1968. 1968. This is the first time I write out each of the digits in the new year. How strange the eight feels. Like an exile!
Tía Carmen took us three girls for a haircut. We did not go to a beauty salon as we used to at home but to my aunt’s hairdresser, who now gives her old clients a trim or a permanent in her own living room. Tía Carmen says her dentist and her doctor from Cuba also see patients in their homes. Like Tío Pablo, each is studying to get a license here, but in the meantime they help their old patients and charge them whatever the patients can afford. Ileana, who is very smart when she is not arguing with our parents, said this kind of arrangement is called an underground economy, which means that people work without the government knowing about it. She also said that more and more people will begin to do this because the government is too busy with the war to serve its people right. This does not sound like Ileana at all, and I am sure she is repeating what Tommy tells her. Tía Carmen told her to stop being a party pooper and be grateful for what she has.
I got my hair cut short just like Mami’s. Though I wish Mami would grow her hair back, I like my new cut very much. It makes me look older and more serious. I think I look a little like the movie star Audrey Hepburn. Won’t Jane be surprised to see me! After our haircuts, Tía Carmen took us to G. C. Murphy’s, and she and Ileana helped me pick out a gift for Jane. I bought a 45 record of Aretha Franklin singing “Respect.” Jane sings that song a lot. It makes me want to dance.
Jane loved the gift. We do not have a record player, so we could not listen to it, but she said that as soon as she got home, she would play it on her mom’s.
Her grandparents, who are visiting for the holidays, brought her to the house, but only for a little while. They are very old, older even than mine. They have white hair and blue eyes the color of the sky and both dress the same, like twins, in blue jeans and in cowboy shirts. Every summer they take Jane on a car trip, and they want me to come along when school’s out. Wouldn’t that be fantastic? I would do anything to be allowed to go. Maybe I can start working on Papi now!
Jane’s grandparents were surprised I was not a Negro. They said they thought all the people from the Caribbean islands were Negro. I explained that many are, but my great-grandparents came from Spain. This got me thinking about how people from different countries really do not know much about each other. When I first got here, I thought all los americanos would be very tall and blond. I thought they would eat only hamburgers. But I discovered that is not true. Like Cubans, americanos come in all sizes and colors. They eat different foods, and the language sounds different depending on who is speaking. Mr. Fixx, the physical education teacher, has an accent that Jane says comes from the South. He sounds very different from Jane’s grandparents, who lived in a place called Pittsburgh until they retired.
For Three Kings’ Day, I received a new limecolored dress from Mami and Papi. It is to be worn only for church or special occasions. Tía Carmen and Tío Pablo got me a very pretty blue pant-skirt (just like the ones everyone at school is wearing) and a matching blouse. From Abuela and Abuelo, I received talcum powder and a bottle of an Avon perfume called Sweet Honesty. It smells wonderful. Abuelo Tony then teased me about being so pretty and smelling so good that all the boys would fall at my feet. If he only knew that they do not even know I exist. Besides, all of them are so short, and they act so silly.
I wore my new pant-skirt to school. I also put a little perfume behind my ears, in the same way Ileana and Mami like to do. With my new haircut, everyone thought I was a new student. Even Srta. Reed said I looked like—guess who—Audrey Hepburn! Julio and David sat with us at lunch and told jokes. Both kept looking at me as if they had never seen me before. Now I know how Ileana feels when boys turn around to look at her. She is very pretty and she knows it, but now I can look pretty, too. I was walking in the clouds all day.
I felt so good I decided to ask Papi about the car trip with Jane. “Are you crazy?” he shouted at me, then walked away. He wouldn’t even discuss it! I guess I have my work cut out for me.
Abuelo Tony is back in the hospital. I think he is very sick, but no one tells us children about why he is there. Please, dear God, take care of my abuelito. I love him so much.
I thought of my friend Ofelia in Cuba a lot today. When I was home, I used to walk down the block to her house almost every day, and together we would listen to the radio and pretend we were singing into a microphone. We would dance with each other, too, trying to learn new steps, and if one of us stepped on the other’s toes, we would collapse in a chair, laughing. Can we remain friends even if our families do not agree on politics? Will I ever see her again?
Papi insists we won’t be here long. On New Year’s Day, when we went to Tío Pablo’s after mass, he said, “Año Nuevo en La Habana.” Well, it is thirteen days into the New Year, and we are not in Havana at all. When we do return, I would like to come visit Miami. I am beginning to like it here. I know the teachers and they know me. I have friends. I have even grown used to the language.
Besides, we got a black-and-white television set from Efraín’s boss because Mr. F.’s family bought a new one. Now we don’t have to go to my uncle’s house to watch our shows.
The call finally went through to Cuba. It was late last night, but Mami woke everyone up so that we could talk to my grandparents. They sounded as if they were talking through water. I didn’t get to say much except “I love you.” Pepito was not there. No one knows where he is stationed now, and this worries Mami even more.
Papi says Abuelo Tony is getting better, but if he truly is, why can’t I visit him at the hospital?
Ileana gets home about an hour late each afternoon. I am sure she is not taking the school bus and is instead riding with Tommy. No one has noticed because our schedules are all mixed up with Abuelo in the hospital. Ileana’s absence means that I have to prepare Ana Mari her snack and help her with homework. We usually eat rice pudding Mami has made or cream cheese with guava shells. I also clean whatever room Mami has told me we should clean. The living room was scheduled for today, so I dusted the coffee table and I shook those heavy cushions from the old sofa over and over again until I felt my arms about to fall off. (One of Papi’s coworkers at the hospital gave us the sofa. It’s in pretty good shape, though it is an ugly green color, like split pea soup.) I also swept and mopped the terrazzo floor.
It’s not fair that I’m doing all the work alone, but if I tell Mami, Ileana will get in trouble. Ileana said that if I loved her, I would be a good little sister and keep my mouth shut. When she said this, she pinched her lips together. I don’t know what to do, but if she makes me help her with the laundry folding on Saturday, I’m going to tell. She should have to do all the folding.
Abuelo returned home again from the hospital, and we went to visit him at Tío Pablo’s. He looks awful. Like a skeleton. His eyes are sunken into his cheeks. His skin is the color of chalk, and he has bruises all over his arms. He said the bruises happen when the nurses try to put in the intravenous medicines and supplements. I’m glad I wasn’t at the hospital to see all that butchering.
Abuela María was busy all afternoon making lentil soup. She will fatten him up in no time because she is the best cook in the family. When we were in the kitchen and she was chopping up the potatoes and the chunks of ham, she was crying very softly. I hugged her hard. Now I’m a whole head taller than she is. I am growing, that’s true, but I also think she is shrinking down while Abuelo is shrinking sideways. Ana Mari said that our grandparents look like gnomes, these little people in the picture books she likes to read. When we got home, she showed me. She’s right, except Abuela and Abuelo don’t have the funny noses or the warts.
I know I shouldn’t have gone, but Ileana talked me into it. Together we snuck out and met Tommy at the corner, then we drove several blocks to a party given by a brother and sister whose parents were out of town. It was very noisy, and many of Ileana’s friends were drinking beer. She introduced me to a boy who is in the tenth grade. He seemed very nice and was—thank goodness—taller than I was. We talked for a while, but when he found out I went to Citrus Grove Junior High, he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. It took me a while after that to find Ileana. She was in the backyard talking. When she spotted me, she leaned over to Tommy and I could tell they started having an argument. On the drive home we didn’t talk to each other. Now I’m too wound up to go to sleep.
Ana Mari has taught Ileana and me a new American song in English. It goes like this: “This land is your land, this land is my land / From California to the New York island, / From the redwood forest, to the Gulf Stream waters, / This land was made for you and me.”
We sang it together for Abuelo Tony, and we sounded very good, almost like the Supremes. It made him smile from ear to ear. It also made me remember all those times he and Abuela baby-sat us back in Cuba. With the radio music on, I would stand on his shoes and we would waltz around the living room, round and round until I got dizzy. Sometimes he would go so fast that I would have to hold hard to his belt buckle. He also taught Ileana how to cha-cha and mambo because he said every self-respecting Cuban should know how to dance. It’s in our blood, our music, he said. Tonight I will pray just for him. Usually I pray for Pepito because I figure he needs it most, but I think Pepito can wait a night or two. I pray to La Virgencita del Cobre because Mami says that Jesus cannot ever turn down a request from his mother. So, Mother in heaven, please take care of my grandfather.
At mass this morning I almost fell asleep. Ileana kept elbowing me to stay awake. Mami is now worried that I am coming down with a flu. If she only knew! I won’t even tell Jane, and you can bet I won’t go out again. It is too risky.
Mami always says that life is full of surprises and, dear friend, she is absolutely right. The person I least expected to see again came into homeroom this morning during the public announcements. At first I thought it was odd how much the new student looked like the girl I had left behind in the special country school. But as soon as she turned around to walk to the empty seat in front of me, I knew it was her. I immediately shouted her name: “Alina!”
She was so happy to see me. You should have seen the relief on her face, and I know why. I still remember what it was like to not know anybody in school. It is so awful to be a stranger, to not recognize any hallway or classroom or teacher. It is even worse not to understand what others are saying to you. Of course, it is getting a little better now because there are more Cubans in school. A few teachers speak Spanish, too. Still, that sense of not belonging anywhere is terrible.
The other day Tío Pablo said he hears Spanish in a lot more places now, especially where he and Papi work. He also said that every week four thousand people arrive from the island on the Freedom Flights, that airplane ride we took to come to Miami. Some move north, but many stay here. And even those who move somewhere else eventually return to Miami because they do not like the cold weather. Mami’s cousin lived in a place called Buffalo for five years and just moved back last month. She hated the snow. I think I would like the snow—at least for a day or two.
