The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba(70)

After I meet the president, I am presented to another crowd who cheers as Karl introduces me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the sound, or the way they look at me as though they expect something profound to escape from my lips. My English has improved since I first landed in New York, but I lack the ability to speak without reserve, or maybe given the unusual circumstances, I’d feel the same in Spanish.

I am a performer on a stage, playing the role of a lifetime: as myself.

All I can hope is that the affection and goodwill that they show me will also extend to Cuba.





Twenty-Nine





Marina


“We must talk about Isabella,” Luz says to me one night in the fall as I lie on my pallet on the ground beside her, watching my daughter sleep. Every so often Isabella coughs, her body rattling with the effort, and it takes everything inside me to keep from screaming in frustration at the sense of helplessness that her sickness has been plaguing her for weeks now, and it’s not getting better.

“She’s ill,” Luz says.

“I know,” I reply, not taking my eyes off my sleeping daughter’s form. “I’ve been saving some of the money I’ve made to see if I can get her medicine.”

Everything is expensive in Cuba now, the effects of the destruction of so much of our agricultural capability being felt even in the city. I’ve done as much as I can with the money Carlos gave me as thanks for doing my part to help Evangelina, but it only stretches so far, and we need more.

“I know you have. I’ve seen how little you’re eating to make up the difference, but you must know by now that it’s not enough. She’s not getting better, and with all of the disease in this camp, the dead bodies, she doesn’t have a chance of it, either.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to hold back tears. I told Mateo I would keep our daughter safe, and I’ve already failed her. I’m supposed to be her mother, supposed to protect her, and no matter what I do, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. She deserves so much better than the horrible conditions in which we are living. We all do. But this war continues on, and we are still not free.

“I can’t lose her,” I whisper, reaching out to stroke Isabella’s hair. She looks so much like her father. “I can’t.”

“We need to get her out of here,” Luz replies. “She needs to be somewhere safe where she can receive proper medical treatment and where she has a hope of recovery. Her odds of survival in these conditions are too low.”

She doesn’t say the rest of it, but then again, she doesn’t have to. In my most desperate moments, I’ve considered going to my family and asking them to take my daughter. The war has barely touched them, and they have the power and money to take care of Isabella.

I can’t imagine being parted from her.

I can’t imagine going back to that house and asking for help after I left with such finality years ago.

I can’t lose her.

“I don’t know that they would be willing to help. When I chose to marry Mateo, they said that I was dead to them. They’ve never met her. They don’t even know I have a daughter. What am I to do, show up on their doorstep and ask them to care for her?”

“It is the best chance she has,” Luz replies. “I don’t know them as well as you, of course, but I was always under the impression that for all of their faults, family was everything to them. Many things were said in anger when you made the choice to marry my son, but I cannot imagine they would abandon their only granddaughter. Especially if they knew she was living in these conditions.”

She’s right, of course. It is the best chance Isabella has. Even if I am afraid to risk them rejecting me once more. Even as my pride balks at the idea of returning to my family home and begging for them to acknowledge and care for my child. I don’t regret the decision I made to marry Mateo and abandon the life I had as a Perez, nor do I wish for things to go back to the way they were. But as a mother, I cannot fathom not doing everything in my power to save my child’s life.

And still—

“What if Isabella thinks I’m abandoning her?”

Our daughter has only me now. How will she feel if I leave her, too?

“One day, she will understand that you are doing the best you can to give her a better life. One where she will be healthy and safe. And whenever this nightmare ends, you will be there for her, to start over. These are impossible times, Marina. We’re all doing the best we can. She’ll understand that when the time comes.”

Will she?

I look over at my daughter’s sleeping form, the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

“They might not take her in.”

“You won’t know until you ask.” Luz is silent for a moment. “I will miss her, too.”

She reaches out and takes my hand once more, and I realize it’s not just our love of Mateo and our family that unites us. We both know what it’s like to have to give up a child in this war.

I stay up all night, long after Luz has gone to bed, watching Isabella sleep, praying she will survive.



* * *



—

The next morning, I dress Isabella carefully, my hands trembling as I comb her hair, a memory filling me of my mother doing the same to me when I was Isabella’s age. Her clothes are threadbare, her body slight from her illness and the lack of nutrition in the camp.