“And I’ll even make the tacos,” Sam said.
My dad looked at both of us and said, “Wow.” But he knew us. He knew there was something else coming. I could tell by the way he put the newspaper down.
“And?” he said.
“And,” I said, “Fito’s phone died. Which really sucks. I mean, his phone sucked anyway.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “It really sucked. It was one of those cheapos from Walmart.”
My dad did a wince thing. “It’s what he could afford, Sam.”
“I know, I know, Mr. V. I can be such a brat. But we were thinking we wanted to get him a smartphone for his birthday. You know, Lina has me on her family plan, and you have Sally on your plan, so we thought maybe we’d put Fito on one of our plans, and the phone would be, like, super cheap. Sally has some money, and you know—?what do you think?”
“Well, if you can’t save the world, at least you’ve decided you’re going to save Fito.”
Sam crossed her arms. “Don’t say it like that—” And then she stopped. “He’s not like a project. He’s our friend. We love Fito.”
“Yeah, we do,” I said.
Dad smiled. “I get that. So you need a partner in crime?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“Why not? Tomorrow after school, we’ll all go get Fito a phone.”
“Great,” I said.
“Okay, then,” my dad said.
“Okay, then,” I said.
Sam was smiling. We were happy. And then she got this look on her face—?as if she had something else to say. And when Sam had something to say, she was going to say it. She looked right at my dad. “Mr. V? I don’t know what to call you now. Mr. V doesn’t seem to fit anymore.”
“You can call me Vicente. That is my name, after all.”
“That seems sort of disrespectful.”
“This coming from the girl who used to refer to her mother as Sylvia?”
“Yeah, but I only called her that behind her back.”
Dad grinned.
“What to call me?” he said. “How to solve this problem. You have something in mind?”
“Actually, I do,” she said, sounding very serious.
Dad just waited for her to finish what she’d started to say.
“Well,” she said, looking really shy, “I’m going to be eighteen in August. And then I’ll be an adult.”
“Legally, anyway,” my dad said.
“Yeah,” Sam said, “legally. I was thinking maybe, well, you know, you’re really the only dad I’ve ever known. You know, it’s kind of been like that, hasn’t it?”
My dad grinned some more as he nodded.
“Have I been a big pain in the ass?”
“Nope,” he said. “I don’t know what we would have done without you.”
Sam had this I-think-I’m-going-to-cry look on her face. “You mean that?”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean, Sam.”
“I’m glad,” she said, “because I have this idea in my head that you might want to adopt me. You know, make things official before I turn, you know, legal.”
I saw my dad’s face light up. “Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m sure,” she said.
Dad thought a moment. “We can go through a legal adoption, if that’s what you want. Let me just say that you’ve been my daughter for long time now, Sam. Adoption or no adoption. And you don’t need a piece of paper to call me Dad.”
Tears were running down her face. And then she waved at him. “Hi, Dad,” she said.
And Dad waved back. “Hi, Sam.”
Sister
I WAS IN MY room thinking about things. Life has a logic all its own. People talk about the highway of life, but I think that’s crap. Highways are nice and paved, and they have signs telling you which way to go. Life isn’t like that at all. There are days when great things happen and everything is beautiful and perfect, and then, just like that, everything can go straight to hell. It’s like getting drunk. At first it feels kinda nice and all relaxed. And all of a sudden the room is spinning and you are throwing up, and, well, maybe life is a little like that.
I was thinking of making a list of all the great things that were happening and all the shitty things that were happening, the things that were making me crazy. But what good was that? Part of me was really happy. It was like Dad said—?adoption or no adoption, Sam had always been my sister. And Dad had always been her dad.
To know something you’d always known. To really know it. Wow.
Yeah, Mima was still dying and I still hadn’t come up with the courage to open my mother’s letter and I still felt unsettled about a lot of things. I heard Uncle Tony’s voice in my head: I think that kid’s gonna be devastated.
I texted Sam: What doing?
Sam: Reading. Thinking
Me: Thinking?
Sam: I want to change my last name Me: ?
Sam: Want to change my last name to Avila Me: Avila?
Then I saw her standing in my doorway.
I look at her. “Avila?”
“Yeah, Avila. It was my mother’s name before she got married. And I got to thinking that I really never knew my father.”
“It’s not too late.”
“I think it is. Anyway, that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point?”
“See, Sally, she’s dead now. And I want to take her name. That’s what I want. I asked her once why she didn’t take her name back after she divorced my father. She said, ‘I married him. I took his name. I’m good with that.’ I think my mom always defined herself in terms of the men around her. She kept the name Diaz because she told herself that at least she’d been married once. That’s what I think.” She gave me one of her I’m-proud-of-myself looks. “Yup, I’m going to officially change my name. In honor of my mother.”
She walked up to me and kissed me on the top of the head as I sat at my desk. I was holding my mother’s letter.
“God, you’re smart, Sammy. And me? Stasis.”
She stared at the letter. “You’ll figure it out, Sally.”
“Will I?”
“I believe in you, Sally.” She got real quiet. “I still cry, you know? I still ask myself what if? What if Sylvia hadn’t died?”
“Maybe we shouldn’t play that game anymore.”
“We can’t help ourselves. Sylvia and I—?we fought to the bitter end.”
“Maybe that’s how you loved each other.”
“It is how we loved each other. That’s really sad, Sally. And it can’t be undone.”
“We can’t live in regret, Sam.”
“Maybe we both live in regret. You’ve asked yourself a hundred times what if your mother had never died, haven’t you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You hate to talk about this.”
“Yeah, I do.” I put the letter on my desk, ran my hand across it, and asked myself, What would happen if I met my bio father face to face? What if, Sam? What if?
Mothers
THE WIND WAS COLD. And it looked as if it might snow.
I loved the snow.
I loved the feel of the cold wind on my face.