Clap When You Land(14)
It is not something I talk about.
Almost a decade after her passing.
Tía had always lived with us
& she mothered me the best she could.
Some folks would resent this.
But even when Mamá was alive, Tía was the other
mother of my heart.
The one who would sing to me
when I fell & bumped my butt:
Sana, sana, culito de rana.
When he visited, Papi would tell me stories of Mamá.
How beautiful she was, brown-skinned & petite.
How hardworking she was as a maid at the resort.
He would tell me of their first date, & the song that reminds him most of her.
My head fills with memories not my own, that paint her for me.
I’ve never once felt orphaned.
Not with Tía dogging my steps & smacking my hand, & wiping my tears & telling me what my mother would say.
Not even though Papi was far,
because his presence filled the house: his weekly phone calls & video chats, his visits in the summer making Christmas feel like a semiannual event.
I never felt like an orphan until today.
Two months to seventeen, two dead parents, & an aunt who looks worried because we both know, without my father without his help life as we’ve known it has ended.
Carline texts me & I know she’s still at work.
The resort is the only place where she has access to Wi-Fi.
She asks me how I’m doing, but I barely reply.
I must have sounded unconvincing when I told her I was fine, because she arrives at my house after nine,
her feet swollen & shuffling, the tired bagging under her eyes.
She is still gorgeous. & I tell her so.
“Ay, Camino. No me tires piropos.
I know I look exhausted. This li’l one kept me up all night playing volleyball in my belly.
& the manager ran me ragged today.”
It is a good job that Papi helped her get
when she found out half a year ago she was pregnant & stopped going to school two towns over.
I want to tell her she needs to slow down on hours, but everyone in her family has to work. It’s how they eat.
Her boyfriend, Nelson, contributes best he can, taking night classes & working two jobs even though he’s only nineteen.
Tía places some fried fish in front of Carline, who expertly pulls the flesh,
leaving the sharp-boned carcass completely clean.
When she is done she puts her feet up, & I stand behind her weaving her hair into braids. So much has changed: a year ago we would have sat just like this, whispering about boys & dreams, & what we could be.
Now both of us are moving moment to moment.
Carline came to offer comfort, but I end up being the one who wraps a blanket around her when she dozes off, finishes doing her hair gently so she can sleep in in the morning, parents her as best I can
before she becomes one. & I remember I have none.
Ten Days After
I keep going to school as if nothing’s happened.
There was one day where we had one moment of silence.
Most of the kids know I had a father in the States who sends money.
I am an oddity at the school.
Never been an hija de mami y papi,
children of white-collared, white-colored society types.
The rich, light-skinned Dominicans at this school come from families who own factories
or are children of American diplomats.
I didn’t have a quincea?era at a country club.
I’m American-adjacent. With a father who makes—made— enough money to keep me in the school uniform but not enough to contribute to the annual
fundraiser or to send me on any of the international trips or to give me a brand-new car over Christmas break.
Papi paid just enough for tuition every quarter, & sometimes I had to nag him when he forgot & I’d gotten yet another payment-notification letter.
& now, I sit silently in class. Do not raise my hand.
I’ve been doing my assignments late at night after Tía falls asleep. I’ve been studying for final exams on the bus ride to school in the morning.
I am pretending Papi being dead does not change anything.
That submitting all my work means my plans will come true.
Even as I sit at a desk I know I may not return to in the fall.
Dreams are like the pieces of fluff that get caught in your hair; they stand out for a moment, but eventually you wash them away, or long fingers reach in & pluck them out & you appear as what everyone expects.
I come from people who are no longer alive.
My grandparents,
my parents. I have
Tía, & my father’s brother, who lives in New York,
& they are the only two left to me who share my blood.
There is no one to go live with.
There is no one to provide help.
There are my good grades
& my aunt’s aging hands.
When I am called to
the guidance counselor,
who wants to know
if I am doing okay,
I ask if she knows what will happen if my family cannot pay tuition.
She says there are scholarships I would have had to apply to a semester ago;