Alina and I share the same homeroom and lunch period, but we do not have any classes together. I was still able to show her around. I could tell she was very nervous, but I told her that’s exactly how I felt for a long time. Not anymore, though. We talked a little about some of the other girls who were with us in the country school. Neither of us liked any of them too much. She also told me that Ofelia now attends a special school on the outskirts of the capital and that her parents are planning to send Ofelia and her older brother to Russia to study. Poor Ofelia!
Alina says the best thing about leaving Cuba is knowing that nobody will call her Granito anymore! She made me promise I would never bring that up. Alina came here with her brother, who is in the sixth grade, and her mother. Her parents got divorced because her father became a big Communist and wanted her mother to do the same, but she refused. Alina’s grandparents live here, too. She loves her grandparents but misses her father. They plan to write each other every week. I didn’t dare tell her about Pepito and how we hardly ever hear from him. Why make her suffer more?
Starting today we are supposed to go to Tío Pablo’s house after school so that Abuela María can watch us there. Mami will fetch us when she returns from work. It will be interesting to find out what excuse Ileana will use to explain her tardiness. I tried to tell her she’s going to get into trouble by allowing Tommy to bring her home and sneaking out to those parties, but she pinched my arm and told me to mind my own business.
My English is improving day by day. I now have a part in a short play we will perform in class. I speak only a few lines, but I feel proud to have been chosen. At lunchtime Alina and Jane help me memorize my part. At home I practice my lines in front of the mirror. Everyone has noticed how my English is getting better, but sometimes I wonder if that means I will forget Spanish. If I know both languages equally, in what language will I think? How will I dream? How will I pray? Already I know the names for certain things in English but not in Spanish. I’ve learned them in school and have to ask Papi or Mami to translate the word into Spanish.
When Abuela María asked Ileana why she has been late all this week, Ileana said she is helping with props and painting scenery for a spring play at school. I am sure she is lying. I think Abuela is suspicious, too, because she narrowed her eyes at Ileana and reminded her that the devil knows more for being old than for being a devil. Ileana should be careful.
Every afternoon just before the sun sets, Ana Mari and I take Abuelo Tony for a walk. He’s as slow as a snail but he needs to exercise, so we try to be patient. Along the way he tells us the names of the trees, flowers, and bushes we see, so now I know all about the ixoras, royal poincianas, gumbo-limbos, banyans, impatiens, jacarandas, and floss-silk trees. He said that when he was young, he wanted to work with plants, but his parents made him study medicine because his father was a country doctor. He liked medicine, but now that he is old, he wishes he had paid attention to his dreams. He asked if we were interested in a particular subject in school. Neither Ana Mari nor I have any favorites, though I think I am good in mathematics. Follow your heart, he told us, because that will make you happier.
I did not mess up any of my lines during the performance in English class. Not once. But I did feel my face getting red when I spoke in front of all my classmates. I wish Mami and Papi could have seen me.
Jane showed me a letter from her grandparents. They again invited me on their summer car trip when they tour the state of Florida. I told Papi about it again, but he waved me away. “We’ll be back in Havana by summer,” he said. I turned to Mami, but she refused to even consider it. I think I will have to work very hard to convince them. But I must! It would be so exciting to visit different cities and see the rest of this state.
Something big is going on in the world because Abuelo and Abuela are glued to the radio. They listen to a show in Spanish called La Voz del Pueblo, “The Voice of the People.” Ileana explained to me that horrible things are happening in the war in Vietnam. Tommy and some older boys who are in the local university want to plan a march to protest the war. She wants to join Tommy and wave placards just like the college students we see on TV. Ileana is really asking for trouble now.
Trouble found us. More tomorrow.
It was bound to happen. Mami caught us sneaking back into the house. She was waiting for us in the living room, smoking a cigarette. I have never ever seen her smoke. She must have been horribly nervous. As soon as we walked in, she flicked on the lights and stubbed the cigarette in an ashtray. I thought I was going to faint when I saw her face. She yanked me by the hair into her bedroom and went back to the living room to scream at Ileana. The racket woke up Ana Mari, who, as usual, began to cry. When Mami had finished hollering, she made us sit in the kitchen and tell her where we were and what we had done. Ileana went first, and she swore that she was the one responsible for taking me. She insisted I not be punished. That was nice of her. Truth is, I went because I wanted to, even though I had been reminding myself these past days that going to those parties would only bring us grief. Part of me knew the danger, but another part of me liked the attention from the boys—as long as I didn’t tell them I was in eighth grade! Mami told Ileana she should be ashamed of herself for leading me down the wrong path, and she made us promise we would not try anything like this again. She said she won’t tell Papi. “If he finds out, it would be like a knife through his heart,” she explained. Thank goodness he was away for the weekend on one of his training missions. Dealing with him would have been twice as difficult.
She still punished us. I cannot talk on the phone for a week. Neither can Ileana, and she must also stop seeing Tommy on the sly. I hope this will not ruin my chances to take the car trip with Jane and her grandparents. Now I don’t dare bring it up until Mami calms down.
“You come from a good family,” she told my sister. “You are not a tramp or a nobody. You cannot meet men anywhere they want to and at any time. If a young man wants to court you, he must do so the correct way.”
She then lectured us about a girl’s virtue being the most important quality she can give her husband. Los americanos, she said, give virtue away as if it were no big deal.
We received two letters from Pepito today. One was dated in August, a few days after we had left, and it was older than the one we got before Christmas. I don’t understand why this one took so long to get to us. The second letter was dated in December. They were both short, and his handwriting was very difficult to make out. In the first letter, he writes about how he is building strong muscles because he is getting lots of physical exercise. He has also made new friends and is playing second base and batting third in the lineup. (We don’t know what baseball team this could be, but Papi figures it might be from Pepito’s own platoon.) He asks Ileana to save him any magazine stories about Elvis Presley and the Beatles. He sounds just like Pepito. But in the second letter, a whole section is blacked out in pen. Papi said that is what the Cuban government censors do if a letter writer reveals something that makes the government look bad. I wonder what that could be. Maybe something awful has happened to Pepito. Maybe they are feeding him food with worms and making him do horrible things. The other parts of the letter we can read fine, but he doesn’t sound as upbeat as in the one from August. He writes that he misses us and is sorry that he will not see us for a long time. “I fear that Ana Mari will forget what my face looks like.” That’s what he wrote. “I will not forget her or her laughter. Does she still laugh like a hyena?” (Ana Mari did not like this part of the letter, but what Pepito writes is true. She does have a funny laugh.)
As I listened to the letter being read aloud, I felt my eyes grow hot. I looked over at Mami, but she was not crying. She was staring straight ahead with a hard face, her chin jutting out. The rest of the night she was very absentminded. She even burned the chicken in the oven, and we had to pull the toasty skin off and eat the rest because we can’t afford to throw food away. The chicken was hard and rubbery.
A group of teenage boys threw eggs at Alina’s firstfloor apartment. They scared her grandparents, mother, and little brother half to death. “Go back where you came from!” they shouted. And they also screamed, “Spics!”
Alina has no idea who these boys might be. She is certain they do not live in her apartment building. The incident upset her mother tremendously. She and her grandmother had to clean the egg goo that came through the window screen, and it stained the sofa.
Alina’s mother now makes sure the windows are closed at all times, which turns the inside of the apartment into a furnace. The family must go around in their underwear and sit in front of the fans to keep cool. Alina says it is impossible to concentrate on homework. She dreams of moving to New York or to Chicago because she has read that it snows there a lot and that no one is ever hot. I feel sorry for Alina, but I do not know what to do.
Mami still works at the shoe factory and Tía Carmen at that laundry place, but now they have new night jobs. Abuela helps them. They are sewing pearls and sequins on sweaters and are paid by the piece. A man delivers the sweaters in one big box, and the sequins and pearls in another. He is a friend of Efraín’s boss at the craft store, and he allows them to work from home, which is why they took the job. At first Papi didn’t want Mami to do it because it would mean more time away from us girls, but she assured him that she would work only after dinner and after we had finished our homework.
Mami and Papi fight often. We can hear them from our bedroom sometimes. They fight about the usual things—Mami working, Papi training with the military, Mami spending too much money, Papi not planning ahead. Maybe it is normal for husbands and wives to fight. I sure hope it doesn’t mean anything more than that, though. A divorce always makes the children miss one of the parents. Look what has happened to Alina and Jane.
I really miss using the phone. At the end of the school day I have so much to tell Jane that I feel I’m bursting with news. But then I’ve got to hold it all night until I see her in homeroom the next morning. I should have known we would eventually get caught.
Ileana has been very quiet this week. I wonder if she has talked to Tommy about our punishment.
Two more days until I can use the phone again.
Papi got hurt during one of his military training exercises. It wasn’t serious, but he came home early this weekend, with a swollen ankle. Tío Pablo told him he had to stay off his feet as much as possible for the next few days. Mami is furious.
I’m glad he came home, though. This afternoon, he and I ate this brown spread—los americanos call it peanut butter—on soda crackers from the Cuban bakery and laughed about the way it stuck to the roofs of our mouths. “Silly, silly girl,” he called me, and gave me a big hug.
Today when we were helping Abuelo Tony exercise, he asked Ana Mari and me what we remembered about Cuba. I told him about my school and the tile on the kitchen counter and the narrow cobblestone streets in Old Havana and the white sand on the beach of Santa María del Mar and the buttery taste of the Panque Jamaica cupcakes, and the two cane-back rocking chairs on our porch and the wrought-iron front gate that creaked and my pink chenille bedspread and the tall, tall palms on the winding road to my uncle’s farm and the guarapo juice we would drink in the little bodega the next block over. Actually, we remembered a lot.
