This Side of Providence (40 page)

“That's entirely up to him,” I say. “I wouldn't make that decision for him.”

“Okay, good,” he says. “It's not a big thing, but it's good for him, you know, the discipline, the repetition.” He tucks his hands into his pockets. “What I mean is, I think that's something I could give him, like going to church or something. We could make it a routine. Don't kids need that?”

I smile at him. “I'll ask him what he wants to do.” I turn away, trying to end the conversation, but I can feel him step closer to me.

“And what about you,” he says. “What do you want from all this?”

I turn around. “What do you mean?”

He gestures toward the living room. “Is this just temporary or are you going to keep them?”

I pick up a wet sponge and wring it out over the sink. “It's not all up to me. Even if I wanted to, the state might not let me. It's complicated. And in the end, I just want to do what's best for them.”

He nods. “And do you know what that is?”

I let out a small, hard laugh and tell him I'm still trying to figure it out. He wishes me luck and tells me to reach out to him if I ever need anything. He says it in a way that makes me believe he really means it; he's not the type of guy to just say things to be polite.

I start to scrub the edges of the sink, even though I can't see any stains. All I want is to stop and rest, but I know I have to keep moving in order to get through this. The answers will come, I do believe that, but I can't control how and when. I have to give up control completely, and it's the most difficult thing I've ever tried to do.

Later that night, after Cristo and Luz are asleep, I sit on my bed and read the letter from Arcelia. I haven't given them theirs, and sometimes I think I never will. But then again, is it my place to decide? Who am I to stand between a mother and her children?

I'm surprised by how well-spoken she is in the letter, especially compared to how she came off in person. They say that prison is a waste of time, but it seems to have helped her (at least for a little while), and who's to say how much more she could have done if it weren't so hard to navigate the system, and so easy to slip through the cracks. Her letter is the answer I've been waiting for, but I have to read it several times before the words really sink in.

             
Dear Miss Valentín,

             
I'm writing to thank you for all you did for my son. You been a better mother to him in the past year than I been his entire life. I used to hate you for that, but not anymore. If I still believed in God I'd thank Him for bringing you into our lives. Instead, I'll thank the Hartford Avenue School for putting you in his classroom, and your parents for putting you on this earth.

                  
You don't owe me anything, but I want to ask you a
favor. For me, but also for my children—if anything happens to me. I want you to take care of them if you can. Raise them as you would your own children, showing them all the good things I didn't see, but always wanted to believe in. I give you my blessing in this, and I hope no matter where I am you won't let them forget about me. Maybe they're Americans now, but we are all
Boricuas
on the inside, and I want them to be proud of that. They can only learn that from someone who is proud, too. From someone who has something to be proud of. I think that someone is you. I am ashamed of so many things I done in my life and I spent a lot of time hating myself for those things. I am finished with that now since I have run out of hate, even for myself.

                  
I love my children, please believe that, and I wouldn't walk away unless I thought that someone else could do better. They deserve more than I can give them. That is why I brought them to this country, and I don't want to stand in the way of their success. A mother is supposed to teach her children things about the world, but my children taught me so much more than I ever taught them. Ain't that a strange twist? But I'm proud of what I learned from my children. I am so proud of them. Please make sure they know that. I don't have the time to list all the other things I want you to do, but I don't think I have to. You know what I want for them already, and I bet you know how to give it to them. There is not much that I could teach you, is there?

                  
I will ask you one more thing, to pray for me and my children. If there is a God, we will all have to answer to Him in the end. And we never know when that will be.

             
With sincere and endless gratitude,

             
Arcelia Perez De La Cruz

After finishing the letter, I lie in bed all night but never fall asleep. In the morning I get up early and make breakfast for Cristo and Luz. I have no appetite so I make myself a pot of tea while I wait for them to wake up. When they stumble into the kitchen I serve them each a large plate of eggs and fried
potatoes, and watch them eat from across the table, sipping my tea. Luz notices that I'm not eating and asks me what's wrong.

“I got a letter from your mother. They think she wrote it the night she died. Do you want to hear it?”

Luz looks at Cristo, who looks at me. After a few seconds, he nods. When I finish reading the letter Cristo asks if he can read it himself so I hand it to him. When he's done he looks at Luz and then back at me. He gives me back the letter, which I place in the space where my plate would be. I'm suddenly aware of how quickly my heart is beating.

“Did she leave us something?” Cristo asks.

“Yeah, did we get a letter?”

I reach into my bathrobe pocket for their letters. “You each got your own.”

I place the letters on the table in front of them. Neither one moves, they just keep staring at me.

