After the Hurricane(50)

“You’re all right?” She repeats his words back at him. Why does he seem so affected by this? She does not know, of course, but it had sounded to her, from what he said, that Fernando and her father were drinking buddies, nothing more.

“My power went out, during Maria. Well, everyone’s did, of course. But, I’m alone here. My family is all back in the U.S. They left the island when I was a kid. But I came back because, I don’t know. It felt right. Not being here felt wrong. Disloyal. They don’t feel that way, it’s okay. But I do. So I’m here. Hence the ceiba. Something about here has always been a part of me.”

Elena nods, wondering what this is about, but knowing she shouldn’t interrupt. He seems to be building to something.

“Your dad came over to my place. I pointed it out to him once, I don’t know how he remembered, he was pretty . . . Well. But he came over one day. I was scared shitless, the nights were so dark and you didn’t know if something bad could happen, if someone could take advantage. He knocks on my door and he tells me to come with him, the moon is full, we can make it back to his place, and I can stay with him until the power is back. So I do. He had water, beer, some food. We would sit up on the roof during the night and look out on the island, all dark, but you could see the stars like you never could before. My family asked me if I was okay, when I could charge my phone, all that, they didn’t want me to be alone. But I wasn’t. I would have been. I never would have asked anyone for anything. But he came to me, and led me to his place, and made sure I was okay. There is no one else here who would do that for me. Not my colleagues, not my students, nobody. Now he’s lost. It’s just . . . Seems strange, you know?”

Elena nodded. She does know. Something touches her hand, and it is his hand, and it is strange, to touch a stranger, but warm, a pulse of comfort. Fernando is odd, Elena decides. But he is also kind, and he knows her father. He is a friend, now. It is good to have one here.

“He told me he wanted to go to Ponce, and that he has some friend in Rincón he wants to see. And he said he wants to go to his hometown.”

“San Sebastián,” Elena says, with authority, recently come by. She wanted to try it out in her mouth, anyway. San Sebastián. My family is from San Sebastián. It is new, she could use the practice. Fernando nods.

She has three choices, three places to go. Three points on the island in different directions. Which one should she choose? He could be in any of them, or none of them. Her phone lights up with a message. It’s a reply from Diego.

“Excuse me a moment.” She stumbles out of the bar, thinking about how many people before her have done just that, and opens the email. The response is short. Dear Elena, I would love to meet you. Any chance you could come to Rincón? I’m always free, joy of retirement. Best, Diego Perez Acevedo.

And just like that, her choice is made for her.

“Tomorrow I’m going to Rincón,” Elena declares to Fernando, walking back in the bar. Of course she is, because whatever Diego offers her, it will be more, more information than she had before. She is going because he might know about the house, how Elena can find out about the deed, anything. She is going because this, somehow, is easier than meeting family members she has never seen before. She is going because she is a coward.

“Okay.” Fernando finishes his beer. He lays some money on the bar, and stands. Elena is aware of a strange disappointment. He is no longer holding her hand, and she feels like he has taken something important from her. She is clingy with drink and need, and she pulls herself back, telling herself he has a life and he can go where he has to, of course; obviously, he owes her nothing, he has already given her a story about her father, a sense that he is still kind, despite everything, and confirmation that Rincón might hold something.

“It’s not that far, and I got a car. I was going to go to Aguadilla tomorrow anyway for lunch. Do you need a ride?”

Elena smiles at him. A ride is something she absolutely does need, indeed.





Nine




“Can we talk about this?” Rosalind asked him, her eyes large behind the owlish glasses they were all wearing in those days. When Santiago had been a child, he had worn black Coke bottle–style glasses, which he constantly protected from breakage, not in the schoolyard, which was a fairly calm place, especially because he was in the gifted students program, but on the walk home, where gang members would chase him blocks and blocks through the Lower East Side. In college, it had been wire-rim glasses to look like Gandhi or John Lennon, but now it was big plastic frames, for everyone. By the eighties, everything was bigger and bigger.

“Talk? What is there to talk about? You want this. You said you wouldn’t want this, and you want this. So, what’s the conversation? What’s the fucking conversation, then? Fuck you,” Santiago said, softly and succinctly. Rosalind drew back, shocked, and the thick lenses magnified the sudden tears in her eyes. He never cursed, ever, not in English or Spanish. He thought it made people sound uneducated, poor, and he was terrified of that, of being mistaken, or accurately identified, in his own mind, as less than others.

“Santiago, this is important,” she mumbled, her voice choked. He wanted to fall on his knees before her, beg her forgiveness, this woman he loved more than anything, his lifeboat. She was steady, calm, always moving toward the light, and he knew he needed her if he was to have anything approaching a decent life, if he was going to stop himself from sinking into the dangers that surrounded him, always surrounded him.