“I hope you will always remember your homeland in that way,” he told us. His voice sounded funny, like he was about to cry. Then Ana Mari reminded Abuelo that Papi said we might be back home by summer because the people in the island no longer want a bad government and they are tired of not having enough to eat and having to wait in line for everything, including toilet paper. So Abuelo opened his mouth to say something, but he seemed to change his mind. He just motioned for us to keep walking. Later we stopped by a tree with yellow flowers and he asked us its name. “Christmas candle tree,” I shouted immediately. Abuelo clapped his hands. Then he told us the name in Latin, but I have already forgotten.
I have been thinking about what Abuelo said about never forgetting your homeland. Sometimes I worry that I will, because I close my eyes and there are faces and places, even decorations in our house, that I cannot remember in detail. It makes me worry about whether or not I have a home. And I mean home, not house. I have a house in Cuba, in my neighborhood of La Víbora, but I also have a house here. Which one is really home?
I asked Ileana this after dinner tonight, and she looked at me as if I had just landed in a spaceship. Then she sat close to me on the old pea-green sofa and hugged me. I don’t know whatever for, because she hasn’t done that in a long, long time. She didn’t say anything, just patted me on the back. But finally she spoke, and the more I think about her words, the more I realize she is right. She told me that home is where the heart is. It is where your loved ones are and where you feel comfortable hanging around in your pajamas with curlers in your hair. Well then, that means I have a home here and a home across the ocean there, always there.
I did not forget you. I was just too busy to write. Between homework, cleaning the house, and helping Abuelo to exercise, all my time seems taken up. Then to add to all this, Mami and Tía Carmen got a new order for embroidered sweaters. The man from the factory was so happy with their work that he brought over double the amount from the first time. This means that Mami and Tía Carmen have asked us to help by organizing the sequins and pearls in a special way that makes it easier to sew them on the sweaters. Ileana and I also help pin the design patterns on the front. Ileana said that if she can do this for free, then she should get a job for money at the Grand Union as a checkout girl. Mami said she was much too young, though now she is seventeen, the same age Efraín was when he began working at the Tandy craft store. Boys are different, Tía Carmen and Mami said at the same time. Not in this country, Ileana told them right back.
Papi got a raise. He was moved to the purchasing department in the hospital, too, where he has more work. For dinner he took us to a hamburger place on Northwest Seventh Street called Burger Castle. It has a giant lighted statue of a man with a crown on his head. We ate hamburgers, french fries, and milkshakes. What a splurge!
Efraín has found a job for Ileana at the craft store where he works. Now she wants me to help convince Mami and Papi to allow her to do this. I think this is a wonderful opportunity because if Efraín can work, so should Ileana. But my parents will never listen to that reasoning. I am sure they will come up with some excuse. Why do I know this? Because when I talked to Mami about the car trip this summer, she told me she would have to discuss it with Papi. Well I know what he is going to say.
I hate to say this, but I was right. Papi refused to allow Ileana to work with Efraín. He said she was much too young and inexperienced, especially if she planned to work in a city full of wolves. That’s just how he said it. What wolves? She would be working with Efraín and his boss and the boss’s wife. We have already met them, and they are very nice. They have been good to Efraín, too. I can only imagine what Papi will tell me when I bring up the subject of Jane’s grandparents’ trip again.
Ileana argued that she would always be inexperienced if she remained imprisoned in her own home. Mami defended her, which surprised me, but Papi would not budge. He can be so mean sometimes. Whoever made him the boss? I wish Mami would stand up to him more. She is always skulking around so as not to upset him. I wonder what he will say when he finds out that Mami has learned to drive with Efraín and Tía Carmen. He better not cause a scene. Instead, he better be proud of her. Mami is trying so hard to be brave and to adapt to this new life.
Papi bought a car! It was a big surprise. He didn’t say a word to anybody when he and Mami left this morning to run errands. We thought they were going to visit somebody in the hospital because we were not allowed to go along, but the last thing I ever thought could happen was this. Our very own automobile!
It is a 1954 Plymouth station wagon, and Papi bought it from the father of a man who works with him. It is green, and the inside is in good shape for being an old car. The three of us girls fit comfortably in the back. Papi drove us around the block and over to Tío Pablo’s, and then everybody took turns going for a ride, even Abuela María, who whooped and hollered like a little girl. After Tía Carmen made café, Mami told Papi she had something to show him. He gave her a funny look, and we all went outside to watch as Mami got into the driver’s side and took Papi on his own ride. When they returned, he was pale. Papi told Tía Carmen that she had done a good job teaching Mami to drive but that Mami needed more practice making turns. Scared him half to death when she took a right turn going too fast, he said. Tío Pablo and Abuelo Tony punched Papi in the arm and slapped him on the back. I was surprised but also relieved that he was not angry.
Now that we have a car, I suppose it means that we are not going back to Cuba anytime soon.
There is a new boy in class. He is so cute! Jane nearly faints every time he walks by her. He is Cuban, but he is from somewhere up north. He is in almost all my classes, but I do not dare talk to him. I wouldn’t know what to say. Besides, I worry about how I look. One day my face appears normal, like it belongs to me. Other days, I look in the mirror and my nose is too big and my mouth looks crooked and one eye is smaller than the other. I also wish my hair weren’t so straight. It droops down over my ears like short wet noodles. Maybe I need another haircut. Or maybe I should grow it out again. Good thing I do not have any pimples. Poor Alina!
When Ileana gets something in her head, she won’t let it go. Today again she asked if she could work with Efraín. And again Papi said no. Can I expect any different with my request for the car trip?
I finally asked her about Tommy, and she shrugged her shoulders. “Who would want a girlfriend who can’t go anywhere?” she asked me. “I might as well be in jail.” If Tommy isn’t her boyfriend anymore, she probably won’t participate in any protest marches against the war. Thank goodness! Papi would be very upset if she did something like that.
This is unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable! When I was walking with Abuelo Tony, we ran into that new boy from school. His name is Juan Carlos, and he lives two blocks from my uncle’s house. Jane is right. He is very cute, but I am taller than he is. And his voice is kind of squeaky. We talked to him for a few minutes. Actually, Abuelo talked to him, and he was very polite. I was too embarrassed and stared at the cracks in the sidewalk.
We did not see Juan Carlos on our afternoon walk, but Abuelo showed us the parts of a flower from an ixora bush. I already knew their names in Spanish and now, because of Abuelo, I know them in Latin. I suppose soon I will learn them in English, too. Three languages—imagine.
We went to the most fantastic store today. It is called La Tijera and it’s on Flagler Street and Twelfth Avenue. Mami and Tía Carmen came here to buy things for the house when we first moved. Everything is made just the way they were in Cuba. We saw Cuban-style mops, wash pans, coffee cups, and aluminum drinking cups to boil milk. I almost felt like I was back on the island. Truth is, of course, no store back on the island would have had so many goods on the shelves. Besides, people would not have been able to buy anything unless they had the correct ration coupon.
Though we looked at a lot of things, we bought only what we needed. Tía Carmen got herself a meat grinder just like the one she had in Cuba. Mami needed a washboard and a wooden mortar and pestle to smash garlic. She also bought an aluminum mold for flan and a wood plantain-chip maker. I hope Papi doesn’t complain that these necessities were a waste of money. Those are usually the first words out of his mouth when we show him any purchase—even toilet paper!
Before we left, Tía Carmen pointed to the men, three brothers, who own the store. They opened it when they realized people like my parents needed household stuff but preferred to buy what they recognized. She said that if you drive around Flagler or Southwest Eighth Street, there are lots of little shops opened by Cubans in the past three or four years. There is a Chinese Cuban restaurant, a religious goods store, several bakeries, and even a botanica that sells supplies for priests of Santeria. I wonder if Papi has seen these shops. If so, what must he think? I know what I think: Those people won’t be returning to Cuba anytime soon.
I played dominoes with the grown-ups today and won. I was Papi’s partner because Mami was in the kitchen scrubbing the dirty pans from our big Sunday lunch. Usually Tío Pablo and Tía Carmen win because they are very good domino players, and they are also lucky. Efraín and Ileana sometimes play, but they don’t pay much attention to the game. Actually, Efraín usually partners with Abuelo Tony, but Abuelo was too tired and took a nap instead. So Efraín convinced Ileana to stop looking through her fashion magazines and be a good cousin—which meant he wanted her as partner. Good cousin or not, the two of them played horribly together. Ileana didn’t pay much attention to the game, so she didn’t keep track of which player lacked which number. To me, that is the whole challenge of the game.
When we lived in Cuba, my family used to play dominoes every winter Sunday after mass and lunch. Both sets of grandparents and uncles participated. Cousins, too. The matches took hours, especially if only the men played and smoked their cigars and sipped their café. Abuela always used to make a flan, and Tía Carmen’s specialty was torejas.
Thinking about all this makes me very hungry. My mouth is watering for the syrup of the torejas. I realize I have not eaten any since we arrived in Miami.
Remember the two men in gray suits who took Papi to their office for questioning several months ago? They showed up on our doorstep again tonight, this time with a third man who speaks Spanish. In the middle of us doing homework and Mami and Tía Carmen sewing the sequins on the sweaters, no less.
They were very polite, though. They talked to Papi for almost two hours in the kitchen. Mami could hardly keep her hands steady to thread a needle. After they left, everyone pretended as if nothing had happened. Everyone but Mami, who threw the sweater into her sewing basket and marched out of the room. Papi followed her. When they both returned to the living room, I could tell they had had a fight because Mami’s lips were set tight and a vein on Papi’s forehead pulsed.
I received another perfect mark on my mathematics test. And Ana Mari was the third-best speller in the spelling bee in her class. She got a yellow ribbon, and Mami showed it off to the whole family.
