Clap When You Land(39)


I kiss her gently in the morning when it’s time

for me to leave.





Fifty Days After


At the airport I stand at the checkin line trying not to draw attention.

I’ve done the research & because I’m

sixteen going on seventeen, I fly as an adult, not an unaccompanied minor. The only hitch is if they ask for my mother to sign a letter of consent.

But I heard this is hit-or-miss; it just depends on the person checking you in.

I tried to get my ticket electronically, but it kept saying error.

I am not nervous. I am not nervous.

When the man at the desk calls me forward

I hand over my passport without saying a thing.

He looks at the picture, then at me. “You’re underage.

Will you have a guardian with you?”

I shake my head no. He shakes his head sadly. “If you were seventeen we could waive it. But as it is . . .”

Panic bubbles in my body. I can’t not go. I can’t not go.

I have to get on this flight.

I look the man at the desk straight in the eye.

He is youngish & seems new at his job.

I think of the best way to play this & decide to be up-front.

“I’m going to bury my father. My mother didn’t know I would need a guardian.” I make myself sound confident.

I push the next words out. None of them are lies.

“My father was a passenger on flight 1112.

My father died on flight 1112. They’re flying his body, what is left of it, out today.”

It’s the first time I’ve said the words. Although reporters have called the house & it was all over CNN

a few weeks ago, this is the first time I have said the words.

My father died on flight 1112.

For the rest of my life I will be known by that fact.

I wipe at my eyes with the heel of my hand.

The man at the desk blinks rapidly.

He squints down at my passport.

“Looks like you’ll be seventeen soon. & really the age restriction is more a recommendation than a requirement.”

He hands me back my passport.

Prints out a ticket & circles my gate.





Camino Yahaira


I start the sancocho

while Tía delivers a poultice

to a viejita with arthritis.

I brown the beef & chicken,

peel & chunk the yucca

& plantains.

This is the stew

we make for welcome,

& although I don’t know

if I even want this girl here,

it seems the right thing to do.

I don’t think about the money at the altar.

When Tía comes home,

I am chopping cilantro. Mashed

garlic sits in the mortar.

Usually when I cook

it’s quick things:

pastelitos, bacalao with rice. Tostones.

But sancocho is a daylong dish to make.

It has many steps; it’s making a pact with time that you will be patient & the outcome will be delicious.

It is browning & boiling. Blending & straining.

It is meat & root vegetables. Herbs & salt.

It is hearty & made from the earth & heart.

Tía puts her bag away, turns on the kitchen radio.

Xiomara Fortuna’s voice bellows out, & soon we are both singing along.

If Tía suspects anything, she does not let on.

She cuts avocado & puts on a pot of rice.

She removes pulp from a chinola for juice.

Tía is a tight-lipped woman with few friends; she says she only shares her secrets with the Saints, her silence laid out like a dance floor for magic.

Yahaira is on the same flight as Papi’s body.

I know exactly where she is in the air without having to glance at a clock.

I’ve memorized this route

throughout my sixteen years. I don’t check my tablet. I don’t worry about the plane.

Of course I worry about the plane.

I am sick with worry about a girl I don’t know.

My hands shake as I wipe down the kitchen counter.

I should tell Tía. But I know if I do, she will call Yahaira’s mother. & I know if she does that, her mother might learn about the money, might learn what I’ve been planning.

I light a candle at Tía’s altar & pray for safe passage & that the crossroads be clear. & then with an hour left of flight time, I make the phone call I’ve been dreading.

But sometimes a girl needs a favor.





I spend the entire ride in Don Mateo’s car berating myself for agreeing

to this Yahaira’s crazy plan.

My hands are sweating. & it’s not because the AC in Don Mateo’s car doesn’t work.

He was gruff as usual when he let me in the car but I can tell even he’s shaken by how eerily familiar this all seems. Last time we did this it seems like the world ended.

I told Don Mateo I need to receive my father’s body, not that I was picking up his other daughter.

I know he’d have told Tía immediately.

We are silent the entire ride. The closer we get to the airport, the more I feel like I might throw up.

I try to distract myself with plans for Yahaira.

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