“Si, si, adios,” she says quickly and hangs up.
The only people Mamá speaks Spanish to other than me are in Cuba: Papa, who she calls on the first of each month, and my sisters, who she calls every Sunday.
It is not the first of the month or Sunday.
“Who was that? Where is Nina?”
The collected, steady look on Mamá’s face worries me. I prop my arm against the counter, pour a glass of water, rinse and spit the lingering taste of vomit from my mouth into the sink. I see your face from last night, washed white under the shock of the overhead light, Alfonso scrambling from your bed, guilt writ large on his arresting face. I remember the strangled scream that escaped my throat, my body realizing that it had come upon a crisis even as I tried to convince myself it was a mistake and I had the wrong idea.
“Where is Nina?” I ask again, certain now that you are not here and neither is Alfonso.
Mamá faces me, legs apart, hands clasped, and I think of the time after the revolution when she handed me that plantain and told me to chop. She is ready to defend whatever it is she’s done. “Donde esta Nina?” I repeat, my voice rising with frustration.
“At school.”
“School? When did you take her?”
“Early this morning. I arranged it with Sister Katherine.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were asleep.”
“You could have woken me.”
“I thought it best not to.”
I refill my glass with tap water, drink it down, the cool expanding through my chest. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye but relieved that you are gone. I have no idea how to face this humiliation. I think of the blonde at Duke’s party in her short, colorful dress and wish he’d gone home with her, cheated on me like a regular man, returning hangdog in the accusing light of day. Then I could have kicked him out properly. Told neighbors and friends he was unfaithful, and everyone would understand. What do I say now? He likes little girls. Children. My child. It sickens me to think of it.
Out the window over the sink, I watch a crow land on the fence post, screeching hideously. We will never talk about last night, I decide. No one can know. It will harm you, and me, more than it will harm him.
“Where is Alfonso?” I say, keeping my back to Mamá.
“In Hell, God willing.”
I don’t argue. “You haven’t seen him this morning?”
“He was asleep on the couch when I left and gone when I got back.”
“Who was on the phone?”
“Chu Chu.”
I whirl around, the glass teetering on the edge of the counter. “What? Why would you call Chu Chu? What did you tell him?”
“The truth.”
“Why would you do that?”
This is what she’s prepared to defend. She has called your father and my ex-husband, a man who made me choose either my career or him. I am trembling, the water I just drank sloshing around in my hollow stomach. The thought of your father knowing what kind of a man I brought into my house, into your life, drowns me in shame. No matter how small a role he has played in our lives over the years, his opinion still holds power over me. Mamá, sanctimonious and determined, moves from the window and sits at the table. I am reminded of the revolution, how my parents sat across from each other, stoic and calm in the face of tragedy. This is my tragedy, now, and I feel totally out of control.
“Why did you call Chu Chu?” I say, steadying my voice. “What can he possibly do?”
“He will kick Alfonso out of this house. His daughter’s safety is in jeopardy, and if you are too pigheaded to see that, Chu Chu will make you.”
I tingle with anger. “I can kick him out myself!”
“You haven’t yet.”
“It’s barely morning! I just woke up!”
Mamá locks eyes with me, her voice low. “You should have kicked him out immediately.”
“Thrown him into the street in the middle of the night?”
“Exactly.”
“He slept on the couch.”
“Not good enough.”
A rage hits me, then turns on Mamá for being so rational, for being right, and then back at myself for being naive, but mostly the rage flies straight at Alfonso. I want to rip his hair out, claw his eyes. It amazes me to think how attracted to him I was last night, how envious I was of that girl he had his eye on. Now the thought of his flushed, drunken face rising from my daughter’s bed revolts every part of me.
I storm from the kitchen and into our bedroom. I pull his clothes from the drawers and closet and smash them into a suitcase. I dump his toothbrush and shaving kit in, slam the top down. The suitcase bulges as I lean in to latch it. I curse as I do this, out loud, in Spanish, spitting and swearing as I drag the suitcase down the hall, through the kitchen, past Mamá—who sits exactly as I left her—and out the front door. I kick the heavy luggage down the stone path, hard, bruising my toe and wincing in pain. I kick it again. I don’t care who sees. I’ll tell the neighbors he slept with another woman, anyway. When Alfonso shows up, I’ll scream the lie for everyone to hear. Damn him to hell.
Back inside, I slam and lock the door, catching a glimpse of my scrubbed-clean face in the mirror, my pale lips and showered hair that is drying into a frizzy puff. I take a deep breath, calming myself as I take a barrette from the hall table and secure my hair into a knot behind my head. I smile into the mirror, distorted, fake and then stick my tongue out at my reflection.
In the kitchen, I make coffee and ask Mamá if she would like a cup. “Si, por favor,” she says and I take two cups from the cabinet.
I am rung out, exhausted and hungover.
The practical task of scooping coffee from the tin into boiled water, the smell and warmth of the cup in my hand, grounds me. I think of the role Duke has promised me, Consuela, the success filling me with a bloated excitement that allows me to push the events of last night to the dark edge of my mind.
There it will become an outline, a perimeter, thin as a pencil mark, erasable with time, and we will never speak of it. I will call you tonight, tell you that Alfonso is gone and that I love you, and that will be that.
Chapter Seven
* * *
Chu Chu
Mother,
Except, that night stays between us, sharp and tender as if carved into me with the point of a knife. And when you call, you forget to tell me that it wasn’t my fault, that I did nothing wrong and that you forgive me.