound us together—Sally and me, a team. And for a few minutes I didn’t think about Jade, about who was on her team. I just thought about Sally and the newness of our private world.

  Senior Year

  15. FRAGMENTED AFTERMATH

  THAT TUESDAY—THE DAY BEFORE Pop came home from the hospital—Diego showed up at my house with an armful of groceries: premade foods from the deli, a rotisserie chicken, and some veggies. “For your mom to be satisfied with your healthiness and all that, kid!” he said. Then he held up Klondike bars, the twins’ favorite treat, and added, “But never keep the devils hungry.”

  When I whipped out my wallet, he said, “Don’t even try.” And to be honest, I was relieved. There were only a few dollars in there. “I used my Grendel’s gift card—the one I got for my three-year anniversary—and besides, I know your moms isn’t working right now. Times be tough, but don’t you worry, ’cause you got Big D to the rescue.”

  “Who’s gonna rescue you?” I joked.

  “When I need rescuing, you’ll be there, right?” He punched me in the shoulder. “Besides, you know my motto: Responsible to my j-o-b, to my lady, to mi familia. Es parentesco sin sangre una amistad verdadera.”

  Which means something like: If someone feels like your blood even when they ain’t your blood, that’s a true friendship.

  “Thanks, D,” I said, and I might have taken a little pinkie to the corner of my eye. Whatever. It was a moment, that’s all.

  “So what’s this?” Diego stared at the spreadsheet I had up on my school-issued Mac.

  “Trying to figure out this money situation.” I started tracking our finances after our electricity got cut off the summer of Pop’s first hospitalization. That’s when I noticed the bills piling up on the kitchen table. That’s when I walked into Grendel’s to ask for a job. That’s when I decided kid time was over and I had to do my best to pretend I was a man. To take my pop’s advice and keep on accelerating.

  And my motto then was kinda like my motto now: Fake it until you make it.

  Right now I’m trying to fake my way into figuring out the hospital bill. We hadn’t paid off our medical deductible for the year, so I knew that bill was going to be high, about twelve G’s—if my math was right—before our “maximum out of pocket” would kick in on
our medical insurance. Mom had missed nearly a week of work, and the gist of what I had worked out so far was that we were screwed. Even with a payment plan, the hospital bill threatened to topple our house-of-cards debt.

  But maybe with a plan we’d be okay. Maybe we’d be fine.

  Okay, not fine, but we’d survive.

  “Well, let me know if you need a loan. I got some money saved up for a rainy day,” Diego said seriously, and once again, I had to look away.

  Truth be told, I had already made a list of people we could ask for money if it came to that. Diego’s name was on the bottom of that list. Taking from him would mean taking away one of his dreams: to get an apartment with Jade after graduation.

  “I’ve got money saved up too,” I said.

  “For college,” Diego said. “That money’s for college.”

  My college fund had about fifteen G’s in it. Enough to cover all the first-year expenses my college scholarship wouldn’t.

  “I got money for what needs money.” I was trying to be funny, but the moment grew heavier. Diego knew how to fix it. He pulled out the Klondike bars and shook the box like he was baiting a pair of wild animals. “Hey, little shits!” he shouted out to my brothers. “Uncle Diego brought some treats!”

  • • •

  “I looked it up, and the water is like sixty degrees,” Erika told me later that day. We were in my bedroom, around ten p.m. Mom was staying at the hospital overnight, and the boys were finally asleep. Erika snuggled up to me on my twin bed, the covers half across our legs. “We’re going to miss the Atlantic.”

  “You mean ’cause it’s as warm as if someone peed next to you.”

  “I like the heat.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “If you want, I can pee next to you in the Pacific, so that you feel more at home.”

  “Hmm . . . maybe.”

  • • •

  Earlier that afternoon, I stood in the doorway of the boys’ room and nibbled on a Klondike bar. The room was a mess. “When are you gonna clean up?” I pointed to their beds, littered with clothes, old plates, and games.