After the Hurricane(42)

“He never told me that.” Elena breathes, taking the photo. More relatives, live ones. In Ponce. Would her father have gone there, gone to see them?

“Do you think . . .” She looks up and sees it again: pity.

“I not know why he not tell you this.” Maria’s English is slipping again, and Elena can see tears in her eyes. She sighs. Her aunt can be very emotional. All of her family in Puerto Rico can. So can Elena, for all she tries to hide it. She can feel tears gathering in her own eyes, and blinks, fast.

“Me neither.”

“It’s like he ashamed,” Maria says, shaking her head.

“I don’t think—” But then Elena stops herself. She doesn’t know, really. And it could be shame. All this, all the ways he has buried the past, this could be shame.

“He do a lot, your papa. He accomplish a lot in his life. They have nothing, my papa and . . . her. He come here, he do better, but she stay there. That family, I don’t know them much, just Irena and Mando—he come here, get off the drugs, he got a bar now. But their mother, your papa’s grandfather, they say she was bad. And they got nothing there. Just living on nothing. Not your papa, though. He got out. Maybe it too hard for him, remembering all that, telling you about it.”

“Maybe,” Elena says. “Would he have gone there?”

“Ponce? Maybe, I don’t have Irena’s number. We don’t talk much.” Maria looks faintly disapproving. It could be because Irena is a distant connection, through a woman Maria prefers to forget. Or it could be because her church probably isn’t big on witchcraft.

“And of course, this Diego,” Maria says, smiling. Elena looks at her, and the photograph in her hands, it’s the one that says Me and Diego, 1974. Maria knows who Diego is. Maria knows who Diego is.

“Diego. Do you . . . do you know much about him?” Elena asks, her heart hammering hard, hoping Maria will take this as an invitation to tell her more. She is lucky that her aunt takes most things as an invitation to say more.

“I always like him. Papa thought he too fancy. Once he have us all over his father’s hotel for dinner and they turn Papa away! They thought he was some kind of homeless, maybe. He didn’t dress up.”

Elena has no idea how to respond to this, and it must show on her face, because Maria looks at her, and sighs again.

“Your father no tell you about Diego,” Maria says, disappointment in her eyes. She shakes her head again. “I never thought he would no say about Diego. They meet in law school. Diego also Puerto Rican, but, how do I say, fancy. Probably directly from Spain. His family own two big hotels, and a coffee plantation, all kinds of things. They still wealthy. He was one of your father’s best friends.”

“Was?” is all Elena can manage.

“Is. He move back, actually. He on the island. He retire in Rincón. I call him, too, sometimes your father go see him, but last time I call his phone was off, I not know. They might have more problems there, it’s on the sea.” Elena knows her aunt is speaking English but it might as well be Greek for all she understands what Maria is saying. How, why, would he keep this from her? Her father has never mentioned this man, one of his best friends. He has never told her anything about him, and she had no idea he, too, had returned to the island. Frankly, beyond anything else, she was shocked Yale Law School in the 1970s had admitted more than one Puerto Rican. Although it sounded like Diego was more aristocratic than her father, just the kind of Latino people liked, like Ricardo Montalbán, someone only slightly foreign.

“He’s in Rincón,” Elena repeats, trying to make herself understand. The name on the map. That was his location. Somewhere in Rincón. How big could Rincón be? Could she find him? And was her father there, or in San Sebastián, or somewhere else entirely? Or at the bottom of the sea?

“Sí. You want his number? I got an email, too, but I no use email. Takes too much time to type everything I gotta say!” Maria says, laughing. Elena nods vigorously. She wants his number, his email, any trace of this person. Diego is someone who knows her father, knows his past, a guarantee of some kind of information. Maria writes the email address down and Elena takes the paper, slipping it into her purse carefully, reverently.

Maria looks up, and Elena smells something, food. Her stomach rumbles. The only thing she has put in it today is coffee. The twins are carrying a tray with something that looks slightly burnt on a floral plate, and a glass of soda.

“Come, you eat, I look through these, see what else I can see. I write it down for you. The girls make them for you. So sweet they are. Mis mu?ecas!” Maria coos, and her dolls, as she calls them, blush with happiness. Maria, who was married so young, at twenty-two, had always wanted to be a mother, and she had the girls after almost fifteen years of trying, praying, worrying, talking about it, not talking about it, everything under the sun. She still treats them with a kind of wonder, living miracles in her home, as does their father, Javi.

They’ve brought her croquetas, no doubt courtesy of Goya, little fried packets of potato and meat that they have reheated—unevenly, Elena finds as she bites into one, and has a mixture of hot and frozen food in her mouth immediately. She is hungry, and they look at her, shy, waiting for words of praise.

“Wonderful,” Elena says, lying. “Thank you so much.” They glow. They are sweet girls; for all the adoration they receive from both of their parents, they are not spoiled or entitled. Instead they are kind, quiet in the face of their mother’s noise, tranquil.