After the Hurricane(85)
“Rosalind asked you to come here?” Irena says, her eyes widening.
“You know my mother? Did you ever meet her?” Elena asks, curious. Irena and Hermando exchange puzzled glances.
“Of course we did. She came up to New York with your father when his mother was still alive. She cleaned up the place, cooked, not that Esperanza ever thanked her, she just told her her food was inedible. I always liked your mother.”
Elena does not have room for all the rage she feels toward her parents, both her parents, at this moment. Rosalind sent her down here fucking blind. She could have told her about Diego, about Irena and Hermando, about anything, and instead Elena is just wandering around looking for one Puerto Rican man on an island full of them.
“When was the last time he was here? Please, please don’t lie to me. Everyone is lying to me, or not, not telling me what I need. Please.”
The siblings look at each other again, silent communication clear between them. Elena wonders what it would be like to have someone else who shared her parents, who talked to her with their eyes like these two talked to each other. But she wouldn’t wish her family on a sibling, no matter how lonely she was sometimes as an only child.
“He called, offered us some money after the storm, but we didn’t need it. He wanted to make sure we were okay,” Hermando says. “He comes here sometimes. He came a few weeks ago, maybe?”
“Two weeks,” Irena says. Two weeks ago. That means he was alive two weeks ago.
“What, what was he like?” Elena asks, her voice mortifyingly shaky. Hermando looks at her with pity, and it makes her shrink like a slug sprinkled with salt.
“He’s haunted,” Irena says, succinctly. “I think it’s his mother. I tried to fix it but her spirit is strong. He came for two days and left. Said he was going home.”
What does home mean for him?
“That was it? That was everything? He didn’t say anything else, what his plans were, anything?” Elena begs, reaching out, holding onto Irena’s wrist, desperate for more, for something.
“Yes.” But Elena sees her eyes flicker to the side, like she is lying.
“I gotta serve some customers,” Hermando says, standing, and moving to the bar. Irena has not let go of Elena’s hand, and she pulls her in, her mouth at Elena’s ear.
“He is haunted, and he is becoming a ghost himself. He is crossing into other worlds, and you must let him go.” Irena’s eyes burn, like her mother’s and sister’s in the photos, like Elena’s own; she can feel them in her skull, burning. Irena releases her, and it is like her aunt has returned from some other place.
“Drink your drink,” Irena says to her, like it’s milk for a child. Elena takes a sip in silence. Going home, what does that mean? Philadelphia? New York? California—did he think of that as home? San Sebastián, even? What could home mean to him, a place, a person? Which one?
“I don’t think you should give up the house,” Irena says, almost absently.
“I’m sorry?” Elena says. Irena pins her with those fire eyes again, smiling.
“It will be yours, won’t it?”
Elena exhales at the words. For a moment she wondered if there was something, well, real in Irena’s magic.
“I don’t know if it will be mine,” Elena says.
“It will,” Irena says, and Elena longs for that certainty, the confidence that has come with Irena’s own escape from reality. She thinks of myths she has read, how the gods demand sacrifice for their gifts. Elena is doomed to live in a world of doubt, for she is not willing to pay the price Irena has.
As quickly as she came, Irena leaves, telling her long-lost great-niece that she is needed elsewhere, suddenly, although her phone has not rung, no new message has reached her by digital means. Elena does not think that she really believes this woman has magic, but gun to her head, she does not know what would come out of her mouth. She hugs her goodbye, hoping for a last word, some other prophecy to spill out, but Irena just wishes her luck, her eyes vague, and then she is gone.
Hermando abandons her, too, in service to entertaining new groups of customers who have come, in droves, it is 6:00 p.m. now, the long night of drinking will begin for many. He has offered her a place on his couch, but she will probably get a hotel room. She needs time to herself, and he will be at the bar until it closes, and afterward, she imagines. She does not want to ruin his night with her avalanche of emotions.
Elena takes a sip of water, and lets it hit the back of her throat, trickling down into her stomach. She has to keep going, to find a hotel and make a plan for the next day, for the trip to San Sebastián. It is the last place for her to look, the last option. If he isn’t there, well, he isn’t anywhere. If he isn’t there she will fly back to New York, beg for her job, won’t she? No, I won’t. If he isn’t there she doesn’t have a clue what she is going to do. She is exhausted, overwhelmed by her task, sodden with anger and sadness and gratitude, because she is here, with people she never knew existed, people who are a part of her, who together have given her a piece of herself, her legacy. She wants to feel that there is something at the end of this, someone, her father, and something will happen that will fix it, heal it, that he will see her and smile and love her the way she needs him to. That he will give her a piece of himself to carry into the future, that he will get better because he wants to, so she can know him, so he can know her. She wants him to show her the way home. She would like to go home. Wherever that is.