Will You Stay with Me?

I should have known that something was up with Papi when he came home early and didn’t do anything to us after he caught us running from the street toward the house as fast as we could. That wasn’t the first time he’d come home when he wasn’t supposed to. One time, five months ago, everyone at the refinery was sent home early when there was a leak from one of the tanks. Papi came home excited at first, but after he cleaned up and ate dinner, all he did was complain about being tired, about not being paid enough, and about the many things that were wrong with New Domangue. Then he fell asleep in front of the TV.

So when he came home early this time, I didn’t think anything of it beyond hurrying up and running inside before he could catch me and my brothers, because he had this rule about us playing outside without his permission. If we broke his rule he would give us a whipping. But we usually saw him before he saw us, so it worked out all right.

That’s how Papi was about things. He was what people in the States call old school. Ever since we got to New Domangue, he made us live like we were still in La República. He didn’t let us speak English around him, and he didn’t let us play with the white kids from our street. He said we didn’t have any business mixing with them because he didn’t know any of their parents. There were no sleepovers for us, and we definitely didn’t get to go to any of our school friends’ houses, since none of our school friends had any parents that Papi knew.

So when I spotted his car, I signaled Constalbón and Garcinez and forced them into the house. I made sure that my brothers got in the military-like line that Papi made us get into, though they didn’t seem to be too worried about it at first because they kept giggling to each other until I hit each one on the head. After that, they were quiet, looking as if they were afraid of what might come next, me whacking them on the head or Papi bearing down on them for not listening to me after I’d been whacking them on the head. None of us even dared move out of our line to shut the screen door we’d left open in front of us.

Getting in line was like standing in formation in the military. I learned about it during my first year of Junior ROTC class, which was the first time I believed that maybe Papi’s stories about being in the paramilitary were true. When we were in line we were supposed to stand next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, arms down at our sides, heads straight—just like in the military—until he came in and kissed each of us on the cheek. After that, we were allowed to ask for his blessing, and then we could ask to be dismissed.

When Papi’s car pulled up our grassy driveway, I thought about how Mami sometimes asked me if I would stay with her if she and Papi ever had to split up. The last time she asked me was when Papi was out late celebrating with his panas, friends who had come from La República with him and who were on their way to New York, saying that it was time to go because New Domangue didn’t have any decent work anymore. They started drinking at our house before they went somewhere else to drink, and I remember how they talked about the businesses that other Dominicans had started up there, and how they were getting wealthy and already going back to La República with loads of cash to set up big houses in the old barrios. After they left and after my brothers had gone to bed, Mami called me to her room and grabbed me by the arms.

“If Alonzo leave for New York, will you stay with me here?” she asked in her practiced English. She taught herself English as much as she could by practicing with me, telling me each time that it was important for her to know how to get by.

While my thoughts were still on Mami, I saw Papi’s face as he stepped out of the car, and I could tell that something was up, that something hard was on his mind. I wanted to run back to Mami, who was somewhere in one of the back rooms, but I knew better than to move when I was already in Papi’s sights. Instead, I yelled to her that he was home.

“Papi looks mad, don’t he?” Garcinez asked. He was the youngest, going on eight years old.

“No,” I answered. “He’s just tired.”

“I don’t think so,” Constalbón said. Since he was almost thirteen, he liked to pretend that he was bigger than his age. They were both born in New Domangue, so for them, La República wasn’t anything more than photograph pictures and older people’s memories. For me, it was like a happy dream, just like that happy picture I once saw of me and my parents while we were still in the old country.

“Either way,” I said, “you don’t want to get him started. So keep quiet.”

“He is home?” Mami said as she reached the living room.

Before we could answer, Papi was at the door. Something about the way he looked and walked made me want to get out of line and go up to him, but when he came through the door I stayed in line, right where I was supposed to be.

“What’s wrong, Alonzo?” Mami asked.

Papi shook his head, like he was telling her not to worry while at the same telling her to go away. He didn’t even seem to notice when Mami gave him a kiss and grabbed his lunchbox out of his hand.

“I am going to fix dinner,” she said.

We weren’t even supposed to turn our heads when we were in line, but I did, and I could see that Mami wanted to say something else to Papi but didn’t because he was still looking like nobody was in front of him.

“Bless your children and wash up, then,” Mami muttered and walked away.

When he turned toward us, Papi still didn’t seem to be looking at anything. His eyes were looking away somewhere, like there was a place behind us that was more interesting. He walked up to each one of us and gave us our kiss and our blessing in one quick movement. Constalbón and Garcinez left the front room like it was full of explosives.

I stayed and stared at him as he stood there looking into space. Then, as if he just realized that I was in the room, he turned toward me.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked, in a rough, sharp way. “Do you think your Papi’s crazy?”

I took in the metallic smell that clung to him after a day at the refinery.

“¿Bueno?” he asked. “Well?”

I looked back at him in a close, careful way I didn’t usually get to. I could see the chemical dust of his work etched into the wrinkles around his eyes, and I could see, as I inspected his face, how the bristles on his chin looked heavy and dark, how they made him look older than he was, harder than he was. Hours of refinery dirt sat on his shoulders, covering him like a cheap blanket. His curly hair was coated with a slight film of white on those spots that his hard hat hadn’t covered.

“No, Papi,” I said. “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“I sure feel like I am, hijo,” he said and walked straight to the bathroom.

I almost felt like running after him and putting my arms around him. I wanted to tell him that everything would be okay, that he was doing fine, that there was some way, somehow, that something could be done to make things better, only I didn’t know what that could be.

