Where We Come From Page 12

  “I don’t want to see any eggs, Beto.”

  “Because you know I’m right.”

  “Because I don’t want to see any cucarachas or their eggs. That’s why I called you, so I don’t have to see them.”

  “Then just give me the key. I can go in by myself and you stay out here, if you’re so afraid of seeing some eggs in an empty house.” He moves to the right of the wooden steps, but the dog is back on its haunches, waiting, making an ugly face at him.

  “I lost the key,” she says.

  “And then what, you’re never going to open it?”

  “Not till I find it. Maybe by next time you come to spray.”

  “Next time won’t be until the end of the summer.”

  “That’s not that long.”

  “Not that long? Vas a ver que later you’re going to be real sorry I didn’t give it spray this time. Right now is the time of the cucarachas, when they hide with their babies.”

  “And since when have you cared what I’m sorry about doing and not doing?”

  He looks at her for a long while and shakes his head. Then before walking off, he aims his wand toward the steps and unloads a couple of generous squirts into the grass, the way a dog would to mark its territory.

  They walk out to his van, under the carport, and there they argue more, but not loud enough for Orly to hear. His parents never really fought, not in front of him and Alex anyway. Sometimes in the middle of the day they would just close the door to their bedroom for ten or twenty minutes and then one of them would come out, usually their dad, while their mom would stay in bed the rest of the afternoon and then later neither of them would say anything about it. This was before there was any talk of a separation or a townhouse and he thought if he could hold out for those two or three hours that he wasn’t supposed to go into the bedroom, not ask her again if he could watch a video, not go ride his bike, not ask if he could have a snack but just get it himself, not do anything except leave her alone, then afterward it would be like none of it happened.

  * * *

  —

  After Beto leaves, Nina takes Orly and her mother in the car to go buy raspas to cool off. She tries not to complain about how long it took Beto to finish because she knows her mother will only defend Beto, say he put the extra spray to las cucarachas to kill them, because he wants to make sure his mother and sister are safe. He cares about them, no matter what she says about her poor brother. The extra spray proves it.

  The raspa trailer is just down from the car wash, in the parking lot of the dollar store. Her mother waits in the car while she and Orly stand in line behind three other sets of customers: two shirtless boys holding fishing rods, a little boy with his mother, and behind them an older man wearing cowboy boots caked with mud that flakes off every time he takes a step closer to the counter. A black SUV—unmarked but with government-issued plates—pulls into the parking lot. Everyone waits to see if he’s here for someone, but then less than a minute later the car pulls out, back into the hum of the afternoon traffic. Even after it leaves, Orly notices Nina is still leaning into him, the way his mom used to when he was little and would grab his hand because they were in the parking garage at the mall.

  It’s hot but windy and so not as hot as it would feel if they were in Houston. Two women work inside the bright yellow trailer, taking turns scooping ice from the shaver while the other pours syrup from the neon-colored bottles that line the windowsill, the outside of the glass smudged with the tiny fingerprints of those who know what flavor or color they want but not the name. Outside, the bees hover above a rainbow of sweet puddles.

  “I wish there was more time to take you places,” Nina tells him when they’re waiting for their order. He knows that by “more time” she means more free time from having to watch her mother, which she only has on Fridays when the maid comes to clean. Otherwise wherever they go she has to bring her mother along.

  “Like where?” he asks.

  “Lots of places,” she says, and then she tries to think of one. “Like to where they have all the palm trees and people go watch the birds.”

  “Watch them do what?”

  “Be with the other birds. People from everywhere, from far away like New York and Wisconsin and California, they like to come here just to see the birds all in one place. Where they have them protected, so they are safe.”

  “Safe from what?”

  “From people trying to hurt them, safe from other animals.”

  He’s never been interested in birds and doubts he would be even if they had the time to spend a whole afternoon watching them.

  “Or if things weren’t so bad now, I would take you to Matamoros, for you to see the mercado and later we could eat lunch or go to the plaza and I could buy you some of the calabaza candy they sell there and we could listen to the musicians.”

