Clap When You Land(36)
I take a deep, warm breath.
“People loved to say you were your father’s daughter.
& you, you loved to hear it. I’m sure you’ve always thought me silly or superficial, or qué sé yo, too girly?
You, you’ve always been the best of daughters.
& already so beautiful. So good at makeup & funky clothes.
O, ?pero claro! I wish you would straighten your hair more.
But I also understand your style doesn’t have to be my own.
I have my fingerprints all over you.
& I don’t need the world to see them
to know that they’re there.”
Although Mami is dead-ass serious that she isn’t going to the DR funeral,
she is the one who visits the morgue
when we are given custody of what is left of Papi’s body; she is the one who decides what to do with the remains.
Who takes Papi’s favorite navy blue suit to the mortician.
She is the one who comes home ashy gray in the face.
Who does not describe
what the leftovers look like, only hugs me to her.
She is the one who says, “Thank goodness
for that damn gold tooth.”
She is the one who calls the Dominican Republic & says, “It needs to be a closed casket; whatever you do, don’t let the girl see what is left.”
& I know she means Camino, means to spare her.
I don’t understand my parents’ kind of love & hate.
What it must take for Mami to lose him all over.
But I know she must have love for him, right?
She is so, so tender when she irons & folds the purple pocket square that will go inside his grave.
Papi will have two funerals.
Papi will have two ceremonies.
Papi will be mourned in two countries.
Papi will be said goodbye to here & there.
Papi had two lives.
Papi has two daughters.
Papi was a man split in two, playing a game against himself.
But the problem with that
is that in order to win, you also always lose.
All I want is my father back.
I want his heavy footsteps to tread outside my door.
I want his
stupid sayings, & his angry bellow, & rapid Spanish, & his eyes
that misted over when his favorite song played.
There are pieces of him all over the house,
all over New York City, & beyond that to the island, but I can’t bundle them together to make anything, anyone
resembling him.
Camino Yahaira
Forty-Five Days After
The school year ended weeks ago. I’ve hidden three bills the school’s sent beneath a candle Tía never moves.
I’m hoping the Saints will step in.
I don’t know how I’ll pay for it. But my sister & her mother are rich, & damn if they don’t owe me something.
I just hope Tía doesn’t find the bills first.
In a week & some change, July 29, I will turn seventeen.
The same day my father’s remains will be buried.
I don’t know if my sister knows
that day is my birthday. & I don’t tell her.
At the beach I swim until I hit the resort buoys, then swim back.
& mostly ignore El Cero watching from the water bank.
He’s started taking out his phone
& recording me on the beach
I do not want to think what he does with these videos.
I help Tía with her rounds of the neighborhood.
We visit the lady with cancer & wipe her brow.
I sit with Carline & her baby.
I count down the days to the end of July.
Forty-Six Days After
Four days before my sister is supposed to arrive, I finally get my nerve up. I call her after dinner.
She answers with a smile. I know it will not last.
“I won’t tell you any details about the funeral
unless you transfer me money. You’ll show up
for nothing. My Tía won’t help you sneak over here.”
I don’t want to be brisk. It almost hurts me to look into her wide, soft eyes & ask for so so much.
But her softness has nothing to do with the desperation I feel growing inside me. After Papi’s burial
I will have to leave this place. There is nothing for me in this town where I see my exit doors growing smaller.
My words, weighed down, become an avalanche.
In the blink of a second Yahaira’s face goes blank.
She leans back in her seat. “Of course. It’s your money too.
You didn’t have to threaten me to ask for it.
We haven’t gotten the advance in full,
but how much would you like me to transfer?”
I don’t know if it’s her cool tone or my guilt that causes me to flinch.
She can say whatever she wants, but no one,
no one gives you something simply for asking.
Life is an exchange; you’d think a chess player would know that.
“Ten thousand. You can keep everything else.”
I swallow back the bile that rises in my mouth.