6 DECEMBER 1960

Jackie whacked the tennis ball against the wall of the family’s squash court. She ran a couple of steps and whacked it again.

Ultimately, what she should have done was not open her big (whack), fat (whack) mouth (whack). Then she wouldn’t be outside trying to ignore the argument streaming down from her parents’ bedroom. The argument she had provoked.

“A man’s job is to protect his family. You’ve failed us as a husband and father!”

Whack.

Because any way she looked at it, it all boiled down to her and what she’d said.

Two armed men had entered her school today while she was heading to the bathroom during a boring math class. Black boots, brown uniform, brown caps, rifles strapped to their backs. They saw her and immediately engaged in a conversation. Or, rather, an accusation.

“Look at this rich gordita,” the older one had sneered. His lit cigarette balanced perfectly in his mouth without falling. “Tell us, gordita, do you eat off gold plates? Do your servants personally feed you while the rest of the island works day and night and still starves?”

Jackie pressed up against the wall, more for safety than out of fear. She could call for a teacher, but she had never backed down from a fight. No reason to start now. “Leave me alone. You don’t belong here.”

“That’s the problem with you entitled capitalist snots. You think the world belongs to you.” Ash fell from the man’s cigarette, which seemed glued to his bottom lip.

The grooves from the cinder blocks embedded into Jackie’s palms as the armed men crowded closer. She had meant they didn’t belong at school, but if they disappeared from the whole world, she wouldn’t complain.

“I mean it. Go away.” She used the authoritative voice she’d inherited from Mamalara, which in the past caused boys bigger and stronger than her to back off. Miedo o respeto, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t used to having her demands ignored.

“Or what, gordita? You’re going to tell your rich father you’re too spoiled to understand the glory we’re bringing to the island?”

Jackie straightened up and raised her fists in defense, ready to protect her face and gut. The older man who’d done all the talking wasn’t exactly a toothpick himself, and the other couldn’t have been older than Alto, late teens at the most. It was Alto who’d taught her how to throw a punch, and she knew a hit to the huevos would always cause pain.

But she hadn’t counted on one of them grabbing her arm and twisting it behind her back. Any movement she made now had Jackie gasping in pain.

“So, we have a little fighter here. Too bad she’s just a girl—the comrades could use someone like her.”

Jackie stomped her heel, but the toes she’d attempted to crush were protected by thick boots. She didn’t know what angered her more: the twisted grip on her arm that left her helpless and outmatched, being called “just a girl,” or that they’d dared suggest she join the Communist party.

“¡Déjame quieta!” Jackie’s voice echoed in the empty school hallway. Not so helpless after all.

Classroom doors opened and heads of teachers and students poked out. The man holding her immediately released his grip.

The school director, an estadounidense in short sleeves and a crisp bow tie, marched toward them.

“Caballeros,” he scolded in accented Spanish, “you have no business coming in here during school hours and assaulting a schoolgirl.”

“She—”

“Enough! You two, in my office, now.” The director, armed with only a voice of authority and an accusing finger, had the two revolutionaries cowering as if Mamalara had just caught them waking up the baby.

Someday Jackie’s voice would hold such power. For now she settled for grinding the dislodged cigarette into the floor.

“Jackie, return to your class,” the director said in English.

“But I have to pee.” She pointed to the bathrooms as she rubbed circulation back into her arm.

“¡Ahora!”

She did what the director said, only because the white in his eyes made him look scarier than any horror-movie actor.

When she made it home and finally used the long-awaited bathroom, Mima had asked, as she always did, about Jackie’s day. Without thinking, Jackie expressed her indignation at having been deprived of going to the bathroom. The rest of the story spilled out as well.

For a few seconds, Mima sat at the kitchen table. Even the rouge on her cheeks had paled into pinkish white. “¿Cómo se te ocurre? They had guns!”

Yes, but the rifles had been on their backs. Wasn’t it more important how they had treated Jackie? Wasn’t it good that she had stood up to them? All of that was irrelevant to Mima, who called out to Pancha to phone Pipo to come home from work immediately, and then left the kitchen to go outside and climb the concrete stairs to her own house.

Now everything that Jackie had told her was fuel for the worst fight her parents had ever had. All because of her.

The tennis ball sailed passed her head and bounced to a stop next to where Gnomo the cat lounged on the hot stones. Jackie crouched and rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Gnomo batted the ball briefly before realizing it wasn’t worth additional reprimanding.