  “My mom wanted to go last time we all came down together, but my dad said we couldn’t go across because it was dangerous.”

  “Your daddy knows. The ones with the drugs are trying to kill the other ones with the drugs and then all the rest of the people, the innocent ones, they get hurt too. Nobody I know goes there anymore, not like they used to.”

  “It sounds like the birds are safer than the people.”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  There’s more she wants to say on this subject, but right then the little window of the trailer slides open and their raspas are ready.

  12

  Nina makes the sign of the cross on Orly’s forehead and kisses him on the cheek, the same as his mom used to, except without the praying part. He stays still until she’s done saying the Our Father, otherwise she’ll start over again. She wishes him a good night and leaves. The slice of light at the bottom of the door will keep him company for the next nine or so hours.

  Before he came here, the only praying he ever did on his own had to do with his mom not leaving. It started off as an Our Father, but halfway through it became more just him asking God to do something to make her not leave. His dad was the one who did all the traveling, so it made more sense for him to move out. That is, if anyone had to move out. He didn’t want his dad to leave either, not exactly, but he’d be willing to trade them out, his mom stay and his dad go find someplace to live nearby. Maybe he could take Alex and that way he wouldn’t be alone. His brother probably wouldn’t like it, but this was his prayer not Alex’s, so he could say it the way he wanted. He spent a few nights coming up with scenarios that would keep her from moving. The townhouse could catch fire and burn down before she moved in and then it might be a month or two before she found another place to live and she could change her mind by then. There could be a hurricane, which was about the only natural disaster he could think of, but even a hurricane wouldn’t last forever.

  He wonders if what he saw at the movies wasn’t God’s way of showing him why she wanted to leave or had to. If it isn’t his fault for not figuring this out sooner. How much clearer did he need it to be? And still he wanted to believe there had to be a perfectly good reason why she would be sitting in a dark theater with another man on a Saturday morning, feeding him popcorn.

  He went from praying for nothing to change to praying that the change, if it had to happen, wouldn’t include someone else. He thought that with more time he could make her change her mind and want to stay, but he didn’t know what it would mean for her and that other person. The way he imagined it, she just woke up one morning and changed her mind and their life went on pretty much as normal. His praying never involved anything actually happening to her. No sudden illness, no aneurysm, especially since he’d never heard of one.

  * * *

  —

  It seems stupid to miss his water bottle, but after his laptop, this is the one thing he most wishes he had from home. It’s the same water bottle he’s had for years, so far back that it used to be calle
d his sippy cup. The outside has the faded orange outline of Nemo lost in a murky patch of sea, discolored after going through countless cycles in the dishwasher. The inside is insulated to keep his water cool longer, especially in the summer when he likes his water with crushed ice. Sometimes he has to unscrew the top and fish out the attachable straw when it comes loose. After kissing him good night, his mother used to turn on his humidifier and leave the bottle on his nightstand, always in the same spot, where he could reach it without having to open his eyes. When she was working late or out to dinner with a friend, his dad sometimes forgot to leave it on the nightstand. Orly wouldn’t remind him because he knew his mom would be checking on him later and he liked her leaving the bottle instead of his dad. If it wasn’t too late, he might still be awake and she would lie down with him so they could talk about his day at school or where she went to dinner. Now that his mom isn’t around, his dad says filling his bottle is one of those things Orly is old enough to do on his own. He’s not a baby anymore. So he started filling the bottle himself and leaving it in the same spot his mom used to, the small hatch open so his lips can always find the straw no matter how dark it is in his room.

  * * *

  —

  Tonight, after her prayer, Nina asked him if he wanted a glass of water. He told her no, but didn’t mention it was because he’s still a little worried about leaving the glass of water next to his bed and something crawling inside his glass while he’s sleeping. He hasn’t seen any roaches, but she talks about them like it’s only a matter of time. Ándale, close the screen door so they don’t come inside. Shut the trash can the right way, all the way down, on both sides, si no, olvídate, it’s like you’re inviting them to come have dinner with us.

