I awaken to the sound of my father’s voice. A little slower than the typical machine-gun pace of Chilean castellano, with a slightly odd inflection. I crawl deeper under the covers.
Give him a chance, Tina.
I climb out of bed and pull on my jeans and sweatshirt.
When I reach the top of the stairs, I freeze and stare down at Papá. Thick, wavy hair falls to the middle of his neck, parted so it hangs over his glasses and covers his bad eye. He has a mustache, too—mostly gray like his hair. No beard. He’s still skinny, but he looks good. Washed. Dressed. Apparently sober. He has a crooked smile. He beckons to me from the bottom of the stairs. “Come, m’ija. Don’t be a coneja.”
I force my legs to take me downstairs. My arms circle his waist, but his sweater is a force field keeping me from touching his body. My old papá would have picked me up, lifted me over his head, and spun me around. But when he came back from prison, he cringed at my touch.
My father grips me tightly with his good arm. The pressure on my shoulders inches me forward, toward his sweater. It smells like cigarettes. My throat closes, but I squeeze him tighter into a real hug. His body is warm, and through his sweater and shirt I feel his ribs. I hold on to him for a superlong time so he won’t keep calling me girl-rabbit because he thinks I’m trying to run away from him.
He lets his arm drop. “Did you have a good flight?”
I step backward and take a deep breath to get rid of the cigarette smell. A black wrist splint pokes out from his shirtsleeve on his bad side. “Yes. I watched two movies on the plane.”
“Which ones?”
“Big and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”
“Haven’t seen them.”
“Big is about a thirteen-year-old kid who wakes up as a thirty-year-old guy, and the other—”
Papá taps my shoulder, interrupting me. “How do you like the house?”
“It’s . . . nice.”
“I got one with an extra bedroom so you and your brother could visit.” One side of his mouth turns up while the other side doesn’t move at all.
Say you love the house. I think that’s what he wants me to do. But I don’t love it. It’s cold. White. New.
I draw in my breath. “I love the house, Papá. You did a good job.”
“Come outside. I want to show you the best part.”
He walks stiff-legged through the kitchen into what looks like his office, with bookshelves, a desk, and a daybed piled with papers. He opens a sliding door to a small brick patio with a round metal table painted pea green, two matching chairs, and a brick–and–cinder block barbecue. Beyond the patio is a garden surrounded by a high wall covered with vines. A huge tree in back takes up about a third of the space in the yard. Along the left side wall stretching all the way to the back there’s a wire-fenced area like a dog run, but with trees and vines inside.
He unhooks the clasp of the wire fence’s gate, reaches into the narrow opening, and comes out with a small parrot on his finger. “Pablo, this is Tina,” he says to the bird. And to me, “Do you want to hold him?”
“Will he bite?” I ask. Papá shakes his head, so I hold out my finger. The bird hops on and stares at me with yellow eyes. His claws feel like two sticks wrapped around my fingers. I stroke the dark gray feathers on his back. “How’d you get him?”
“I rescued him. His wing was dislocated, so he can’t fly.” Papá rests his hand on my shoulder. “I have another one named Víctor. Graciela’s husband brought him to me last month because he had chewed part of his foot off. I think he can still perch, but he doesn’t trust me yet.”
“Does that one fly?”
“Yes,” Papá says.
“Why’d he chew his foot off?”
“He could have injured the foot or got it caught. Or he could have been abused. These birds are very sensitive, and if they’re miserable, they harm themselves.” Papá takes Pablo from me and holds him at eye level. “This one plucked out all his feathers. But they grew back, didn’t they, Pablo?” He stands still for a while as if waiting for a response, sets the bird on a branch inside the cage, and closes the wire door.
“Remember when you used to fix our broken toys?” I ask.
He nods. “But birds aren’t toys, m’ija. They’re living things. It’s different.”
I stare at Pablo and imagine him desplomado. Featherless.
Back inside, Papá washes his hands, sits at the head of the table, and pours himself a glass of mineral water. That must be some kind of signal, because my aunt sits on his left. I wash my hands like he tells me to and take the chair opposite hers, where Graciela has set a place for me.
“How’s your brother?” he asks me.
