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  The longer I speak, the more unthinkable the scenario.

  Mami can’t possibly imagine she & I wouldn’t go.

  Papi wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t deserve this.

  & we deserve to say goodbye.

  Her eyes are watery when she turns to me,

  but her voice is solid ice.

  “Yahaira. Your father was no man’s saint.

  Not even if I dropped dead this moment, would I let you

  touch foot on the sands of that tierra. Get that thought

  right out of your head. Grave or no grave.”

  I press my mouth tight to keep my quivering lip to myself.

  & I look at my mother & smile.

  Never, ever let anyone see you sweat.

  & if my mother paid attention

  at a single one of my matches

  she knows: when Yahaira Rios smiles

  just before she makes a move,

  you better watch the fuck out.

  Mami, is a good woman, a good woman.

  Mami is smart & shows up to school conferences,

  Mami is a good woman, a good woman.

  she works hard & always makes dinner.

  Mami is a good woman, a good woman.

  She never forgot to pick me up from school,

  Mami is a good woman, a good woman.

  she sewed my sweaters when I pulled a button,

  Mami is a good woman, a good woman,

  mended the holes I tore in my new jeans.

  Mami is a good woman, a good woman,

  she buys thoughtful presents & kisses loudly,

  Mami is a good woman, a good woman,

  & I know I failed her.

  Mami wanted a girl

  she could raise in her own image, & I came forth

  a good girl, a good girl, but so much of me

  when I was younger seems crafted

  from my father’s spit, as if he shone

  a light on her womb & pressed a fingerprint

  onto my forehead, baptized me his alone;

  I have words that I have kept secret from Mami,

  words a better daughter would have said.

  I am my father’s daughter, a bad daughter,

  a bad daughter to a great woman.

  The thing I learned

  about my father

  is like a smudge

  on an all-white dress.

  You hope if you don’t

  look at it, if you

  don’t rub your finger

  in the spot then maybe

  it won’t spread. Then maybe

  it will be unnoticed.

  But it’s always there.

  A glaring fault.

  Papi had another wife.

  I found the marriage certificate.

  The date on the form

  was a few months after

  my parents’ own marriage

  here in the States.

  & as if to ensure

  that anyone who stumbled

  across this envelope

  got it right, there was also

  a small picture included. My father

  with a beautiful brown woman

  with long dark hair,

  both of them in all white

  as she carried a bouquet,

  smiling up into his face

  while he stared steadily

  & seriously at the camera.

  My father had another wife,

  & I know my mother

  could not have known.

  Could not have been the type

  to stay, while her husband strayed

  year after year after year.

  This other woman,

  the reason my father left me,

  left us broke trust ignored

  the family he left behind.

  & when he returned last summer,

  I didn’t know how to look

  him in the face & pretend.

  So it was easier not to look at him at all.

  When the only words I owned

  were full of venom, it seemed better

  to stop speaking to this man

  since the only option was to poison us all.

  Camino Yahaira

  Nineteen Days After

  I haven’t talked to El Cero since he last approached me,

  but today, as I’m squeezing the water from my hair,

  he comes out from behind the trees.

  Vira Lata was chewing on some bones as I left the house

  & didn’t join me on this trip to the water,

  but still I scan the tree line hoping to see him napping in the shade.

  A small patch of short curly hair springs up

  from the neck of El Cero’s shirt. I am reminded

  he might smile boyishly, but he is not a boy.

  I am glad I am near home,

  that there are houses beyond the clearing.

  Because in this moment, I am a girl a man stares at:

  I am not a mourning girl. I am not a grieving girl.

  I am not a parentless girl. I am not a girl without means.

  I am not an aunt’s charity case. I am not almost-alone.

  None of those things matter.

  He approaches, wide-mouth smiling.

  “I have my motorbike.” He points. “Want a ride home?”

  He wraps his hand around my wrist.

  I snatch my arm away as my

  cell phone starts ringing.

  I scramble to grab the phone from my back pocket.

  Tía’s name flashes on the screen.

  “¿Aló, Tía?” I back away from El Cero.

  Tía does not say one word

  but I hear the tears in her sharp breaths.

  “They found him. I just got word that four days ago

  they found what is left of him.

  & they have decided to bring him home.”

  I murmur to Tía but know she cannot hear me.

  A body means there is no miracle to hope for;

  dead is dead is dead. For four days I didn’t know.

  You did know, I tell myself.

  We knew there were no survivors.

  But somehow this proof sledgehammers my heart.

  Someone needs to light the candles,

  to call the funeral home & contact his friends.

