Clap When You Land(32)

I know, in the place

inside me that is still clear & fair, this is not my mother’s fault. But I’m just so damn tired of being lied to, & she is the only one who is here for me to be angry at.

I sit & stare at the message Camino Rios sent me.

I sit & stare at the picture of my father proudly hugging a child that is not me.

I could delete the message.

I should delete the message.

Why say a single thing to this girl I do not know?

I will decline her friend request.





Camino Yahaira


When I get home from picking up my report card there is a notification shining blue on my tablet.

It’s been days since I sent the message.

I stopped believing she’d ever see it.

I stopped checking it incessantly.

But now, here is a response.

Tía asks me if I want something to eat but I feel so queasy, I don’t think I could.

I unlock the tablet & take a deep breath.

There is shock in the list of questions the girl, Yahaira, has sent my way.

& it is clear she did not know I existed.





Message from Yahaira Rios: How old are you?

Did Papi live with you when he visited?

Where in the Dominican Republic do you live?

Have you ever been to the States?

Who do you live with there?

Do you have other siblings?

How did you learn Papi had died?

I think we need to video-chat.





As far back as I’ve had memory to keep me company, It’s been Tía & me making an existence.

Papi, someone who was only present by voice & pixelated face, & by his summer visits that were always too short.

I was not the kind of child who wanted siblings, or someone to play with my hair.

Sometimes, I would miss the mother I barely knew, but mostly, Tía was all the parent I needed; all the family I thought I wanted.

It is strange to go from being an only child to seeing someone wearing your own face.

Now there is this other person & supposedly she is my sister where yesterday she was just a name

holding the future I thought I wanted;

now there is a girl of blood & flesh who is second only to Tía as the closest thing I have to family.





I do not reply to her.

Even though I know

the message will show as read.

I take a moment to figure out

what it is I want to say.

I am nervous to admit to Tía what I’ve done.

That I’ve reached out

& told her my father’s secret: I Exist.

I must make a sound.

Because Tía looks up from her reading or maybe in her magic way, she just knows.

Our backyard rooster crows an evening song.

“I reached out to Yahaira. Papi’s girl. She responded.”

Tía puts down her book but is otherwise silent.

“She wants to talk. She wants to video-chat.”

& it comes as a surprise to me, but all of a sudden I’m crying, the sob pulled up from the well in my chest, full & wet, & Tía must have been expecting it.

She scoops me to her.

“Ya, mi’ja, ya. Ya, mi’ja, ya.”





What I respond

to this Yahaira:

Hello. Yes.

We should talk.





Camino Yahaira


“You’re in this square

& squares don’t overlap.”

Papi taught me every piece has its own space.

Papi taught me every piece moves in its own way.

Papi taught me every piece has its own purpose.

The squares do not overlap.

& neither do the pieces.

The only time two pieces

stand in the same square is the second before one

is being taken & replaced.

& I know now, Papi could not move between two families.

When he was here—he was mine, when he was there he was theirs.

He would glide from family to family, square to square & never look back.

It’s why I heard so little from him when he was gone.

It’s why the girl in DR

needed to message me

to confirm I am my father’s daughter.

Everything has a purpose, Papi taught me.

But what was his in keeping such big secrets?





Thirty-Six Days After


We eat in silence. We haven’t sat

at the dinner table since Papi.

Instead, we bring plates to the couch & pretend to eat with them in our laps.

I haven’t seen Mami wear makeup

in weeks, & her chancletas

are the only footwear she rocks these days.

Between commercials I play on my phone.

Now that school’s out, I don’t even have homework to distract me from the silence which is why I’m surprised today

when Mami mutes her novela to say “We need to make plans for your future; we are the only family we have left.”





Because Mami did not want to legally fight Papi’s will, after Papi’s remains are released to us he’ll be flown back to DR to be buried.