Sweetest Taboo (15 page)

I looked down at my journal, where I was writing, and adjusted my bedside lamp. It was midnight, and the world outside my window was pitch black. The edges of my room, beyond the circle of light, were a fuzzy gray, but promised no escape for my fevered mind. I felt as though I had no place to hide, and no safe haven. Worse, I had nothing to offer Tom – he was in the States alone, dealing with this mess that I had created. And he didn’t even know how I really felt about him.

I leaned over my journal and continued writing my list of questions. Writing them down – making them physical – helped to get them out of my head, and had been helping me sleep, of late. I looked at the list now and gulped. It was getting quite long, and there were very few answers to go with the questions.

Would the charges against Tom be dropped, since I had given no incriminating testimony? Did Officer Gray believe my story? My friends and I often lied to our parents, about a number of large and small things, but lying to the police was something different. What if they doubted I was telling the truth because my testimony was so different from the other students? Would I be asked to take a polygraph test?

If there were other girls involved, had they already testified against Tom? Was it already too late?

November came and went, and without much celebration due to the tension at home. I finally left fifteen behind and turned sixteen. My dad organized a small party and my mom got me a colorful birthday cake, but after nearly three months in Chile I was in no mood for a celebration. Tom was constantly in my thoughts, my dreams, and even my prayers. Did he realize that I was turning sixteen? Did he even care? Did he hate me now that he knew I had told my friends about him? Did he think that I had told the police more about our affair? Was he in police custody? Did he lose his job at Royal Oaks?

The questions burned holes through my mind, and I found it hard to concentrate on anything else. With the stress from being stuck in limbo between education systems and the case involving Tom, I lost a lot of weight, leaving my already thin frame even thinner.

Finally, after we’d been in Chile for five months, my dad called a family meeting in the living room. He asked Tony and me to sit on the velvety green sofa, while my mom stood by his side.

“Well, we’re in a difficult situation here,” he told us in a grave tone. “If you two just continue like this, your lives will have no meaning here. We can’t afford to send both of you to a private British or American school at this point, so there’s not much else we can do. You’re leaving us with one option: for all of us to return to the United States so that Tony, you can go to college and Isabel, you can finish high school. I don’t see that you’re leaving me much choice, though I find your actions both selfish and immature. If you don’t take the equivalency exams next month, which you have both clearly refused to prepare for, we’re just going to have to move back and – ”

My dad suddenly stopped short; he stared blankly at the hardwood floor for a moment, then clutched at his chest and fell to his knees, gasping. Tony was the first to react. He jumped from the sofa and caught my dad before he hit the floor. My mom knelt down next to him, hysterically calling his name, trying to cradle him in her arms. I jumped up instinctively and called an ambulance.

Later, in the hospital, the doctor told us that my father had not suffered a heart attack, as we had thought. It had been a nervous breakdown. “It’s the stress,” my mother told us outside my father’s hospital room. “It was his dream to start a new life here and now he can’t, because his children won’t let him. Why can’t the both of you just bend a little? Is that too much to ask? Your father can’t take much more of this.”

As she walked back to my dad’s bedside, Tony and I exchanged guilty looks. I felt terrible. We had been so absorbed in what we wanted that we never once cast a thought to how our choices were affecting our dad. We had both caused him such stress, which had driven him to a nervous breakdown.

“But what about the things we want?” Tony asked quietly. “They didn’t ask
us
if we wanted this new life. They didn’t ask us if we wanted to come here, leave all of our friends behind, lose everything we knew back home…” His voice faded away and he glanced at me, his brows drawn down in a frown.

I shook my head in mute response. I didn’t know what to tell him, or even how to answer myself. I felt very guilty about what had happened to my dad, but I agreed with Tony; we hadn’t been given a choice about this move, and deserved to make at least some of our own decisions. Weren’t we allowed to live out our dreams as well?