  It takes him almost an hour to fall asleep, but then thirty minutes later he wakes up feeling restless and thirsty. He figures going to the kitchen for a glass of water will help him fall back asleep. The drinking water comes from a dispenser she keeps in the corner of the kitchen that leads to the bedrooms.

  By now he knows the nighttime sounds of the house. Mamá Meche messing with the rail on her hospital bed, trying to disengage the lock before Nina can rush over to help her get to the bathroom. Then his great-grandmother arguing that she could’ve made it on her own, without the walker, without Nina watching her every step, treating her like some baby. Then the toilet water gushing, followed by the faucet. The three bedrooms and one bathroom joined by one tiny hallway make it difficult not to hear everything, especially in a bathroom with no exhaust fan to cover up any sounds or odors coming from that region of the house. Earlier, just as he was falling asleep, he heard the dog barking a few times and a moment later go quiet again. But now, a quarter past eleven, what he hears are bare feet clinging to the linoleum and a second later the kitchen faucet. He opens the door expecting to see Nina, for her to ask him if he had a bad dream, but what he sees is a boy standing at the sink, his back to Orly, looking out the same window Orly looks out every morning, toward the pink house and its aluminum foil windows. The boy has on an old soccer shirt and long shorts that reach to just above his dark brown calves. At first Orly thinks the boy might be one of his cousins he saw at the last family reunion but whose name slipped away from him before they got back to Houston. But why would he be here now? Why to wash dishes?

  The boy glances over his shoulder and then jerks around to face Orly, keeping his back pressed up against the edge of the sink. Orly waves and the boy begins to wave back but stops to wipe the edge of his soapy hand on the side of his shorts. He spun around so fast that he forgot to shut off the water running into the pan he was washing and now has to reach back to turn it off.

  “Orlando,” Nina says as she walks into the kitchen. “¿Qué haces despierto? Le voy a decir a tu daddy que casi no duermes,” she rattles off and much more. She sticks to Spanish whenever she is anxious—returning something she bought at the store, talking to him about his mother, talking to Tío Beto about the pink house.

  “I was thirsty.”

  “Te pregunté dos veces y me dijiste que no.” She holds up the fingers to show him how many times she asked him if she could bring him water. “Mira la hora. Ya deberías estar bien dormido.” She goes on, speaking in a way that forces him to look at her and not at the other boy in the room, who is looking down as if he’s imagining some way of sinking into the floor.

  Orly wants to step back into the hallway, into the bedroom, under the covers, under the bed and so on, until he’s away from here.

  “I just wanted water,” he manages to say, and looks over at the dispenser to make sure it’s still there.

  “Then go on,” she responds, almost whispering now, as if one of them were still half asleep and should remain that way, lost in the fogginess of what has clearly been a dream. “Go with getting your water and then to bed.” He looks away from the grip of her stare, but by then the other boy has unlocked the security door and slipped into the darkness that separates the two houses.

  13

  The next morning Orly stays in bed longer than usual, thirty minutes, an hour, two hours, as if the extra time will create more distance between what happened last night in the kitchen and this morning, and that distance will make it less real, not so unsettling that he wishes he could stay tucked under the covers until he hears his father’s car pulling into the driveway. If this were a normal morning Nina would be coming around to check on him by now, ask if he’s hungry or if he feels sick, something, but not leave him to stay burrowed under the covers, under the weight of what he saw last night.

  He gets up only because he has to pee, even if the immediate need he had an hour ago has now dulled to a low-grade pulse that he feels only when he turns onto his stomach. Afterward, he wipes the seat he keeps forgetting to lift, washes his hands by passing them under the water, dries off some on the towel and the rest on his T-shirt, and heads to the kitchen. He pours himself a cup of orange juice, takes his meds, and grabs a bowl for his cereal.

