The Rock and the Ocean

José reached for my hand over dinner. "You don't think it's possible to risk everything for love?" 

We'd been dancing along steadily for months. Some days, I could barely stand to look at him- he made me smile so much, my cheeks made it hard to keep my eyes open.

"I don’t think you should risk who you are for love. I don’t want to sacrifice or compromise the things in my life for someone. I wouldn’t want someone to do that for me.” I took my hand back.

"You're so wrong."

“You’d change your whole life for someone?”

He smiled.

“Really?” I wanted to hear him say he'd change his life for me.

He nodded, “We change who we are, everyday. 10 years from now, do you actually want to be who you are today?”

“No, but that’s a personal evolution. I'd resent walking someone else’s journey just because I wanted to be with them.” I wanted him to say he wouldn't resent walking my journey with me.

“But there’s so much beauty in exploring how someone makes you feel. Maybe you do something you never have, like go to a different country. It’s an adventure, and," he pointed out, “you get to know yourself more.”

“I’ve got my self discovery down.”

He leaned in, conspiratorial, "How do you know how you love?”

"I stick to expiration dates." Long enough to honeymoon, never long enough to commit. There is no thick and thin, no health and sickness. Long enough for the dream to seem reality, but never close to an 'I love you.'

He raised an eyebrow. "You're a solitary person. I am too. I actually used to be like you,” he chuckled. “I was very, idealistic, and at the same time, very practical. But then," he threw his hands up. "How old are you, 22?"

“Oh, don’t turn this into some naivety of age thing, sir-“ I mocked, “We’re basically the same age.”

“No, listen, I’m saying, from experience, that when you turn 23, you're going to hit a crossroads, and you'll have to make a choice. It’s the first choice you make completely on your own. You’ll see what you end up leaving behind.” He drank from his glass.

"I've had enough crossroads, thank you very much."

"It'll be different." He squeezed my hand and sat back, grinning. 

"Fine.” I picked up my fork. “Will you be there?" Maybe, for the first time, I want someone at the crossroads. Where could this go?

He smiled. "A year from now? Yes, of course. Of course I will be." 

His eyes, hazel green, like my grandmother's. I felt the floor shake beneath my feet. Is this what falling in love feels like?

It could have been a random California earthquake.

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"It's happening, I can feel it, this is it," she gulped her last breath.  

"Look at me, Mago." I love you, grandma. I love you into my fucking bones, and heaven does exist. Look at me. Find the light as you see the world one last time with me. I'm with you to the door.

She exhaled. "That wasn't it.” Another night fighting off the darkness that predates existence.

"It's okay, Mago. I'll stay up with you. Want to listen to that cd my sister sent over?"

"No, the music gives me the spins."

"I can read you passages from the Bible."

"Oh, it has some beautiful stories. Will you stroke my hair?"

"Absolutely. Here, let me get you all tucked in and settled in case you fall asleep while I read."

"Mija, by the way, why didn't you help me earlier when your tia tucked me in? You were just standing by the door."

I was waiting for this development. The hospice nurse warned me she would start to see things that weren't there.

"And who is that little boy?" She pointed to the side of her bed. It was empty.

"I don't know him actually, can you tell me who he is?"

She was snoring by the time I finished. I sat back in the chair to watch over her.

I didn’t want her to go alone. I wanted to go as far as possible on this journey with her. She was the most magical person I knew.

 She awoke in the morning with the question, "When can I go home?"

When the hospital sent her home, they told us she had less than three months. This morning rounded out six.

"Soon," I promise, soon.

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“Look at me, Kata, por favor.” José cornered me at the dining room table.

I refused.

“Please. I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t do it. Don’t ask me how I’m doing, 'cause I’m trying to keep it together.”

“I’m right here.” He pressed himself against me, offering me his shoulder.

“Be here, and be you, but don’t ask me, please.” I fingered the salmon threads of his button up. If I leaned on him, I'd never be able to stand on my own two feet again.

He stepped back, hugged himself. He poured two glasses of red wine, carried them to the balcony, left the door open. The moon was bright. He was quiet, icy.

The wind blew cold off the marina. I longed for the heat of summer, when we strolled in sweaty from the beach, solar drunk and cosmic. I shivered.

I traced the seams of his jacket on the back of the dining room chair.

"When you're the rock, you have all these waves crashing down on you,” he began. “Over time, these waves shape you, break away the pieces that don’t belong, that can’t hang on." He paused, looked at his glass, drank. “Other times, you're the wave that crashes on the rock, the force that breaks away the pieces too weak to withstand it."

He turned to face me, handed me a glass. “You're a rock, Kata, but you don't always have to be. There is immense power in being the rock, but there is equal strength in being the wave. You can be the wave. Let me be your rock." 

The moon wavered in my glass.

“I can’t breathe,” I choked. “I don’t feel magical, I don’t feel powerful, she’s slipping through my fingers, and I can’t stop it.”

He took me into his chest. “You are magic, you are power. Breathe.”

I can't breathe. Let me go. Don't ask me to rest my heart on your shoulder.

"Breathe."

I can't. I can't fucking breathe.

"José?" The salmon of his shirt, the hazel green of his eyes, eyes just like my grandmother's.

"¿Que pasa, Kata?"