***

The atmosphere in the house was even more chilled after my father returned from the hospital. No one seemed to want to speak to anyone else, for fear of what they would say, and the house became a virtual war zone. Tony and I hurried quickly back to our rooms after each uncomfortably silent meal, and emerged only when our parents left to investigate business opportunities the next morning. We spent more time together than we ever had, trying to find a solution to the problem, and failing. One late November morning, my dad walked into the living room where my brother and I were watching CNN.

“Here are your airplane tickets,” he said in a curt voice, throwing an envelope down on the sofa in the space between where my brother and I were sitting. “You’re both going back to California with your mother in a week.”

Tony looked up at my dad. “What about you, Papi? Are you coming with us?”

“Me? You can forget about me for a while,” my dad said brusquely. “This is where I want to be, and I’m staying right here. You can start packing. You won’t be able to take all of your things either, so just take whatever can fit into two suitcases.”

Before either of us could respond, my father turned and walked out through the front door. Tony and I looked at each other, confused at this dramatic change of course. Going back to the United States? This had never even been discussed as an option. With my mother but without him?

“He’s breaking up our family?” I asked, confused. “Why would he do that? Why would he send us back?”

“He’s upset because he doesn’t want us to leave,” Tony finally answered. “Isabel, we’ve really messed everything up for him … maybe we should stay, you know?”

“What about Amy?” I asked. “Don’t you miss her? Don’t you want to go back to be with her?”

“Of course I miss her,” Tony responded without any hesitation. “But I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since Papi ended up in the hospital, and I think our family is more important than any girlfriend.”

I stared at the envelope lying on the sofa, and thought about returning to California and living a normal life again. I missed my friends terribly, and I missed our lives there, but I missed Tom the most. That didn’t mean that this was the right way to go, though. The right way would have been with both of my parents, as a happy and united family.

Finally I sighed and shook my head. “Papi’s already bought our tickets, Tony. You know how he is once his mind is made up,” I said quietly, looking at him. “I don’t think we’re going to have any choice in this. I think we should just go back.”

Tony didn’t reply, but later that night we both took our suitcases out and began to pack. My dad stood in my doorway for some time, watching, but didn’t say a thing.

***

My uncle volunteered to drive us to the airport, and got to the house early in the morning for the trip. My dad stood quietly on the porch, watching, but did not volunteer to help us with our bags. He’d been ignoring us since he gave us the plane tickets, and acting as though we’d already left. Today he spoke only to my mom, who held onto his hand as if it were a lifeline. When my uncle arrived, he placed all of our bags into the trunk of the car. My father watched, then walked over to my mom and hugged her tightly, wiping tears from his eyes. When it was our turn to bid him farewell, he turned to us coldly, said, “Goodbye,” and turned away again. There was no hug or kiss, and nothing to signify that he was sorry we were leaving. As soon as we got in the car, he walked back into the house and did not come out again.

I had a lump in my throat the size of a softball all the way from our house to the airport. The mood in the car was somber, and made worse by my uncle, who occasionally threw out barbed comments about Tony and I being selfish children, intent on ruining my dad’s life.

Santiago International Airport seemed a much more desolate place now than it had when we first arrived. There were more travelers milling around, but the place seemed drab and depressing, and we had lost the excitement of embarking on a new adventure. I sat next to Tony in a corner of the departure lounge, near our corresponding gate. My mom was sitting alone, a few seats away, looking desolate, sad, and hopeless. She didn’t tell us what she was thinking, but her disappointment was written over her entire face.

The first few days back in California were as difficult as they could have been. Back in Chile, I had never thought about what the move back to California would be like. Where would we live? Would we move back to our old neighborhood? How would my mom manage to pay the bills on her own, without my dad? None of these things ever crossed my mind; I had thought merely that “normal” life would be waiting for us when we returned.

