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holding my hand & saying I make him proud
for myself not for what I win?
Like I loved my father, that kind of love?
Consuming, huge, a love that takes the wheel,
a love where I pretended to be something I wasn’t?
I did chess. I was obsessed with winning.
But never love.
Mami wanted me to be a lady:
sit up straight, cross my ankles,
let men protect me.
Papi wanted me to be a leader.
To think quick & strike hard,
to speak rarely, but when I did,
to always be heard. Me?
Playing chess taught me a queen is both:
deadly & graceful, poised & ruthless.
Quiet & cunning. A queen
offers her hand to be kissed,
& can form it into a fist
while smiling the whole damn time.
But what happens when those principles
only apply in a game? & in the real world,
I am not treated as a lady or a queen,
as a defender or opponent
but as a girl so many want to strike off the board.
I’ve always wanted to go to the Dominican Republic.
Every year my father left on his trip.
Every year I asked if I could go along.
But Papi always said no. I assumed
it was because he was busy with work.
I never thought Papi would be doing
something he didn’t want me to see.
Mami’s straight up told me since I was five
she wouldn’t let me set foot on the island
if it was the last inhabitable place on earth.
Although she still has cousins there,
she hasn’t been back once.
I assumed Mami had bad memories of home.
Clearly, I made a lot of assumptions.
I’ve always looked at my parents & seen
exactly what they’ve shown me. I could not
imagine them as real humans
who lied. & kept the truth. From each other.
From me.
This year, I did not ask.
I did not want to sit across from my father.
Not to play chess, not to share a meal.
Not to ask if I could join him
on a trip to the Caribbean
when I already knew
way more than I should
about the answer he would give me,
about the answers he would not.
I was raised so damn Dominican.
Spanish my first language,
bachata a reminder of the power of my body,
plátano & salami for years before I ever tasted
peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
If you asked me what I was,
& you meant in terms of culture,
I’d say Dominican.
No hesitation,
no question about it.
Can you be from a place
you have never been?
You can find the island stamped all over me,
but what would the island find if I was there?
Can you claim a home that does not know you,
much less claim you as its own?
Camino Yahaira
Five Days After
Papi had stubby fingers with the tip of one missing
from where a machete slipped one July day
while he was cutting me a mango in the backyard.
His skin where the nail used to be is the same dark color
as the mahogany chess pieces he played with.
(He tried to teach me the game
but I kept trying to include my Barbies in the battle.)
People barely noticed the missing fingertip,
until you shook—in my case, held—his hand & could feel
the shortened pointer finger.
Not that he tried to hide it. Papi wore his fat gold rings
& gestured with every word he said.
& held a cigar to his mouth with the missing finger pointing upward.
It’s just the rest of him took up a whole room
& it was hard to notice he had anything missing at all
except when he was the one missing,
& then it was like days were deflated,
like when his flight rose into the sky
he took all the air on earth with him.
No hay sobrevivientes.
No hay sobrevivientes.
There are no survivors.
It was a foolish hope.
Tía hugs me to her,
her white head wrap caressing my cheek.
She is a small woman & I tower over her.
Neighbors pour into the house
like our grief is a bottomless thirst
& God has tipped this pitcher of people to fill us up.
The furniture is pushed back & an Hora Santa begins.
Rosary beads pass through fingers, & the rosario repeats & repeats.
Dios te salve, María, llena eres de gracias.
Fifty Ave Marias, five Padre Nuestros, five Gloria al Padres.
Tía shoves her words out; I repeat them,
rocking back & forth, let the words wash over me.
Later, Tía will hold a private prayer in her bóveda out back;
this is where she keeps her cowrie shells, where she will divine
from the Saints the next steps we should take;
they know all about folks crossing the Atlantic & not surviving.
We stack our faith up like spinal discs to hold us upright;
it gives us language to fill our mouths & hearts & ears.
Gives us deities to call on
that might answer & bring my father home.
Papi knew my mother since they were children.
Grew up right here, in this neighborhood of Sosúa.
They were of this home, of each other.
Grew up grew apart
at least that is what Tía says, that she remembers
how her little sister made eyes at the boy across the way.
They reconnected one day at El Malecón.