Tonight at dinner Papi surprised us all by announcing that after much thought he has decided to allow Ileana to work with Efraín at the craft store—as long as it does not interfere with her studies. He said that last part as if it were in capital letters. I think Mami knew something about this beforehand, but Ileana and the rest of us were caught off guard. You should have seen Ileana’s face. Eyes wide then narrowing with suspicion, she looked like the black beans and rice inside her mouth had turned too hot. As soon as dinner was over, she phoned Efraín. They agreed she would meet him at the craft store after school tomorrow.
Ileana began work today. She came home wearing a white apron and her hair tied back in a bun. She looked very grown-up. She let me watch all the shows I wanted on the television and did not complain to Mami once.
Also today, Mami took her driver’s license test and is now allowed to drive the car. She is so proud of herself that she beams like a lighthouse. She is trying to practice as much as she can, driving herself to the Grand Union or to the pharmacy—anywhere to do an errand. She always invites us to come along, but truth is, sometimes I get nervous when she drives. She concentrates so hard on the road and the steering wheel that her face is all scrunched up. She doesn’t let us put the radio on, either, or even talk among ourselves. Not at all like Papi, who sometimes drives with his right hand while his left arm hangs out the open window. He has a funny tan line from that.
Finally, another important event: Tío Pablo took the last of his licensing examinations to become a doctor in this country. He won’t know the results right away, but he thinks he did well. I hope so. He has studied a lot.
I am trying to help Alina as much as I can with her homework, and she is improving tremendously in math. Her English is also getting better, but since she does not like to read, her vocabulary is limited. At Jane’s suggestion, I passed on the Nancy Drew books. Maybe she will be interested in those.
Ileana loves her job. Every night she tells us a story about a customer or about Mr. F. Everybody calls the owner by the first initial of his last name because his name is very long, and we don’t know how to pronounce it. Today a woman in a very fancy suit came to the store, and she bought three dozen purse kits with a seashell pattern. She asked them to be shipped to her home in New York. Then she gave both Efraín and Ileana a dollar tip!
I did not walk with Abuelo Tony today because after school Mami asked me to accompany her and Tía Carmen to a shop where packages of medicine are bundled and sent to Cuba. Our package contained aspirins, vitamins, cotton balls, two pairs of glasses, Mercurochrome, gauze, adhesive strips, a medicine for diarrhea, and a few other vials with names I did not recognize. When I asked Mami how much all that costs to mail, she said, “An eye in your head.” Later, though, she told me that the package was worth every penny because my grandparents cannot find any of those medicines in Cuba. As we were leaving, more and more people were lining up in the store to send their relatives what they need. Tía Carmen said that on Saturdays you cannot even get in the door because it is so busy.
Jane is preparing to have a slumber party for her birthday next month. Mrs. Henderson said Jane can invite five girls for pizza and a sleep-over. I have never been to a slumber party. That is very much an American concept. All my birthday parties in Cuba were at my house on a Sunday afternoon. We ate croquetas, bocaditos, and pastelitos, and all the family came, even my great-aunts and great-uncles. We played pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey with our cousins and broke a big piñata in the backyard. Remembering those parties makes me both happy and sad—happy because I had so much fun and sad because I know all the cousins will not be together again for some time.
I have already told Mami about this slumber party and that it involves me sleeping at Jane’s house. I explained to her that I would sleep in a sleeping bag borrowed from Mrs. Henderson and that after pizza and punch, all the girls brush and curl each other’s hair and paint their nails. (I am not allowed to do that, or pluck my eyebrows, until I am fifteen.) Jane said we will also listen to the radio or the record player, and then dance to the music all we want. Mami had never heard of this type of party and promised to consult with Papi. Well, I know exactly what he is going to say. Why can’t she make the decision herself? I think I am going to ask Jane’s mother to call and talk to Mami.
I figure that if I am allowed to attend this party and everything turns out right, I can work myself up to the summer car trip. I know I’ve already planted the seed in both Mami’s and Papi’s heads. Now I have to wait for it to take root, then let it blossom. I think that’s the type of advice Abuelo would give me. I can only hope Mami has forgotten about us sneaking out in the middle of the night.
Something horrible has happened, but I am not sure what it is. A couple of hours ago, Tío Pablo rushed into the house wanting to know where Papi was. He was frantic. He told Mami to turn on the radio as soon as he walked in the door. A long time passed before we heard a news bulletin that reported several Cuban men had been arrested while leaving Key West in a boat full of weapons heading for Cuba. Tío Pablo wanted to know if Papi had mentioned anything about leaving the country. Mami shook her head and kept wringing her hands until Tío Pablo had her sit down on the living room couch. He told me to serve Mami ice water and stay with her until the rest of the family came to keep us company. He made a few phone calls, and now we are waiting for more news.
I am trying not to think too much about the news reports, but it is difficult for me to concentrate on anything else. My mind wanders right back to what the radio announcer said. Can my father be one of the seven men taken to prison in Key West? I cannot imagine Papi dressed up as a soldier and getting on a boat to go to Cuba with guns and bombs. And at night, too. That is very dangerous. I like to think of his military training weekends as something he does for practice but not for real.
Virgencita, Mother of God, I know that I do not always faithfully recite my prayers. I sometimes forget before going to sleep, but please take care of Papi.
Everyone is here watching television, even Abuelo Tony, who doesn’t go out much at night because of his health. We have not heard from Papi, but that is not unusual. On the weekends he leaves, he does not phone or return until Sunday afternoon or evening. It is so hard to wait.
If Papi has been arrested, Tío Pablo thinks he will call to let us know. We might also learn who has been arrested if the news announcers recite the men’s names. The names may also be in the morning paper, but tomorrow seems such a long, long way off.
Mami is taking this very calmly. Abuela María, though, is very upset. She paces the room and has called her cousin in New Jersey twice. He works for the government in a town up there, and she thinks he may have connections to help us. When she says this aloud, Tío Pablo rolls his eyes.
No word yet. The news show at 11 P.M. did not reveal any names, either. I am too tired for words.
When I woke this morning, Mami was gone and Abuela María was making coffee in the kitchen. She told me that all the grown-ups had left for Key West very, very early. “Does this mean Papi was arrested?” I demanded. But Abuela just put her hand up to stop my words. She insisted I sit down to breakfast. I ate, though my stomach was all in knots.
Close to midmorning Mami called to say they had found Papi and would be driving back later in the day. Did that mean Papi was returning with them? Where were they calling from? Was he one of the seven men arrested? I was full of questions, but Abuela still wasn’t certain about—or wasn’t telling me—any answers.
The rest of the day took forever. I finished my homework and played Parcheesi with Ana Mari. Abuelo Tony took us for a walk and tried to cheer us up. “Things happen for a reason,” he kept telling us. But what things? I hate not knowing. I also phoned Jane and Alina several times, but was too embarrassed to tell them about Papi at first. I was scared that if their mothers found out my father had been arrested, they would not be allowed to be my friends.
By nighttime, though, I broke down and told them. Both wanted to come over to console me, but Abuela said this was not the right time. Instead we talked on the phone, and they kept telling me not to worry, that everything was going to turn out all right. But now it’s time to go to bed—I can hear Abuela yelling for us to turn off the lights—and I still don’t know where my parents are or why my father was in Key West. If my head was not pounding so hard and my stomach wasn’t rumbling so furiously, I think I would have the energy to pray.
Papi was home by the time we returned from school. I ran up to him and gave him a big hug. I was so relieved to see him. Then I asked a million questions. He said he was not arrested with the seven men, but he was in a second boat a few yards away with two others, so he was taken in for questioning. He looked like he hadn’t slept all night.
Mami didn’t look any better, and she was very angry. Just a little while ago, they had a huge argument, the same argument they’ve had a million times. She wants him to quit the training.
“What if you do go to Cuba?” she asked. “What if you and Pepito are in the same battlefield but on opposite sides?”
Papi didn’t answer. All he said was that it was his duty to fight for the liberation of his country and that he could not look in the mirror if he turned his back on those who remained on the island.
I don’t know what to think. I can understand how Mami feels. She wants Papi to be home with us, to help her start a new life here. When he goes away on weekends, I sometimes think he is being selfish. But then, when I look at things from Papi’s side, I also realize why he does what he does. He loves Cuba very much, and he hates to see the island with a bad government.
Oh, I am so confused!
I found out that Ileana still belongs to that peace group at school. Her school notebook is full of flyers Tommy wants her to hand out before the first school bell rings. She drew up the flyers herself. I warned her to be careful around Mami, but she ignored me. She wasn’t mean about it, but she said I was too young to understand that sometimes a person must speak out for what she believes in and not worry about what others are going to say. Ileana feels it is important to take action, not just sit and hope for something to happen. Does this sound familiar? Now I know how Mami feels when Papi ignores her warnings.
I got the invitation for Jane’s birthday. It is scheduled for two weeks from tomorrow, after Easter break. I showed it to Mami and she promised to bring it up with Papi. I also gave her all my school papers with good marks for the week. I figure it can’t hurt to show her what a good student I am.
An almost perfect mark in mathematics—a 95. I could have gotten 100 if I had not made a stupid arithmetic mistake. Next time I will check my work more carefully. Of course, I made sure to give this paper to Mami as well.
Palm Sunday. We were able to get several dried fronds at church, and Abuela María and Abuelo Tony are teaching me how to weave them together to make special holy decorations for the door. Efraín is especially talented at this. He made a crown for Ana Mari, and she now wants to wear it to her First Communion in May, which made us all laugh because she doesn’t understand the frond will dry and become too brittle to do anything except hang by the door to bless a room. Efraín said he learned to do fancy frond weaving in Cuba from a little monk who used to make all kinds of elaborate weaves and sell them in front of the cathedral. I’m not sure if Efraín is telling the truth. He exaggerates just to see how gullible we are.