  Someone needs to make flower arrangements & call a church.

  & the only someone is me. I put the phone in my back pocket.

  Confronting El Cero face-to-face. “Whatever you want from me,

  forget it. I have nothing to give you.”

  It makes me sick that I find out this news

  here, in this place I love, with a man

  I am growing to hate.

  I rush away from him, but not before I hear him say:

  “But, Camino, you owe me more than you think,

  & hasn’t it always been about what I can offer you?”

  When I get home, Tía has lit candles.

  Although he was not her brother,

  I can’t imagine what she must feel.

  I’ve known my father my whole life.

  She knew my father all of his.

  Tía was a healer’s apprentice as a child,

  seven years old, and in the room when Papi was born,

  years later saw him fall in love with my mother.

  She was the first person to hold his child.

  Even when he came to visit

  this house he paid for & updated,

  Papi treated Tía like an older sister:

  so much respect for how she kept the house,

  for the beliefs she had,

  the decisions she made regarding my well-being.

  They were friends. But until this moment

  I have not thought of what she’s lost.

  He was like her brother. Besides me, her only family.

  & on this day that ends all hope

  we hold each other close thinking of a man

  & al
l the people that must live on without him.

  Tía tells me she has heard rumors.

  She is speaking to me the next morning

  as we await news regarding Papi’s body.

  Her hands pluck the feathers off a chicken.

  She is methodical, her fingers fast along the fluff

  that she drops into a plastic bag in the kitchen sink.

  The big machete that is never far from her side

  catches the light through the window; it glints at me

  & I wish I could carry it with me.

  Tía tells me both Don Mateo & the woman who sells fruit

  have mentioned seeing El Cero waiting for me after school,

  or walking from the beach soon after I’ve left it.

  She says the Saints have whispered caution in her ear.

  I take a deep breath; I want to tell Tía it’s all true.

  That I’m afraid of the thing El Cero wants to ask of me.

  Her voice is stripped of any emotions.

  But if fingers can be angry,

  hers must be wrathful; she plucks in hard snatches.

  “I raised you smart. Right, girl?”

  This is not a question she actually wants answered.

  I can tell by how fast she speaks.

  Tía’s anger now sounds like it could be directed at me.

  That thought puts a staying hand

  on the words that were going to leap from my lips.

  “I raised you clean & fed,

  even when my feet were soiled,

  when my own stomach rumbled. Right, girl?

  I grew you up for a future

  different than the one most girls

  around here are allowed.

  Choices. Did I not do everything

  to provide you choices?”

  The feathers bulge in the bag,

  & I wish I was just as light.

  But I feel weighed down,

  her words turned to stones.

  Tía thinks I have been inviting El Cero’s attention.

  Somehow his stalking has turned into

  something I must have done.

  The chicken is nearly naked.

  Raw & puckered, dressed in saggy skin.

  A feast for our hunger,

  a place to gnash our teeth

  since neither one of us can bite at the world.

  I wish I could tell Tía

  that El Cero won’t leave me alone.

  I haven’t done anything wrong

  or encouraged him in any way.

  He just shows up, grinning,

  waiting.

  I wish I could tell Tía

  I don’t know what to do. That

  I’m scared he’ll corner me.

  I wish

  I could tell Tía, but what would

  Tía do if she knew? Tía is older,

  with little money. She is

  respected in the neighborhood

  & beloved by the people to whom

  she offers care, but El Cero occupies

  a world of men who care little of healers,

  & even less of the girls

  who represent little more than dollar signs.

  Don Mateo is old. Tio Jorge does not know me.

  There is no one to stop El Cero. Anymore.

  What would El Cero do to Tía

  if she tried to stand up to him?

  I cannot even think the thought.

  I am from a playground place.

  Our oceans that we need for fish

  are cleared so extranjeros can kite surf.

  Our land, lush & green, is bought

  & sold to foreign powers so they can build

  luxury hotels for others to rest their heads.

  The bananas & yucca & sugarcane

  farmed & harvested, exported,

  while kids thank God for every little scrap.

  The developed world wastes gas,

  raises carbon emissions & water levels

  that threaten to disappear us in a single gulp.

  Even the women, girls like me,

  our mothers & tías, our bodies

  are branded jungle gyms.

  Men with accents pick us

  as if from a brochure to climb

  & slide & swing. & him?

  El Cero? He has his hand in every pocket.

  If you are not from an island,

  you cannot understand

  what it means to be of water:

  to learn to curve around the bend,

  to learn to rise with rain,

  to learn to quench an outside thirst

  while all the while

  you grow shallow

  until there is not one drop

  left for you.

