After the Hurricane(21)

“It’s okay if it is. It’s been a long time,” Rosalind said, her nose wrinkling. She liked Puerto Rico, at least, she had in the beginning, when he first brought her here years ago; but she hated its effect on him, hated the way his father was with him, with everyone, hated how even now his father, Santiago Sr., didn’t call her by name, referring to her simply as tu esposa. Rosalind was a feminist, unhappy with being referred to solely in terms of her position as his wife. And she knew that it was not just because she was a woman, but because she was not Puerto Rican, not what Santiago Sr. had wanted for his son, no matter how absent he had been in that son’s life.

“Everything is so much slower here.” She sighed. Santiago nodded. He used to come every summer. Now he only came when someone got married. After Jorge, maybe it would be Beatriz, his youngest sister, who was only ten. It would be a long time before she got married. Could he wait that long again? He loved it here. As soon as the airport doors had opened he had felt back home, although he had never really lived here. The island wrapped him in its humid arms and he wanted to hug it back, to embrace it and apologize for being away for so long, like a lover he was returning to after a long trip. But it was a lover that came with so many strings attached.

“Is that his car? Jesus, how long has he had that thing?” Santiago looked up to see the old Cadillac his father had had as long as he could remember huff and puff its way up to the curb.

“You getting in?” Santiago Sr. chortled out, in Spanish, grinning madly.

“Hola, Papi,” Santiago Jr. said, opening up the rusty trunk. Rosalind was looking at the car in horror, clutching Elena in her arms. Santiago watched as his father leaned down, hard, on the horn.

“You coming?” Santiago Sr. asked her, in English this time, his accent thick, his tone derisive. But his face lightened at the sight of Elena, who squirmed, annoyed by the horn. Rosalind, furious, opened her mouth, looked at her husband, and shut it, inhaling deeply. She got into the back of the car, clutching Elena fiercely, as his father made cooing sounds at the baby. Santiago Jr. slid into the front seat, feeling like a teenager again, getting into his father’s car on one of his visits home during the summer to the island, as the old man cackled at him.

“You’re getting fat,” his father told him, laughing again, that nervous laugh which sounded cruel or kind, depending on what else he was saying. Santiago returned it, unconsciously echoing it, and in the back seat, he could see Rosalind wince.

“She’s a big baby. She looks like you, poor girl,” his father said of the grandchild he had never met. Santiago Jr. had sent him some photos, but received no reply. He rarely did.

“How have you been, Santiago?” Rosalind gritted out, determined to be polite as she always was. His father spoke and understood English, but pretended not to most of the time. He nodded, though, to Rosalind’s question.

“Good, good, last son getting married! Jorge is becoming a man. I try to take him to a whorehouse five years ago but he not go. So I pity his wife tonight!” He laughed again, and Santiago Jr., knowing his role as audience member, laughed, too. “That’s what we did back in the army.”

“Charming,” Rosalind said, leaning back against the beaten-up seat, and then straightening again when the pressure forced a cloud of dust out. She held Elena up to the open window, pointing out things, palm trees, flowers, buildings, which Elena repeated back in toddler babble.

The car took the familiar route toward Bayamon, where his father lived now, his islander children surrounding him like chess pieces. They lived nestled together, while Santiago Jr. lived on the mainland, far from them all. But this had always been the way it was, his father putting distance between the two of them, then children between the two of them, a new family, a second, better try.

They arrived quickly in front of the squat cement house; no longer split-level now, it seemed to have grown an addition. His father pointed to the second floor as they got out of the car, excited at his bounty, explaining that he had added it and improved the value of the house. Rosalind snorted behind him, but walked in, mentioning that she needed to change the baby, as Santiago Sr. led his son straight through the living room and kitchen and into the garden, where he threw his body on a chair, inviting his oldest son, who he never called anything but “Junior,” to do the same.

“Nice girl, the one he’s marrying. She’s from Mayagüez.” Santiago knew what his father was telling him. It was a rebuke, comparing Jorge to Santiago Jr., who did not marry a nice girl from Mayagüez. He sighed. He had helped pay for this wedding, as he helped with everything, without question or complaint.

“I’m sure she’s great,” he responded. His father nodded, like he had said something more meaningful than he had, and shouted out for a beer, two beers. Within a minute, Chavela, his wife, emerged from the house. Santiago hadn’t seen her on the way in, but rose to greet her, as he always did, with a hug. Chavela was nothing like the evil stepmother of fairy tales. She was soft and tiny and warm, and she had always been kind to him, kinder than his father, or anyone else in his family, really. She could not have been more different from his own mother. For one thing, she was sane.

“So good to see you, Junior. You look wonderful, and your daughter is so pretty!” Chavela was as kind as his father was mean. She handed him a Heineken, and his father the same, frowning.