Efraín is such a jokester. He and Ileana rushed home from work today and insisted we turn on the radio immediately. Efraín claimed he had heard a news bulletin about the United States invading Cuba. As you can imagine, that got Papi and Tío Pablo all excited. They not only turned on the radio, but the television set, too. They even phoned their friends and relatives. No one had heard anything, but everyone else also tuned in to the news. Abuela María started to clap, but Mami cried because she was worried that Pepito would have to fight against the American marines. All this discussion and listening for news lasted well over an hour until Efraín shouted, “April fool!” It was all a joke. We didn’t even know there was such a day as April Fools’. In Cuba practical jokes are usually played out on December 28.
I thought it was very clever, but none of the grownups was amused. Papi said certain subjects should never be joked about, and the liberation of Cuba is one of them. Afterward Efraín felt terrible and he hung his head as if his best friend had died. I tried to console him, but it didn’t work.
Later I called Jane and played a trick on her. I made up this story about meeting Juan Carlos again when Abuelo and I took a walk. I said that he had invited me to the movies, which of course is the biggest, fattest lie in the world. He doesn’t know either Jane or I exist, and besides, I would never be allowed to go out anywhere by myself, and certainly not with a boy. I had her believing every little detail until I couldn’t come up with any more, and that’s when I singsonged, “April fool!”
I finished the book Efraín brought me from the library, and I plan to read two more during Easter break. It makes the time go by faster.
Abuela María is also teaching me to cook. This afternoon I watched her make picadillo and helped by chopping up the onions and slicing the green peppers. It is not as easy as it looks, working with the knife, and I do things slowly because I’m scared of slicing off my finger.
To be honest, it’s not so much the mixing of ingredients that I like as the bustling about in the warmth of the kitchen and the mouthwatering smell of the seasoning. I also enjoy listening to my grandmother’s humming, which remains constant whether she’s chopping, stirring, or slicing.
You should have seen Saint Michael’s today. Mass was packed with people standing along the aisles and all around the back. Everyone was dressed so pretty. All the girls wore white patent leather shoes and matching purses, little straw hats and white gloves. It was such a fashion display that I felt like a country bumpkin. Tía Carmen said that next year, when we have a little more money, she will take us shopping for Easter dresses and hats. But Papi told her that next year we would be taking Communion in Cuba.
We are living in dark times, that is what Abuelo Tony says, and everybody agrees. First there is the war in Vietnam. A week or so ago, President Johnson announced on television that he was stopping the bombing in North Vietnam, a move my father considers terribly wrong. (“To cave in to the Communists like that,” Papi groaned, shaking his head. Actually, if it were up to him, he would prefer los americanos transfer their attention from Vietnam to Cuba.) But for all this talk of peace, the fighting continues, and so do the marches of young people who think los americanos should not be there. Ileana wanted to join some of her friends in a peace march through Bayfront Park next weekend, but my parents will not even consider it.
I do not know what to think about this war so far away. To me, war is bad—all war. We should not kill people. We should sit down and talk about problems and try to come up with a solution. Mami agrees; so does Ileana. My sister said, “If the old men who send the young men to war had to go themselves, I bet you would see a lot more peace treaties.” But Papi says that only force changes people. When he says this, then I change my mind because I think of what is happening in my country. You have to take back what is yours, grab it away, because nobody ever just returns it.
Also today in school we watched the memorial services for Martin Luther King, Jr., the Negro leader who was assassinated last Thursday. It is so sad. Srta. Reed cried during Mr. King’s funeral. Her family is from Chicago, and there have been riots there and in other cities because of the assassination. It is scary to see the fires blazing in these neighborhoods, the mothers weeping, and the young people marching with their fists in the air. Due to all this commotion, Mami is afraid for Papi because there have been a few problems between police and residents in the neighborhood near Jackson Memorial Hospital. My father likes to tease her by saying that if he dies in this country, we need to make sure his ashes are sent back home. Mami does not think this is funny.
On the weekends he does not work overtime, Papi continues to train with his friends. Mami warns Papi that if he is charged with a crime, she will not visit him in jail or go to court. Even I don’t believe that! Honestly, though, my father is too old to be waging any kind of war. He is forty-five years of age and losing his hair. Ileana makes fun of the way he parts his hair now, trying to make the side tendrils cover the thinning on top.
I finally screwed up enough courage to ask Papi myself about going to Jane’s slumber party. When I explained to him what it was, I could tell Mami had already spoken to him. He pretended to make a serious face, but then he said…YES!
I think—oh, how I hope!—I may have a good chance at traveling with Jane this summer.
We had so much fun at the slumber party. I gave Jane a diary as a birthday present. It is a little bigger than this one, and the cover is made of cloth with a bright orange-and-yellow paisley print.
During the party we ate pizza and ice cream, and Jane painted my nails a bright red. Another girl from school, Sophie, cut my bangs. We hardly slept the whole night. I like this American custom.
Back home, Mami harrumphed when she saw my bangs—they are a bit crooked—and she made me remove the nail polish. I am not old enough for that, she says. Well, it was fun while it lasted.
Remember how Papi always tells stories about Cuba during dinner because he is afraid we will forget our homeland? Well, now he has come up with the idea of playing a game. He asks questions about Cuban geography, history, and landmarks, and the person who answers the most correctly gets a reward at the end of the meal. Yesterday it was a guava pastry. Today it was an entire meringue.
Of course Ileana has won both times, which I consider unfair. She is older and has studied more. Then she won’t even share any of the desserts because she says she deserves every bite. Tonight Ana Mari cried because she did not get one single question right. Mami told Papi that he needs to be more realistic about our knowledge, especially Ana Mari, who only had one year of schooling in Cuba.
I must admit that even when I lose I still enjoy myself. I like how excited Papi gets when we are playing the game. His eyes shine, and he twirls the tips of his black mustache. Sometimes he even jumps from the table, forcing Mami to say, “Please, José Calixto, we are at the dinner table.” But you can tell she doesn’t really mean it. It’s almost like old times.
We received a letter from Pepito. He says that sometime in May or June he will be spending a weekend with my grandparents in Havana. This really lifted Mami’s spirits because she is hoping we can talk to him by telephone for the first time in almost a year.
Pepito also wrote that he has grown two inches since we last saw him and hopes to send us a photograph soon. It will be very interesting to see how he has changed. He asked after us girls, too, and wrote that he plans to attend the University of Havana to study engineering. This came as a big surprise to all of us because he always talked about being a pilot.
In Havana there is a road that winds all through the city along the seawall. It’s called El Malecón, and sometimes when you sit on the wall, you get sprayed by the ocean. It is the best feeling in the world. A lot of couples go there just to watch the blue sea stretch out until you can’t see it anymore. It’s a very romantic spot, especially at night, and I know that Alina’s father proposed to her mother there under a full moon. We used to go almost every winter Saturday to sit, and Papi would make up stories about the ships and boats we saw out on the horizon.
Miami does not have a Malecón, Tío Pablo said, so instead we went to El Parque de las Palomas. The Cubans call it Pigeon Park because of all the pigeons, but its real name is Bayfront Park. We brought old bread in a paper bag, and it seemed the pigeons knew this because they quickly flocked to us. Amazing how tame they are, coming right up to our hands. There was one pigeon that looked sick. It was puffed up, and its eyes had yucky stuff oozing from them. The other pigeons were very cruel to it and would flap their wings in the sick one’s face and steal crumbs from it. Efraín said that’s just how animals are. The stronger ones get the best food, best mates, and best shelter. The group cannot be slowed down by a weak or sick member. Well, I thought that was just plain mean, and I made it a point to feed the sick pigeon. It was afraid to come close to me like the others, so I had to drop crumbs and then wave the stronger birds away.
After we fed the pigeons, we walked around the park’s flower gardens and looked across Biscayne Bay through coin telescopes. We saw one fancy yacht, a big one, with several women sitting on deck in very skimpy bathing suits. Efraín whistled at them, but Abuela María gasped and shook her head. She said it was an act of immorality for women to go to the beach almost naked. Then she looked our way and wagged her finger at us in warning. Abuela has nothing to worry about. Can you imagine Papi ever allowing us out of the house in nothing but a bra and panties? Never!
Alina has been absent from school three days. I called her several times this afternoon, but no one answered. I am worried.
Still no Alina. I asked our homeroom teacher if she knew why Alina was out, but she said the office had not received a call to excuse her absences. Jane said maybe she moved, but that can’t be right. She would have told us.
I asked Mami to drive by Alina’s apartment building. We knocked on her apartment door several times, but nobody answered. All the lights were off, too. I have a bad feeling about this.
I won my first game of Cuban trivia tonight. The question no one knew, but I did—or at least I was the fastest in answering—was: Where and when did Independence hero José Martí die? (Dos Rios, May 1895.) Papi took me to Dairy Queen, and I ordered a vanilla cone dipped in hard chocolate. Hooray for me!
Alina was in school today. She looked awful, like she had been left in one of those big dryers at the Laundromat too long. She said her mother is in the hospital for a nervous breakdown. I asked her if that meant the loony bin, and she burst out crying. I felt horrible I had said that. She calmed down after she went to the bathroom and washed her face, but all during homeroom I could hear sniffling. Then at lunch, she wouldn’t talk about it. I don’t even know if she and her brother are still living with the grandparents. What will happen to them? Will they be sent back to Cuba? Will their father come to take care of them?
I told Mami about Alina, and she said that the best thing I can do is to give her an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on. Maybe then she will tell me how we can help her. Poor Alina! Just when she was getting used to all the changes in the new country, this happens. I will say a prayer for her tonight.
Alina looked a little better today. She said her grandparents are very old, but they take good care of her. Her grandfather works rolling cigars at a little shop on Southwest Eighth Street. Her grandmother takes care of two children after school, but they do not have enough money to pay all the bills. Alina wants to get a job to help out. She knows of a little cafeteria near school owned by a friend of her grandfather’s. The owner is willing to pay her to wash dishes and clean counters and help his wife do whatever is needed. I think Alina is too young. I know Papi would never allow me to work, and Jane says the government in this country does not allow workers our age. We would be considered child labor.