She was sitting near the water, gossiping
with a friend from university.
Mamá saw him approaching & fluffed her hair.
Papi straightened his collar. Tucked his shirt in tighter.
She laughed when her friend stuck out her hand, preened.
Papi looked taken aback.
She watched as her friend flaunted & flirted.
Papi gave Mamá a smile & secret wink.
She watched Papi extract his hand from her friend’s.
Papi extended it to Mama.
She said he had his heart in it.
Although the friend was clearly taken by him,
Mamá said he had eyes for only her.
Said that at the meeting she knew he’d be
the greatest love of her life.
The day Mamá took to the fever,
Tía was paying house calls to others
who’d been struck by the dengue.
It was just me & Mamá at home
as I wiped her forehead & prayed.
When Tía got home she hopped on the phone,
& even as a kid I knew she was calling
my father. For all her remedies, there are times
when Tía knows a hospital is best.
Mamá did not want to go. Said an ambulance was too expensive.
Although Don Mateo offered his car,
Mama was worried about getting him sick.
She said we were making a big fuss,
even though she could barely speak.
It didn’t help that Papi’s money came too late.
Mamá died two days later.
It is not something I talk about.
Almost a decade after her passing.
Tía had always lived with us
&nb
sp; & she mothered me the best she could.
Some folks would resent this.
But even when Mamá was alive,
Tía was the other
mother of my heart.
The one who would sing to me
when I fell & bumped my butt:
Sana, sana, culito de rana.
When he visited, Papi would tell me stories of Mamá.
How beautiful she was, brown-skinned & petite.
How hardworking she was as a maid at the resort.
He would tell me of their first date,
& the song that reminds him most of her.
My head fills with memories not my own, that paint her for me.
I’ve never once felt orphaned.
Not with Tía dogging my steps & smacking my hand,
& wiping my tears & telling me what my mother would say.
Not even though Papi was far,
because his presence filled the house:
his weekly phone calls & video chats,
his visits in the summer making Christmas
feel like a semiannual event.
I never felt like an orphan until today.
Two months to seventeen, two dead parents,
& an aunt who looks worried
because we both know, without my father
without his help life as we’ve known it has ended.
Carline texts me & I know she’s still at work.
The resort is the only place where she has access to Wi-Fi.
She asks me how I’m doing, but I barely reply.
I must have sounded unconvincing when I told her I was fine,
because she arrives at my house after nine,
her feet swollen & shuffling, the tired bagging under her eyes.
She is still gorgeous. & I tell her so.
“Ay, Camino. No me tires piropos.
I know I look exhausted. This li’l one kept me
up all night playing volleyball in my belly.
& the manager ran me ragged today.”
It is a good job that Papi helped her get
when she found out half a year ago she was pregnant
& stopped going to school two towns over.
I want to tell her she needs to slow down on hours,
but everyone in her family has to work. It’s how they eat.
Her boyfriend, Nelson, contributes best he can,
taking night classes & working two jobs even though he’s only nineteen.
Tía places some fried fish in front of Carline,
who expertly pulls the flesh,
leaving the sharp-boned carcass completely clean.
When she is done she puts her feet up, & I stand behind her
weaving her hair into braids. So much has changed:
a year ago we would have sat just like this, whispering
about boys & dreams, & what we could be.
Now both of us are moving moment to moment.
Carline came to offer comfort, but I end up being the one
who wraps a blanket around her when she dozes off,
finishes doing her hair gently so she can sleep in
in the morning, parents her as best I can
before she becomes one. & I remember I have none.
Ten Days After
I keep going to school as if nothing’s happened.
There was one day where we had one moment of silence.
Most of the kids know I had a father in the States who sends money.
I am an oddity at the school.
Never been an hija de mami y papi,
children of white-collared, white-colored society types.
The rich, light-skinned Dominicans at this school
come from families who own factories
or are children of American diplomats.
I didn’t have a quinceañera at a country club.
I’m American-adjacent. With a father who makes—made—
enough money to keep me in the school uniform
but not enough to contribute to the annual
fundraiser or to send me on any of the international trips
or to give me a brand-new car over Christmas break.