In reality, life would not return to normal for a long time. We had to stay in a gloomy, run-down hotel until we found a house to rent; Tony practically moved into Amy’s house, leaving me with my depressed mom in the dark and miserable hotel room. We didn’t see Tony for days at a time, and I couldn’t bear to go off with my friends and leave my mom by herself. So I stayed, trying to keep her from sliding any deeper into her depression.

In all my years, I had never witnessed my mother break down. She had always been the backbone of the family, the force that bound everyone together. My father had been nearly useless without her, and we’d always gone to her first with our problems and joys. She had been our strength. Now, my mother wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t get out of bed, and wouldn’t respond to my questions. She was trapped in her own world of sorrow, sadness, and heartbreak, and I couldn’t find a way to soothe her or make things better. I couldn’t leave her; I was afraid that if I left her alone, she would do something rash, like try to take her own life. As I worried about my mom’s welfare and health, I obsessed about Tom. How could I contact him now that I was back? Should I call him at home? Was the case with the police over or was it ongoing? Could I find him at Royal Oaks? Would he even want to talk to me? My mind was muddled with confusion and my chest ached from the emotional roller coaster that had become my life.

***

“Isabel, what are we doing here?” my mom asked me one day as we lay in the queen-sized bed together. “We should be back in Santiago with your dad. We deserted him, and now he’s all alone. You know that your dad can’t be alone. He’s a family man without a family now, and it’s our fault.”

“Mami, don’t worry,” I murmured, stroking her untidy hair gently, trying to soothe the restless mind inside. “Papi will come back to us soon. He’s angry and hurt right now, but once he cools off a little bit, he’ll realize how much he misses us. He’ll come back. You know he can’t be away from us for long. Now, we need to get you dressed so we can find a house to rent. You don’t want Papi to come back and find us in a hotel, do you?”

I had learned that there was one thing I could do to snap my mom out of her moments of despair; any time I mentioned my dad, she responded. She already felt that she’d disappointed and deserted him, and she wasn’t willing to make things any worse. I’d learned to use that as a spur to get her moving, and I hoped to use it to get us a house. My mom had Chilean family friends in Hillside, and they had promised to help me get my mom back on her feet. She and I had most of our meals at their house, to keep our strength up, and they encouraged her to move back into work. After weeks of trying, I finally convinced my mom to begin contacting her former clients again. As a financial advisor, she had been very successful in California and I was sure her clients would be happy she had returned. The work was good for her, since it gave her something to think about other than my father’s loneliness. It also forced her out into the world, and she brightened with the additional exposure. Once she had enough work to pay all of the bills and keep us a little more secure, we rented a three-bedroom house in a quiet little neighborhood very close to Royal Oaks. Tony re-emerged from his time with Amy, and we began to rebuild our family. My father’s place was still empty, though, and we all felt that void profoundly.

Chapter Thirteen

Believe

L
ife didn’t fully return to normal until I started attending school again. This was what I had missed most in Chile, and represented a return to social activity and learning. There were some obstacles; I’d been gone for three full months of the school year, and had missed the first term of school, so couldn’t return to my previous high school. If I wanted to return to regular high school and begin classes in February when the second semester began, I had to enroll in continuation school – where trouble students earned their high school degree equivalents – to make up the course material I’d missed.

I was determined to get through it, and I didn’t have much else to do, so I worked hard. Within three weeks of enrolling in the continuation school, I had made up all the required coursework. I even had two weeks to spare before the second semester began. My mom was delighted with my progress, and asked to talk to me about what came next.

“So Isabel, we need to get you back to Royal Oaks and enroll you in the second semester,” she said as she drove me home on the last day of class at the continuation school. “We should do it this week since classes begin next month.”

I paused. I was happy to see my mother engaged and driving, and I didn’t want to disappoint her, but I’d already decided on this issue. “Mami, I was thinking that maybe I wouldn’t attend Royal Oaks again,” I said cautiously. “Maybe I could attend West End High School instead. It’s a few blocks further from the house, but West End is much better academically. And if I want to go to a good college, I should go to the better school.”