“There's a lot of paperwork to fill out, and we'd have to meet with social workers and get the state to approve it, but if it's okay with both of you, I'd like to do as your mother asked. I'd like you both to stay here permanently.”

“You don't have to do that, Teacher.”

“I know I don't. I want to.”

Cristo looks at Luz.

“I want to stay,” she says.

He looks at me. “I don't want you to offer because you think you have to.”

Outside, I hear the roar of my neighbor's lawnmower, and a few moments later, the smell of gasoline and fresh-cut grass. I hear someone's radio, the slap of a basketball on the pavement, and farther away, the high-pitched laughter of young children. These smells and sounds are familiar, as is the sight across from me of Cristo and Luz at my kitchen table, eating what I've cooked for them; but something is fundamentally different about this moment, and I feel the reality of it like a throb in my chest.

“Listen to me, both of you.” I lean forward in my chair, my eyes shifting between them. “This isn't about the letter, or guilt, or what your mother wants. This is about what we want.
What you want and what I want.” I put my hands on the table to keep them from shaking. “I want you both to stay with me, to live with me, for as long as you want. Through high school or college or whatever. I don't want to replace your mother, please believe that. I would never try to take her away from you. But I do want to adopt you guys. I want us to be a family.”

After a long silence Cristo places his hand on top of mine. We lace our fingers together.

“Okay, Teacher,” he says.

Luz starts to laugh. “You can't keep calling her that, not if she becomes our mother.”

I look at Cristo. “You can call me anything you want,” I tell him.

“Even Vanessa?”

“That might be pushing it.”

“What about ‘Mom'?” Luz asks. “That's what American kids say.”

“Mom is fine.”

“Or Auntie? Auntie Vanessa?”

“How about Tia Vanessa?”

“There's no rush,” I say. “We have a long time to figure this out.”

They spend the rest of breakfast tossing around potential names, getting more creative as the game progresses. By the time we leave for school, they've cataloged at least a dozen options, some sincere, some silly. After the first bell rings, I leave them in the front stairwell, like we've done every day for the last month.

“See you guys after school.” I wave at them from the bottom of the stairs.

“Bye, Miss Valentín,” Luz says, same as always.

“Later, Teacher.” Cristo runs up the stairs two at a time.

A smile breaks across my face that is still there when the second bell rings. I may not look any different, but I know I will be a different person from this day on, and probably a different teacher.

Certainly a different mother.

Cristo

A
few weeks after my mother dies I find out I'm going to pass fifth grade. Mrs. Reed tells me I did much better than she thought I would and asks me if I want to take the test for Regular Ed over the summer. If I pass I can go into the same class as Luz. Graciela promises to help me study and Teacher promises not to be mad if I end up failing it, so I tell Mrs. Reed I'll try. I don't really want to do it, but I don't want to disappoint Teacher even more.

I still haven't opened the letter Mami left me from the night she died. I figure once I read it I'll have to really say good-bye so I keep putting it off. I carry it around with me, though, and pull it out to read my name on the outside of the envelope, just to see her handwriting and to imagine what it says inside. Some days I think I'll open it in a week or two, but sometimes I think it'll be a few years before I finally have the guts, and sometimes I think I'll never read it at all. I kind of like the mystery of wondering what else she wanted to say, something she had to write down and couldn't say to my face. But really, I just like knowing I have it waiting for me whenever I need it, and I don't want that feeling to ever disappear.

It's like when Graciela calls me at Teacher's place and I walk to the phone as slow as I can, just wanting to draw out that feeling of not knowing what's going to happen. Those moments between knowing I'm going to talk to her and actually hearing her voice are the best, when everything is about to happen and it's all still in our heads and it's all perfect. Sometimes I want to
live my whole life in those moments, even though I know that's not the way life's supposed to be. It's messed up how things have to keep changing all the time, but I guess life is kinda like school—right when you start to like the grade you're in, you have to move up again.

César never comes back to school. There's a bunch of rumors going around—one that he's going to a school for blind kids, another that he's getting homeschooled by his grandmother—but the truth is he's just hanging around with his uncle Antonio playing card games and fixing cars all day. He got real good at both, especially poker, and now he says he wants to grow up to be a gambler. “I don't need to go to school for that,” he tells me. “All I need is a lot of time.” Teacher says all he's doing is wasting time, but I keep hoping he'll get better so he can stop taking all those pills and just come back to school and be a normal kid again.

