After the Hurricane(79)

Santiago wanted to tell her she had helped in every way, because she had, but his words choked up in his throat.

“Loving someone is being happy for their happiness. When you fall in love, when you have children, you will know that you truly love them because you will do whatever it takes to make them happy, even if it means putting yourself last. If that is the right thing for them, you will do it. Your mother may not know how to tell you this, but you know that she loves you. And that means in some part of her mind, she knows that your future is somewhere else, and she wants it for you.” Mrs. Schultz put her hand over Santiago’s and squeezed it tight, and he wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that both of his parents had left him behind, one for the island, one for her madness, because they loved him, not because they didn’t.

But he knew that wasn’t true.





Fourteen




Elena wakes up in the morning and realizes that this is the first time in days she has slept in an actual bed. Diego has two bedrooms, one for visitors, he said, and she wonders who visits him here. He seems so alone. She had not wanted to ask him, the evening before, after he explained who Neil was, why he never tried to be with someone after Neil’s death. Perhaps he had. It seemed too private a thing to intrude upon.

She checks her phone and sees a response from Terrance, which she immediately deletes. What is done is done. Panic swamps her, but it is soon numbed with rage, and she remembers the call to her mother she didn’t have a chance to make the night before. She looks at the photo she took last night, Diego standing next to the painting of the man Elena now knows is Neil. Neil, who lived with her father in college. Neil, who mattered to him. Neil, who died just before she was born.

It is seven, and Rosalind wakes early. Elena dials before she can tell herself not to, and waits for the sound of her mother’s voice.

“You never told me about Diego. Or Neil. You never told me anything,” Elena says, trying to keep her voice emotionless, and failing. There is silence, and she can hear Rosalind clearing her throat, something her mother does when she is trying to think. Trying to figure out how to get out of this.

“Your, your father didn’t—”

“You knew Neil. Not just him. You knew Diego, too. You were friends with them both. They were a part of your life. Your past. Not just his,” Elena says.

“How did you even—”

“I’m here. With Diego. I found him.”

“Is, is he there, too?” Rosalind breathes. Elena doesn’t respond, and she hears a sigh on the line.

“Your father wanted . . . when Neil died, it was too hard for him. He wanted to leave it behind, in the past.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have let him,” Elena spits out. How they had enabled him, how they had allowed him to be what he was? Rosalind, and her, too, because Elena has always learned by example.

“When has anyone ever let your father do a fucking thing?” Rosalind asks, bitterly. “If I could have dictated his behavior, if I could have controlled any part of him, do you really think I wouldn’t have tried?”

“Maybe you should have shared what was yours to share. Maybe we shouldn’t have let him be the only person who got to decide what I would know and not know about him. About both of you,” Elena says, her face growing hot, her throat tight.

“That’s not fair, I’ve told you about my life, my past, my family—”

“You’ve been with him since college. Your past is his past,” Elena points out, her temples pounding. “You told me so much about your family, our past in Russia, our religion, you saturated me in where you come from but it doesn’t make up for everything I don’t know. Don’t have.”

“I, I wanted to make up for him,” Rosalind says. Elena knows this, knows how much her mother loves her, hears the regret in her voice. But Elena cannot forgive her, cannot absolve her yet. Perhaps not ever. She loves her mother, she will always love her mother, but for so long she has made Rosalind all that is good, the good parent. Rosalind is a good parent. But that does not mean she is never a bad one.

“I hoped, I hoped I would be enough,” Rosalind says. Elena feels that like a knife in the thin skin of her wrist.

“You are enough, Mom. You are enough of you. You are enough of a mother for me, for anyone. But you aren’t my only parent. And more from you doesn’t make up for nothing from him. Or the fact that there are pieces of him that you could have given me. Pieces that belong to both of you, like, like Diego. And you didn’t.” Elena has tried to keep her voice steady but she can hear the tremble at the end. She breathes deeply. Rosalind is silent.

“I’m sorry,” Rosalind says. Elena says nothing. “I’m glad you met him,” Rosalind offers her, almost timidly.

“I’m sorry it took this long,” Elena says. There is another long pause. Elena has nothing more to say. She has never indicated that her mother wasn’t enough for her. Those insecurities aren’t from Elena, they are Rosalind’s to bear. Elena is carrying enough right now. She hears her mother’s intake of breath, and knows that she will change the subject, that this is all too heavy for this moment in time.

“What are you going to do now? Are you—”

“He might be in Ponce. Apparently he, I, have family there.” Silence. Does Rosalind know this already?