Who can blame her? The streets wanted boys like Adonis. They wanted my son Fernando too, so we held on tight. And Lulú knew Adonis loved the money. For sure, selling drugs would send him to jail. But those men from the banks who ruined everybody’s lives and made people lose their houses—nobody is locking them up. Pfft! So I give it to Lulú. She managed to raise a son who is very successful.
Between you and me, Adonis is especial. She never said no to him, and made un monstruo. A baby with mocos in his nose acting like a prince. Everything Adonis wanted, Lulú gave to him. She raised him to think the world was going to do the same.
I was strong with Fernando. I told Lulú we have to be mother and father to the children, and that means saying no. I had to say, no y no y no many times to Fernando, but it’s because he was different than the other boys. In the school, when he was little, the children took everything from him and he did not fight. I got upset because in this life if we are not careful people take advantage of us. I had to be strong because I didn’t want him to end up being … you know. Different.
How can I explain? Have you ever been dancing? There was a time Lulú and I went to dance in El Deportivo almost every Friday night. For this occasion I put on the makeup and nice clothes. And because I dance like a feather, I never sat down. You know the song by Los Hermanos Rosario that goes: Esa muchacha sí que baila bueno—they wrote that song for me. ?Ay, sí! Men always chose me, even above the women who were young and dressed cheap like a cup of flour. When I went to dance, I forgot my life.
I enjoyed the feeling to be touched on my back in just the right way. In my experience, not every man knows how to hold a woman. Their hands, too high on the back, like they don’t know themselves. There’s no place for a man like that on the dance floor. A man without direction. And the worst is to be trapped with someone like that when the song takes forever. You can’t stop in the middle of the song. It’s too embarrassing for them. But these men are not free. They are soft.
I didn’t want that for Fernando.
When he was still a teenager, we had a big party for Christmas. All the building came to our house. I made a lot of food. Rafa was the DJ. We danced until three in the morning; that does not happen no more. That night Hernán brought his primo Elvis to the party. He was visiting from the Dominican Republic and he was different.
You know, different, like soft.
The bottle of co?ac and all the Presidentes were finished. The walls were wet con sudor. All of us, flying from the drinking. The music on full volume. The TV on mute. The Christmas lights on and off, on and off. The presents, opened.
And I couldn’t find Fernando.
Fernando! I yelled on top of the music. And then I saw him, separating from Elvis—the feet moving one direction, the eyes the other.
I took his arm and pulled him to me. He smelled different: less vanilla, more Clorox. I don’t know what I saw, but I am a mother. Something was changed in Fernando’s face. His dark sleepy eyes, more open. You know when the eyes tell stories? And Elvis was dancing como un loco in his guayabera and tight pants. I knew Fernando was holding a secret in his mouth. I never saw the baby in his eyes again.
Later Hernán told me that Elvis had been in a fight in school, more than one time, for being with another boy. For being with another boy. You understand?
After that night, I could not stop thinking if only that day wouldn’t have happen, maybe my Fernando would have been normal. I worried all the time about people taking advantage of him. I was afraid that he was like that, soft. I wanted him to have an easy life. Simple. So I fight extra to make sure he’s strong.
One time, when I sent him to pick up a radio from the casa of Rafa, only one block away, some delinquents steal it from him. I saw it happen from my window. Two boys, more tall than him, took the radio from his hands in the middle of the day, not even at night. He practically gave it to them.
When he came home, I asked, What’s wrong with you?
He walked away from me, went to his room, and tried to close the door.
But I didn’t let him.
Look at me, I’m talking to you. Why are you such a pendejo? I saw what happened.
I talked and I talked and he didn’t say nothing. He looked at his feet. To the floor, to the window.
Didn’t I teach you to defend yourself?
He looked everywhere but at me. His bottom lip like a fruit low on a tree.
Ah, pendejo? Answer me!
* * *
What? No, that’s not when he abandoned me. That was later, in 1998. This was a different fight.
* * *
You know, I never stopped looking for Fernando.
Everybody else gave up looking, but not me. And not Hernán. He has a spot in his heart for me. This drives my sister ángela crazy.
You’re my husband, not hers! ángela throws me in his face when they fight.
When we were children, if somebody brought us chocolate, ángela would hide it so that she can eat it all by herself. More than one time, the mice discovered it first. And guess what, then nobody ate the chocolate.
This is why Hernán doesn’t tell her when he visits me.
Don’t look at me like that. He comes to my apartment to take a break from his life and from her. We watch the Turkish telenovelas together and talk tonterías, nothing more.
But wait, before we talk about these questions you want me to answer, I want to tell you this story!
So, like I was saying to you, Hernán never stopped looking for Fernando. And because he works in the hospital he knows everybody. Somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody gave him the address for Fernando in September of 2001.
Remember that time? How old you were? Twenty years? So yes, of course you do. Who could forget? The entire world saw the fire in the sky. I could not sleep thinking that we were in a war and I was going to die without seeing my son in flesh and bone.
Hernán gave me the address thinking I would sleep better if I knew he had a place to live. But it was the opposite. Once I had the address, I could think of nothing else.
What kind of mother would stay away from her children?
Hernán said, Write to him. Tell him he should come home.
Even Lulú was against me going to Fernando. She said if I go after him he will run.
Lulú reads many magazines. According to the magazines if I focus on my life, stop thinking about things I can’t control, maybe like a good ending to a telenovela, Fernando will knock on the door, with flowers. Maybe grandchildren. Maybe a lotto ticket full of money.
I don’t know. Who are the people that write in these magazines? Not people like us.
Between you and me, it’s a mystery that Fernando has not come back in all these years. I don’t understand how he survived without me. When he left he had a job in the place for donuts downtown, but it paid him nothing. Life is expensive.
* * *
So when the city became more calm, I took a taxi to the address Hernán gave me in the Bronx. The lobby door, with no lock. Brown stains on the walls. The stairs, dark. A strange smell—it made me dizzy.
I knocked on the door 4H, checking Hernán’s writing of the address on the paper.
I heard the TV. I knocked again, hard. All I wanted was to take my son with me.
Fernando! I yelled through the door. It was late. People had to work the next day. But this was my chance. Fernando!
Then, a flaco man opened the door. He was wearing a transparent shirt, gold earrings, and makeup in the eyes. My heart fell to the floor. Maybe Hernán gave me the wrong address. This flaco, friends with my son?
I am Fernando’s mother, I said.
Umm … he’s not here? he said.
He lives here, right? I checked the address in my hand. Where is my son?
Look, you should go home, el flaco said. It’s late.
Fernando! I yelled even when he closed the door in my face. I knew he was there, so I was ringing and ringing the bell until some viejo came out of another apartment to yell to me for making noise.
Did I return? Of course. I was very hurt, but a mother does not give up.