Papi paid just enough for tuition every quarter,
& sometimes I had to nag him when he forgot
& I’d gotten yet another payment-notification letter.
& now, I sit silently in class. Do not raise my hand.
I’ve been doing my assignments late at night
after Tía falls asleep. I’ve been studying for final exams
on the bus ride to school in the morning.
I am pretending Papi being dead does not change anything.
That submitting all my work means my plans will come true.
Even as I sit at a desk I know I may not return to in the fall.
Dreams are like the pieces of fluff that get caught in your hair;
they stand out for a moment, but eventually you wash them
away, or long fingers reach in & pluck them out
& you appear as what everyone expects.
I come from people
who are no longer alive.
My grandparents,
my parents. I have
Tía, & my father’s brother,
who lives in New York,
& they are the only two
left to me who share my blood.
There is no one to go live with.
There is no one to provide help.
There are my good grades
& my aunt’s aging hands.
When I am called to
the guidance counselor,
who wants to know
if I am doing okay,
I ask if she knows what will happen
if my family cannot pay tuition.
She says there are scholarships
I would have had to apply to
a semester ago;
she says funds have been allocated.
But if worse came to worst
they would figure things out
& readmit me next spring semester.
She says she wants me to succeed,
it might just take time to figure things out.
She says this with a small apologetic smile.
It would delay my graduation,
it would delay my ability to apply to college,
& it would delay just how much time
I live here.
On her next day off, Carline
drags me out of the house.
We do not turn to the beach
but instead walk over a mile
to a small strip of stores
where the tourists buy bathing suits
& faceless dolls & seashell souvenirs.
Although her breathing is heavy & her feet
are swollen, she says she needed fresh air.
But I know she means I needed a change.
Carline would have been a great doctor or nurse.
She has a sharp eye & was good at science.
We gaze into window after window,
pretending to be high-class ladies
who would wear fancy cover-ups over our bathing suits
& flip-flops that cost enough to cover our tabs at el colmado.
I only let Carline walk a bit more before I steer her to an ice-cream shop.
She won’t ever complain about her aches,
but I know the signs of fatigue.
I only have a few pesos to my name
but I plan to use a handful to buy us each a scoop.
The lady at the counter takes one look at Carline
& then another look at me & waves my little coins away.
She even adds extra sprinkles with her wink.
Her gesture makes me want to cry. The kindness
of a stranger, simply because she sees in us
something worthy of this small gift.
This everyday kindness in my home.
Even if I could leave,
how would I stomach it?
The thought curdles, sour as bad milk.
Carline & I walk back home arm in arm.
Our ice-cream-sticky fingers making me feel six years old again.
This day feels like a hundred other days we’ve spent just like this.
Looking into windows & imagining a different life
with each other by our sides.
Papi put me in the International School after Mamá’s death.
But Carline & I remained friends outside of school.
Tía would leave me at her house when she had errands;
Carline’s maman would send her to stay with us
when her parents took trips back to Haiti.
& so we know the different kinds of stories
our silence can tell.
Her silence tells me: Camino. I’m scared. This baby is coming.
Camino. I hate my job. Where the manager pinches my butt
& I have to smile when I feel like crying.
My silence tells her: Carline. I know. I know. I know.
Where do we go? Where is safe harbor? Together
can we swim there? Can we carry our families on our backs?
For just a moment I grab my worries by the nape.
My silence tells them: Leave me. Leave me.
Leave me alone. We will make it. We will be fine.
I promise. Some way we’ll survive.
Camino Yahaira
Fourteen Days After
My school absences are not a secret.
I’ve been skipping school on & off for two weeks.
& when I go back, somehow we are taking finals.
I let my teachers’ words float around me
but have no idea what is due when or to who.
It all feels like such a fake world.
None of this can be real. How is it almost summer break?
What does an essay on The Tempest matter?
What does an analysis of the Hoover presidency matter?
What does an exam in trigonometry matter?
Which one of those things will explain mechanical failure?
Which one of those things will ease how difficult it feels to breathe?
I stare out the windows into the warm mid-June day.
Papi left every year
from June until September.
Maybe the only way to make it through these days
is to pretend that in the fall he’ll be coming back.
I am not the only one
skipping responsibilities.
Ma has not been to work