My mother walked into the kitchen and shook her head. “It’s sweet that some people kiss their dogs. But me, I love a dog by feeding it.”
“Maybe it’s because you like cats more than dogs.”
“I like cats. I like dogs, too. But I don’t like them in my bed—and I don’t go around kissing them.” And then she looked right at Legs. “And lucky for you that you have Ari as your master. Otherwise, you’d be sleeping out in the yard like any good old-fashioned self-respecting dog.” She cut a piece of cheese, walked up to Legs—and fed it to her. “That’s how you love a dog,” she said.
“No, Mom, that’s how you bribe a dog.”
* * *
My dad and I looked over the camping supplies. “So, you and Dante are going camping?”
“What’s that grin you’re wearing?”
“It’s just that I’m trying to picture Dante on a camping trip.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I have my work cut out for me. He’ll do all right.”
“We used to go camping all the time.”
“Why did we stop?”
“I don’t know. You loved going camping. You were always such a serious boy. But when you went camping, you seemed to loosen up. You laughed a lot and you were so in awe of everything around you. You’d pick up anything you could—and you’d turn it over and over in your hands as if you were trying to get to the bottom of its mystery.
“I remember the first time I lit a campfire with you. That look of wonder in your eyes. You were maybe four years old. And you grabbed your mother’s hand and shouted, ‘Mom! Look! Fire! Dad made fire!’ It was easier for me when you were a little boy.”
“Easier?”
“A man like me.” He stopped. “A man like me can show a child his affection, but it’s harder…” He stopped. “You get used to not talking. You get used to the silence. It’s hard, you know, to break a silence that becomes a part of how you see yourself. Silence becomes a way of living. Ari…” He looked down at the floor—then looked back up at me.
I knew there were tears running down my face. I didn’t even try to fight them off.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t love you. It’s just that, well, you know.”
“I know, Dad.”
I understood what my father was trying to say. I leaned into him, and I was trembling. Trembling and trembling—and I found myself crying into my father’s shoulder like a little boy. He put his arms around me and held me as I cried. I knew that something was happening between me and my father, something important—and there weren’t any words for what was happening, and even though words were important, they weren’t everything. A lot of things happened outside the world of words.
I didn’t know if I was crying because of what my father had said. I think that was part of it. But, really, I think I was crying about a lot of things, about me and my desire for another boy’s body, which was mysterious and terrifying and confusing. I was crying about my brother, whose ghost haunted me. I was crying because I realized how much I loved my father, who was becoming someone I knew. He wasn’t a stranger anymore. I was crying because I had wasted so much time thinking shitty things about him, instead of seeing him as a quiet, kind man who had suffered through a hell called war and had survived.
That’s why I was crying.
My mother had said that they were just people, she and my father. And she was right. Maybe that was a sign that I was starting to grow up, the knowledge that my parents were people and that they felt the same things that I felt—only they’d been feeling those things for a helluva lot longer than I had, and had learned what to do about those feelings.
I slowly pulled away from my father and nodded. He nodded back. I wanted to memorize that soft smile he was wearing on his face and carry it with me everywhere I went. When I turned to walk back up the basement steps, I saw my mother standing at the foot of the stairs. Now I knew what people were talking about when they said somebody cried “tears of joy.”
Twenty-Nine
Dear Dante,
I used to wonder about boys like you who cried—and now I’ve fucking turned into one of those boys. I’m not sure I like it. I mean, it’s not that I’m crying for nothing, I mean, hell, I don’t know what I mean. I’m changing. And it’s as if the changes are all coming at me all at once. And the changes, they’re not bad. I mean, they’re good. They’re good changes.
I didn’t used to like who I was.
And now I just don’t know who I am. Well, I do know who I am. But mostly I’m becoming someone I don’t know. I don’t know who I’m going to become.
But I’m better, Dante. I’m a better person—though that may not be saying much.
When I met you, I remember you telling me that you were crazy about your parents. And I thought it was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard coming out of another guy’s mouth. You know, sometimes I don’t know shit. I think I have always loved my father and my mother. Maybe I just didn’t think that my love for them was really all that important. I mean, they were my parents, right? I always thought I was sort of invisible to them. But it was the other way around. It was they who were invisible to me.
Because I wasn’t capable of seeing them.
I think I’ve been like this kitten, born with its eyes closed, walking around meowing because I couldn’t see where I was going.
But, Dante, guess what? The kitten has fucking opened his eyes. I can see, Dante, I can see.
Thirty
THE NIGHT BEFORE WE WERE heading out for our camping trip, the Quintanas invited me over for dinner. My mother baked an apple pie. “It’s not polite to arrive at someone’s house empty- handed.” My father grinned at her and said, “Your mother often engages in immigrant behavior. She can’t help herself.” I thought that was pretty funny. So did my mother, actually.
“Sending over a pie isn’t immigrant behavior.”
“Oh yes, it is, Lilly. Just because you’re not sending over tamales and roasted chiles doesn’t make it not immigrant behavior. You’re just wrapping it up in an American costume. Apple pie? It doesn’t get any more American than that.”
My mother kissed him on the cheek. “Shut up, Jaime. Estás hablando puras tonterías. Don’t you have a cigarette to go smoke or something?”
* * *
I normally walked to Dante’s house, but I decided to take the truck. I had this vision of me dropping the pie on the sidewalk, and I just didn’t want to be the center of all that drama. I was scarred for life when I dropped a porcelain plate loaded with my mother’s Christmas cookies when I was seven. Until recently, that was the last time I cried. And it wasn’t even that my mother was upset. In fact, she was consoling me for some reason—and that made it even worse.
I could tell my mom was in total agreement with my decision. “You’re showing signs of wisdom,” she said.
“Mom, maybe I’m just showing signs of being practical.”