I’m at the wheel of Tío Ed’s red Dodge pickup. Wendy’s riding shotgun on a hot date to the county dump.
We take a right off Ed’s property onto Valley Drive. The green of the farms and the pink mountains and popcorn clouds … It’s like we’re in a painting. And somehow, after only a week down here, it’s starting to feel normal. So is Wendy sitting real close.
So is this feeling that I can tell her just about anything.
“Wendy,” I say, “I been thinking about my essay for U-Dub.”
“That’s great. Lay it on me.”
“First, though, I want to be an architect.”
“Wow,” she says. “Really?” And she asks me when I figured that out.
“It’s been a few days,” I say. “Luci showed me the program she used to design the house. I been messing around with it, plotting out the stand. I think I finally got our hinged frame units worked out.”
“Okay,” she says. “That’s cool.”
But she doesn’t sound so excited. So I try again. “I wanna design houses. Like Luci and Ed’s house. I wanna make people feel like their house makes me feel.”
The look on her face. It’s like she’s not understanding.
So I tell her about our house from when we were kids. Something about it made you feel like it was there to protect you. Like, embrace you. And I tell her about the big box house. It was huge. But it made you feel the opposite of embraced. I talk about how dark and demeaning the rental is. And I tell her about Papi designing the Captain’s Quarters. I think that’s what got me started. And seeing Luci’s house … and fixing up the stand …
“That’s good,” she says. “But some of that stuff has me confused. Like how did you go from a big, shiny house into a horrible little rental? I’m guessing there’s a story there, Teodoro. Like a big story.”
“I know, Wendy, but—”
“And you’re working on a design for the stand? Aren’t we supposed to be doing that together?”
“I’ll show you as soon as we get back. You’ll love it.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just you could have told me.”
It’s quiet in the truck as we leave the green of Valley Drive and head into dusty Hatch.
I try to explain all our moving. I tell her Papi thought we needed more space. So we got the big house. Then Fauntleroy shut down and he and Mami lost their jobs. So we ended up in the rental.
She listens real quiet.
I try to tell her how I got sucked into that design program.
What I don’t say is doing that program was like discovering something I was really good at. My thing. I don’t know why, but I had to protect it. Keep it for myself. I don’t know why. And I can’t explain it.
She asks if there’s anything else she needs to know about me.
I tell her there isn’t.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Positive?”
“Yeah.”
We get to the dump and slide the junk off the back end of the Dodge.
It’s a quiet ride back to the farm. We’re done for the day.
Wendy spends the afternoon reading.
I spend it worrying I might be too much of an idiot to pull this off.
* * *
I’m on the floor, stewing, bouncing a ball against the wall when Manny walks in. He’s home from another group meeting.
He watches me bounce and catch and bounce. He can tell I’m messed up. He asks me what’s going on.
I tell him what happened with Wendy. Just enough so he gets it.
He says all I can do is move on and show Wendy my best self.
“I’m not sure what that is, Manny. So it’s not gonna be easy.”
Manny takes off his pants and climbs into bed. He reaches over and picks a pill bottle up off his nightstand. Makes like he’s gonna pop the top. But he doesn’t. He just sets it back down.
I think I should say something.
But I don’t wanna bug him.
We lay there in silence.
And not bugging him feels lame. “None of my business, but I’ve watched you take one of those every night. What’s going on?”
He looks at me like it’s none of my business.
Then he tells me I’m right. He says he had been taking them three times a day. But now Doc Fuentes says if he’s feeling good at night, he can skip his third dose.
“Sounds good, Man.”
I don’t know why I say that. Because it doesn’t sound good at all.
Manny turns out the light. He closes his eyes and sleeps.
I cannot sleep.
* * *
Something wakes me.
It’s pitch-black in the room.
“Manny?”
He doesn’t answer.
I hop up. Shake his bed. He’s not there.
I look out the door, down the hallway.
He’s not there.
I check the bathroom.
No Manny.
I slip on shoes and run downstairs.
I bust through the front door, into the cool desert night.
And I fly right by Manny sitting on a porch step. I try to put on my brakes, but I’m going so fast I almost fall over.
Manny drops a notebook and pen to his side and looks at me like he didn’t just do that.
“Hey, Man.”
“Where you running, T?”
I tell him I needed some fresh air.
He says it looks like I needed it in a hurry.
I ask if he minds if I take a seat.
He doesn’t say no.
We sit awhile.
Then I tell him I got worried when he wasn’t in bed.
“Just sitting here, T.” He looks out into the dark.
I point to the notebook on the ground and ask him what he’s writing.
He grunts. “Group stuff.”
“I’ll let you write, then,” I say.
“I’m not writing,” he says.
I ask him why not.
He doesn’t look back at me or say anything.
Feels like my cue to leave. But I don’t. I stay right next to my brother. “Besides the writing, how’s group been?”
“They won’t stop talking war. I get it, already. I get it. I get it.”
I try to tell him it sounds miserable, but he stands and says, “Maybe that works for them. But I’m done.” He bends the notebook in half and launches it into the dark.
We hear it hit dirt, far out in the fields.
“All right, then,” I say.
He sits back down on the step, his arms wrapped around his head, his head wedged between his knees.
“Manny?”
He doesn’t respond so I go back up to the room and poke my head out the window.
I watch my brother sit for a long time. Until he falls asleep. Right there on the porch.
I take a blanket down and cover him up.
Then I walk back upstairs.
Back to the window.
Back to watching.