"I can't possibly break my heart open for you."

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I awoke under the Pacific Coast Highway overpass, drenched in rainwater and moonlight.

Chunks splattered onto the sidewalk. "It's just an emotional purge." I wiped my mouth, "Thanks for pulling over." I slammed the door shut and rested my head against the window. I could taste the ocean on my lips. The cabdriver flicked the meter off. I was still 30 minutes from home. 

"Rough night?" 

"Yeah." The wave crashed over me. 

He drove.

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José wanted to go back to his home country. "I can’t believe I had to travel across the world to meet the other side of my coin."

The phone rang. It rang and rang and rang.

"I'm not leaving my Mago."

"What would she want? She'd want you to live your life, she'd want you to go."

"I have to be here for this, she doesn't trust anyone else."

"We've been doing this for six months. I find it hard to believe that not a single other person in your family can step up? She's their mother, and they leave it to you to take care of her!" 

The phone buzzed with incoming messages. He ran his hand over his mouth, exasperated.

"She asks for me. She sees me when I'm not even there and wonders why I'm not helping. And she's right! Even when I'm not there, I am because that's where all my energy is!" 

“¡Es su vida la que se le esta acabando, no la tuya! She's on her deathbed, but you’re the one refusing to live!”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch the life fade from someone’s eyes? Have you ever walked someone to death’s door?”

“Yes, I’m doing it with you, and you’re looking through me like I’m the ghost.”

I can't meet his eyes. I'm losing her. I can't afford to lose him too.

The phone lit up again. I wanted to throw it off the balcony.

"What do you want, Kata?"

I want to run with you. I want your journey, I'm so sick of mine. I want to follow your footsteps, see the reflection of the road in your eyes. I want to see the world through you. I want to leave. I can't afford to leave. I felt the splinters of the wood press into my hand.

"Do you understand what I'm saying to you? I'm leaving, I'm not staying in Long Beach." He squared his shoulders towards me.

I can't afford to leave her. "Then, bye." 

His jaw dropped, "What?" 

"What do you want me to say?"

"¡Dios, mujer!"

"One of the biggest lessons in life is that nothing is permanent, you learn to say goodbye."

"Will you listen to what I'm telling you?"

"Tell it to me straight then because the only time I read between the lines is when I'm reading poetry."

"What don't you understand? I don't want to say goodbye." He stood with his hands on his hips, his position final.

I don't want to say goodbye. But he's not going to stay, and I can't afford to leave her.

"You signed up for this, José, you knew there was an expiration date."

The door slammed shut behind me. The moon stretched in my wine glass, suspended in a final droplet.

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"Where were you?" My mother met me at the door.

I was rain-soaked and drunk. I shrugged. 

"She's been asking for you."

"Where is she?"

"Clean up, don't let her see you like this."

I sighed. She doesn't deserve this; she can't know this is me. 

"I didn't raise you to be like this." Her words slapped me. 

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I unclenched my jaw in the shower. 

I wasn't raised to be like this. I wasn't raised to show emotion. I wasn't raised to show how much I cared. I wasn’t raised to feel the deep impact of things. I wasn't raised to convey my feelings with touch, to display any sense of affection. I was raised to keep myself, mind myself, fulfill myself, to never rely on any one else.

I was raised to escape the trap that love and marriage were the salvation from misery. Love was duty, love was sacrifice. Love was beating, bruising, scarring; wounds nursed in closets after self-infliction. Love was suffocation, humiliation, isolation. Love was isolation. Live and let live. Love and let die.

Everyone lives. Everyone loves. No one survives either one. I don't need anyone to survive.

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"I know he makes you happy," my aunt closed the door behind her.

I turned to face her, puffy.

"I know you your whole life, and I never see you as happy as when you're with him. I never want someone to tell my children what I'm telling you- Go. Go with him. Now is your chance to leave this. Live your life. She's my mother, I'm the one to see her through. Go." 

I shook my head. "She's my mother too."

She sighed. "She doesn't want to see me anymore. All day today, she only asked for you, and she keeps talking about a little boy."

"Ghosts. She sees ghosts. The closer she gets to the end, the more her spirit joins that realm. She's in-between."

"Your mother said you also see them?"

I nodded. "I make them, too."

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“Mija,” she called to me from her bedroom. 

I was pink from the shower. 

"How was work? Your mother said you had to stay late."

She covered for me. "It was fine. It rained, I had to clean up so I wouldn't get a cold." 

She patted my hand and smiled, "I'll pray for you." She gripped the bed's railing. "Will you massage my shoulders? Tu tia tried earlier, but I told her I'd rather wait for you. I like how you do it, you have the touch, you have since you were a little girl.”

I massaged her neck and shoulders and remembered how I used to "chase the roach" around her head, the "itch" down her arm, "feel the peaches" under her skin. How she taught me the healer's touch as a little girl. "You have a strong touch, that's how I know you will be soft and gentle." 

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She passed away days later under New Year's Full Moon. They took her body shortly after midnight.

The moon pulsed overhead. The shadows were harsh and primeval. I smoked a joint in the darkness. I was alone. Everything I loved I experienced alone, everyone I loved: I left them alone. 

I was 23. He was right. I was at the crossroads. But he wasn't there for it. 

But I was. I, and I alone.