After the Hurricane(69)

“Did he tell you when he was buying a house down here?” Elena asks.

“Oh yes. Told me he was getting a ruina. I told him he was insane. He said that’s what your mother told him.”

“I always thought they both wanted it.”

Diego looks away.

“I don’t know how much Rosalind really liked it here.”

“I always loved it,” Elena says, surprising herself. But she has, she has always loved the island. Puerto Rico has become a four-letter word in her life and for her mother because of her father, but Elena cannot erase her love so quickly. She loves it here. She lets herself think that, believe it, and smiles.

“I never would have taken on that work. Restoration,” Diego says. “I wanted to build something new. Something my own. I’ve never liked old houses. Too many ghosts. I’ve been haunted in every old house I’ve ever stayed in. Now, I only want to be some place where the ghosts haven’t died yet.”

“Maybe you’ll become a ghost. Haunt the new occupants,” Elena offers.

“I hope not,” he says, seriously. “I hope when I’m gone there will be nothing left of me, and that my house will be swallowed by the sea. I’m unlucky, you see. I’ve been left behind by love. I’ve got my own ghosts that follow me place to place. I hope I don’t haunt anyone like I’ve been haunted.”

“I like the idea of ghosts,” Elena says, and realizes it is true. She enjoys the idea of history lingering behind for her. She likes places that feel overlayed with stories, with the past. She would welcome a ghost in her home, as long as it would tell her about itself. And then she wouldn’t be so alone; with her ghost, she would be with someone. “But I’m sorry you’ve been haunted.”

“That’s all right. Makes life a little less lonely, I suppose,” Diego says, his eyes sad.

“It’s falling apart now. The house. It’s a ruin again,” Elena spits out quickly, trying to change the subject from Diego’s ghosts, the ones that haunt him still.

“So why do you want it?” Diego asks. Elena looks away.

“Well, it has value,” she hedges.

“Of course.” He is waiting, with a cat’s patience.

“It’s not like he has someone else to leave it to,” Elena points out. Diego just looks at her.

“It’s a piece of history,” she finally says. “Not just the island’s history, but mine. Ours. And maybe my mom didn’t want it. Okay. But I’m allowed to. He said it was for me. He promised me it would be mine, my piece of history, I guess. I want him to keep his promise. Even if it’s just this once.” She is making a habit of these confessions to strangers, strangers who could well hurt her with the soft underbelly she is exposing. It is freeing, the way she imagines jumping off a tall building is freeing, just before the ground breaks your fall.

“I see,” Diego says, those assessing eyes taking her in again.

“Do you happen to know if he made a will down here?” It’s an intimate thing to ask, although perhaps less so to a lawyer, she isn’t sure. Diego nods, slowly.

“Your father asked me about this a few years ago. Apparently your mother contacted him, I think she wanted to make sure her name had been struck from the deed; your father got the house in the divorce, I believe?” Elena nods. “Your father asked me about Puerto Rican law for inheritance, but I didn’t know much either. We both practiced in the States, and the laws here are different.”

“French civil, yes?”

“Indeed. Well done. I gave him the information for a local estate lawyer, a friend of my family. Victor Padua. I believe your father did contact him.”

“How do you know?” Elena asks. Her father says he will do a lot of things he never does.

“I saw him at a lecture a few months later, and he mentioned it. I don’t know what happened, if he ended up using him and making a will, but it’s likely. Your father was more lucid then. If I’m being honest, every time I see him, there is more gone. I don’t know if it’s neurological, or what, but . . . I can give you his information, Victor. I don’t know what he can tell you, of course, but you could try.” It isn’t much. But it’s more than she had before. Everything is. She nods, thanking him, and reaching for the check before he can. He reaches out and she thinks it is to grab it back, but instead he takes her hand.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Elena Vega.” And he kisses it, like a courtly knight. She wonders why he is so alone, why he wants to die before he can become a ghost, who haunts him. But just because she is spilling her secrets everywhere doesn’t mean he wants to, she reminds herself.

“He really does love you, your father,” Diego says. “But not, I think, more than he hates himself.”

It has never occurred to Elena that her father might hate himself. Surely everything he has done for years has been for himself, to satisfy himself, to make himself happy. Does that kind of person hate themselves?

Of course they do.

What does she do now? Does she forgive him? Does she pity him? She shivers, although it is warm and sultry like it usually is on the island, and the thick air embraces her. He hates himself. Can someone who hates themself ever really love someone else? Was he incapable all this time, and every choice she thought he made was just an inevitability? The idea of this sits in her stomach like a stone and she has to breathe deeply not to throw up, not to succumb to the pounding thud of her blood rushing to her temples.