  I know this is what Tía does not say.

  Sand & soil & sinew & smiles:

  all bartered. & who reaps? Who eats?

  Not us. Not me.

  Tía doesn’t believe girls should wear all black.

  I was thirteen the first time she let me buy a black dress

  I wanted for my middle school graduation.

  It’s this same black dress I pull out from the closet

  to wear to the meeting with the priest.

  It still fits. I slide on the straps.

  I pull on black stockings despite the heat outside.

  Tía doesn’t blink when she sees me.

  She just turns around so I can button her white blouse.

  She wears a white head wrap too.

  I know the priest will raise a brow, but Tía doesn’t care.

  She is armored in her Saints,

  & they make her brave, or reckless, or are they the same?

  All white like this shows undue devotion to the Saints,

  & our priests don’t want to know what’s practiced in secret.

  Tía & I stare at the mirror. The two of us framed in copper.

  Tears pool in her gaze & I immediately wipe them

  where they collect in the wrinkles around her eyes.

  She doesn’t flinch at my hand. She curls into my palm.

  Tía doesn’t believe girls should wear black.

  But if I wasn’t a woman before today,

  I think I am one now.

  When I ask Tía

  if my father’s brother, Tío Jorge,

  will be coming with Papi’s body,

  she hesitates a long moment

  & fingers a loose fringe

  that’s fallen free from her head wrap.

  “Bueno, te digo que no sé.”

  But her tense shoulders

  seem to know more

  than she’s telling me.

  I look at her sideways

  & we walk arm in arm into the church.

  “How are we to plan a funeral

  if we don’t know who’s coming?

  Will people be staying with us?

  How much do we need to cook?”

  A hundred other questions puff into dandelions,

  wisp up in the air between us

  but Tía just shakes her head

  & doesn’t make a wish

  on a single one.

  In the middle of the night,

  Tía shakes me awake from a dream

  where I am wandering New York City

  screaming my father’s name.

  At first, I think I must have been screaming out loud,

  but when my eyes adjust to the dark

  I see Tía is carrying her healer’s bag.

  I get dressed quickly in jeans & sandals.

  Do not bother putting on a bra, or brushing my hair.

  I can tell by the worried way she rifles inside her bag

  that this is an emergency situation.

  As if we don’t have enough to deal with.

  When we step outside the house, a young man waits.

  Shadows darken his face, but as I get closer,

  I see it’s Nelson, Carline’s boyfriend,

  who made
eyes at her since she was five

  & we would all splash each other in the ocean

  like we’d discovered a personal water park.

  He must have been recruited to fetch us.

  I do not ask what is wrong. There is only one reason.

  We walk the uneven streets in the dark,

  Tía’s white clothing a splash of brightness against the unlit night.

  Good thing we know this ramshackle neighborhood

  as well as we know the webs between our fingers.

  She stops in front of the yellow house,

  & there must be a power outage

  because inside is pitch black

  except for a couple of candles burning in the window.

  Carline’s maman opens the door.

  Although it is dark, I can see the one-room house

  is swept clean & scrubbed cleaner.

  But still too small for all the people

  we must fit inside:

  Maman & Carline’s father,

  an older man who rarely smiles,

  & Tía & myself, & Nelson.

  & Carline. & Carline’s babe attempting to push itself out.

  Carline’s face is red & sweaty; she is sprawled

  on a faded couch, her hands clutching her belly.

  I towel off Carline’s forehead.

  Tía asks Carline’s Maman questions

  in her calm curandera voice;

  “When did the contractions start?”

  “When was the last time she went to the clinic?”

  “Has her water broken? How long ago?”

  Carline clutches my hand tightly,

  & I attempt to circle out her worries with my thumb.

  If there is anything to be done, Tía will do it.

  Carline should be in a hospital,

  but Maman says the babe is coming too fast,

  & they panicked thinking of the logistics.

  It is not an easy thing to do,

  for a Haitian parent to bring their child

  to a Dominican hospital to give birth.

  There is already a lot of tension around

  who here deserves care; I cannot fault Maman

  for being too afraid.

  Tía’s questions are asked as firmly as the hand

  she presses onto Carline’s belly; as a curandera,

  Tía is fierce, channeling something beyond herself.

  I unfold long white sheets & wrap them around cushions

  to protect the space where Carline will give birth.

  I use the flashlight on my phone to get my bearings in the house.

  Tía pulls her up by the elbows & bears Carline’s weight,