I’m in the shack. I got my notebook out. Calculator ready. But first I have to talk to Wendy. Like really talk.
She walks in.
“Hi, Wendy.”
“Hi.” She gets her tutor materials and sits on the bench.
“Wendy, I’m sorry I never told you about our housing situation. Ask me anything you want.”
“I already asked you.”
“What did you ask me?”
“I asked you if there’s anything else you need to tell me. And you said no.”
Oh, hell. She knows something.
“Teodoro, you never told me how sick Manny was when he came back. You never told me how bad he got. You never told me what happened that night in the rental house. Xochitl told me. And she told me the real reason she needed to bring Manny here.”
“Of course she did.”
“She wasn’t squealing on you, Teodoro. She told me because she’s worried about Manny. And she’s worried about you.”
“What else did she say?”
“She told me you left home. You moved out and you’re not living with your family.”
“I’m sorry, Wendy.”
“I like you so much, Teodoro.”
“I like you so much, too, Wendy.”
“So much that in my mind I figured out a way to understand why you wouldn’t tell me what was going on. And why you lied to me at U-Dub.”
“I wanted you to like me, Wendy. And it wouldn’t have worked if I came out with a bunch of negative drama I wasn’t handling very well. It would’ve been too much information. Too much emotion.”
“I understand. It makes sense.”
“It does?”
“It makes sense if it’s just some abstract people hiding stuff from each other. But it’s us, Teodoro.” Tears start rolling down her face. She looks like somebody just died.
She reaches one hand to her other wrist and slips off the bracelet.
She holds it out for me.
I don’t take it because this is not happening.
“I bought it for you, Wendy. Keep it.”
“I can’t, Teodoro.”
“Please, Wendy.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
“Take and hold on to it. Because maybe someday…”
“Maybe someday what?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll feel better if I know you still have it.”
I take the bracelet. And shove it in my pocket.
I look down at my math notebook. “What now?”
“I’m not sure,” she says.
I can’t take the thought of us broken up and trying to keep this tutoring thing going.
But I can’t take the thought of her going back to Vancouver, either. “Wendy,” I say. “Are you gonna leave?”
She shakes her head like she can’t believe I asked her that. “Teodoro,” she says, looking at me hard and deep, “are you going to leave?”
* * *
At night, I’m deep in this dream where I’m working at Home Depot with Papi. He’s, like, seventy-five years old. I’m pushing fifty. And we’re arguing about what part a customer should buy to fix his leaky toilet. I lift a pipe to show them and wrapped around my wrist is a raggedy old shells-and-beads bracelet.
So the dream sucks already. Then Papi looks at me and starts shouting, “Show me your identification!”
That wakes me right up.
Turns out the shouting is real. But it’s Manny doing it. He’s standing on my bed in his underwear, pointing an imaginary rifle at my face. “Show me your ID. Now!” Every muscle in his body is flexed to the breaking point.
I look up at my brother. “It’s me, Manny.”
“Down!” he shouts. “Get on the ground!”
I don’t know what else to do, so I get down.
He looks ready to kill. “On the ground, now!”
“I’m on the ground!”
He yells something in, like, Arabic?
“I don’t understand!”
He tells me to get down, over and over.
“I can’t get any more down, Manny!”
He goes to crack me with the butt of the invisible rifle when Xochitl flies in the room and tackles him. They slam onto the mattress.
“Wake up!” she says, still gripping Manny.
He keeps shouting military stuff.
She slaps his cheek. “Wake up!”
Manny shakes his head. Looks around the dark room.
I turn on the light.
He looks scared. Doesn’t know where he is.
He looks at me.
He looks at Xochitl.
I move slowly to my bed.
She guides Manny back to his. “We’re at Tío Ed’s,” Xochitl says.
He starts shivering and he looks around the room, like he’s still trying to figure it out.
Xochitl helps him slip into a sweatshirt. “You had a bad dream. That’s all.”
She tucks him in. Kisses his forehead. “Sleep, Manuel. Then I’m taking you to see Dr. Fuentes in the morning.”
Xochitl walks over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
She leaves us.
I pretend I’m asleep. But I got my eye on Manny.
He sits up. Presses his back against the wall. Watches the door. The window. The door again. At some point he slips all the way under the covers and it looks like he’s going to sleep.
I watch Manny till he’s snoring hard. And I tell myself it’s okay to shut my eyes.
Then the tapping starts.
I don’t know what he’s got in his hand. But he’s tapping it against the wall.
Click-click, click-click, click-click …