I stop by to see him after school some days, even though it's not on my way home anymore. He's either playing cards in the back room, betting with M&Ms instead of poker chips, or sitting on the sidewalk while his uncle works on a car, dipping engine parts into gasoline to clean them. One time I see Charley outside talking to Antonio so I wait by the bus stop where they can't see me. They act like old friends, like how Charley was with Mami when we saw him at the soup kitchen. Charley jokes with him, punching him lightly in the arm every time César brings him a beer, and then tucking money into his front pocket as a tip, just like he used to do with me. I watch César sneak sips from the almost empty beer bottles and figure I should just keep on walking. The kid I'm looking for doesn't really exist anymore, and whenever I see this new César, it just reminds me how much has changed and how it's all going to keep on changing.

It's not official, but I guess Graciela's my girlfriend now. She saves me a seat at lunch and sometimes we walk home from school together. When she finds out my birthday's coming up she tells me she knows the perfect gift, a brand-new hardcover book that's never even been opened, but I tell her all I want from her is a thirty-second kiss. She says no way, but then she
gives it to me when we're walking home one day—just stops short under the highway and plants one on me—and after, she says she's still going to get me that book. Girls always know how to get their way.

My birthday finally comes at the end of May but I don't want to celebrate. It's the first one without Mami and it seems wrong to celebrate anything now. But life doesn't stop just because someone you love is gone. I learned that when she went away last year, but also when I was a kid and we left Papi behind in Puerto Rico. My life didn't stop. It's like putting down a book—it still exists, even when you're not reading it.

I tell Teacher I don't want a birthday party, but she says all kids have to have one, at least until they're eighteen. Now that we're living with her I guess I have to follow her rules. We have the party on a Saturday so Trini can come, and a few kids from school come too. Scottie brings Trini late of course, but she stays to eat cake and play hide-and-seek in the backyard. She keeps calling my name from her hiding place, asking me if she's in a good spot. I finally tell her yes because I still can't find her, and then she comes running out with a panicked look, saying, “I'm right here, I'm not lost,” over and over again until I pick her up and whisper into her ear, “I found you, I found you,” which finally makes her laugh. She doesn't want to leave when Scottie comes to pick her up, but Luz and I tell her it's okay and she'll see us again real soon. I'm not sure I believe it myself, but I still keep on saying it.

After everyone leaves Teacher says I can open all the presents, but instead I tell her what I really want for my birthday is to learn how to make
pasteles
. It takes a while but I finally get her to agree. First we drive to the market to pick up the things she doesn't have, and then, when we get back home, she teaches us how to peel the vegetables without cutting up our knuckles, how to brown the meat without drying it out, and how to fold the banana leaves without losing any of the filling. She shows us how to knot the string around each package so they're tight now but easy to open later, and how to tell when they're done by how they float in the boiling water. I eat a couple straight out of the pot, even though I know I'm going to burn my mouth. Teacher
sips on a bottle of water and won't even take a bite. I tell her it's funny that she doesn't eat a lot anymore and she says it's easier that way. “With some things, I'd rather have none,” she says, putting the leftovers into the freezer. I don't tell Teacher, but that's exactly what Mami used to say about everything bad she was using, that it was easier to have nothing at all.

Snowman misses the party so he brings me a present when I see him at the pool a few days later. He gets me a mask with a snorkel attached and a set of flippers so I can swim laps as fast as he does. He says they're supposed to help me build my leg muscles, but I like using them to walk along the bottom of the pool like a duck. Sometimes he gets mad when I goof off like that, but most times he's cool with whatever, as long as I finish all my laps in under twenty minutes. He's big on people not wasting his time.

Tonight we're the last ones in the pool, still doing laps while the lifeguard sprays down the floors with bleach. In the locker room after we shower he lets me shave his head, saying now that I'm twelve I'm old enough to learn about shaving. He covers his head with this green gel that turns into a fluffy white cream as soon as he starts to rub it on. Then I stand on the bench behind him and run over it with the razor just like he taught me. It looks cool, like shoveling snow off a driveway, and afterwards it feels as smooth as a cue ball. I can't believe he trusts me enough to let me hold a blade to his head. “Either trust or stupidity,” he says, laughing, but sometimes I think it might also be love.

I get home late from the pool and find Teacher in the kitchen waiting up for me. She says something came in the mail she wants me to have. “A letter you need to read,” she says, handing me an already opened envelope, “from your father to your mother. He wrote it before she died, but sent it to the wrong address, so she never got it.” She says more but I don't hear any of it, walking from the room with the letter shaking in my hands. When I was younger I always wanted him to write to us, but now that it's happened, I'm afraid of what he might say.

