The Book of Unknown Americans(72)

“No!” my mom wailed. “Rafa, no!”

“He died,” my dad said.

“Who was on the phone?” my mom managed to ask.

“A nurse.”

My head was pounding.

“He died,” my dad repeated in disbelief.

“No,” my mom said again. “No, no, no, no, no!” She dropped her head into her hands.

I couldn’t swallow. It had to be wrong. We had to be able to rewind. It couldn’t be real. It felt so weightless. It felt like an idea, a particle of dust floating around in the air that hadn’t landed yet. There was still time to catch it. There was still time to stop it, right? It had to be a mistake. I tried to swallow again, but my throat was huge.


IT WAS MY DAD who drove Maribel and Sra. Rivera from the hospital back to the apartment.

When he returned, my mom asked, “Where are they?”

“What do you mean? I drove them back.”

“But I thought you would bring them here.”

“They’re going to bed.”

“They can’t stay in that apartment tonight. They can’t be alone at a time like this.”

“They’re tired, Celia. You should have seen them. They need to sleep.”

“But in that apartment?”

“They have each other.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“You’re right. It’s not. But what can we do? Listen to me. They were calm in the car on the way home. Neither of them said anything except to thank me for coming to get them. You can go over there first thing in the morning. Just let them get some sleep.”

“They’re our friends!”

“Alma is a strong woman. They’re going to be okay.”

My mom let out a shaky sigh.

“Tomorrow. You can go see them tomorrow.”


AS SOON AS the sun came up, my mom and I went over. Sra. Rivera answered the door and my mom fell onto her in a crushing hug. “?Qué horror!” my mom cried into Sra. Rivera’s neck. I crept past the two of them to the bedroom where, through the open doorway, I saw Maribel sitting on the floor, her legs extended in a narrow V. I hesitated for a second, waiting to see if she would look up. I thought I might be able to tell from her expression whether it was okay for me to go in. But she was just moving her feet from side to side, staring absently at her toes. I went and sat down next to her, straightening my legs in the same way, and tapped the side of my sneaker against her foot. I didn’t say anything because there wasn’t anything to say. I just sat, listening to the muffled sounds of our moms from the other room—low voices and sniffling and even, once or twice, what I could have sworn was laughter.

After a long time, Maribel said, “Do you think it was my fault?”

“What happened to your dad?”

She nodded.

I looked at her face. I could see that she was going to live with that question for a long time. I’d been living with it for less than a day myself and it was tearing me up. But I said the only thing I could. “No. It was just what happened. That’s all.”

“But we left México because—”

“No, Maribel. It was just what happened. It had nothing to do with you.”

“Then was it our fault?”

I shook my head.

“But the only reason—”

“Listen to me. You can’t do that. You can’t think like that.”

I was trying to comfort her, but both of us were trying to make sense of it. And sitting there, I started thinking, Who can say whose fault it is? Who can say who set this whole thing in motion? Maybe it was Maribel. Maybe it was me. Maybe if I hadn’t left school that day, or if I had answered my stupid phone when it rang, or if I hadn’t fallen asleep in the car on the way home, none of this would have happened. But maybe if our parents hadn’t forbidden us from seeing each other, I wouldn’t have needed to steal her away like I did in the first place. Maybe if my dad had never bought that car, I wouldn’t have had a way to get to the beach. Maybe it was my tía Gloria’s fault for giving my dad the money that allowed him to buy it. Maybe it was my tío Esteban’s fault for being a jerk who she would need to divorce to get that money. You could trace it back infinitely. All these different veins, but who knew which one led to the heart? And then again, maybe it had nothing to do with any of us. Maybe God had a plan and He knew from the second the Riveras set foot here that He was putting them on a path toward this. Or maybe it really was completely random, just something that happened.


I DIDN’T KNOW IT THEN, how close to the end I was with her. I mean, I should’ve been able to figure out that they’d go back to México. I just didn’t know how soon. I didn’t know that the last time I’d see Maribel would be just a week later, when I’d find her sitting on the curb outside our building next to a full-size mattress.

I went outside and sat next to her, the cement cold through my pants, the ground mostly clear by then except for a few patches of dirty snow.

“What are you doing out here?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“I thought you weren’t allowed outside by yourself.”

“My mom is sleeping.”

I peeked at the mattress. “On the floor?”