We’re all in my old room. Manny’s new room. He’ll need it in four days. Four days!
We haul in a bigger bed with a real comforter, a TV, a radio alarm clock—all that stuff. When we’re done, we just stand in Manny’s space. It’s like we can’t wait anymore and this is the closest we can get to him.
Xochitl sits on the bed. We join her. Mami grabs Manny’s pillow and holds it to her chest. Papi sits close, his arm wrapped around her. She starts telling Manny stories. Stories about how smart he was as a kid. How much of a leader. Papi talks about how hard he worked at everything.
Then Xochitl says all this stuff about Manny transitioning to civilian life and about him finding a job in this crappy economy. “War can change people,” she says. “That might make things hard.”
Heads nod. But we got nothing to say. Because Manny’s coming home. And he’s always been strong. And as good as we’ve been lately, and as great as we are in this moment, Manny’s gonna make us even better.
Xochitl gets up to leave for a gig and says, “Just stuff to think about.”
The front door shuts and we sit in silence for a second.
And Mami picks up right where she left off with the stories. Papi, too.
I can’t get enough of those stories.