His handwriting is neat and small, not like I pictured, and he wrote in pencil like I used to when I worried about making a
lot of mistakes. Before I know it, I'm translating it in my head, the English somehow easier to hear.

             
San Juan, April 4

             
Dear Arcelia,

             
I must admit that your letter came as a surprise. I was not expecting it, and parts of it were very difficult to read. I knew that I would hear from you again, but there was nothing to tell me it was going to be on that day, in this year. But I guess there is no way to prepare for something like this.

                  
No matter how much time has passed, you are still my wife. This is one thing I'm certain of. You are the mother of my children, and you are the first woman I ever loved. None of that will change. But many other things have changed. We have both done bad things, we have each hurt the other, and some of those wounds are still fresh. But I am happy to hear that you are doing better now, that you are sober and taking care of yourself. Perhaps when you get out, you can be the mother you always wanted to be, the mother you used to be. I remember those first years well, when Cristo was just beginning to walk and Luz hung on your hip like a saddlebag, and I'm still surprised by how much energy you had. You were such a strong woman. I don't think I ever told you how strong I thought you were, another one of my many mistakes. You did everything for those kids, and they were happy and healthy because of it. I don't know when things changed or why, but I know that some of the blame is on me, perhaps most of it. I was not a very good father and I was probably a worse husband. I am sorry for that. I was still a boy when we got married, and I thought that having a wife and child to take care of, and having a home, would make me a man. I was wrong, of course. I still don't know what turns a boy into a man, perhaps struggle and loss, disappointment, and simply the act of surviving, but I am a man today, and I have dealt with all those things. That is why I can write you this letter, why I can say these things to you
after all these years apart. For many years I was afraid of my feelings: my love, my hate, my anger, and my joy. But I'm not afraid of those things anymore. There are so many other things, real things, to be afraid of in this world, so it is a waste of time to fear emotions.

                  
I have a good life here now, a steady job at the market with good pay and a nice home in back of my mother's place. I am not happy, but I am content. I have two black holes in my life, places where I lost something I once loved. One is for baseball and the other is for my children. One can never be fixed, but I want to do something about the other one. I want to see my children. When I have the money I would like to buy them plane tickets so they can visit me here and see their grandparents and the many cousins who also miss them. I know they are Americans now, but Puerto Rico will always be their home, and there will always be a place for them when they come to visit.

                  
I don't know what to say about us. I want nothing but good things for you, a good life, but I know that it doesn't include me. We had our time, some good, some not so good, and I believe that there is no second chance when it comes to your first love. Something died when you got on that plane to New York and I buried it along with the rest of our life together. From the sound of your letter, you have buried it, too. That is a good thing, because our future doesn't have anything to do with us, it only has to do with our children. We cannot fix what we broke. I do not know them anymore, and they don't know me, but it doesn't have to stay like that. I have not been a father to them, but I no longer want to be a ghost. I don't know what I will be, but I think we have some time to figure that out. They are still young and hopefully they can forgive me for my absence. Please let them know that I think about them every day and that I will always love them. I don't want to punish them for your mistakes, and I don't think you should punish them for mine. They, not either one of us, are the only innocents.

                  
In your letter you asked me to forgive you. When I began writing this letter, I didn't know if I had done that,
or if I ever could. But something has lifted out of me right now. An anger that was lodged in the pit of my stomach has broken free and flown away. I didn't even know that it was living there. So there you go. I have done as you asked, I have forgiven you, but where do we go from here? Perhaps that is not for us to answer or even know. Perhaps it is in God's hands, and in the hearts of our children. Let us ask them what they want, those who were never given a voice in any of this. Let them decide how they want to move on, how they want to live. I trust that you have raised them well, as well as you were able, and I know that if nothing else, they are capable of speaking their minds. One of the many traits they got from you. Even as little children, they could always ask for what they wanted, even if we were not able to give it to them. So ask them now if they want to visit Puerto Rico sometime, and if they want to see me. That choice is the least we can give them, after taking away so much.

                  
Write or call when you are able and we will move forward from there. You once told me that the only place you care about is the future. I don't know if you still believe that, but in this case it is all we have. I sincerely hope it will be enough.

             
Your husband,

             
Javier

I read the letter a few times, and when I'm done I feel Teacher walk up beside me. She puts her hand on my shoulder but I don't move or look up at her. I don't want to see her eyes, or have her see mine, filled with tears. She hugs me and I bury my face in her shirt, crying hard suddenly, as if the weight of everything just hit me, as if I just in this second began to understand all that's been lost.