Clap When You Land(13)
Clearly, I made a lot of assumptions.
I’ve always looked at my parents & seen exactly what they’ve shown me. I could not imagine them as real humans
who lied. & kept the truth. From each other.
From me.
This year, I did not ask.
I did not want to sit across from my father.
Not to play chess, not to share a meal.
Not to ask if I could join him
on a trip to the Caribbean
when I already knew
way more than I should
about the answer he would give me, about the answers he would not.
I was raised so damn Dominican.
Spanish my first language, bachata a reminder of the power of my body, plátano & salami for years before I ever tasted peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
If you asked me what I was, & you meant in terms of culture, I’d say Dominican.
No hesitation,
no question about it.
Can you be from a place
you have never been?
You can find the island stamped all over me, but what would the island find if I was there?
Can you claim a home that does not know you, much less claim you as its own?
Camino Yahaira
Five Days After
Papi had stubby fingers with the tip of one missing from where a machete slipped one July day while he was cutting me a mango in the backyard.
His skin where the nail used to be is the same dark color as the mahogany chess pieces he played with.
(He tried to teach me the game
but I kept trying to include my Barbies in the battle.) People barely noticed the missing fingertip, until you shook—in my case, held—his hand & could feel the shortened pointer finger.
Not that he tried to hide it. Papi wore his fat gold rings & gestured with every word he said.
& held a cigar to his mouth with the missing finger pointing upward.
It’s just the rest of him took up a whole room & it was hard to notice he had anything missing at all except when he was the one missing,
& then it was like days were deflated, like when his flight rose into the sky
he took all the air on earth with him.
No hay sobrevivientes.
No hay sobrevivientes.
There are no survivors.
It was a foolish hope.
Tía hugs me to her,
her white head wrap caressing my cheek.
She is a small woman & I tower over her.
Neighbors pour into the house
like our grief is a bottomless thirst
& God has tipped this pitcher of people to fill us up.
The furniture is pushed back & an Hora Santa begins.
Rosary beads pass through fingers, & the rosario repeats & repeats.
Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracias.
Fifty Ave Marias, five Padre Nuestros, five Gloria al Padres.
Tía shoves her words out; I repeat them,
rocking back & forth, let the words wash over me.
Later, Tía will hold a private prayer in her bóveda out back; this is where she keeps her cowrie shells, where she will divine from the Saints the next steps we should take; they know all about folks crossing the Atlantic & not surviving.
We stack our faith up like spinal discs to hold us upright; it gives us language to fill our mouths & hearts & ears.
Gives us deities to call on
that might answer & bring my father home.
Papi knew my mother since they were children.
Grew up right here, in this neighborhood of Sosúa.
They were of this home, of each other.
Grew up grew apart
at least that is what Tía says, that she remembers how her little sister made eyes at the boy across the way.
They reconnected one day at El Malecón.
She was sitting near the water, gossiping with a friend from university.
Mamá saw him approaching & fluffed her hair.
Papi straightened his collar. Tucked his shirt in tighter.
She laughed when her friend stuck out her hand, preened.
Papi looked taken aback.
She watched as her friend flaunted & flirted.
Papi gave Mamá a smile & secret wink.
She watched Papi extract his hand from her friend’s.
Papi extended it to Mama.
She said he had his heart in it.
Although the friend was clearly taken by him, Mamá said he had eyes for only her.
Said that at the meeting she knew he’d be the greatest love of her life.
The day Mamá took to the fever, Tía was paying house calls to others who’d been struck by the dengue.
It was just me & Mamá at home
as I wiped her forehead & prayed.
When Tía got home she hopped on the phone, & even as a kid I knew she was calling my father. For all her remedies, there are times when Tía knows a hospital is best.
Mamá did not want to go. Said an ambulance was too expensive.
Although Don Mateo offered his car, Mama was worried about getting him sick.
She said we were making a big fuss, even though she could barely speak.
It didn’t help that Papi’s money came too late.
Mamá died two days later.