Arturo propped himself up on his elbow and hissed, “You don’t think I have a right to treat her differently now than I would have before the accident? You don’t think we have the responsibility to do that? She’s not the same person, Alma. There’s not some piece of her just sitting there, waiting for us to find it again. No matter how much schooling or medical care she gets, we can’t just put her back together.”
I felt something collapse inside of me. “She’s getting better,” I said.
Arturo peered past my shoulder at Maribel. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“She was getting better before all of this happened,” I said.
“But even if she gets better from now until eternity, she won’t be the same person anymore.”
“But the doctors said—”
“The doctors said her brain can heal, but they warned us she would never be the same again.”
“They didn’t say that.”
“They did, Alma. You just didn’t want to hear that part.”
“She’s getting better,” I said, as if by repeating it enough, I could somehow make it part of the public record, an indisputable fact.
“But don’t you understand?” Arturo said. “We don’t get her again.”
Across the room, Maribel stirred. I smoothed my hand over the rippled sheet, tears burning in my eyes. Arturo had dropped his head back against the mattress, but I could see that his eyes were open and that he was staring at the ceiling. The weight of finality—so heavy that it felt like a physical thing—hung in the air between us. I didn’t want to accept that in order to move forward, I had to walk through it. It was so much easier just to believe there was another path that I could take around it and that at the end of that path would be the destination I wanted. It was easier to want to end up at a lie, instead of at the truth, which was just as Arturo said: We wouldn’t get her again. Not ever.
Mayor
In March, my dad landed a job as a newspaper carrier for the News Journal. He’d gone in because he’d heard that they needed workers on the floor of the press and after burning through all the restaurants in town, he was getting desperate, even if it meant applying for jobs he was totally unqualified for. He got turned down from the floor job pretty quick, apparently. “They asked me three questions. Then the woman who was interviewing me started shaking her head, saying, ‘No, I’m sorry. This won’t work. We need someone with experience.’ Experience!” my dad cried, telling my mom and me the story. “I told her, ‘All I know how to do is make breakfast.’ ”
My mom frowned. “That’s not true. You know how to do other things.” Then she added, “But only a few.”
“Well, this lady’s eyes lit up. ‘Breakfast?’ she said. ‘Are you a morning person?’ Who can tell me what that phrase means? At the diner, customers used to come in all the time and say, ‘I’m not a morning person.’ Usually right before or right after they ordered coffee. But what? The world is divided into morning people and afternoon people and night people?”
“What did you tell her, Rafa?”
“I told the lady, ‘Well, I get up in the morning.’ ”
My mom laughed.
“So the lady asked if I could handle getting up very early. When I said sure, she asked if I had my own car. ‘Brand-new,’ I told her. She asked did I have a license and insurance. When I told her yes, she said, ‘Then I have a job for you.’ ”
My mom beamed. “This is so exciting. You’re a newspaper man now.”
“It turns out that thing will finally be good for something other than coupons,” my dad said.
“Will you deliver our newspapers?” my mom asked.
“If you’re on my route, yes.”
“I want to be on your route,” she said, winking at him.
My dad, who looked astonished at first, smiled. He was proud, I think, to know that he’d turned things around, that he’d saved our fortunes, and that he had tugged my mom back over to his side.
The turn of events had put my dad in a good enough mood that he ended my grounding, which would have been great except that I still wasn’t allowed to see Maribel, and that was the only thing I really wanted to do. Her parents had started going to a different Mass, so I didn’t even see her at church anymore. I missed her. Everything about her. But what could I do?
Then, as I was sitting in social studies one Friday afternoon, it started snowing. I thought I was imagining it at first. All winter long, I’d been waiting for it to snow—not for me, but for Maribel, because I knew she wanted to see it—but now that it was March, I had given up on thinking that it would happen. Through the window, I saw a few flakes, all spread out, drifting down as soft as dust.
I tapped Jaime DeJulio, who sat in front of me. He shrugged me off like a bug had just landed on his shoulder.
“Julio,” I whispered.
He turned around. “I told you not to call me that, Minor.”
This was his ongoing taunt. Mayor/Minor. Hilarious. It’s why I’d started referring to him as Julio, even though I knew it was lame revenge.
I pointed to the window. He looked, but he must not have seen it. “What’s your problem?” he asked.
“Snow,” I mouthed.
He looked again and grinned. “Hell, yeah.”
At the front of the class, Mr. Perry droned on about Amerigo Vespucci and Vasco da Gama and the Great Age of Discovery while I stared out the window. After a while, the snow picked up, falling heavier and steadier.
There were ten minutes left in the period when I raised my hand.
“Mayor?” Mr. Perry called. “Do you have a question?”
“Can I use the bathroom?” I asked.
He shook his head. “You know the policy.”
“I can’t wait. I really need to go.”
Mr. Perry frowned. I could see I was getting to him.
“Like, bad,” I added.
Annoyed, Mr. Perry pointed to the hall pass propped up in the chalk tray along the blackboard.
I was off before he even had a chance to get back to the lesson.
I FOUND WILLIAM in study hall and convinced him to drive me home.
“I thought we were going to a movie today after school,” he said.
“Change of plans,” I told him.
I didn’t elaborate, and I think the whole way to the apartment William assumed that the two of us were off on some big adventure together, but when we pulled into the parking lot of my building, I told him I needed him to teach me how to drive stick shift. He looked confused.
“I’m taking my dad’s car,” I said, pointing to where it was parked.
“Why? I can drive us wherever we’re going.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” I said.
He stared at me for a second, the dawning of understanding on his face, and then said, “Yeah.”
William was awesome, though. After I ran inside and stole the car keys from the windowsill again, the two of us got in my dad’s car and took it down to the abandoned auto body shop on the corner, away from where anyone might see us, so that William could give me a crash course in how to drive stick. He walked me through the basics—putting the car in reverse, how to brake, how to shift through the gears—and we drove in circles around the parking lot until finally William said, “I think you’re good.”
“Really?”
“Good enough, I guess.”
“What if I stall?” I asked.
“No problem. Just start the car again and give the finger to any dickheads honking at you from behind.”
“So that’s it? I’m doing this?”
“That’s it, young Jedi. Go forth and prosper.”
“You’re mixing up your references.”
William opened the car door and climbed out. He poked his head back in before he closed it. “This is about her, isn’t it?” he asked.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to admit it, and William knew anyway.
“Well,” he said, “it was nice having you back for a little while at least.”