After the Hurricane(112)

When she wakes up it is still dark, and her phone tells her it is midnight. She tries to sleep again, but she cannot, and so she gets dressed and walks to the one place she knows will be open, El Batey. It is crowded, of course it is, it is a Saturday night. She had no idea. She has lost all sense of time. The smoke hits her face, and she smiles. She looks to the corner, and Fernando is there. Of course he is. He looks up at her, and winces. She has not contacted him again since their last phone call, and yet it does not feel like they have missed any time. She smiles, crookedly, yes, but still a smile. He smiles back, and the string between them pulls tight. He could be her friend. He could be more, too, but she does not want to think about that now. Let it be a surprise, weeks, months later, when he kisses her suddenly, pushing her gently against the walls of the San Juan Gate, as they return from visiting the colonies of cats that live along the rocks outside the original city walls.

His smile is tentative and sheepish. She sits down beside him, and motions to the bartender, a man this time, who looks like a bodybuilder, almost bursting out of his tank top, but he doesn’t see her.

“How are you?” Fernando asks, his voice calm. She smiles again.

“I survived.”

“How was San Sebastián?”

“I found him.” Fernando nods.

“That’s something, then.” The silence stretches between them, but it is calm, and almost sweet.

“You found me, too,” he says, and smiles at her.

“I knew you would be here. It’s late, though,” Elena points out. Not his usual routine, beers over grading papers. He nods.

“Weekend,” he says. “Can I buy you a drink?” She nods, and Fernando calls for the bartender, addressing him by name and asking him for a rum.

“You remembered,” Elena says, smiling.

“It’s an easy order.” He shrugs. He looks at her, tense. “So. The house.”

“The house.”

“Have you thought about my offer?”

“I have.” Elena smiles at him. “But unfortunately, I have to disappoint you. You aren’t going to get to restore it.” She continues, ignoring his sputtering. He looks at her, his brows drawn, as she smiles. “I am.” She takes a sip of her drink. His mouth is open, and when she taps his chin, he closes it, with a snap. He looks at her for a long moment.

“Well. That’s better than nothing, I guess.”

“You’ll have to help me,” she says, smiling to take the sting out of the order. “I’ll be all alone and I won’t know how to say lots of words and who to contact for things and if I’m being cheated and if I’ve picked the right paint colors. Can you help me? Will you?” He shrugs, and sighs, then nods.

“As I said. Better than nothing. Alone?”

Elena nods, and Fernando’s face goes pale.

“Oh, no, not like that. My father is, well, he’s alive. In his way. But the house is mine now,” Elena says, and color returns to Fernando’s face.

“How was he?”

“He didn’t realize he’d been missing,” Elena says. She has nothing else to say about it. Nothing else seems worth the effort.

He looks at her for a long moment. She can tell even though she is staring straight ahead, she can feel his gaze on her, the pity in it. She steels herself against it, and looks at him, and sees that he isn’t looking at her at all, he’s looking at his beer bottle, peeling off the label. She finds great kindness in this.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking up at her, and she can see it in his eyes, that he really is sorry. She nods. So is she. They both take long drinks.

“Fernando? Can you do something for me?” she asks, quickly, before she loses her nerve.

“Yes,” he says, no questions, no qualifications, and she forgives him, she realizes, for everything all at once, whatever little piece of resentment was still in her has dissolved.

“Can you tell me about my father? When you met him, what you thought about him, what he talked about? It’s just, I don’t know what it would be like if, if I didn’t know him. If I could hear about him, what he’s been like for the last few years, from someone who just met him—maybe it would be better, if I could see him from the outside. Maybe I could see him more clearly, or in some other way. And maybe, maybe that would be a good thing.” Elena looks at him, willing him to understand her, hoping she will not have to explain. She worries she will take it back if she has to explain it. But she can see in his eyes that he does indeed understand her, and relief floods her veins. He nods, once, and closes his eyes, in thought, she realizes.

“The first time he came to the island was for his First Communion. He was amazed that any place could be so green. The most green he ever saw before, he said, was in Central Park, and this was like a whole island of that, but better, because it was so warm.” Fernando’s eyes are open now, but Elena closes her own, listening to him. It is like hearing about a stranger, it is hearing about a stranger, and she smiles as he continues, the bar noise fading away, until all she can hear is this.



Later, hours later, Elena walks into the ocean as dawn breaks over the island.

She is tired, for she never went to bed, but the ocean will revive her, she trusts it. The bar is true to its promise, it does not close until six in the morning, but Elena leaves at four, her mind buzzing, her heart weighed down heavily. She walks past the house, hers now, and past San Cristóbal fort, hulking mass that it is, and down the road, and past the capitol building, lit up despite the hour, and down the dark steps to the beach. She takes a photo of this beach, empty of people, as the light slowly creeps up the horizon. She sits on the sand, her mind humming.