—But this stupid kid on the news! Mami couldn’t stop watching it, and so I was like hello? So in the end dinner sucked.
I should’ve asked for details about the day then, for more about Ariel Hernandez, or about Dante’s dad—if he’d called or been over—or about our own dad (same questions), but I thought I already knew the answers. As recent as the end of our parents’ marriage was, Leidy and I were not at all shocked that they were no longer together. They got married a couple months after Mami found out she was pregnant with Leidy, and they each blamed the other for having to drop out of high school so close to finishing. They should’ve left each other dozens of times before that summer, maybe right after my dad refused to buy Mami a plane ticket to Cuba to see the dying mother she hated for disowning her from afar after getting pregnant before marriage; or later, when I started middle school and Mami became a Jehovah’s Witness for a few intense months and bullied my dad to convert or else she’d take us away and go live with my tía Zoila. Because my parents married as teenagers, their relationship sort of froze there, stuck at that age where every fight is The End and probably should be. We were known on our Hialeah block as the family whose arguments spilled into the front lawn. Leidy and I knew to listen for the words Are you fucking crazy, Lourdes?—which meant: time to go outside, get in the grass on our hands and knees, and look for Mom’s wedding ring. They fought constantly, more so in the couple years leading up to that fall and mostly about Leidy’s pregnancy and her boyfriend’s refusal to marry her—the exact inverse of the choice my dad had made when he got my mom pregnant. It should’ve been a family disaster except that it coincided with me announcing that I’d applied to out-of-state schools months earlier without their knowledge and would be leaving at the end of the summer. Which is why my father decided to leave, too: he no longer saw the point, he said, of being around women clearly set on behaving as if he hadn’t stuck around in the first place.
The air conditioner kicked on, sending a buzz through the window trapping it in place. It jarred me to hear an AC in the winter, and the whole room, with me in it, seemed like a huge freaking mistake. I felt stupid for even wanting the attention I thought I’d get by coming back. The processed air hit me and I shivered. If I was going to be invisible and miserable and cold, I could’ve stayed at school, saved myself the money. I kept unpacking my suitcase.
—Why did you not tell me you were coming? Leidy said.
I shrugged. I said, I wanted it to be a surprise.
—So nobody – like nobody here – knows you were doing this? Not even Omar?
—No one, I said.
She sucked her teeth and stood up, a tiny tower of folded baby clothes in her hands. And you’re supposed to be the smart one? she said.
Her face suddenly next to mine at the dresser, I said, What the fuck is your problem?
—Mom’s right, something could’ve happened to you and who would’ve even known?
—Oh come on.
—I’m just saying you should’ve told me. I can keep a secret, okay? I mean, at least I would’ve kept her away from the TV so she could enjoy how you showed up here. Now she’s like all distracted.
I crammed my underwear into my half of the dresser drawer, then went back to my suitcase for more clothes.
—Look, maybe you know how to buy a plane ticket on a computer to go wherever, but that doesn’t make you somebody that can just be all like whatever about it. That’s not what being independent means.
—Okay Leidy, I get it.
—I’m not trying to say anything, okay? I just get why Mami’s pissed, because honestly, you had me you could’ve told, and for like a whole twenty-four hours no one knew where you were, and just because we didn’t know that we didn’t know doesn’t mean it’s all fine now, okay?
—Fine. God, I said.
I slammed the drawer shut. She opened it back up slowly and tucked the baby’s things next to mine.
—That’s it, all right? I’m not gonna say anything else about it. I just feel like somebody should say it, and it’s not gonna be Mami right now.
She stood by the dresser and raised a hand to her mouth, chipped away at her nail polish with her teeth.
I sat down on the sofa bed, my arms folded across my body. Beyond us, in the living room we could see if we poked our heads out from the bedroom door, the TV screamed with an interview of some government person saying Ariel’s arrival could turn into a political issue, and our mother screamed back, Political issue? Is this guy serious? His mother is dead!
—Fine, you know what? I’m sorry I’m here.
—It’s not like that, Leidy said. Don’t be sorry. I’m happy you’re home.
I thought then that she’d sit next to me, but she stayed standing up, pulling another soft thing from the pile shrinking next to me, this time holding a onesie against her chest as she folded it in half, then in half again.
—I don’t gotta work tomorrow, she said.