No matter how much we argued, though, Alina didn’t budge. She seems intent on working at that cafeteria no matter what and insists she has no choice. Her mother is sick, her grandparents are too old, and her brother is too young. She is the only one strong enough to do something about the family’s situation. Besides, she says, the job will be easy compared to laboring in the fields in Cuba. The cafeteria even has air-conditioning.
Today I brought home another perfect exam in mathematics, so I decided I should ask my parents—again but more forcefully—about going on the car trip with Jane and her grandparents. But I hadn’t even got the last word out, when Papi said, “I already told you. No! Absolutely not!”
Papi has had a car accident. We are now in a waiting room at his hospital, Jackson Memorial, hoping to hear news. Good news please, dear Virgencita de la Caridad, good news. Mami and Abuela María are with him in the emergency room. A few minutes ago Tío Pablo came to tell us that Papi is scheduled for X rays. He is all right, Tío Pablo insisted, but hurting all over. After the X rays Papi has to undergo other tests. I don’t know if all those tests are good or bad, but it must mean that the accident was not just a fender bender. It must be something serious.
I have a very bad headache from holding in the tears.
We are home now, but with no news about Papi. Mami sent us back because it was getting too late. I cannot possibly go to sleep. I keep hearing noises through the windows, and it is so hot, even with the fan on full blast. I wish we had air-conditioning in the bedrooms like Jane has.
Ileana is screaming at me to turn off the lights. I thought she believed in love and peace and all that stuff. What a hypocrite!
I still cannot sleep. I am so worried about Papi. Virgencita del Cobre, please watch over my dear Papi. He is a good man, and he takes good care of us, and he always tries to do the right thing. He needs you now, Virgencita.
If only the phone would ring with news. Any news. The silence is what makes me so nervous. It is not really silence if you listen closely, because the house creaks and groans, and the refrigerator hums. But if you forget about those noises, there is a quietness that vibrates. Only the swoosh of my pen can be heard.
It is almost 8 A.M., and I must hurry before I run out to the bus stop. Papi has a broken left arm and cuts on his face from the broken windshield. He must stay in the hospital until tomorrow because doctors are watching a bump on his head. It must be a big bump for them to be so careful about it.
Mami already left for the hospital with Tío Pablo, but she woke us up early to let us know that we should not worry about Papi. I couldn’t help it, but I burst into tears when she delivered the news. Mami immediately came over and hugged me.
Later Abuela María told us how the accident happened. The other car did not halt at a STOP sign and it hit Papi’s car on the driver’s side as it was going through the intersection. The other driver is only nineteen years old, and he was going too fast and got hurt very badly.
We expected Papi to be home from the hospital, but now he has an infection. I’m not sure what it is, but doctors have to give him antibiotics. If he is not home by Tuesday, Mami promised she would sneak us into his room.
Papi is home! He looks like he’s been in a boxing match. He has two black eyes, and his nose is red and crooked. He said his face hit the steering wheel so hard he can’t believe he didn’t lose any teeth. His left arm is in a cast, and the heat makes the cast itch. We all got to sign our names on it. I wrote, “I love you, Papi,” and drew a big heart.
Ileana’s boss sent Papi a basket of fruit with a card that said, “Get Well Soon, Mr. and Mrs. F.” We thought it was funny that Mr. F. didn’t sign his full name, but Papi was very flattered that someone he doesn’t know would be so thoughtful. Ileana must be a good worker if the bosses send her father a get-well gift.
Though the accident was horrible, some good has come from it. Mami and Papi are getting along better, and she has convinced him that he should not return to the weekend militia training. I don’t know how long that will last, but for now it makes her happy.
Since everybody was in such a good mood, I brought up the car trip again. As expected, both my parents immediately said no. But—and this is a good, favorable but—they listened to me while I explained why I should be allowed to go.
Alina loves her job. She says she feels very grown-up and is learning to cook, too. She is allowed to eat whatever she wants as long as the customers don’t see her. She goes every day after school and stays past dinnertime, when the cafeteria closes up. She worked last Saturday morning and hopes to do so again this weekend. I don’t know when she will have time to do homework. We have to turn in a project on the American Revolutionary War by the end of the week, and she hasn’t even started. I asked her if her mother was getting better, and she shrugged. I was too embarrassed to ask more.
When we were exercise-walking with Abuelo this afternoon, I told him about Alina. He said that many children her age must work to help their parents make ends meet. This does not happen often in the United States, but it does in other countries. We should appreciate the opportunity to live here, he said, and never embarrass our people by doing something foolish. I asked him if he missed Cuba, and he smiled and nodded. Then tears began to roll down his cheeks. One hung on to his chin forever, until he finally wiped it away.
“My dear hearts,” he told us, “I think I will die before I see my homeland again.”
That is the saddest statement I have ever heard anybody say, and I wish I had tried to convince my grandfather otherwise. But I didn’t say anything. I just stood there, frozen, with my eyes wide and my mouth open, staring at Abuelo’s tears, then at Ana Mari. She didn’t know what to say, either.
Ana Mari had the final fitting for her First Communion dress. She looks like an angel in white, with the ruffled skirt and the puff sleeves. My mother has also made her a lovely veil. Abuela María bought her white gloves, and Tía Carmen gave her the most beautiful rosary. The beads are made of glass, and when you hold it up to the light, you can see all kinds of rainbows reflected.
For Mother’s Day, we each wore a red carnation on our dress in honor of our mother. That’s an old Cuban custom. If your mother is dead, as is Abuela María’s and Tía Carmen’s, you wear a white carnation. Red flowers are for mothers who are alive. We gave Mami a perfume Papi picked out. It is a very expensive perfume she used to wear at home, so the bottle was no bigger than my thumb. The perfume is called Chanel, and it was very popular in Cuba. When she dabbed it on, though, she began to cry. I thought she was upset we had spent so much money on the gift, but later I found out that’s not why she was crying. She was sad because Pepito could not be with us to celebrate the day.
“We are not complete when we are living apart,” she sobbed.
There is something I have noticed about my family. Or maybe it’s not just my family, but all families living in exile. It seems we can never be completely happy. Even when something good happens, something that we can laugh at or celebrate, there is still a sadness buried under our skin, flowing through our veins, because we are not living where we want to be and because we are separated from those we love.
The teachers have assigned so much homework this week that I have not had a moment to myself—or for you. But I could not go to bed without writing the good news: My parents have agreed to talk to Jane’s grandparents about the trip. They made it clear that this does not mean I will be allowed to go, but it is still a good sign. I don’t want to get my hopes up, though. I know that for them to even consider talking about it is a big victory for me. I’ve also talked to my grandparents and to Tía Carmen about the trip, telling them how much I would learn by going to see such historic sites as Cape Canaveral and Saint Augustine. Having the rest of the family on my side can only help.
More good news: Alina’s mother is home, and Alina is very happy. She refuses to stop working, though, because she says her family needs the money. I also found out that she lied to the couple that owns the cafeteria. She told them she was sixteen, and she is only fourteen.
Ana Mari’s First Communion mass was beautiful, and she knew exactly when to bow her head and when to genuflect and when to stick out her tongue for the Host. She is amazing, Mami said, because no one had any time to practice with her or to check to make sure she knew what she was doing. She also knows her prayers in both languages. I can only recite them in Spanish. (She did not wear the Palm Sunday frond crown on her head as she originally said she would. Thank goodness. She did wear the beautiful gloves and held the glass-bead rosary.)
Papi took lots of photographs with Abuelo’s camera, including one of the entire family around a table full of bocaditos, guava and meat pastries, and a twotier cake Tía Carmen baked. Papi wants to make several copies of that photograph and send it to Cuba so our relatives can see how abundant food is in this country. I think that would just make them feel horrible about their situation, but I guess Papi wants to show off our good fortune. Let’s just hope that Papi’s bruises from the car accident don’t show up. They are now turning yellow, and he looks like he has a terrible, contagious illness.
Just when I thought life was going smoothly, Papi decided to sneak out of the house to go to a luncheon meeting with his militia friends. Mami was so angry! She stomped around the house all afternoon. I am not surprised, though. I think Papi cares too much about returning to Cuba to give up. He will always try to do everything to change the Communist government, and in his mind that means fighting our way back.
Happy birthday to me! This is my first year celebrating Cuban Independence Day in another country. Papi said we should all be in mourning because our island is not truly free. “We need a new proclamation of independence,” he told us at dinner.
Ileana seems to be doing her own proclaiming already. When she offers her opinion on something, Papi says she is waging her own war of independence. I used to wonder about this, but in the last few days I have realized he may be right. Ileana—all of us children—are like a colony, subjected to another bigger, stronger power. Rules are imposed on us, and we have little say in our own affairs. Why can’t we have our own opinions on the Vietnam War? Why must my mother decide what I should wear? Why do we have to do everything an adult tells us?
I told this to Mami, who nodded as if she understood, but she really did not. Instead she changed the subject and asked me if I liked my cake. She baked me one for my birthday and filled it with guava jelly. It was so delicious I had three—yes, three!—pieces. Ileana refused to have any because she is on a diet. (“Do you want to look like an americana, a walking skeleton?” Abuela María asked her. Abuela María thinks North American women are much too thin.) I will take a piece to school for Jane and Alina. Mrs. Henderson has promised to take us to a movie for my birthday since I did not have a party. When Papi gave his approval to this excursion and even said that it sounded like fun, I was very surprised. Maybe this means he will say yes to the car trip, too. (Ileana, being her usual sarcastic self, said he got some sense knocked into him in the car accident.)
