The train rockets into a curve. Clackety-clack, clackety-clack. My butt slides along the seat. I clutch the armrest to keep from sliding more. My other hand checks my pocket for Heavenly’s unlimited. I’ve never taken it out of the city before. I feel again to make sure it’s there.
We just left Dobbs Ferry. Six more stops. I’ve memorized them all. The names are weird. Make me think of white folks swinging golf clubs—Glenwood, Irvington, Philipse Manor. Who was Philip anyway? And Dobbs? Must have had a freakin’ big ferry if the whole town was named after it.
We go around another bend at full speed. The tips of my fingers whiten against the brown vinyl. I like the subway better.
It’s cold out. Arctic effect or some vaina like that. Just in time for the holidays. Chunks of ice block up the Hudson, piling over one another. Good day to be inside. Hardly nobody out. Only cars. Waiting behind flashing lights. Waiting for the train to pass.
My arms rest on my big belly. Angelo’s kicks are so strong, I don’t need my hands to feel them no more. Even in my sleep, this boy wakes me. After Christmas, Doc’s gonna give me a date for that C-section. I can hardly wait. I want to meet Angelo. See him with my own eyes. Hold him in my arms. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. Nervous about having him taken away from me. Nervous about what will happen to him. About what will happen to us.
The conductor calls for Ardsley-on-Hudson. I close my eyes. Five more stops. Doc told me I had to think of others besides myself. So I got to thinking about how Papi hasn’t had any visits from me ever. Because Abuela’d never take me. I know she said he don’t want visits. But maybe he’ll feel different now that I’m grown. Maybe I should’ve written him. Told him I was coming. Abuela was the one who always sent our letters. But I could’ve looked up the address. Just as I looked up how to get there and checked to make sure they’d let me in. Having Angelo makes me an emancipated minor. So it don’t matter that I’m not yet eighteen. I wiggle in my seat. Try and find a position that doesn’t make my butt fall asleep. I’m nervous, but it feels good to be nervous about something that’s not Angelo.
Last time Papi saw me I was three. According to Abuela. I don’t look like no three-year-old no more. Papi shouldn’t be too surprised by my state though. I wrote about Angelo. Just like I told Yaz. Didn’t tell him about Angelo’s heart until that last letter, which he probably didn’t get. I doubt Abuela sent it. I didn’t want to tell him before. He has enough to be depressed about being stuck in there because his crap lawyer made him confess to doing stuff and selling stuff that a whole lot of other fools were doing with him.
But Angelo’s excited to meet his abuelito. I know he is.
“Next stop, miss.”
I sit forward, watch Ticket Man shuffle down the aisle. My stub’s in his hands. I reach for my unlimited, mad I dozed off. I try not to think about how much the ticket cost. Or about the ring of Papi’s I pawned to make the fare. Abuela had given it to me a while ago. It’s not like it wasn’t mine. But I was hoping to save it. Maybe give it to Angelo one day.
The train slows, like it’s catching its breath. We pass through a tunnel of concrete walls and barbed wire. Bridges swoop by overhead. Papi’s in there. Somewhere.
Winter air circles my neck, slaps my cheeks as we get off. There are a couple of taxis, but Angelo and I are gonna walk. I duck my head into my coat—Carlos’s coat. I keep the river to my right. Pretty soon, the concrete walls and barbed wire come back into view. I walk, not stopping ’til I’m standing in line at a window, giving my papi’s name to the woman behind the glass.
“ID, young lady.”
I hand over my NYC ID card along with the note from the hospital social worker. Turns out she was good for something after all. I add a picture of Angelo for good measure.
“I’m an emancipated minor.” I open my coat to show her.
Her baggy eyes almost close as she holds the letter at arm’s length. Her mouth moves as she reads. Clumps of coral lipstick jump from her lower to her upper lip. She gets on the phone. Someone else comes into the booth. They talk. He looks at my papers. He looks at me. When he leaves, her microphone voice says, “Wait over there.”
Angelo and I sit on a bench. The line of visitors is crazy. It’s Christmas Eve, so I didn’t expect different. It’s perfect, really. This way, Angelo and I get to spend part of Christmas with my family. We don’t have to force our sorry selves off on anyone else’s family. Not that Heavenly and Teri didn’t offer.
The line is almost gone when a door off to the side opens. A man in a uniform comes over.
“Miss Pujols?” he asks.
I stand up. It takes me a few seconds. I fist my hands, getting ready to argue, but all he says is, “Come with me.”