  Except for the doily curtain hanging on the window over the sink, everything looks the same from yesterday morning and even last night. The curtain is beige and gold with a pattern of red and green apples, the bottom rod placed high enough that he’ll need to stand on his tippy toes if he expects to see over it and into the backyard. He doesn’t remember the curtain being there before but maybe that’s because it was open and he was looking past it and not through it. Now he can only make out the silhouette that he knows is the other house and next to it the looming shape of the dog.

  It’s funny, not ha-ha, but strange funny, like weird, the things you begin to see and realize when you can’t see the one thing you most want to. He hadn’t seen, for instance, the wall calendar for Capistran’s Tortilla Factory hanging on the side of the cabinet right next to the window. He thinks he would’ve remembered the cartoon image of a bright yellow corn stalk with red tennies. The curtain, he can imagine her putting up last night after he went back to bed, but why add the calendar? To distract him, give him something to look at instead of out the window? His name is scribbled and circled on the 3rd, a Saturday, the day he arrived, more than a week ago now. The days leading up to the 3rd are marked with Xs.

  It makes sense to him now, how he went through a new box of Froot Loops the first three days he was here, especially when she and his great-grandmother don’t eat cereal. The next time they went to the store she bought two boxes so it wouldn’t run out so fast. She said she’d forgotten what it was like to have a young boy in the house who wakes up hungry. Orly doubts he ate even half the cereal in the box. Maybe they don’t sell Froot Loops where the boy comes from. He knows enough to know not every country has the same foods we enjoy in this country.

  Last night, after he went back to bed, Nina came to his room and explained that the boy was the son of a friend she was letting stay in the other house for a little while until he went to live with his father. She said his name is Daniel a
nd he came from a place in Mexico called Veracruz, but she hadn’t told anyone because Mamá Meche and Tío Beto wanted to rent the house and would be upset if they found out she was letting someone stay for free. She was sorry she got upset when he came to get water; he had scared her. Orly didn’t want her to still be mad or sorry—he wanted to change the subject and for things to be like they had been before he walked into the kitchen. If he could do it again, he would stay in bed the whole night and have nothing ever change. He told her his world history teacher, Mr. Domínquez, is also from Veracruz. He showed the class some images of it on the last day of school. Nina told him that was nice, having a teacher from Mexico, but right now they needed to talk about the boy in the other house.

  “Can you keep what I told you a secret?”

  “But how come he can’t just stay here, like on the sofa?”

  “Because my mother, she wouldn’t like it, having more people in the house.”

  “Sometimes Alex and me and my dad stay here.”

  “But this one is not family,” she said.

  He wanted to believe at least some part of what she was saying was true, that it wasn’t all a lie. He was almost sure of that, but which was which he couldn’t really say. He wanted to be mad, but he couldn’t figure out what part to be mad at the most, that she had been hiding something from him or that what she was saying was more of the same lies and she was trying to fool him again.

  The boy’s name made him think of Daniela, Maribel’s fifteen-year-old daughter who sometimes came with her mother to stay with him and his brother when their parents used to go out. Maribel spoke only Spanish to Daniela and made her answer in Spanish, even pretending she suddenly didn’t understand English, something that only made the girl say it more slowly in English, as if this might solve the problem. Maribel brought Daniela over one time when their parents were at a New Year’s Eve party. The boys could stay up watching TV but not their screens, something Alex couldn’t accept because the TV was a screen and what difference did it make if it was hanging on the wall or you were holding it on your lap? He’d done the math, and the TV was more than six times the size of his iPad. He was still complaining about it later when he walked into the kitchen for more popcorn and saw Maribel slap Daniela and then a second later try to hug her, which didn’t work because the girl ran out the side door, slamming it behind her. The ball was about to fall in Times Square, but the slap sort of put an end to New Year’s Eve for the boys, because after that Maribel, without mentioning what had just happened, told them to please go upstairs to watch the TV in the media room, which they did turn on, but then they immediately regrouped on the bed in the guest room where they could see Maribel’s car along the cul-de-sac, the place she parked because she was afraid of backing out and the car rolling off the driveway and into the drainage ditch. They knew Daniela was in the front seat because of the glow from her phone.