Mother and I were the last to arrive at La Finca on that scorching sweltering summer day in 1965, when I was eleven years old. The branches of the mango trees in the yard hung low, perhaps from the weight of the ripened fruit, perhaps because they were too exhausted to push against the crushing walls of humidity. I had looked forward to seeing cousin Nicolás, but only Tía Consuelo had come. Once again, I was the only child at the house.
An enormous faded blue truck with tall wooden stockades running down the sides of its bed stood in the middle of yard. In and out of the house, the men loaded furniture and household necessities onto the truck.
Earlier that March, Mother and I had rushed to Abuela’s house, and I sat by her side. I held her fragile hand, and she lovingly kissed my cheek. She died two days after we returned to the capital. I shocked myself when happiness filled my heart. She was in a better place. Though God was stern, I was certain he’d smile when he welcomed her to pass through the pearly gates. I sang cheerfully, knowing that she was now pain free.
This had been the greatest loss of my life so far, but I wasn’t there to experience it for myself. It had been easy for me not to feel its pain. However, that August day at the farm, with the revolution in full swing and the government taking away the house and the farm that Papá and Mamá had labored to build, I could not run away from the pain. Beyond the imminent loss of my refuge, the only safe world I’d ever known, the entire family was changing forever. Repeatedly, the same questions echoed in my head: What would happen to us? What would happen to me?
Mother walked directly into the house as I lingered in the yard. When I finally went in, I had no other choice but to tightly lock my emotions because I didn’t want to upset the family any more than they already were.
I was now eleven and no longer wanted to play. I’d drawn my last picture in the dirt with a stick, and gave up talking to the zinnias and my old friends, Ms. Moon and Mr. Sun. Still, I needed to play a happy child game for the adults. This had always been my job, after all. My child-like smile hid the turmoil inside me and lightened the mood of the heavy-hearted adults hauling their lives out the front door and onto a truck.
I needn’t have worried because everyone was too busy to even ask how I felt about the loss. Aimlessly, I walked through the rapidly emptying rooms—the only acknowledgment of my presence being the constant demands for me to get out of the way. Then I no longer bothered to smile bravely for them because my strength was invisible to them. My heart cracking like a block of ice, I longed for a comforting touch, but no one noticed me.
By early afternoon, all the valuable contents had been loaded onto the truck, and everyone but Mother and Mamá came out to wave their goodbyes. In the driver’s seat, Papá seemed anxious to go.
The family gathered in groups of twos and threes on the dry, fractured black earth they once called their own. Their dull smiles resting uneasy beneath their dead eyes, they painted a grotesque picture of Cuba’s future for me. Without hugs, minus tender caresses, the atmosphere oppressing the once joyous family I remembered gathered around the table, laughing, joking, and enjoying a feast.
I wanted to reach out to Tía Dulce as she sat rigidly upright on the back of the truck, but she never looked my way, and with my heart caught in my throat, it was impossible for me to call her name. Her intense stare was affixed to Tía Nereida sitting next to her. So I recoiled and stepped back into the shade, no longer welcoming the bright light of day. Hope passed away on the farm that day, and with it the biggest piece of me.
In a last hopeless hurrah, Tía Nereida yelled to the crowd, joking that they were taking the contents of the house to make a great epic film. Briefly, the mood shifted, and a faint chorus of laughter washed over those gathered. Without fanfare, they silently waved goodbye as the truck drove away.
A deafening silence dropped on the farm. Even the chatty birds stopped singing as we watched the loaded truck drive past the great big tractor gates, cross over the railroad tracks, turn right onto the bumpy country road along the rail line, and disappear behind a dense cloud of dust.
Rooted to the ground, we stood frozen, watching the dust settle back onto the road. Like an uncontrollable nightmare, I couldn’t rewind the scene and change the narrative. Life determined to play it out to an unedited finish that I had no power to control. Everyone stood still as if they expected the truck to return, but the horizon sat near barren, with nothing left to look at but the flat miles of harvested sugar cane fields that stretch far beyond the rail line.
I stood alone as everyone filed back into the house. I wanted to cry, to break the tightness gripping my chest. I tried to cry, but I shed not a single tear. I had cried my last tear a year earlier, when Padre Felipe pushed me out of his office and slammed the door in my face.
In the kitchen, I found Mamá trembling like a wet newborn bird in its nest. Wanting to comfort her, I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and leaned my head against hers. Immediately, she stiffened, her body rigid with rejection. I felt dead! Then I noticed Mother slumped against the wall, with a dour expression plastered on her face. Only then did I first see how much like each other the two women were.