He huffed like I’d said something funny, asked if I even knew where my dad lived since selling the house, if I’d even talked to him since August. When I said yes, I did, and yes, I had—that I’d seen my dad over Christmas but hadn’t bothered to tell him because it wasn’t his business and please, could he just stop talking and take me to the Villas—he knew right then that I’d find a different way back to the airport come Monday.
I hadn’t planned to see my dad, but the silence sitting between me and Omar the rest of the drive made me see how much I needed my dad’s help, and that I could’ve never asked him in advance. The angry rumble of the streets beneath me, the cologne-saturated air wafting up from the car seats, the strict grids of the neighborhoods out the window: all these things confirmed that this was the only way to ask him—just show up, my bag behind me, and tell my dad what we had to do in the morning.
—I don’t think anyone’s here, Omar said as he slowed down.
I ducked to look past his head and worried he was right: my dad’s town house was the only dark one of all those we’d passed on our way through the Villas. But his van was there. It was only ten forty-five—no way he’d be asleep already. All my life, even with my own late nights, he always stayed up past me as he shuffled bills and other papers at a living room cabinet that folded down, becoming, when he pulled a chair up to it, his desk.
—It’s fine, he’s here, I said. Open the trunk.
I was already out of the car and sliding along its side when Omar said from the driver’s seat, I’m not leaving you in this place like this.
He wouldn’t open the trunk. I asked him again. I knocked on the car, the metallic thuds sounding to me like the noise my fist would make against his head were I to knock on that. I knocked harder.
He still didn’t open the trunk; he got out of the car instead.
—I said I’m not leaving you here. I can’t. No one’s even here, are you crazy?
I kept knocking all the way through that. He came around to the back and laid his palms on the trunk, leaning forward over it after checking that his T-shirt covered his belt buckle, to avoid scratches.
—Get back in the car, he said.
I put my hand on the latch hidden below the boxed-in A ornament and flicked it over and over again, the sound of it worse than any damage I was really causing. Between these thunks, I said, Did you tell my mom I was coming?
—No, he said. Stop that already.
—You say anything to Leidy? Tell me the truth.
—No! Lizet, come on, quit it!
Inside the town house, at the window I remember being in the kitchen, a fluorescent light flickered and flickered and then finally stayed on.
I said in a singsong voice, I’m gonna break it.
Omar threw his hands up and ducked into the driver’s side. The latch suddenly had more resistance, could go past the metal piece I’d been slamming it against, and the trunk glided open with a hiss. I grabbed my bag and began hauling it out, letting it scrape against the lining at the edge of the trunk.
—Watch it, Omar said, back next to me, but he didn’t make a move to help. He knew better. And so did I: I slid my hand to the back of the suitcase to make sure the wheels cleared. I planted the thing on the ground next to me.
—Well thanks! I said. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled like a clown. Bye!
—El, are you serious?
—What? I said. Thank you for the ride here. What else do you want me to say?
—Who do you think you’re talking to? he said. He closed his eyes, put his hand over his face, smeared it down—a reset. He stared at my bare hand until someone said my name like a threat—my dad’s voice.
Omar stepped away and said with a forced laugh, Mr. Ramirez, hey, ?como anda, como está? He put out an arm to shake my dad’s hand, but my dad didn’t take it.
—What are you doing here, my dad said to me. You’re supposed to be at school.
He wore only a pair of jeans, paint splattered in the usual places, and a new gold chain I’d never seen circled his neck. He crossed his arms—the face of his watch flashing light at us—and opened his legs, leaned to the right to see me around Omar’s big block of a body. I couldn’t see my dad’s face though: he was backlit and still a little too far away, but from his voice I knew he was mad.
—I came home for Easter, I said.
—Easter? he said. Since when do you –
And then he stopped, looked up at the sky, said, Ay dios mío. He closed his legs and let his arms drop.
—Mr. Ramirez, Omar said. I just want to say I had no part in getting Lizet here like this, this was totally her idea, I didn’t know she’d make me drive here to your place.
—Omar, he said, you should go now.
—Yessir.
He put his hands in his pockets as he backed up against the car. My dad jerked his head toward the apartment door, recrossed his arms.
—Lizet, come inside. Now.
—Dad, I said.
But he’d already turned around and was heading in.
Omar rushed at me with wide steps and raised his palm in the air between us. He looked angrier than I’d ever seen him.
—I don’t know what you’re pulling here, he said, but I’ve never been bad to you, you know that, so there’s no reason for you to do me like this.
—There’s not?