ALEX
I punch my key into the lock as if it’s my fist and the lock is the whole world. It sticks. I batter the door as if it’s the world against me too. Mami comes running from her room. I didn’t think she’d be home.
“¿Qué te pasó?” Her hand is on her chest. Her eyes widen at my ripped-open shirt. The collar was too tight. I couldn’t undo the buttons.
She takes three quick steps. Her arms come around me. She holds on tight.
I drop my head onto the top of hers. The keys and my tie fall from my hand. I close my eyes.
I don’t want to tell her what happened.
After a plate of coconetes from Sra. Hernandez and a cup of café, she asks me again.
I chew my cookie. I get up for a glass of milk.
I tell Mami about the performance. I pass her the program with Albrecht and Giselle. I tell her about Isa’s parents and about people trying to be what they’re not.
Mami listens. She flips through the photos.
“What about Isa?” she asks. “What do you feel about her?”
I don’t answer. I inhale and exhale slow.
Mami sees my wet eyes. She goes to the living room. She returns with Neruda’s book. She shows me a page. Poems, not just printed but written in the margins, at the top and the bottom. My words next to his.
“Does she feel the same about you?” she asks.
I swallow and look away.
“Falling in love, it is easy. Fighting for it, that is hard.” Mami turns to the beginning of Neruda’s book, to the inscription that starts, Para mi amor.
“Sometimes it is too hard.” She waits for me to look at her. “Your papi, he wrote that. He gave me this book when I was nineteen. You were born a year later. And your papi, he was traveling. He was doing things he shouldn’t. It was too hard for me to fight. I had to protect you.”
I take the book from her. I thought it came from a used bookstore in Santo Domingo. That’s what Mami had told me. Maybe it did. She never said who bought it.
I read the inscription again. He loved her. He really loved her. And she loved him. I know it because her eyes are wet now too.
“No sabia.” I didn’t know. I take her hand. I cover it in mine.
She lifts a shoulder, sniffs and looks at the ceiling. She waves as if to scatter smoke. She used to love cigarettes. Once, when I was little, I got a cold and wheezed. No more cigarettes after that, doctor’s orders. Something else she gave up because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
Her fingers tighten. “Don’t be sorry. I made my choice. You have to make yours.”
She pulls away. She slides the ballet program in front of me. It’s folded open to the dedication page. To where Isa thanks A, for everything.
“It is work, Ále. Only you can know if it’s worth it.”