The Last Karankawas(60)
Jess frowns a question at Carly in the passenger seat. “Malhado?”
“Misfortune. Doom.” It is the first time she has spoken the whole way, and she has to clear her throat.
“Never heard it.”
“That’s what Cabeza de Vaca called Galveston when he shipwrecked here. Isla de malhado.”
“Oh, yeah.” He looks at her again, grinning. “You remembered something I didn’t.”
She is pleased, but turns to the window so he can’t see her smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
“La isla mia,” Magdalena says. She reaches forward and scratches the back of Carly’s head lightly with her fingers. “Nuestra.”
Carly considers pulling her head away, but she is tired of worrying, tired of anger. The smile feels good. The touch of her grandmother feels good. She lets Magdalena’s fingertips weave through her hair and watches Houston spread out from I-45 in every direction. She remembers the sorrow she felt in Sealy, how alone, even with Jess there. Grandma is slipping away, Carly thinks. Soon she will be the one to leave for good—never to be left behind again.
And then there will be Galveston. And Carly, too. She is rooted here, fused fast like an oyster seed to its shell, that shell to its reef. The idea doesn’t make her gut twist or lightning dart through her blood anymore. Some alchemy, maybe, like Jess talks about. She has bent beneath it, but not broken. Though she has lost nothing, she feels an ache—something she cannot name pulling away from her. But the sun through the windshield warms her skin. She smells Jess’s deodorant, smoke from her grandmother’s hair. Carly closes her eyes and drifts.
She is eight, and she’s heard the word malhado for the first time. Even with her Spanish—which is fluent, not broken into chunks of excuse me and no thank you and motherfucker like Jess’s—she doesn’t recognize it. But she knows it means something bad because of the way her grandmother says it. She hardly moves her lips; the word darts through her teeth like a forked tongue.
Carly doesn’t know what she’s done wrong. All she has asked is, “Do you ever hear from my mom and dad?”
Magdalena straightens where she’s facing the stove; her shoulders lower and set as if beneath plate armor. “Nunca,” she says, her voice firm but not unkind. “I don’t, and I don’t think we ever will.” She looks at Carly over her shoulder. “Llenos de malhado, esos. You be glad they’re gone.”
Tears prick the top of Carly’s nose. Magdalena turns fully to face her. “Don’t you cry,” she says. “No tears. Would the Karankawas shed tears over this?”
She knows the drill and shakes her head.
“Would they cry like sad little chickens over every hard thing?”
“No.”
“No. Who were they, our people?”
In the living room, the window AC rumbles to a stop; instantly the air becomes heavy, losing the cool of the conditioning, swelling again with the weight of the Gulf. Her grandmother seems to swell with it, too.
“They were warriors.”
“Claro.” She takes Carly’s chin in her hand, shakes it gently. “So are we.”
REBUILDING
Jess
He needs new gloves. Jess makes a mental note to buy a pair the next time he’s at Home Depot, which will probably be in a few hours given the way he keeps running back and forth for more supplies. Sledgehammer, drywall hook, demo fork. Tools he does not have, has never thought to buy. But now he is busy, not just with the Albacore house but with so many others in Fish Village—what feels like an endless stream of demolition, days spent with the crew breaking down all that Ike damaged. Rey got him the work, and he’s been doing it full-time since the boats are out of commission and the fishing season, it seems, is at a standstill. Like most of life in these weeks, these months post-Ike.
The rebuild is coming. Jess drives down Broadway, trying not to look at the brown-leaved trees. They will be replaced, he tells himself, though the sight makes him want to cry. He turns into Fish Village, passes the piles of debris still lining the corners and some lawns: soaked and rotting trash, scrap wood, stained sofas, useless refrigerators, waterlogged TVs. Demo has begun for many homes, including theirs on Albacore and his mother’s on Dolphin. Industrial dumpsters sit in the driveways, jagged chunks of lumber and drywall extending upward like broken teeth. Soon it will all be rebuilt. He wants that part the most, longs to see the gleam of new wood and clean drywall, replaced shingles, green grass. Be patient, he thinks. Soon.
He turns onto Albacore. As he approaches the Castillo house, he slows to a crawl. Shifts to park, stops. Stares through the windshield.
The man on the concrete steps rises to his full height—a few inches under six feet. Jess doesn’t remember that. In his mind, the man was taller. Jess takes a deep breath to slow his pounding heart. As he turns off the ignition and steps out of the truck, he realizes he now towers over his father.
He has lost weight. Jess remembers a burly man, but the Orlando Rivera before him is leaner, rangy. Shaved head. Old work boots, fraying jeans, a blue shirt rolled to the elbows. Tattoos climb up his forearms; Jess spots the Mexican flag and the Virgen de Guadalupe, thorned roses in the shape of his mother’s name. Those he remembers.
“Mijo,” Lando says. His voice is raspy, that higher pitch that always—he’s not sure why—surprises Jess. He hasn’t spoken to him on the phone in months, not since well before Ike, though they have exchanged letters in the years since he was released. He was living in Port Arthur, Jess thinks, tries to scan his memory rapidly. Beaumont? An oil refinery somewhere. Lando lifts his arms, lowers them, clasps them together before tucking them into his jeans pockets. As if he is not sure how they work and he is learning.