“Not that it’s any of your business, but Jasmeen and I had an equal marriage. I supported her dreams,” Dad said, spitting out the words like they were marbles that had been stuck in his throat for five years. “And she supported mine.”
“My daughter did everything,” Poppy said, his voice rising. “She raised the kids, kept house, and used her salary to bail you out of every mess you make. Equal marriage? You take all the dreams and leave her all the stress. That was equal? You work her to death! ¡Pobrecita! No wonder my baby had the heart attack at only thirty-nine.”
At this revelation, Zoey’s own heart nearly stopped. Mami’s death wasn’t Dad’s fault. It… it couldn’t be. Right? She glanced at José to see what he thought, but her brother looked as shocked as she felt. His eyes were wide, staring at Poppy.
“I won’t have you speak about me that way in front of my own children, Rafael,” Dad said, his voice low and deadly. His eyes narrowed into thin slits.
Poppy crossed his arms again and an angry train of Spanish words barreled from his lips. The only word Zoey caught was her mom’s name, Jasmeen.
But Dad stood up so fast his chair fell backward onto the brown linoleum floor with a loud bang. “How dare you!” Dad roared.
Zoey gaped at him, shocked by his sudden anger and surprised that he’d understood Poppy. She’d thought Dad, the only non-Cuban in their family, spoke even less Spanish than she did. After all, it was he who’d hidden away all of Mami’s Spanish music CDs when she died. Taken away every reminder of her culture—from the drawings of guardian angels beneath their mattresses to the hourglass-shaped cafetera Cubana she’d used to make strong coffee when Dad went on business trips. But apparently he understood plenty.
“This is my house, I can speak the truth as I see it!” Poppy shouted, getting to his feet now, fists balled at his sides. Both men leaned forward menacingly with only the wooden table between them.
Zoey’s family had always been loud. Really loud. Though their arguments were never physical. But now for the first time in her life, Zoey was afraid that Dad and Poppy might actually exchange blows.
“Stop it! Please! Mami wouldn’t want you to fight. Everyone just stop!”
Startled, Poppy and Dad glanced at Zoey as if they’d forgotten she and José were still listening. The invisible fishing line reeling them toward each other was suddenly, thankfully, broken. Dad took a step back. Blinking, Poppy began cleaning his glasses with a napkin.
“No more fighting,” Zoey ordered again, choking back tears. And then she bolted up the stairs to her mother’s old room.
* * *
“It’s going to be okay,” José told Zoey later. He was her third visitor that evening. Not long after their disaster of a dinner, Dad had shuffled in and sheepishly stroked her hair for a couple of minutes. Then he’d confirmed he was leaving early the next morning and asked her to text or call him every day. About an hour later, Poppy had checked in, mumbling about the importance of a good night’s sleep before vanishing into the local news and his nightly cup of manzanilla tea. It was the closest either of them would come to apologizing for upsetting her.
“No. It won’t,” Zoey answered without glancing up at José, who’d perched on the edge of her bed. “Dad’s moving without us, and Poppy’s losing his bowling alley. Everything sucks.”
Zoey couldn’t imagine not having Dad or José around, but soon—very, very soon—she’d have to get used to life without both of them. Zoey curled under the soft ivory quilt her grandmother had made for Mami, wishing she was one of the tiny embroidered birds on it. Birds never had to worry about their families falling apart.
“We can handle the bowling alley,” José said confidently. “I’ve been Googling all night. I’ll fix the broken machines in the arcade. You’ll help me. We’ll get the place running better than it has in years.”
Zoey grunted, her head still buried under Mami’s blanket. The Advil had long since worn off and the cramps were starting again. When would this day end?
“Come on, come out of there,” José said, yanking the quilt off her head. “Don’t worry about Dad, either. You know he’ll be back here in five minutes, chasing some new dream. Maybe this time with a motorcycle. That would be sweet, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“And we’ll be too busy helping Poppy to miss him.”
“I guess.”
“Aaaand,” José said, dragging the word out for dramatic effect, “at least we know we get to stay in one place for the summer. This might be an amazing opportunity to, like, you know, make new friends or something.”
“Or something,” Zoey repeated.
“I don’t know about you, but I get tired of hanging out with myself.”
“I don’t. I like hanging out with you,” Zoey said, her lips involuntarily lifting into a tiny smile. José grinned back and scooped Zoey into a quick hug before padding off soundlessly in his socks.
“I mean it,” Zoey called after José, feeling better.
“Good! Cause you’ll be seeing plenty of me when we grease that pinball machine tomorrow. Gotta work fast to finish before college starts,” he called back, making Zoey’s stomach cramp up again. She wished José hadn’t reminded her that he was leaving in a few weeks. That one way or another, the people she loved always left her behind.
4
The following morning was gray and rainy—it matched Zoey’s mood perfectly. She’d pretended to be asleep when Dad slipped into her room to say goodbye at the crack of dawn, because she thought it would be too painful to say the words, then cried at the window as she watched him leave. Now Zoey was trapped in the bowling alley, passing screwdrivers and wrenches to José, and wishing she could go outside and kick all her blah gray feelings into a reassuringly black-and-white soccer ball.
“Hammer?” José lay under the broken pinball machine. All Zoey could see of him was his legs and his hand sticking out.
He’d been working for three hours, and Zoey was starting to wonder whether trying to fix the pinball machine was pointless. Not just because José wasn’t a professional repairman and quite likely didn’t know what he was doing, but because, according to Poppy, Gonzo’s should’ve been busy on a rainy day like today. And it was totally empty. Apparently all the beachgoers had decided to stay home or go to the movies.
How would Zoey ever find Poppy more customers in time to save his bowling alley?
“Pliers?” José requested.
Zoey handed them over without glancing up from the picture of a soccer field she was doodling on a napkin. Even if the weather had been cooperating, Zoey didn’t know if there were any soccer fields near Poppy’s house. She might not be able to play soccer again until school started. Wherever that might be.
“I’m heading out to pick up la pizza,” Poppy called. “Mija, take care of the customers if any come.”
“Okay,” Zoey called back, watching her grandfather through the window as he opened his old blue umbrella beneath the overhang outside the bowling alley’s front door.