Make Your Home Among Strangers (48 page)

Something in me said to pull Dante out of his high chair and, though of course he couldn't read, turn his face away and in to my chest. Within seconds that high chair was on the ground, knocked over by one of the screaming men who'd jostled to be the first out the door of the restaurant to throw whatever he could at the passing trucks. Other men followed, and the only thing that kept it from being a full-blown riot was the fact that the trucks sped up when they saw the rush of red-faced Cubans sprinting toward them. They kept going but turned off Calle Ocho a few blocks later, when it became clear that each man would chase them for as long as his body could handle.

As that high chair crashed to the ground, as Dante turned and turned his face where I held it because he couldn't really breathe, here's what I thought: It's over, he's gone. I thought: I'm one of those 800,000. I thought: Fuck you, we fucking
made
this city. I thought: Who fucking wants to be here anyway. Dante finally pushed my hand with his head hard enough for me to let go: Why couldn't I be the one? I couldn't admit this to anyone, but
I
wanted to be the one to go. Get me out of here, I thought. Get me the fuck out of here.

Dante started to cry and scream, and the group of people who'd left the restaurant regrouped in a parking lot a block down. Their running left them in front of a car wash, where they met other angry spectators, and they bent over and leaned on their own knees, heaving air while cursing and crying. Then one of them stood up and put his hand to his forehead in a salute, looking down the road in the direction the trucks had come from. He pointed there with his other hand, and the people around him watched as a group of women—all of them in black, each of them silent—moved toward us with arms linked.

And as the women came—just a couple thin lines of black stretching across the four lanes of the street, cops on motorcycles zigzagging ahead of and behind them, lights flashing silently—my mother, somewhere near the end closest to me, did not turn to us at the sound of Dante's shrieking, which I tried and failed to control. She kept her head tilted down, as if her steps were the most important thing in the world, the only thing she had any power over. She watched herself walk and either couldn't hear Dante or refused to look up if she recognized the crying as his. She kept moving forward. Nothing would distract her. Dante gulped in a huge swallow of air and came back twice as loud, shrill as a siren, and my mother's eyes slammed shut, stayed shut, her legs still moving her forward.

I bent over and grabbed the wooden high chair, righted it as best I could with Dante on my hip. Then I put him in it, buckled the flimsy plastic seatbelt around his hips. He reached his arms up to the sky, his face a red fist of insistence, and when I backed away, he tore himself open with wet roars. But I moved a little more, just to the other side of the table, to see what it felt like. I turned from him and watched my mom focus, watched her keep moving in silence.

—You'll be fine, I whispered, the words lost under Dante's agony.

I ignored the glares from the people around us, angry at the broken silence, at me for not being able to do anything about anything.

—You'll be fine, I said again and took one more step away.

You'll be fine, you'll be more than fine.

*   *   *

Before the next morning's news could pick up where it left off and replay every image ever of Ariel during his time in the United States, I snuck out while everyone slept to run to the library and be there when it opened. I called the emergency number in the e-mail from a pay phone in the library's lobby. The program coordinator, sounding somehow not at all groggy despite the time difference, explained that no, I hadn't been
replaced
exactly: Professor Kaufmann had understood too late that I'd declined my spot, and she'd opted not to invite another Rawlings student, as the grant could be spent in other ways. This woman took down the pay phone's number and eventually had me call Professor Kaufmann myself, who just seemed happy I'd be on board—
That's super!
—and didn't ask for any of the explanations I was more than prepared to give her should I be forced to beg. All she asked about, again, were the forms and if I could just bring them with me then. Yes, I still had them. Yes, I'll bring my social security card. Yes, I'm happy this worked out, too. She hung up with me to call the program coordinator, who called me back at the pay phone within minutes and who seemed too happy to tell me that the cost of the flight, initially covered, would now fall on me—the funding for that had already been reallocated. I'll figure it out, I told her. I gave her my social over the phone; she gave me the airport to fly into and the name of the car service that would pick me up there: I was to e-mail her my itinerary the second I purchased the flight so she could book my shuttle.

The cheapest ticket that got me to Santa Barbara by the day they wanted us there cost just over six hundred dollars. My hands shook as I typed in my name, the numbers on my credit card. The confirmation screen came up with that large number behind the dollar sign—an amount so close to the one in my bank account, one just shy of the figure scrawled on our rent check each month—and I choked down the word
No
. I tried to find a way to forward my itinerary without that shameful price showing, to cover it up or delete it somehow, but there was none. I retyped my arrival information—the flight number, the airline, the time—at the top of the e-mail and hoped the woman wouldn't scroll down.

*   *   *

I told Leidy first, but I hadn't planned that. She was coming out of the shower, her hair wrapped in one towel and her body in another, when I got back.

She startled when she saw me, the towel around her chest slipping a bit, and said, Shit! Where were you at so early? I thought you ran away or something.

I did not laugh or answer—I only winced from the thought of the money I'd just spent and doubled over like she'd already hit me.

She said, Oh god
what
?

Mami woke up along with Dante when Leidy screamed
You fucking traitor
at me. Mami's hair was plastered down on one side, her arms still weak in that sleepy way when she wrapped them around Leidy from behind, pulling one daughter off the other. Once Leidy's arms were pinned, I let my hand fly to smack her in retaliation, but Mami spun her around in time so that all I caught was air.

—You're no better than Dad, Leidy spit at me.

—Leidy! my mom yelled.

Evoking my father was still the ultimate insult, the power of it tripled by all the hatred focused on Ariel's father in the weeks between the raid and their final departure a day earlier from Washington, where he'd been waiting for his son. But Leidy shrugged off our mom and got back in my face, squared up to me like I was someone she'd never met but was ready to rip apart. She shoved her hand in my face.