Twenty minutes later, after going through security checks and locking away my sweater and coat, I sit in a room. It’s just like on TV. There’s a desk with a phone. I touch the scratches on the plexiglass in front of me, wondering how they got there. Maybe it’s old. Back from when they let you keep stuff like pens and keys in your pockets.
Next to me is a big black man. He’s talking to somebody on the other side who has to be his brother because he’s just as big and black. There’s a tattoo on his neck. Signs say you can’t wear anything gang-related, but there’s nothing to be done about tattoos, I guess. The woman on my left reminds me of Bertie’s mama. Her hands are trembling something fierce. Maybe it’s because she’s a junkie not used to going so long without a hit. Maybe it’s because she’s nervous.
I take my hands from my belly and sit on them.
A door opens. Must be for her. She’s been waiting longer than me. And the skinny black dude that comes toward us looks nothing like my papi. He walks with a lurch. Like something long ago got broke in his legs and never got fixed. He’s got no hair. Whether it was shaved off, pulled out, or fell out, I can’t tell. But I’m staring trying to figure it out.
He stops in front of me, squints at the number written on the desk. The chair shrieks when he pulls it out. Even through the glass I hear it. The woman beside me jumps. Baldy’s grinning, looking between the two of us. He’s got a gap between his front teeth. It’s so wide, a whole other tooth could fit in it. He leans over, squints at her number, shakes his head. He lowers himself into the chair in front of me.
Real quick, he scrapes the chair forward, looking at my neighbor. She jumps again and he laughs. His knees bow wide-open. The jumpsuit bags around his legs, making them look like sticks. His fingers drum the inside of his thighs. He’s still grinning. He catches my eye and runs his tongue over his lip.
There must be some mistake. This man looks nothing like the boy in Abuela’s photo frame.
I take a hand out from under my butt. I grab the phone. He does the same.
“You coming to claim something, baby? ’Cause I be in here nine long years. No way I be responsible fo’ that.” He puckers and blows a kiss to my belly.
“Are you Luis Pujols?”
“Sí,” he answers, cracking his jaw.
There’s probably more than one Luis Pujols at Sing Sing. The DR is filled with Pujols.
“Luis Francesco Echevarría Pujols?”
“Sí, soy yo.” He leans back. “The one and only.” He runs a hand over his head, slowly, from forehead to neck. Like there’s still hair there. His eyes dart to my neighbor. She’s adjusting her bra. His hand comes back to his thigh. His leg sways open.
This can’t be right. Angelo doesn’t move. He doesn’t believe it either.
Nine years. He said nine years. But the last time he saw me was . . .
“¿Quién eres?” he says. “Who are you? Not that I care too much. I’ll take a visit from a pretty white girl any day, even if she is knocked up.”
I swallow and look at my belly. I swallow again, looking for anger, hoping to feel something other than the flat emptiness of disappointment.
“Mari.” My throat is dry.
“Eh?” He shifts forward, rests his head on the hand holding the phone. He traces a heart on the plexiglass between us. He winks at me.
I suck in a breath. I hold my mouth closed until I can speak. I feel like I’m going to be sick. “Maribel Lucy Pujols.”
His face is still as he looks at me. No more lip-licking. No more grinning winks. I’m looking, too. I’m looking real hard. For something of me in there. I don’t see nothing.
“Coño, hijo de la porra.” His arm slams the wall. “What kind of fucking shit joke is this?” He shoots up. He mutters something that may be my mama’s name. He jabs a finger at me. “You no supposed to be here. She made me a promise.” He chucks the phone. It smacks the glass in front of my face and hits the desk. The woman next to me shrieks.
“Why? Why?” I repeat it, even though I don’t know what I want to say. Even though his phone is hanging, maybe on the ground, the curls of the cord pulled straight. Even though he’s walking away. Pounding on the door.
Why did you never come to see me, when I was a kid, before you got locked up? A three-year-old wouldn’t remember her papi. But a six-year-old would.
Why didn’t you read my letters? Because I know he didn’t. That man wouldn’t have. I know guys like him. Guys like Heavenly’s mother’s boyfriend. I had believed my papi wasn’t one of them.
A guard opens the door. My papi is walking through it. He stops. He looks over his shoulder at me. He hand-chops the air like he’s hacking a piece of meat. He says something. I can’t hear him. But I see his lips move.
I never wanted you. You are nothing to me.