*
For the second time in as many months, I’m packing a bag up, ready to leave. This time, it’s both easier and more difficult.
There’s no fear of getting caught before I flee, no one chasing after me. No choices to make about where to go or what to bring. Once Mom told me that Dad was in the hospital after a heart attack, I knew my time on Needle Eye was over.
Now I try to shove the comfortable shoes I bought into the suitcase. I sheathe my gyuto, wrap it in the rain jacket I never had to use. I have to put a knee on top of my luggage to get it to shut, and I try not to think of the finality of the zipper reaching the end. My whole life here is locked away inside one suitcase. Dad’s on a hospital bed and we haven’t said a word directly to each other in two months.
I check my phone to see if Emma’s changed her mind in the slightest, see only that Mom’s emailed me some flight information. I’ve got six hours to make it to the airport. It’s not enough time; it’s too much time. I keep picturing the heart monitor flatlining, keep remembering how much blood there was with Felix. I keep thinking there’s a chance I never see my dad alive again.
After I prop my suitcase up in a corner of the room, I go down the hall to see Elias. I knock a couple of times on the wooden door frame and then step inside. He’s in bed, sitting up with his back against the wall, a computer on his lap.
“What’s up, man?”
With no warning, I find myself unloading. Close to tears, I tell him how literally everything in my life has been flipped upside down in the last twenty-four hours. How I fucked up, and there’s no undoing the mistake.
“Shit,” Elias says, shutting his computer.
“Basically. I’m sorry I have to go on such short notice.” I suddenly realize that I might never see Elias again, that this is a good-bye. “I’m sorry I have to go at all.”
“Shit,” Elias says again, folding his hands in his lap. “That’s a shame, man. I’m gonna miss your cooking.”
I smile, feel myself come close to tears again. “I can’t thank you enough for all you did for me.”
“Don’t mention it.” He stands up from his bed and goes to put a shirt on. “When do you leave?”
“Now, I guess. My flight’s in a few hours.”
“Goddamn.” We stand there quietly for a moment, Elias with his hands on his hips. “At least you get to go back to some good Mexican food.”
“True.” I smile but find little solace in this silver lining. I look out the window, see the faintest glimmer of ocean beyond the trees. “I know you said, ‘Don’t mention it,’ but I have to. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t helped me out in the kitchen, if you hadn’t talked to Chef and stood up for me all those times. If I have any future in restaurants, it’s thanks to you.”
“Shut up. You’re making me tear up,” Elias says.
“I mean it,” I say. “I know we haven’t known each other long or anything, but you felt like a big brother to me. So thanks.”
Elias looks down at the floor, maybe trying to cover up the fact that he really is getting teared up. “It was my pleasure, every step of the way.” He surreptitiously wipes at his eyes and then looks up and steps over to hug me. “And, trust me, you most definitely have a future in restaurants.”
We embrace, and I feel myself about to crumble. I can’t believe I have to leave. This beautiful corner of the world, my place in it. It wasn’t perfect, but not much is.
Within an hour I’m on the ferry toward Seattle. I try calling Emma a few times, texting her what’s happened, tell her I have to go. I want to see her again, say good-bye in person, but without a response from her I have no choice but to board the boat and hope that, somehow, I’ll see her again. Even with the meal yesterday, the fact that I’ve cooked a dish that was served at a restaurant, Emma was the best thing that happened to me here. Shitty to know that for sure now that I’ve thrown it away.
When I roll my suitcase off the ferry and hail a cab, I can’t help but think that I’m leaving a part of myself on the island. I was whole again for a second there. Now it’s all unraveling.
The driver steps out to open the trunk, granting me time for one last look in the direction of Needle Eye. Except I can’t see a thing, no far-off silhouette, no sign of the green island in the distance and all it holds. The cabbie is in the way of traffic, and he tells me we have to move. So I climb into the car with a good-bye that feels as rushed as my arrival.
CHAPTER 31
HOSPITAL COFFEE
2 scoops instant coffee
2 packets sugar
1 packet gross non-diary powdered creamer
1 cup tepid water
METHOD:
Mexico City is a creature too big to see.
It’s strange how quickly I have forgotten what it feels like to fly in. How small you become when faced with so many lights. The city just keeps stretching out, like colored handkerchiefs being pulled from some magician’s sleeve. When we finally touch down on a recently rained-on runway, my neck hurts from craning to see the sights of my hometown, so much humanity sprawled out across a single valley. The whole time, I was trying to picture what Needle Eye would look like from above, how quickly it would pass by below, how hard it would be at night to spot its handful of lights. The lake would just be a stretch of darkness like everything else around it.
I replace the American SIM card in my phone with my old Mexican one, let Mom know that I’ve landed. She sounds thankful but exhausted and not just because it’s nearly one in the morning. I pass through immigration, pick up my suitcase from baggage claim and then get a taxi, feeling weird that everyone around is speaking Spanish again.
I go straight to the hospital. The nurses give me funny looks because of my luggage. It makes me think of showing up to the restaurant this same way, disheveled and lost, dragging a hastily packed life behind me. It’s not the same hospital that Felix was taken to on the Night of the Perfect Taco, though who the hell can differentiate between hospital hallways. I roll my suitcase down the linoleum, following the signs to try to find Dad’s room.
After a few wrong turns, I see Mom walk out a door, and I half call out, half whisper to her. She’s clearly been crying. And when she sees me there’s a fresh stream pouring out even as she runs to me. She holds me for a long time, tighter than she’s held me since I was a kid. She tells me that Dad underwent bypass surgery, and he’s stable, but they’re going to keep him for a few days.