I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and jerked it past him. I waited for the sound of his car door to slam but it didn’t come.
—Lizet, what the fuck did I even do!
—Like you don’t know, I yelled. You should go now. You heard my dad.
He stomped to the car and dropped his body into it, slammed the door and lowered the window in one smooth motion. He said, more to the steering wheel than to me, I give up with this shit.
I slapped my own chest and yelled, Why don’t you watch the news and figure it out yourself like I did?
—That’s why you’re mad at me? El, what the fuck were you gonna do from up there?
I pointed at him and said, Exactly, Omar. That right there, what you just said? That’s exactly why I’m here. To fucking do something since you and Leidy obviously didn’t.
—Oh! Okay yeah, he yelled. So now you know how to handle everything, huh? You got it all figured out, don’t you. You think you’re so fucking smart.
He threw the car in reverse, shook his head as he turned the wheel. I’d made it halfway up the concrete leading to my dad’s door when Omar lowered the passenger-side window and yelled my name, made me stop.
—Whose fault is it that you weren’t here, huh? Maybe you need to think about that.
I was ready for the tire screech of him driving off, a final flourish that would give me the space to yell Fuck you like the end of any normal fight, but the only sound was the mechanical whir of him putting the window up, the click of his locks keeping me out, the hum of the engine as he rolled away. And then unexpected, terrifying quiet.
My dad had left the front door open, so the cold air inside and the rattling of the window unit met me seconds before I crossed the threshold. All the lights were on now, and the door to his bedroom, visible from the apartment’s entrance, was open. He sat on the edge of his bed, his hands rubbing his knees as he mumbled to the carpet. He’d grown back his goatee: he looked like my father again. The bed beneath him was neatly made, and the thought of him making his bed, scooting around it to pull the sheet corners tight, made so little sense to me that I almost sat down on the couch and held my breath to wait out the rocking feeling in my chest.
But I didn’t have the chance. He waved me into his room, saying, Hurry up, come here. I left my suitcase by the couch but he said, No, that thing too, come on. I held my palm out toward it as if to ask why, and once I’d dragged it in, he murmured, Because Rafael, he’s not home yet, I don’t want him to think – why the hell do you make me explain everything to you! Why do you always ask so many fucking questions!
I blurted out, Oh please, don’t even start. If that were true, I’d know why you sold the house like that.
The second surprise of the night for me—that I said that, that I let the fuck you trapped inside find its way out to the person who deserved it the most.
He sat up straight, stunned, and I backed away from the bed’s edge. His chest stopped moving. His hands froze on his knees. He was in that instant making a choice: to slap me for what I’d just said and accuse me of the disrespect I’d shown, or to let it sit there in the room so as to find out if the reason I’d shown up out of nowhere was something more substantial, something even more worthy of punishment. His upper lip twitched, his mustache hairs curling into it like the spirals holding together a notebook.
—I sold the house because I couldn’t think of a better way to hurt your mother.
He cleared his throat, and his next words came out a little louder.
—I thought you’d figure that out without me having to tell you. You’re the smart one, remember?
His face puckered like he’d been hit with a rush of heartburn, his elbows locked and his hands still on his knees. He said, Why would you be hurt? You’d already decided to go.
He resumed rubbing his knees over his jeans, the sound scratchy.
—Shit, you’d already told that school you were coming. And I thought your sister would move in with that asshole once he got over himself. So I figured, might as well make Lourdes miserable for once.
He shrugged but turned his face to the wall.
I focused on his room’s disgusting ceiling, the same smear of lumps and stains as the rest of the town house, the rims of my eyes feeling less full with that shift. The water rings in that room had been painted over, though I didn’t have to strain to find them lurking in the corners. I knew if I said, Well you were wrong, that everything would spill over in a bad way, into the kind of tear-laden brawl he was used to having with my mom. All I had to do was look at him and it would start, familiar and easy. So I pointed my chin higher.
—Lizet, come on. It’s just a house, it’s over. Please, okay?