Behold the Dreamers(101)
Neni burst out laughing, then she was crying, then she was laughing and crying all at once. Natasha watched as she went through the full range, dried her eyes, and then laughed again and cried again, unable to believe this was where life had dumped her.
“I can’t imagine how difficult this is for you, but you have to look at the things you’re willing to do. You’re willing to divorce your husband and marry a man you barely know. You’re willing to give up your child for adoption knowing you might not see him for many years.” Natasha paused, looking at Neni intently. “I think you ought to step back a little bit, ask yourself why you’re—”
“I have to do what I need to do.”
“I’m not disagreeing.”
“I don’t like how people say to a woman, oh you want so many things, why do you want so many things? When I was young my father said to me, one day you’re going to learn that you’re a woman and you should not want too many things; like I should just be happy with my life even if it’s not the kind of life I want.”
“Mmm-mmm,” Natasha said, shaking her head.
“I’m not ashamed of wanting many things in life. Tomorrow when my daughter grows up I will tell her to want whatever she wants, the same thing I will tell my son.”
Someone knocked on Natasha’s office door and said her next appointment had arrived. Natasha said she’d be ready in five minutes. She stood up, came around the coffee table, sat down next to Neni, and took her hands. “I will support you,” she said. “Whatever you decide to do, you will have my full support.”
Neni nodded, and bowed her head.
“You don’t have to ever worry about me judging you.”
For a moment Neni sat in silence, her head still bowed. “A lot of mothers where I come from,” she said softly, raising her head, “they send their children to live with other people. They want them to be raised by relatives who have more money.”
“Hmm.”
“Sometimes these mothers and fathers are poor and other times they are married and living together and have enough to feed their children, but they want their children to grow up in the house of rich people.”
“Does this usually work out well?”
“The relatives treat the children well sometimes; other times they treat them badly, but the mothers let their children remain there. I did not understand why.” She took a deep breath and leaned back on the couch, her hands crossed over her belly, her eyes on the floor.
“What are you thinking?” Natasha asked her.
“Maybe I’m becoming another person.”
“Mmm-hmm. And what do you think of this new person you’re becoming?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me put this another way: Are you happy with who you’re becoming?”
Neni’s eyes welled up with tears, but she didn’t cry. She looked toward the window and blinked back her tears.
Fifty-four
GONE WERE THE MOMENTS OF TENDER EMBRACES IN THE KITCHEN, MINUTES of stolen passion in the bathroom while the children slept. They were now in two separate universes, each certain of his or her rightness and the other’s senselessness. Unwilling to fully embrace the new person she was becoming—it seemed so futile, considering the final decision wasn’t hers to make—she could do nothing but engage in fraught conversations about their future, which ended in accusations from her and rage from him. We’re going back home, he would say, and that is the end of that. How can you do this to us? she would screech. How can you be so selfish? If she spoke while he was eating, he would push away his food and jump into a rant about how she had been sold the stupid nonsense about America being the greatest country in the world. Guess what, he would say to her in mock instruction, America is not all that; this country is full of lies and people who like to hear lies. If you want to know the truth I’ll tell you the truth: This country no longer has room for people like us. Anyone who has no sense can believe the lies and stay here forever, hoping that things will get better for them one day and they will be happy. As for me, I won’t live my life in the hope that someday I will magically become happy. I refuse to!
Their worst fight happened four days before his court appearance, after she said to him, while he was groaning in pain on the living room floor, that his best chance at getting his back pain healed was to stay in New York, where the doctors were better than the ones in Limbe. She had spoken mindlessly as she massaged his back, thinking nothing of how a man in pain and four days away from standing before an immigration judge would react.
“Shut up,” he said to her between his groans.
A day later, she would look back and realize that she should have said nothing after this warning. But she did not consider doing so then: Her battle to help her husband recognize the folly of his conviction had not yet been won.
“Why are you so stubborn?” she said. “You know the doctors here can find a cure—”
He pushed her off his back and stood up, glaring at her as he tried to massage his own shoulders.
“I’m just saying—”
“Did you hear me say you should shut up?”
“This pain is never going to go away if—”
She didn’t see the slap coming. She merely found herself stumbling backward and falling on the floor from the force and shock of it, her cheek burning as if someone had rubbed hot tar on it. He was standing over her, his fists clenched, screaming in the ugliest voice she’d ever heard. He was calling her useless and idiot and stupid and a selfish woman who would be happy to see her husband die in pain all so she could live in New York. She jumped up, her cheek still throbbing.