From the bed, I said, You think I’m not Cuban but you also think our house was just a house.
He opened and shut the fridge, then a drawer; there was the sound of a metallic pull and snap. If he’d heard me, he was pretending he hadn’t. He came back into the bedroom with a plastic spoon and an open can of fruit cocktail, the kind that’s mostly peaches. He loved these little fruit-filled tins, made me or Leidy or my mom pour them, syrup and all, over two scoops of vanilla ice cream and bring them to him after dinner almost every night. It was a job we rotated, making and then delivering this dessert to him on the couch, and once, when he made me the maddest I’d ever been—a fight about Rawlings that led him to say he wouldn’t buy me a plane ticket, that I wouldn’t go to college at all, that he would never in his life allow it—I’d volunteered to prepare it. I was alone in the kitchen, and I blew my nose into my hand and then let the clear tear-induced snot drip out over the ice cream before covering it with the fruit, the syrup from the can matching the snot perfectly. I’d handed it to him, watched him eat and enjoy every bite.
—Here, he said, holding the can out to me. Eat this so you feel better.
I tried not to cry as I spooned the too-sweet fruit into my mouth. The cherry, only one per can as decided in some factory somewhere, was an artificial pink, more like a gumball than anything that had once been on a tree. I swallowed a peach slice without chewing it. There were maybe four in there total, along with something grainy and lighter that I took for a chunk of pear. I saved that for last.
—Do you need me to take you to your mother’s?
—Well eventually, yeah.
—Lizet, he said. You cannot stay here.
I held the spoon in front of my face. He raised his arms up to indicate the walls around him and yelled, There’s no room!
—I can sleep on your couch.
—That’s not even my couch! It’s Rafael’s!
I drank the syrup from the can, tasting more metal than sweetness.
—No, I said. That’s the couch from the family room. I remember it.
I finished off the syrup and said, You can take me on Saturday. Or maybe Sunday. It’s gonna depend.
He should’ve asked Depend on what, and I could’ve used that to leap into what I needed from him: show up with me and tell my mom she wasn’t going to any vigil.
—What! No! he said. No. I have to work tomorrow.
—You have to work on Good Friday?
—Yes, Lizet, I work every day. I’m not off reading books all the time on a four-year vacation. I’m paying for that vacation.
—One, I said, it’s not vacation, but think whatever you want.
I got up from the bed and walked as steadily as I could manage to the kitchen, pretending to look for the trash. He followed me out there, pulling my suitcase with him.
—And two, you’re not paying much compared to what you would if you’d stayed with Mom. So the least you can do is let me stay here until Saturday or Sunday morning.
To remain calm and distract myself from this mean truth, from how I’d said it as payback for him calling my time at Rawlings a vacation, I imagined myself descending on my mom’s apartment, my dad at my side, the two of us barging through the door just as she was putting on her makeup and practicing, in the bathroom mirror, what she’d say to the cameras that day, all while Dante and Leidy slept in the room across the hall from her. Wash that shit off your face, I’d say, and my dad would say, Now.
—You think the money I have to give your mother every month doesn’t go to your school bills? he yelled.
—I have to stay at least the night. At least.
—You’re obviously not taking math up there!
I opened the lower cabinets one by one and in no rush, until I found—in the cabinet under the sink—the one with the plastic grocery bag hanging from inside its door, being used for garbage.
—I’m taking calculus. It’s harder than math.
I held out the can and tilted it side to side, said too sweetly, Do you guys recycle?
—?Ah carajo! he yelled.
I dropped the can into the bag, which was already full of used paper towels and the milky sleeves that once held stacks of saltines, and went to the couch, passing right in front of Papi with my shoulders as relaxed as I could make them. I sat down, ran my hands over the vinyl on either side of me, sweeping imaginary crumbs to the floor. I slipped off my shoes and pulled my feet up, my legs curled at my side. He put his hands on top of his head, laced his fingers. Flecks of deodorant clung to his armpit hair like snow.
—We need to call your mother, he said.