“The time to act was yesterday, when we still had options.” Mima’s voice carried through the open window, across the courtyard they used to share with other relatives, and to the squash court, where Jackie still hadn’t caught her breath.

“There’s nothing to act upon. I keep telling you, things always get worse before they get better,” Pipo responded. But instead of being exasperated, Jackie detected a tinge of fear in his tone. Not fear of what would happen, but fear that maybe he had been wrong.

“Two armed men came to our daughter’s school and assaulted her!”

“What would you like me to do?” Pipo raised his voice. “Should I set up a meeting with Fidel Castro and tell him he needs to train his minions to be more respectful?”

“How about taking responsibility! Admit that you were wrong. Find a way to get us out.”

Maybe Jackie should demand that they stop. Before someone outside the family compound overheard and reported them to the guards patrolling the neighborhood.

“It’s only been a short amount of time. Things will settle.…” Pipo’s voice lowered, as if he were begging.

Jackie almost heard Mima shake her head as she lowered her voice too. “We’re not lingering in the line of fire like sitting ducks. We’re done.”

The silence that now came from the window could be heard miles away. And Jackie thought the shouting had been bad.

Gnomo stood, stretched, and, with the nonchalance only a cat could muster, strolled to Jackie and wove his body and tail around her ankles.

She dropped to the edge of the squash court where it met with patio stone. With a rumbling purr like a lion, Gnomo eased himself into the throne known as Jackie’s lap.

She really shouldn’t have said anything. To Mima, or to the armed men. For once she should have backed down from a fight.

A door slammed open, sandals clanked down the stairs, and seconds later a whiff of cigarette smoke made her look up only to shield her eyes from the setting sun. From what she could see, Mima’s face was now streaked with red. Or maybe that was the sun’s glare.

“You’re not returning to school. It’s not safe.” Mima tilted her head back to release a puff of smoke.

“But Pipo paid until Christmas.” With her cousins gone and the radio station no longer airing her favorite shows, Jackie was already bored out of her mind at home. Even with half her school friends gone, at least being there gave her something to do.

“He said that too. Always so tacaño. I think he cares more about losing a few weeks’ worth of tuition than about his family.” Mima blinked back tears from her red eyes.

Jackie didn’t know what to say to that. Cuban fathers didn’t say they loved their family—such things weren’t done. And he never bought her presents. But Pipo interacted with her when he could have left that to Mima and Mamalara, like Victoria’s father ignored his children. He took her and the cousins to baseball games. He was even beginning to show her how to drive a car. Surely that must mean he cared.

Jackie shifted her hand to better block the sun. “Whether I stay at school or not isn’t going to stop you two from fighting.”

Mima shook her head as she took a deep drag of the cigarette she only smoked when she was upset. “We’re done fighting. Forever. Your father and I have separated; you and I are moving downstairs. I love him, but I can’t live with him anymore. I’ll help you pack all your things tomorrow while he’s at work. I’m guessing you’ll take Victoria’s room.”

Jackie returned her attention to Gnomo, and not just because he had dug his claws into her shorts and pierced her skin. Love hurt.

“What happens when Victoria and her family come back?” she whispered to the cat.

Mima took two drags before responding. “I don’t see that happening. Fidel will never give up his power, and things will only get worse. There’s no coming back.”

Once again the silence cut through the humidity. Even Gnomo stopped purring. The feelings of self-pity and abandonment that had been bothering Jackie from the beginning, since the promised daily letters still hadn’t arrived, now turned to defeat and emptiness. Thinking that Victoria wouldn’t want to come back had been Jackie’s self-defense. Now hearing Mima say out loud they wouldn’t be able to come back made her ache more. This wasn’t a battle she could fight, let alone win.

The middle of the cigarette burned red as Mima took her longest drag before tossing it onto the stone floor. She exhaled over her shoulder, away from Jackie, and then leaned over to brush hair from Jackie’s face. “I imagine that if we should be so lucky as to have our families back together and things return to normal, then I’ll forgive your father.”

Jackie buried her fingers in Gnomo’s thick orange fur, causing him to resume purring. At least someone was easily contented. “Are we going to move to Miami?”

Mima crumpled next to her, her face burrowing between Gnomo’s side and Jackie’s stomach.

“It’s too late for that.” Mima’s muffled voice enunciated every word. “Your father never wanted to spend money on getting us passports, and now the government isn’t issuing them anymore. We’re stuck here, forever.”