Behold the Dreamers(40)
“Papa, show me how you and Uncle Winston used to swim at Down Beach,” Liomi said, and Jende did, flaunting the backstroke he and his cousin used to do in the waters behind the Botanic Garden. After completing two laps while a giggling Liomi watched, Jende lifted the boy and positioned his back against the water to teach him the strokes. Watching Liomi laughing and flapping his arms in the water, Jende saw, for perhaps the first time, his son not only as a child but also as a man in the making, a young man watching and learning from his father, a boy who wanted to follow in the footsteps of his papa and become a man like him in disposition, if not in possessions. That night they slept together as usual, Liomi’s arm around his father and his head on Jende’s chest. Never much of a praying man, Jende said a lengthy prayer for his boy as they lay, that Liomi would live a long happy life.
Twenty-one
HALFWAY INTO HER STAY IN SOUTHAMPTON, VINCE EDWARDS WALKED into his bedroom, jumped on his newly made bed while she was fluffing his pillows, and asked her to take a guess.
“Guess about what?” she asked.
“Today’s the day,” he said, beaming.
“Day for …?”
“The day I tell them.”
Neni looked confusedly at the face exploding with joy. “Tell who what?” she asked, wondering why Vince assumed she had to know his news.
“Jende didn’t tell you …?”
“Jende didn’t tell me what?”
“Never mind,” he said, standing up and walking out of the room.
Hours later, around five in the evening, Vince and Cindy left to meet Clark for dinner at a restaurant in Montauk. The next morning Neni saw nothing of Vince and very little of Cindy, who declined her breakfast and lunch and spent much of the afternoon on her phone, begging someone to please be reasonable and think about the consequences of his/her actions. When Neni called Jende later that evening to ask what he thought might be going on, Jende asked her to please stay out of other people’s business.
“If you know something, why won’t you tell me?” she asked.
“If I tell you, what will you do with the information besides gossip about it with your friends?”
She hung up determined to find out the story for herself. She couldn’t eavesdrop any further on Cindy, who had left the house to go for an evening walk on the beach, and Mighty could only tell her that his parents and Vince were fighting—his mom wasn’t telling him why, and Vince was back in the city. When Mighty had called Vince to ask why their mom was so upset, Vince had told him they would talk about it as soon as Mighty returned to the city since it was hard explaining certain things over the phone.
Two nights later, though, Neni wouldn’t have to wonder anymore: After making Mighty sautéed salmon and oven fries for dinner—plus puff-puff, which Mighty had asked for after she told him it was what she and her siblings ate in the mornings as they walked to school—playing video games with him, and tucking him in bed, she went to her bedroom to read a chapter in the textbook for the social psychology class she’d signed up for in the fall semester. Engrossed in a chapter on persuasion, she initially didn’t notice the voices escalating in the kitchen. It was only after perhaps three minutes, after the beseechings and accusations appeared to have reached a crescendo, that she realized it was Mr. and Mrs. Edwards shouting in the kitchen after returning home from a wedding.
She got out of bed, tiptoed up the basement stairs, and leaned on the door with her ear pressed against it.
“No!” she heard Clark shout. “You can go back to her and work on your long list of issues if you must, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’d rather see your family fall apart?” Cindy shouted back, her voice trembling. “You’d rather that than see a therapist and admit you’ve got problems that are destroying your family?”
“Yeah, let’s focus on my problems, because you don’t have any.”
“I’m not the reason our son is moving to India!” Cindy cried.
“You think Vince is moving to India because of me?”
“He’s moving to India because he’s unhappy, Clark! He’s miserable—”
“Because of me?”
“Because we haven’t succeeded in giving him a happy life! Because all he wants is to feel happy in his own family, and we can’t even give him that. Can’t you see?”
“Bullshit.”
“Bullshit to what?”
“Bullshit to all your crap about feeling responsible for Vince’s happiness,” Clark shouted, amid the sound of the refrigerator door opening and slamming hard. “He’s a grown man. He’s responsible for his own happiness. I can’t help it if he wants to be an idiot and throw away a perfectly good life. I can’t do anything about it!”
For many seconds they were silent. Neni closed her eyes and shook her head, unsure which of them to feel more sorry for. She imagined Clark was angrily drinking wine or beer straight from the bottle, while Cindy was silently weeping.
“Do you care?” she heard Cindy say, her trembling voice now lower but sadder. “Do you give a shit about how badly you’re hurting us?”
“Right. Sure! Working hard to give my family this life. How awful of me. Doing everything to make sure—”