—Don’t, I said, but I didn’t move. I kept my hands on the couch cushions. I said, If you don’t want me here, I’ll go to Omar’s. I don’t want to do that, I’d rather stay here, but it’s up to you. I cannot go to Mom’s yet.
I made sure to keep my shoulders still and my voice calm, a posture that went against everything rocking inside of me, everything I’d ever seen or been raised to do when we were furious with each other, and then I said, In fact, when I do go to Mom’s, I need you to go with me. I think it would work better if she saw us both.
I swallowed. I said, Because I don’t think seeing me is going to be enough. I think everything that happened with you and her is part of why she’s latched on to this kid. I’m not blaming you, I swear, I know it’s my fault too, but I just – I cannot do this by myself.
I looked down at my hands, the skin on the backs of them still cracked from the cold that continued to reign over the Rawlings campus, refusing to let in the spring, a season I’d yet to meet. The one-year anniversary of the day’s mail bringing news of my acceptance had passed a couple weeks earlier. What we were coming up on, then, was the anniversary of me telling my parents I’d applied and that I’d already sent in the paperwork saying I accepted the offer, that Rawlings had happily sent me a waiver for the deposit when I called to ask if I could have just a little more time to find the money. They said we qualified as a low-income family, I’d said to my father just before he’d torn through the house, making holes in the walls with his fists. Now, he put those fists in the pockets of his jeans. He almost smiled.
—You flew down here by yourself, he said. You found that school, you filled out all those papers, all by yourself. You got down here for Thanksgiving by yourself. You didn’t need me then. You didn’t even see me that first trip.
My hands went numb, my feet suddenly freezing at my side. If he’d screamed at me I’d have known what to do, but he seemed just as calm as I was pretending to be.
—The best I can do, he said, is you can stay here tonight. Tomorrow I’ll take you to your mother’s. That’s it, that’s the best I can do.
—Okay, but –
—But nothing. I’m not getting down. I’m not going inside. I’m not helping with this. I see the news too. I’m not getting involved with whoever she thinks she is now.
—Okay, I said again, trying to find some calm inside me. Okay, but what about – forget her, what if you do it just to help me?
He reached over, and I thought he was going to touch my shoulder or my cheek or something, and the thought of that kind of contact made my eyes water, made me worry I would undo this new way of behaving and throw my arms around his legs, my face pressed into his stomach as I cried, You can’t do this to me, you can’t leave me on my own like this. But he didn’t reach for me: he grabbed the cordless phone on the coffee table. My suitcase waited in the middle of the living room, where he’d left it.
—You’re still at that school, right? I’m helping you enough.
He dialed with his thumb and before I could ask who he was calling, he barked, ?Rafael! ?Oye! Quédate la noche allá con tu mujer, que tengo alguien – no, cochino, mi hija, que llegó aquí de sorpresa del colegio. Sí, sí. No, gracias. And he hung up.
When he saw me crying—only a little, and calmly, no move to wipe my face—he sighed and said, You can have Rafael’s bed. He just changed the sheets.
—I’m fine here, I said.
I thought he’d try to convince me, maybe grab my suitcase and put it in Rafael’s room, but he smacked the sides of his jeans and said, Do whatever you want, Lizet.
He walked to his room but stopped first at Rafael’s door, turned the knob, and opened it all the way. When he got to his own doorway, he didn’t turn around, but he yelled, I swear he just changed the sheets, I saw him do it this morning.
He didn’t close his own door behind him. I gave up after a few minutes: more than anything, sleeping on a couch would set me up for everything to go worse from then on. The least I could do for myself was take the bed my dad had negotiated for me, get some real rest. I dragged my bag to Rafael’s room, the wheels catching on the overly plush black rugs he’d used to pad the places around his bed. I lay in a straight line on top of the mattress and slept like that, all my clothes still on, without even washing my face or brushing my teeth, as much as I wanted to do those things. But I didn’t want to open my suitcase, dig around for my toothbrush, ask my dad where he kept his toothpaste. Even after I heard his snores half an hour later, even after I peered in and saw that he was on top of his bed, facedown and hugging his pillow under his face, pants still on, also refusing the comfort of covers, even then I still kept that stale taste in my mouth, told myself I’d get rid of it come morning.