You mean, the favorite? The one who worked with you at the radio station all last summer? But I don’t want to make Papá mad on the very first day. And I have other methods. I give my father a sly smile. “Fine. But he brought his backpack to the wedding. It was truly embarrassing.”
Tía Ileana’s mouth opens wide before she covers it with her hand. Still, a giggle escapes. Papá closes his eyes and laughs out loud.
Score one point for the little sister.
Papá stops laughing and leans toward me, his good arm on the table. “Did your mother send the pills?”
“Yes. I’ll get them. They’re upstairs in my bag.” I stand.
Papá motions for me to sit. “In my house, we don’t get up and walk around during meals.”
The pills. That’s why Daniel had the backpack. Take the sister’s point away.
Papá digs into his pastel de choclo. I dismantle mine—pile the ground corn on one side, mash the potatoes with my fork, push the olives around the plate, and nibble the ground beef and hard-boiled eggs.
For the rest of the meal I keep my mouth shut while my father and aunt discuss the election in October and the candidate that he just interviewed on his radio show. After dessert—vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup—Papá stands, rubs his stomach, and stretches. “Bueno, back to work,” he says, then asks Tía Ileana for a ride.
“Didn’t you promise you’d stay this afternoon for Tina?”
Tell him, Tía Ileana. Would he have ditched Daniel the same way? Or would he have invited my brother to the station?
“I have to edit that interview for the evening news. And I’m going out with the campaign staff tonight.” Papá pats me on the back. I force myself to smile, lips pressed tightly together. “Get some rest, m’ija. You’ve had a long trip.”
Night comes early in the middle of winter, and after dark the house turns cold. My aunt reheats the leftover pastel de choclo for supper. It has even less appeal the second time around. I curl up on the sofa under a wool blanket and watch a stupid game show on TV. It’s good practice for my Spanish, if nothing else.
The TV set is like a shameful secret in the room, small and tucked into a corner of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase that covers the wall next to the stairs. It’s an hour earlier in Madison, and on a Monday night like tonight my friends and I would get together at Petra’s house, cook marijuana brownies, and eat them while watching reruns of St. Elsewhere on her big TV. We’d try not to drool over Boomer, who suddenly became a single father after his wife tripped and hit her head in the shower. Poor Boomer. All of us girls wished we could give him a hug.
Tía Ileana sits on the sofa next to me. I pull my legs up to make room for her. She holds a folder with lots of pictures, front and back. “Remember the condominium we saw driving here?” I nod. She says, “I put together the publicity for the company that’s building it.”
I flip the folder, glance at the drawing of a tower with balconies. There are even pots with flowers. Surrounding the drawing are photos of living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and a bathroom. “Where did these rooms come from? I thought the place wasn’t built yet,” I say.
“They’re from my company’s other condo in the same neighborhood.”
“Do you like working for them?”
“I like that things are happening. Your father calls me Material Girl, but I like the new malls and restaurants. And the fact that people are going out again.”
I stretch and yawn. Material Girl—Madonna. I’m amazed Papá even knows about her. And Tía Ileana has turned out to be a lot cooler than I remember her from when I was a little kid. “So no more curfews late at night?” I ask her. We used to have to stay indoors or risk getting shot, but sometimes when people needed help or a ride, my old papá would go out anyway.
“No. And people aren’t as afraid as they used to be. Even though he’s still in power.”
Around midnight, a couple of hours after I get to bed, I awaken to talking and laughing downstairs. I put my clothes back on and creep to the top of the stairs. The living room is full of men. They eventually leave in groups of twos and threes. Papá and one other guy stay. I hear something about the political campaign, but since their words all run together and I’m tired, I can’t make out most of what they’re saying. A cloud of cigarette smoke hovers just below the ceiling. And they match each other—shots and beer chasers—littering the coffee table with their butts, ashes, and empty bottles. Finally, the other guy passes out sitting in a corner of the sofa, snoring so loudly that I can hear him from upstairs. Papá raises a fist in triumph, announces, “Journalist outdrinks politician any day,” and turns off the light.
My old papá wouldn’t have won a drinking contest. He wouldn’t have even tried.
I decide to count the days until I go home.