—No, you know what? You're
worse
than Dad. At least he has the balls to go away and
stay
away.

The long nail on her pointer finger glanced my nose, her elbow jutting up high in the air, her chest pressing into mine, her next strike so imminent, so close, that I almost looked for the balding bouncer from the talk show she must've been channeling, willed him to jump out from the kitchen and stop her.

—You're
worse
, she said. You came back and talked all this shit, you fucking promised me, and now you're fucking bailing on us
again
.

—What is she talking about! my mom cried at me.

—She didn't tell you either? Leidy said, raising her arms in the air. Of course she didn't! She took a fucking job in California, Mami.

—California? my mom said.
California?
Lizet, how can that be?

—It's not a job, it's an internship!

But why was I trying to explain it? What did that distinction mean to anyone but me? Still, I tried to get it across; I wanted Mami to understand that I wasn't leaving just for a job, that this chance was much more than that. And I wanted to confess that I didn't even understand how much it might mean, that I was acting on a promise that wasn't clear to me yet, but only acting on it would make it clear. That making this choice was terrifying.

I pushed Leidy out of my face and said, Mami, listen, it's this amazing chance to work in a real lab with one of my professors who thinks I'm really good and I said no at first, but I can't, I can't say no to it.

—A lab? she said.

And I said, Yeah, like a real laboratory, like a scientist's laboratory. The professor only asked one person in the whole school and it was me.

—Why you? How do you know this man?

—It's a woman.

—A
woman
?

—Yeah right, Leidy said from behind me now. She's obviously lying.

—No she's not! She really has her own lab.

—No, you fucking idiot,
you
.
You
are lying.

—Why would I lie about this?

—Because you obviously think you're too good to watch a kid all summer!

I'd fed Dante and put him to bed the night before, the only one of us who could walk away from the footage of Miami's varied responses to Ariel landing back in Cuba late that afternoon. Caridaylis had refused to comment: she hadn't been allowed to see him since the raid.

I said, So what if I do? What if one of us is?

—Lizet, my mom said. That is
enough
.

—So you're too good to deal with this shit but I'm not? Leidy yelled. Must be nice to not give a shit about anybody but yourself!

I thought Mami yelled, Leidy, let it go. But Mami was staring at me.

—Let her go, Mami said again.

—
What?
Leidy said.

—You got your problems and she's got hers. She wants to go spend her summer with some woman professor she doesn't even know, let her go.

—That's not what –

—Mami, are you
serious
? Leidy said.

—Yes I'm serious! She thinks that's what she's gotta do, fine. You think
I'm
gonna get in her way?

—Yeah, that's your fucking job, Mom. It's your
job
to get in her way.

—Not anymore it's not.

—You guys, I yelled.

Mami turned to me and said, You know where the door is. You know where we live.

—This has nothing to do with either of you, I said.

—Bullshit it doesn't, Leidy said.

—No, she's right, Leidy. This is all about
her
. Her whole life is gonna be all about her from now on, right, Lizet? I say go for it.

Mami watched my face, her mouth twitching, and I didn't know what to do.

—But we're not going anywhere, she said.
You
go.

Her eyes flicked back and forth, not even the threat of tears in them. I waited for Leidy to jump in and say something, to make it easy for me to spit more rage at either of them, but her head turned from me to Mami, trying to decide who she hated more.

Then Mami shrugged. She said, When do you leave?

—In two days, I whispered.

—Mom! Are you for real just gonna let her –

Mami raised a hand and silenced Leidy, and in the calmest voice I'd heard out of her in months, she said, You know what? I say you go
now
.

She turned and walked down the hallway.

Leidy said, Get back here, we're not done talking about this!

Our mom passed through the doorway into her bedroom, and Leidy screamed at her closing door, Mom! This is for real! This is not Ariel!

We heard the lock click shut. Leidy stood in front of me, breathing through her teeth. She yelled, You
know
I can't leave Dante with her. You
know
you're supposed to help her find a job. You
know
we're next to broke.

She grabbed my shoulders and shook me, saying, You can't do this. You can't leave me here with her again. Please don't leave me here like this.

If I let her shake me for a second longer it would work, so I stopped trying to fight her grip and decided instead to go
through
her—I could tell she thought for an instant I was collapsing into a hug—and into our room. I ripped my clothes from the hangers on my side of the closet, wiped tears and snot from my face with a T-shirt before tossing it in my suitcase, which was still propped open on the floor even three weeks into being back. It was already half filled with the dirty clothes I'd planned on dragging down to the laundry room—like the suitcase knew before I did that I'd be out of there so soon.

And my dad knew before I did, too, but only because from her room, from behind that door, my mother called him. Even Leidy stopped screaming when she heard it.

—Come get your daughter, we heard Mami say.

All that time, our mom knew his number and never let on that she did. All that time, she'd maybe even known it by heart.

—I don't care, she said. I want her gone. I want her gone
now
.

The first time they'd spoken to each other in months.

*   *   *

I waited for Papi downstairs. Before he even hoisted my suitcase into his van, he said, What the hell did you do to your mother?

—I got a job in California, I said.

—You're quitting school?

—No, it's just for the summer. It's an internship.

—Then why didn't you
say
internship? he said.

He tapped the side of his own head and held his hand out afterward, like offering me something. He looked up at the building, searching the windows for anyone he recognized.

That night, over some yellow rice and chicken that Rafael had bought for us at a food-by-the-pound place near the Villas, I told my dad and his roommate everything about the internship, about my lab class, about Professor Kaufmann and how weird she was, about how much better my spring term at school had gone than my fall.