He works in the town right near the airfields,
so I know he’s grumbling only because like his rooster
he’s ornery & routinized down to every loud crow.
He even grumbles when I kiss his cheek thanks,
although I see him drive off with a smile.
I wait in the terminal, tugging the hem of my uniform skirt,
knowing Papi will be red-faced & sputtering at how short it is.
I search the monitor, but his flight number is blank.
A big crowd of people circle around a giant TV screen.
(Tía has a theory,
that when bad news is coming
the Saints will try to warn you:
will raise the hair
on the back of your neck,
will slip icicles
down your spine,
will tell you brace brace
brace yourself, muchacha.
She says, perhaps,
if you hold still enough,
pray hard enough,
the Saints will change fate
in your favor.
Don Mateo’s AC was broken
& the hot air left me sweaty,
pulling on my shirt to ventilate my chest.
Without warning a stillness.
A cold chill saunters through a doorway in my body,
a tremble begins in my hands.
My feet do not move.)
An airline employee
& two security guards
approach the crowd
like gutter cats
used to being kicked.
& as soon as the employee
utters the word accident
the linoleum opens
a gnashing jaw,
a bottomless belly,
I am swallowed
by this shark-toothed truth.
Papi was not here in Sosúa the day that I was born.
Instead, Mamá held her sister Tía Solana’s hand
when she was dando a luz.
I’ve always loved that phrase for birthing:
dando a luz giving to light.
I was my mother’s gift to the sun of her life.
She revolved around my father,
the classic distant satellite
that came close enough to eclipse her once a year.
But that year, the one I was born, he was busy
in New York City. Wired us money & a name in his stead.
Told Mamá to call me Camino.
Sixteen years ago, the day I was born, was light-filled.
Tía has told me so. It is the only birthday Papi ever missed.
A bright July day. But it seems this year he’ll miss it too.
Because the people at the airport are wailing, crying,
hands cast up: it fell, they say. It fell.
They say the plane fell right out the sky.
It’s always been safer to listen to Papi’s affection
than it is to bear his excuses. Easier to shine
in his being here than bring up the shadow of his absence.
Every year for my birthday he asks me what I want.
Since the year my mother died, I’ve always answered:
“To live with you. In the States.”
I’ve heard him tell of New York so often you’d think
I was born to that skyline. Sometimes it feels like I have
memories of his billiards, Tío’s colmado, Yankee Stadium,
as if they are places I grew up at,
& not just the tall tales he’s been sharing
since I was a chamaquita on his knee.
In the fall, I start senior year at the International School.
My plan has always been to apply to
& attend Columbia University.
I told Papi last year this dream of premed,
at that prestigious university, in the heart of the city
that he calls home. & he laughed.
He said I could be a doctor here. He said
it’d be better for me to visit Colombia the country
than for him to spend money at another fancy school.
I did not laugh with him. He must have realized
his laugh was like one of those paper shredders
making a sad confetti of my hopes.
He did not apologize.
It is a mistake, I know.
A plane did not crash.
My father’s plane did not fall.
& if, if, a plane did fall
of course my father
could not have been on it.
He would have known
that metal husk was ill-fated.
Tía’s Saints would have warned him.
It would be like in the movies,
where the taxi makes a wrong turn,
or mysteriously the alarm does not go off
& Papi would be scrambling
to get to the airport only to learn
he had been saved. Saved.
This is what I think the whole long walk home.
For four miles I scan the road & ignore
catcalls. I know Don Mateo would come back to get me
if I called, but I feel frozen from
the inside out. The only things working
are my feet moving forward & my mind
outracing my feet.
I create scenario after scenario;
I damn everyone else on that flight
but save my father in my imagination.
I ignore the news alerts
coming through on my phone.
I do not check social media.
Once I get to my callejón,
I smile at the neighbors
& blow kisses at Vira Lata.
It isn’t true, you see?
My father was not on that plane.
I refuse.
Papi boards the same flight every year.
Tía & I are like the hands of a clock:
we circle our purpose around his arrival.
We prepare for his exaggerated stories
of businesspeople who harrumph over tomato juice
& flight attendants who sneak winks at him.
He never sleeps on flights, instead plays chess on his tablet.
He got me one for my birthday last year,
& before he boarded his flight this morning
we video-chatted.
They’re saying it’s too early to know about survivors.
I am so accustomed to his absence
that this feels more like delay than death.
By the time I get home, Tía has heard the news.
She holds me tight & rocks me back & forth,
I do not join her in moaning ay ay ay.
I am stiff as a soiled rag that’s been left in the sun.
Tía says I’m in shock. & I think she is right.
I feel just like I’ve been struck by lightning.
When a neighbor arrives, Tía lets me go.
I sit on el balcón & rock myself in Papi’s favorite chair.
When Tía goes to bed, I go stand in front of the altar
she’s dedicated to our ancestors. It’s an old chest, covered
in white cloth that sits behind our dining room table.
It’s one of the places where we pray & put our offerings.
I sneak one of the cigars Tía has left there. I carefully cut
the tip, strike a match, & for a moment consider kissing
that small blue flame. I lift my mouth to the cigar. Inhale.
Hold the smoke hard in my lungs
until the pain squeezes sharp in my chest
& I cough & cough & cough,
gasping for breath,
tears springing to my eyes.
I rock rock rock until the sun creaks over the tree line.
I listen for the whine of a taxi motor,
for Papi’s loud bark of a laugh, his air-disrupting voice