The night before Papi got on the plane,
I almost asked him not to go.
It would have been the first full sentence
I’d spoken to him in almost a year.
We haven’t been close, not like we were,
since I stopped playing chess,
since he tried to force me to go back,
since I saw the certificate in the sealed envelope.
When I quit playing chess,
he told me I broke his heart.
I never told him he’d broken mine.
In the Dominican Republic,
before he met Mami & came here
& started this life for us
Papi was an accountant,
a man of numbers & money,
but here he hustled his way into
owning a billiards on Dyckman Street.
I don’t believe in magic
or premonitions. Not like Papi,
who crossed himself every time he left the house.
Not like Mami, who tries to interpret dreams.
But on the night before Papi left for DR,
something yanked on my heart,
& I wanted to ask him to stay.
But I never said the words.
& Papi did something
he hadn’t done in over a year:
came to my room to say good night
& tangled his hand in my hair
while I was two-strand twisting my curls.
I hate when he messes up my fresh wash,
but I also missed him. My fingers caught in his. Held.
Before I moved away. Removed myself from his reach.
“Me tengo que ir, los negocios. Ya tú sabes.”
He’s always back right before my birthday in September,
but every year around this time,
Mami’s spine becomes rigid, her lips pulled tight
as sneaker laces biting into the tongue.
As his departure nears it seems like I can see
the space between my parents stretch & grow.
& she refuses to drive him to the airport
despite how much I beg her so that I can be there when he leaves.
Papi stopped trying to joke her out of her ill humor years ago,
& I wonder if she now regrets that his last few days
here, at home, alive,
were spent in bed with her anger.
I did not reply to him. Whenever he left,
he said it was for business. I now knew he was lying.
He fiddled with the light switch in my room.
“Negra bella, te quiero. I know things haven’t been normal
between us, but I hope when I come back, we can talk about it.”
I peeked at him from the mirror
while my fingers twirled & twirled my hair.
I remember how I started to say something,
then yanked the words before they could get loose.
He shook his head as if changing his mind.
“While I’m gone, cúidate, negra.”
& I never said a word.
Once, when I was still young to chess competitions,
I was in a tournament with all older kids.
I’d made it to one of the last rounds
& had been playing well the whole time.
I was convinced I was going to win the whole thing.
But I missed an opponent’s trap & was put in check.
My hands shook, tears welled up in my eyes,
the clock kept ticking, but I wouldn’t move.
When I finally looked up, I could see Papi watching
through the glass of the double doors.
He didn’t blink, he didn’t shake his head,
he didn’t do anything, but somehow I knew.
I straightened my back; I wiped my eyes.
I knocked down my king.
The train ride home was silent.
But before we got off at our stop,
Papi turned to my nine-year-old self & said:
“Never, ever, let them see you sweat, negra.
Fight until you can’t breathe, & if you have to forfeit,
you forfeit smiling, make them think you let them win.”
Four Days After
on the news
blunt force
trauma on impact
medical examiner
unidentifiable
extreme forces
not intact
unconfirmed
dental records
anthropological forensics
tattoos fingerprints
teeth personal items
I watch video footage
of the plane spearing into the ocean.
The waves rising open arms welcome.
I wait for news that the passengers
got their life jackets on.
That there were previously unreported life rafts.
That their initial assessment was wrong
That the Coast Guard found someone breathing.
The news only repeats the same words:
No survivors found. The number of dead: unconfirmed.
Where the plane went down is 120 feet deep.
Divers have been jumping into the water,
fifteen-minute intervals at a time,
trying to pull up what might be left.
I tell Mami we need to go to Queens,
the closest shore to where the plane fell.
Dozens of people have been lighting candles
by the water. The small hope inside me is illogical.
I know this. But it urges me to go. If I
can just be as close as possible to the crash site,
my presence might change the outcome.
All Mami does is drag herself to her room
where she denies my request
with a sharp but quiet click.
Papi sat me in front of a chessboard
when I was three years old.
He patiently explained all the pieces,
but I still treated each one like a pawn.
He loved . . . loves to tell the story
of how I would give up my king
all willy-nilly but would protect my knight
because “Me gustan los caballitos!”
(In my defense, why would a three-year-old
pick a dry-ass-looking king over a pony?)
But even when I was bored, I was also good
at memorizing the patterns for openings
& closings, for when to castle & when to capture.
I was fascinated by the rhythm of the game;
it came as naturally to my body as when Papi
taught me how to dance. It’s all just steps & patterns.
By the time I was four,
I could beat Papi if he wasn’t paying attention.
On my fifth birthday, I defeated him
in just six moves.
After that, he would take me downtown on the C train
to compete against the Washington Square Park hustlers
who played for money. They were straight sharks
& thought the little girl too cute to beat.
But Papi would put a twenty-dollar bill down, & those dudes
learned quick: shorty had patient fingers & played three moves ahead.
Most important, I loved how much
Papi loved to watch me win.
I began competing in chess tournaments
when I was in second grade.
From September to June,
Papi never missed one of my matches.
Never complained about picking me up from
late team meetings or the cost of additional coaching,
even though I knew he must have cut funds
from other places & people to afford both.
Every couple of years
he built a new shelf with his own hands
& put up my trophies & plaques,
pinned up my ribbons & awards.
“Negra bella, lo vas a ganar todo.”