Though it is a year away, Mami is already talking about my quinces party. My introduction to society will not be a big affair, but Tía Carmen says one of the customers at the Laundromat where she works is the forelady in a garment factory and perhaps she will be able to find some discounted fabric for my dress. Mami has also begun to look through the bargain bin at her shoe factory.
Papi shakes his head during our lively discussions. He says we will be home for my next birthday, but Abuela wags her finger at him and says that man proposes and God disposes.
More good things happened today. In school Srta. Reed called me to the front of the class to read aloud an essay she had assigned last week about the most important event that had happened in the past school year. I wrote about how I had learned English, so I did not expect to get a big red A on the corner of the first page because everybody else had written about more significant subjects. But Srta. Reed told the class that my essay was “a fine example of the correct use of grammar, proper development of ideas, and overall good writing.” Though she congratulated me, my knees shook when I read. My pronunciation is still so embarrassing. After class, Juan Carlos—the cute new boy who transferred here from New Jersey—asked me if I had seen the movie The Dirty Dozen, about a group of criminals who become heroes in a war. I had not, of course, but I was so thrilled that he had spoken to me that I arrived at social studies after the bell had rung.
Well, who do you think came over this afternoon? Tommy. Ileana’s Tommy. Remember him? And Ileana was at work! After he left, Abuela María kept nagging me to tell her who that americano was and what he wanted with Ileana. I kept my mouth shut, pretending to know nothing. My silence didn’t help matters any, though. Abuela María still tattled to Mami.
Ileana says Tommy wants her to help him draw posters for a protest march. She is not sure what to do. One minute she wants to help because she likes Tommy and enjoys spending time with him. But the next minute she decides she doesn’t have any time and is hurt that he is using her. He visits her only when he needs her to do something, but he doesn’t bother to be nice at other times.
“If he really liked me,” she said, “he wouldn’t care if I had to go to a party with a chaperone. True love is about overcoming obstacles.” She is sounding just like Mami.
Efraín announced to the family that he has signed up with the U.S. Marines. Tía Carmen nearly fainted when she found out, and Tío Pablo stood there like he had been frozen in place, mouth open. Only Papi went over to shake his hand. Efraín leaves in a few days for another state to begin a training program. I won’t believe it until he actually goes. I think this is another one of his jokes.
Jane’s grandparents called this morning to talk to Papi. I don’t know what they said on their end, but Papi was very polite and his English was surprisingly good. Later I overheard him tell Mami that the trip would take about ten days. We would visit Key West and Saint Augustine (the oldest city in the country), as well as Cape Canaveral and Tallahassee, the state capitol. We would spend some time in a couple of beach towns on the west coast of the state. It sounds so wonderful. Would it be selfish if I said a prayer for myself?
Americans celebrate Memorial Day in honor of those who have fought and died in war. It is a holiday where everybody flies the American flag. We don’t have one, but Tío Pablo does and he displayed it from a pole on the side of the house. He also put a smaller Cuban flag beside it. I wonder if he feels a commitment to both or to only one. Do you stop loving your homeland if you live somewhere else and fly that country’s flag? Must you surrender your memories to adapt to all the new demands of another life?
When I first started school, Srta. Reed had me memorize the Pledge of Allegiance. Remember that? I had to recite it to her by the end of the week. Though I was able to do it, I had no idea what the words said or what the whole pledge meant. It was like reciting gibberish. But now I know what those words stand for. When I put my hand over my heart, and when I declare my allegiance to those colors and to the republic they represent, I cannot help but wonder if this means I have forgotten my own country, my own flag, that first allegiance of my birth. This is very confusing, and I’m not sure I can even explain the division I sometimes feel inside my heart.
Efraín has left to train with the marines. How we miss him already! I am not exaggerating when I say that it seems as if the sun does not shine as bright and the house is quieter without him. Everyone walks around as if they are still asleep. Abuelo Tony complains his heart hurts, and Tía Carmen looks like she is twenty years older.
Efraín will probably be sent to Vietnam. That’s what Ileana says. Does that mean he will get killed there? Now I will pray for both Pepito and Efraín. I will pray in the morning, which I never do, and before bed, twice as long.
Every night this week, long after Ana Mari was asleep, I could hear Ileana sobbing into her pillow. At first it sounded like a strange breeze coming through the window. Then I thought it might be hiccups. Finally I realized what the sound was. When I asked her why she was crying, she said she was scared something horrible would happen to Efraín or Pepito because she was having nightmares about bombs and guns and babies being killed. I wish she hadn’t told me because I do not want to think about it. I, too, worry about my brother and cousin.
Miami won’t be the same without Efraín. I feel like I am alone trying to figure out the city and the people and the events that happen to me.
Mrs. Henderson visited today. She spoke with Papi for a long time, explaining why this trip would be good for me. He didn’t tell her either way about his decision, but her visit certainly helped.
Abuelo Tony also talked to Papi, and he was very, very convincing. He explained that sometimes we have to give up control to gain something more valuable. He also assured my parents that they should not worry about money because he had “a little grandfatherly sum” squirreled away for an event of this kind. “You have to allow your children to fly,” Abuelo told Papi. I think my father may be ready to give in. I am so excited at the thought that I cannot fall asleep.
We are waiting for a phone call from Cuba. Mami said she dreamed Pepito called during dinner, just as we were sitting to eat tasajo. (The shredded beef is one of his favorite meals.) Mami thinks the dream is a predictor of something, so now nobody can tie up the phone in the late afternoon or evening. Just in case Pepito calls.
I sure hope dreams come true, for my mother’s sake.
The whole country is sad. A man who was running for president, Robert F. Kennedy, was shot yesterday by a criminal, right there in a hotel where everybody could see. He died today. He is the brother of a president who was also assassinated, but that was before we had moved here. Again today, Abuelo said, “These are dark times.” It is very depressing. On the television they showed Mr. Kennedy’s wife crying. He has a whole bunch of children and they were crying, too. Now they are all orphaned.
I don’t understand all this shooting. I don’t understand the wars, either. Any war. I suppose the grownups think they have good reasons to fight each other, but if they do, I wish then they would leave my brother and cousin out of it. Jane told me she has a second cousin who refused to go to the war in Vietnam, so now he lives in Canada. Doing that is against the law, so he can never come back to see his family. In a way that situation is like my family’s, but in reverse. Pepito is in the Cuban army. He didn’t want to be, but the government forced him anyway. This also means we don’t know when we will see him next.
It is so hot now that Abuelo has decided we should do our exercise walks after dinner, when it’s almost nightfall. Every day this week, though, it has rained on our plans. “That’s summer in the tropics,” Abuelo says. “Rain, rain, and more rain.” We were finally able to walk today, and along the way we saw many beautiful plants and flowers as well as dragonflies and butterflies, grasshoppers, snails, slugs, and tiny aphids. Plenty of mosquitoes, too, unfortunately. We kept having to flap away the bugs.
We walked a little farther than on other days because Abuelo felt stronger and because the overcast sky kept away the worst of the heat. I am so glad we did, too. We got to see a house five blocks over that has a well-tended garden with a wide variety of species that Abuelo said made his heart sing. There was a beautiful shrimp plant and a golden shower tree, and marigolds, crossandra, and purple pentas in a flower bed bordering the house. Along a chain-link fence there were several kinds of flowering vines, too, but I can remember only one of the names—the jade vine because it had the most stunning aquamarine flowers. That wasn’t all, though. In the far corner of the yard, a royal poinciana—we call it framboyan, which sounds like flamboyant—was in full bloom, and the red-orange flowers covered most of the branches. I have never seen such beautiful colors.
“Only God can make them like that,” Abuelo told us.
To which Ana Mari responded, “If it is fine with God, then I want to be very rich when I grow up so I can live in a very big house with a very large garden. Then, Abuelo, you can come and help me plant it. I do not want to sweat, though, so we will plant only in the winter or when the sun is setting.”
This made Abuelo laugh.
When we were returning home, I could tell Abuelo was tired. He had a hard time catching his breath. I kept insisting he rest, but he would not. He said his heart was still singing with the joy of the flowers and the colors, and that does not happen too often.
“When you are old,” he added, “you take advantage of every happy moment.”
Ileana bought herself a record player with her own earnings. It is a small one we can put on the dresser in our bedroom, but it still cost a lot of money. She will not say how much, and Mami got very angry when she saw how she had wasted wages on something we do not need. But the money is, after all, hers. She earned it.
Ileana also bought several singles, and she has been playing them over and over all afternoon. Loud. By loud, I mean loud enough for the windows to rattle. About every fifteen minutes Mami knocks on the door and tells her to lower the volume. Ileana does. Then she waits about five minutes and slowly turns up the knob. She likes to play a singer named Bob Dylan all the time. If you listen closely to the words in his song, you understand how sad and angry he is. Ileana likes “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” I think he has a whiny voice, but Ileana says I don’t know diddly-squat about music. What’s diddly-squat? I have never heard that phrase in English. She also listens to the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane. I like the Monkees. Their songs are happy and romantic. They are also very cute.
Mami has given up on any calls coming from Cuba. She says the dream was just that—a dream.
Papi said yes. Yes, yes, yes! I am going on the car trip with Jane. Here I come, Key West, Saint Augustine, Cape Canaveral, and Tallahassee! I’ve started counting the hours. I’m already thinking about what I will pack. Jane says we will be staying at motels with pools, so I most certainly will pack my swimsuit.
We were spending the day at Crandon Park when Papi announced the good news. I had been moping all morning, remembering Efraín and how he had shown us the zoo and the roller rink last summer. But the idea of the trip perked me right up. Even Abuelo Tony was excited for me. “You will get more of an education by traveling than by sitting in a classroom,” he said, and hugged me tight.
I’ve got to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.
