After the Hurricane(105)

“Oh, it’s good to see you, baby,” he says, and he hugs her, tight, the way he always did. Elena has not been hugged by her father in years. For a moment it feels like all of this was worth it, and then he pulls back.

“How did you get here?” he asks her a third time. And she knows that there is nothing she can say to him that will mean anything, not her anger or sadness or pain. Nothing means anything now. He is as lost to her as his history is.

“I drove, Papi,” she says, her voice soft and calm.

“You want to see my father’s old house?” he asks. She nods. “You can leave your things here. This is heavy. Eduardo will look after it, right, young fellow?” he calls to the aged bartender, the way he does to everyone, calling them joven. The bartender nods, once, his eyes on the card game, which he returned to after pouring them their rums. Elena watches her father walk away for a moment, but really, it is no choice at all, she is going with him, no matter how useless the act of it is. She will cling to whatever she has until it is gone. That’s who she is. She knows that now.

They walk along the road, which has no sidewalks. Elena mentions this to her father, asking if this is safe, and he snorts.

“You sound like your mother,” he tells her. “Is she here?”

“No, Papi,” Elena says, her voice low.

“She said she would come but she doesn’t.” He sounds like a child again, sad and small.

“I don’t think she likes it here anymore, Papi,” Elena says, trying to be nice.

“But you do, don’t you?”

Elena thinks about this question.

“Papi? Did you sign the house over to me?” she asks, before she can stop herself.

“The house is yours,” he says. “You like it here, don’t you?”

“I do. I love it here. But what does that mean, it’s mine, Papi, can you tell me?”

“I don’t need it anymore. It’s yours,” he says, like it is so simple, and perhaps in a way it is, and he turns and continues walking, leaving Elena behind him. She does not want to follow, she wants to stand there and demand that he answer her, really answer her, but she doesn’t. She walks on, catching up to him, and he takes her hand in his. They pass chickens rooting for food in the undergrowth, and Elena wonders how people know whose chicken is theirs, and where the hens lay their eggs.

Soon they are standing in front of a small dilapidated house, half cement, half rotting wood. It is set back from the road, and a little away from the center of the town, the more developed areas, but close enough to be accessible. It has sunk into the forest around it. A tree is growing through the roof. Beside the house, beyond the overgrown trees and vines and bushes, Elena can see farmland turning back into forest, abandoned fields reclaimed by native plants.

“All sugar,” her father says. “My grandfather cut cane. I would bring him lunch, when I visited. Nice man. He cut until he went blind, and then he died.” He points to the left, but Elena can’t see anything.

“So your father lived here?” Elena asks. He nods. “And your mother?”

“Nearby. They both grew up here.”

“I saw her grave,” Elena offers.

Her father nods. “Your aunt Goli brings flowers. She’s a good woman, a sweet woman.”

“Was your mother a good woman?” Elena asks.

“She was a sad person. I think my mother suffered from being unloved. There was no one in her life who really loved her other than me.” In a moment like this, he sounds the way he used to sound, whole and firm, like a real person. But soon he will ask her a question, or say something that will show her that he is gone away again, and this will break her heart. The way he dips in and out of being a person is worse than if he were just completely gone, she thinks. It’s a trick, and she hates being tricked.

“Did your father love her?” Elena wonders.

“I think he tried.” Elena looks at her father and for a moment she is amazed by his generosity. There is forgiveness in his voice and she does not understand how people can do this, be kind and cruel and good and bad all at the same time. Forgive their parents and punish their children and hate and love and be. But you are doing that, aren’t you? You love this man, and you hate him, and you wish he didn’t exist, and you are so glad you found him. To be a human is to be a hypocrite in one’s heart, perhaps. And Elena is no less of one than anyone else.

“Do you come here a lot?” Elena asks. He shrugs again. “Did you used to come here, when you were a kid? To the island?”

“I used to come here every summer until I was sixteen.”

“What happened when you were sixteen?” she asks.

“I stopped coming.”

“What happened, Papi?” she asks, her voice cracking with her pathetic needs, her frustration, her fear, her rage.

“What happened when?” He looks at her, his eyes wide and untroubled.

“Why did you leave? Why did you just leave San Juan and where did you go? Who is Diego, who is Neil, what happened to your parents? Who are Hermando and Irena, who else is there that I don’t know? Who is Goli? Who are you? Where have you been?” She asks question after question wildly, desperate for something, anything, from him.

He looks around.

“Right here. What are you so upset about? Everything is wonderful. It’s a beautiful day, I’m here with my daughter, we’re in paradise. Why are you getting worked up? What’s wrong?” He does not understand. He will never understand. He will never see her, never see anyone but himself. He has nothing to give her of himself, nothing more. And she is a child, a spoiled kid who cannot be content with what she has been given. Because it has never been enough. How can she forgive him for this? How can she forgive herself for still, after all that she knows and will never know, wanting more?