After the Hurricane(46)

“What about inheritance?”

“As long as the owner has left a will, that’s fine. It transfers the ownership, as long as it’s a will made in Puerto Rico according to local laws.”

So that was how it was done in Puerto Rico. Not changing the name on the deed, but willing the place. Does her father even have a will? A will in Puerto Rico, made by a Puerto Rican lawyer, who would understand the legal system here? And if her father doesn’t, could he make one now? Is he of sound mind, anymore?

She thanks the clerk, her mind buzzing. She looks down at the file. The documents she is skimming through have a few indicators of the history of the house beyond the requests for changes, but not much.

“Sorry, may I ask you something else?” The clerk looks at her, clearly annoyed. She smiles, trying to appease him, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

“Are you going to ask?” he wonders, rolling his eyes. Clearly not working.

“How would I find more information about the history of the house itself? Beyond this?”

“You can go to the Biblioteca Nacional, maybe. If you want to. It might have something more.” He shrugs.

“For a historian, you don’t seem that passionate about this stuff,” Elena comments, unable to stop herself. The clerk just shrugs again.

“Let me know when you’re finished,” he says, turning back to the computer. “We close at noon.”

“The hours on the building say four-thirty,” Elena says, confused.

“Yeah. But I gotta do something.” Of course he does. These are the people who get these jobs instead of her? This is why she has worked in property management for years, instead of doing the thing she really wants to do? She wonders if she should be applying for jobs on the island, since it seems the competition isn’t very tough. That would mean staying here, she reminds herself, which she has no interest in doing.

This is a lie, she knows. She has always wanted more time on the island. But imagining the look on her mother’s face if she told her that, imagining being in the same place as her father—both are equally devastating in wildly different ways.



The National Library, or Biblioteca Nacional, isn’t far from the little pocket of San Juan that is the viejo part, and Elena can walk there. She sets off, hoping that this place is open less erratically than the institute, but when she gets to the large pale-yellow building, she finds that while the library is open, the archives department is closed because the archivist is on vacation. Of course they are. It will be open next week, they tell her, and she hopes that this is actually true.

Walking back, along the ocean on Avenida Luis Mu?oz Rivera, Elena consoles herself with the knowledge that while it would be nice to know the history of the house, it isn’t as vital as the information she got at the Institute, that her father needs to will her the house for her to have it. Perhaps he already has. She would like to believe that he has. But it is impossible for her not to doubt him, not to wonder if he has, as always, failed her. Left her behind. Forgotten his promises. Forgotten her.

She stops walking, and looks out to the sea, to the ruined piece of the old battlements that now corrodes, picturesquely, as the sea crashes into it. She reaches into her purse to take a photo, and her fingers brush the paper her aunt Maria gave her the day before, the information about Diego. She should have contacted him immediately but she didn’t. She is afraid to talk to him, just like she is afraid to talk to everyone else. She rages against them in her mind, and hides from them, too. She has to be stronger than this, she tells herself. If she wants something she has to ask for it. If someone was going to give it to her, they already would have.

Instead of the photo she planned to take, Elena uses her phone to compose an email. Perhaps she should call this man instead, but she is too timid for that, too afraid he might actually pick up the phone. So she writes, as she is always more comfortable doing, introducing herself and asking him if she could possibly meet him, lying that she is just passing through the island. She does not mention that her father is lost. She does not want to alarm this man, or make him think that she, too, is crazy. He might think that anyway. He knows, better than her, where she came from.

She has more emails from her work, more leases to look at, and now they want her to run credit and background checks on new renters. She is still on vacation. The emails are no longer worded kindly or apologetically, but rather brusquely, check this by Monday, thanks. She has been gone for less than a week.

I hate this, she thinks. The air around her feels tight. She doesn’t have the time or energy to contact previous landlords and review leases. Her brain is too full. She’s not even supposed to be working, she’s supposed to be on vacation. What a wonderful vacation she is having . . .

She ignores the emails, she cannot think of them now, can barely read them, and instead she returns to the house, and cleans, and cleans, until her arms ache and her throat is thick with dust. She sits, afterward, showered and aching, and looks around. Her efforts are helping, to be sure, but it still looks like a hurricane swept through the place. She supposes one had, really.

She does not know what to do now. Rent a car and drive somewhere, one of the places her father might be? Which one, even? Wait for Diego’s response, wait for her father to come home, wait for the archives to reopen, wait for a will giving her the house to flutter down from the sky and find her?