The Leavers

I knew the proper words to respond, but didn’t say them, didn’t want to give you the power of making me switch languages, to talk only on your terms. A dense heat rose in my face and arms, like I was fighting against being shoved into a bag.

We were outside the bodega. I saw Mrs. Johnson from our building watching us. Your face was wrinkled and hurt, so I hugged you, hard, and you squeezed out of my arms and ran ahead of me, arms sticking out the wrist holes of your coat. Deming, I loved you so much. I made a note to buy you a new shirt. We wouldn’t need coats in Florida.

That night, I stayed up as you slept, waited for Leon to get home from work. You asserted yourself even while unconscious, flopping on your side, while Michael slept on his back with his arms and legs straight. I hadn’t been that much older when I had left home. It was good for a child to experience new things, learn how to be brave and independent. Like when you had fallen off a swing. It was scary, but I was proud of you for being strong. I wasn’t going to baby you. I wanted you to be smart, self-sufficient; to never be caught off guard.

When you were a baby, small enough to fit on top of a pillow, I couldn’t bear to be away from you, craved my skin against your skin. The city had seemed too harsh and loud for a child, and I wanted to protect you from the outside, ensure you’d be safe. I still did. I wanted to give you the chances I hadn’t taken for myself. Show you that you didn’t have to settle, stay put.

Streaks of light appeared in the sky. I drifted in and out of sleep and woke to Leon’s weight next to me. I curled into his shoulder, pressed myself against him, and he patted my back. “Go back to sleep. It’s late.”

“If we were both working at the restaurant, we’d go to sleep together every night, wake up together every morning.”

“Mm,” he said.

“Don’t you want to go with me?”

“I can’t leave my sister. She’s my family.”

“Vivian and Michael can come with us.”

“She doesn’t want to leave New York.”

“How do you know? Maybe she does and you don’t know it.”

“She called me today. Thought I was leaving without telling her. I didn’t know what she was talking about.”

“I don’t either.”

“You told Deming we were moving to Florida. I didn’t agree to that. And he told Michael, of course, and Michael got scared and told Vivian, and she called me. She was so upset.”

“I didn’t tell Deming we were moving.”

He pressed his finger to my lips. “Be quiet. You’ll wake the boys.”

I pushed his hand away. “You be quiet.”

“You want to take your son away from here, but what about what he wants?”

“Deming is a child, he doesn’t get to decide.”

Leon snorted. “A mother is supposed to sacrifice for her son, not the other way around.”

“You better take that back.” This man I had slept next to for years, this man I was supposed to marry—he’d never known me. “Take that back right now.”

A mother was supposed to lay down and die for her children, and Leon got to be called Yi Ba because he watched TV with you several afternoons a week. If he bought you a cheap toy, Vivian would crow, “How thoughtful!” and when he took you to the park the neighbors complimented him for being such a good daddy. But no one called me a good mama when I did those things. And now Leon was blaming me for wanting a better life?

I smacked the bed, hard, with the edge of my hand. “You think I don’t love my son? Go fuck yourself.”

You grunted in your sleep. Leon pulled me up and led me out of the bedroom.

We sat at the kitchen table in the dark and whispered as Vivian slept on the couch.

“You’ve never liked her, have you,” he said.

“Vivian? Of course I do. She’s my sister.”

“You wanted her to accept you without question.”

“Is that so wrong?”

Leon looked as if he was coming to realize an unpleasant truth.

“I was the new one,” I said. “You have each other.”

We were so close I could feel his breath on my face, warm and sour. He couldn’t meet my eyes, even in the dark. “You’re not a nice person sometimes.”

“I’m nice to you. I’m nice to Deming and Michael and Vivian, too.”

“You only want to go to Florida for yourself. Not for Deming or me. It’s always all about you.”

“No, you’ve got it all wrong.”

Across the room, Vivian snored, and in the bedroom you continued to dream steadily, perhaps of Power Rangers, or maybe that was last year’s fad. From behind the curtains the sun struggled to rise, and I said I wouldn’t go. We would stay in New York with him and Vivian. I would forget about Florida. But Leon’s warmth did not return, and it was as if his opinion of me had already altered beyond repair.

SO MANY TIMES IN the years after, I would revisit this night: plot a different path, see myself with Leon at the kitchen table, and the next day, instead of going to work, I would stay home and pick you up from school, take you out for donuts and tea. Didi would get her papers, and eventually, so would I.

But that didn’t happen. What I did was go to work. Thursdays brought a steady stream of customers to Hello Gorgeous, refreshing their manicures for the upcoming weekend, chipped polish wiped away and replaced with new coats. Some women debated over what color to choose, like it was as important a decision as picking a name for a child, while others came in already knowing the name of the shade they wanted, the same red their friend had, the same bronze an actress wore in a magazine picture. Brittle tips were shaped into triangles, feet that smelled like spoiled milk soaked, buffed, and scrubbed. Calluses, tough and hardened like mean nuggets of tree bark, were sanded down, dead skin scraped away.

After two mani-pedis and one pedicure, my next customer only wanted a mani. She chose a purple polish and held her hands out, primed for service. She was chewing gum, her mouth moving beneath a coat of brown lipstick.

Base coat, first coat. I dared my customer to look at me. Her bare nails were thin and yellow, a sign of too many manicures. I finished her right pinkie and twisted the bottle shut, glad I hadn’t been roped into waxing mustaches like the other girls. I switched on the hand dryer and motioned to the customer. “Wait to dry, okay, then we’ll do the second coat,” I said in English.

I checked my cell phone, which Michelle frowned upon. I yawned; I’d barely slept. In the morning, Leon had sought a truce. “I’ll think about Florida,” he said. “It’s a good opportunity for our family. If we have another child, we’ll have space for him.” Startled, I agreed. “We can talk more tonight,” Leon said. But when I embraced him, he didn’t hug me back. He kept his arms at his sides and presented his cheek for my kiss, not his lips.

The new girl at the next station was struggling to keep her brush steady. “It’s easier if you do it fast, or else the polish gets sticky,” I said. “Flick the brush, one-two-three, don’t give yourself time to think.”

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