I have lots of homework, and enough tests to bury me. I must write you about the photographs we received from Cuba, the ones Pepito promised. The person in the photographs hardly looks like Pepito. He is almost twice as tall as Abuelo Pancho, and his face is long and it ends in a square chin. He has serious, hard eyes. He looks thinner than I remember, too, but maybe it is just his uniform. I feel cheated. Instead of making me happy, the photographs gave me this ripping sensation in my chest. Of course, I didn’t say anything to my parents. Why make a bad situation worse?
At least I have the trip to look forward to. Jane gave me some brochures from Cape Canaveral, and we saw pictures of Saint Augustine in a book in the school library.
Hip, hip, hurrah for me. I received Best Mathematics Student award in a school ceremony for eighth graders. I was so surprised. Never in a million years did I expect this. Though my lowest mark in any examination or quiz was a 95, I still thought that Mrs. Boatwright did not like me because she would never smile at me and was always so strict. Last week the school sent home a note announcing the ceremony, but I did not think it was important and threw it away. Had I known, maybe Abuela or Abuelo could have come to school to see me receive the award.
As soon as Mami and Papi came home from work, I showed them the certificate. We immediately went to the shopping center to buy a frame for it and hung it on one of the bedroom walls. Papi said I inherited his way with numbers. Mami said that was fine as long as I didn’t inherit his stubbornness. They laughed and kissed, and I decided that seeing them act silly was better than receiving the award itself.
Alina must attend summer school because she failed two classes. (She won’t tell me which.) I think she is working too many hours. She should concentrate on school. Srta. Reed gave her some books to help improve her English. One is titled Direct English Conversation for Foreign Students by Robert J. Dixon. Most of the lessons are vocabulary that I already know, so I promised to help her when I return from the car trip.
Abuelo Tony died. He died. He’s gone. My abuelito.
I write those words and still can’t believe it. He had a heart attack. By the time the ambulance came, the paramedics could not revive him. Tío Pablo had to give Abuela medicine to calm her down because she was hysterical. She would not let the ambulance people take him or come near him. Now she has been sleeping all afternoon.
Oh, my abuelito. My dear, dear abuelito.
No more tears, no more tears. I have cried myself out. I tried to be strong for Ana Mari because she has taken this very hard, but I got a horrible headache from holding in all my crying. So I went for a walk. Without telling any grown-up, either, which is a big no-no. I just forgot. I walked and walked and walked. I was sweating rivers from so much walking. I went to all the places Abuelo and I would go during our exercises. I saw all the plants he pointed out to me and I tried to name them. Some I knew, others I had already forgotten. And the more I walked, and the farther I got from home, the more I was able to cry. I could let it all out without the worry of upsetting anybody. When I got to that pretty garden we saw a few days ago, I stood in front of the framboyan and cried even more. I am glad it was hot because no one was out in the streets. It would have been embarrassing if somebody had seen me.
I cannot believe I will never hear my Abuelo’s voice again, or touch his hand, or see him walking beside me, panting because Ana Mari and I are moving too fast. Death is so final, so absolute, so unfair. I do not want to think about it.
I had never been to a funeral until this day. I hope I never have to go to another one. This one was a traditional Cuban wake. The funeral people had fixed Abuelo Tony up and dressed him in a fancy suit, so he could lie in an open casket. They put makeup on his face, too. When I knelt on the cushioned pew in front of the coffin to say a prayer, I looked at his fake smile and closed eyes and I knew for sure he was dead. Papi wanted me to kiss him, but I was afraid. He looked so…so unreal, like a wax doll. I did touch him, though, and he felt very hard and cold.
Efraín came home from boot camp this morning, but he must leave tomorrow afternoon. I hardly got to talk to him because the men mobbed him and asked him all kinds of questions. The funeral parlor was full of relatives and friends, all of them talking too loud. The old women sat in big chairs lining the room. Abuela was in the corner closest to Abuelo’s body, sniffling and dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Every time someone new came up to her, she began to weep all over again. “Leave her alone,” I wanted to scream. She kept complaining it was cold, and Tío Pablo gave her his jacket until Mami went home to get her a sweater. The air-conditioning was very, very cold. My fingernails were purple the whole time.
Everyone wore black, even Jane and Mrs. Henderson. Mr. and Mrs. F., from the craft store, came, and so did Tommy and a few of Ileana’s girlfriends, and Alina with her family. I was surprised how people kept coming in and out of the parlor with little plates of pastries or cups of café they had bought at a cafeteria down the block. To me all the commotion felt more like a party than anything else. I hated the noise and the relatives hugging me tight. I did not care for any of them. All I wanted was my Abuelo back. There were lots of flowers, too, so many that Ileana sneezed all afternoon. Mami gave her a special medicine to make her stop.
A priest came in the evening to recite the rosary. I just mumbled the words to go along. I wished he would go away, too, and he finally did, but not before coming to pat each of us on the head. I wanted to ask him why my Abuelo had died. Why didn’t somebody else die, somebody mean, like Fidel Castro and those dictators in Russia and that man who killed Robert Kennedy and the other fellow who murdered Martin Luther King, Jr. Why?
We had to come home after the rosary because it was almost eleven o’clock. All the grown-ups will stay the night with Abuelo’s body, then tomorrow after church we will bury him. I can’t stop thinking about how Abuelo worried he would not ever see his homeland again. Maybe he knew something we didn’t.
Early in the morning, before we left for the funeral parlor, I ran around the block collecting all the flowers I could see. I picked ixoras and marigolds and pentas and tiny lantanas and gardenias and appleblossom cassia and frangipani and allamanda and oleander. Back in the kitchen, all the names came to me suddenly, in a rush, as I wrapped their fragile stems in a moist napkin and then wrapped them again in foil.
At the parlor, when we went to say our final goodbyes to Abuelo, I put my special bouquet inside the casket. I am sure no one except Ana Mari understood what I was doing, and when she saw the beautiful flowers, all those bright colors against Abuelo’s dark suit, she came over to hug me. Together we cried.
Now he is gone, and I miss him so much. So very much.
It has rained for days. I feel like the heavens are crying with me. How I wish my abuelo were here. And my brother, too! And Efraín. It is so difficult to be away from people you love. I feel as if I cannot breathe, as if there is not enough fresh air to go around. I now know better than ever what Papi means by exile because in certain ways death is a form of exile. It is separation and finality and the ability to remember without the joy of touching or seeing or hearing.
It hit me: I am finally leaving on the trip tomorrow. I’m so excited.
We toured most of Saint Augustine today, though it was so hot we kept having to stop at different places to get a drink. This place reminds me a lot of Cuba, especially the Castillo de San Marcos at the edge of Matanzas Bay and Fort Matanzas, which is much smaller than the Castillo. We took lots of photographs. When I phoned my parents—I must call every evening—I felt a little homesick. That surprised me because I so much wanted to leave on this trip.
I’m having a great time with Jane and her grandparents. They insist I call them Gramps and Grannie, which I do, and they let us eat ice cream every day.
I haven’t forgotten you, but I have so little time. Today we motored around Lake Okeechobee with a fishing guide. This lake is so big it looks like an ocean. We also saw a lot of people in bus-like cars that Jane says are called recreational vehicles. People camp in them. I had never seen one before.
I’d write more if I weren’t so exhausted.
I’m back! It was the most fantastic vacation I have ever had. Jane’s grandparents treated me so nicely. We swam in the ocean, we jumped from diving boards, we saw rocket ships, we sat on old Spanish cannons, we saw a sunset in Key West, we went fishing on a boat in Lake Okeechobee—oh, we did so many things that I will need a new diary to write them all.
Today is Independence Day, and it is celebrated with picnics and fireworks, but we did nothing except work around the house. I helped Mami refinish a dresser that she rescued from a trash pile on her way from work earlier in the week. “Amazing the usable things los americanos throw out,” she says. “This is a country of such abundance.” Her statement reminded me of those long lines we used to wait in for everything—soap, beans, rice, shoes, clothing. Abuelo Pancho used to say Cubans queued up for everything except death, and now poor Abuelo Pancho is still there in Cuba, standing in lines. When I told Mami what I was thinking, her eyes misted. She said it was not always like that in Cuba. Years ago, before the Communist revolution, when I was a little girl, you could buy most anything at any store if you had money. Now, even with money, there’s nothing to buy.
In the late afternoon when it was a teensy bit cooler, Tía Carmen barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers. Then we went through some old photo albums that Abuela had brought from Cuba. We could not bring any of ours, so these photographs of our childhoods are very precious. Staring at them, I felt like I was spying on someone else’s life, someone who looked like me but was existing in a parallel world of scalloped photo paper. It made me wonder what kind of life I might have had, the kind of life all my family would have had, if the Communists had not taken over our country. It would be very different if we had stayed behind. For one thing, I would not know any English. I would have never met Jane nor gone on that wonderful trip. Mami would not have learned to drive—at least not for a long time. Ileana would not have a job, and Papi would not have ever trained with those militias in the swamp. How strange that one event, one decision, can change so many parts of so many people’s lives!
At night we saw the fireworks on television from the United States capital. It was beautiful to watch the night sky lighting up in what we knew were fantastic colors, even if it was only on a black-and-white screen and not in person. Next year, though, Tía Carmen has promised we will go to a park to see the fireworks and festivities. We will bring a blanket and lie on it and stare up at the darkness. (She always tries to be optimistic. It must be so hard for her to keep smiling while Efraín is away.)
“The colors of the fireworks in the night look like exploding flowers,” she explained. “You will see what I mean next year.”
So what do you think Papi said to Tía Carmen? One guess. That’s right. He said, “Next year we’ll be in Cuba.” And he said, too, that instead of staring into the dark sky, we will be taking an evening swim in Guanabo. I wish I could believe him.