“Where is your father?” Mami asked. She had walked up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder with her elbow, her hands covered in flour. There was a nervous look on her face that I didn’t understand. Papi wasn’t angry, he was just tired, I thought.

“He’s in the bathroom,” I answered.

“Alonzonito,” she almost whispered. She walked close to me, as if she wanted to whisper something, and placed one of her flour-covered hands on my shoulder. “If Alonzo go to New York, will you stay with me?”

“Sí, Mami, sure,” I said. I didn’t know why she was asking me this at that moment, but it made me wonder if something was going on that nobody was talking about. She had asked me the same thing the week before, when our next-door neighbors, the Gutiérrez family, up and left for New York without much warning.

I was watching cartoons with Constalbón and Garcinez that Saturday morning when Señor Gutiérrez knocked on the screen door to let us know he was leaving. Next thing I knew, we were stuck spending the whole day helping Señor Gutiérrez and his family load up their stuff. By the time they pulled off in a rental truck, with all four kids sitting in the back trailer with no light or A/C, Papi was cursing them. He went out and got drunk that night, and while he was gone Mami asked me again about staying with her.

So I said sure again, just like I did before, but this time it felt like I was saying sure to something that was more than just my mom being overly scared for nothing.

“You will have to be the man of the house,” she said. She walked back into the kitchen, leaving me standing there trying to figure out what to do with that. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe that Papi would one day decide to go to New York, but that I just never imagined that he would leave without us. Besides, Papi always said that we meant more to him than any of us could ever understand. So instead of really paying attention to Mami, I shrugged off what she had said and headed toward my brothers, I could hear them playing in our bedroom down the hall.

Sometimes, whenever Papi was being his angriest and Mami was being her most quiet, I would think that Mami was a strong woman just because she put up with Papi. But when she said that about me being the man of the house, I thought that maybe I didn’t know anything.

A little while later, Papi came in our room and asked me to come with him. Constalbón and Garcinez both looked at me like I was in trouble or something, but I could tell from the look on Papi’s face that something was up with him and that he wasn’t thinking about us like that. He led me to his and Mami’s room, and as I walked down the small hallway I could smell the fried chicken that Mami was cooking, and I could smell the oregano and bell peppers that she always put in the beans.

“What do you say, Alonzonito?” Papi asked. “Wouldn’t it be great to go to New York?”

“I don’t know, Papi,” I said, thinking about how I was going to graduate in less than a year and how all of my friends were here in New Domangue. “I like it here okay.”

Papi looked at me like I had shocked him or something. He didn’t say anything for a while, but then he told me to sit down on his bed and sat next to me.

“You know I care about you and your brothers very much,” he said.

I nodded like he was looking at me, but he wasn’t. He was staring straight ahead at the blank wall in front of his bed, talking to it like it was me standing in front of him.

“I care about my family very much. That’s what I’m thinking about right now,” he said.

Now that all the grime was off his face, I could see a little bit of the person who was in that picture of Papi and Mami I once saw in a photo album at one of Papi’s friend’s houses. They were standing somewhere in La República with me in their arms. In the picture, Mami was all smiles. And next to her, Papi looked handsome and ready to take on the world. I loved looking at the two of them in that picture, and I loved the way they held me between them.

“That’s what I’m always thinking about whenever I do all the things that I do in this life,” he went on, still looking at the wall in front of him. “When you get older, you will see what I mean. You will understand. I tried to keep you close, all of you, so that when we went back everything wouldn’t be so hard on you. I don’t know—maybe we still can, one day. But for now, you’ll have to take care of them, Alonzonito. You’ll have to help them out, because it may be a while before I can come back and get you all.”

“What are you talking about, Papi?” I asked, but he didn’t answer. He just got up and walked out of the room. I didn’t know if I should follow him or not, but when I made it to the hallway I could hear him already talking to Mami, so I decided to go into the bedroom and wait until she called us. As soon as I entered the room, I began to rough-play with my brothers and sort of put away what Papi had just told me.

I didn’t think about it again until after Mami called us to dinner. The moment I stepped into the kitchen, I immediately felt a strange, absent sort of feeling in the house. Papi wasn’t in his chair.

“Where’s Papi?” I asked.

“He leave,” Mami said matter-of-factly. Her back was turned to us as she served our dinners. I looked at Constalbón and Garcinez and then at the back of my mother’s neck, which was exposed because she had her hair rolled up as she stood over the stove.

“Where did he go?” Constalbón asked. “Is he coming back right away? Because if he isn’t, I want to watch TV.”

“Me too,” Garcinez said.

Mami turned around and looked at my brothers briefly before fixing her eyes on me. I could see that she was about to cry. Instead, she smiled at us and let my brothers take their plates over to the TV.

I stayed at the table with her and watched her out of the corner of my eye, pretending not to look at her while she sat down with a plate of food. As I ate, I watched her. She didn’t eat the plátanos that were growing cold, nor did she eat the fried chicken and pinto beans that were cooling on her plate. She didn’t eat. She didn’t say anything. Her body was so still that I didn’t dare disturb her.

As I looked at her, I remembered Papi’s friend telling me that he took that picture where I was held between them just as we were about to leave La República. He said everyone was excited at the time about the new opportunities, the new life they were going to have. I realized, as I looked at Mami, that she was still the same person from that picture, but that she had grown tired.

Mami wasn’t eating at all. She was looking down at her plate, picking at the food with her fork.

“Mami,” I said, “where’s Papi?”

Her fork continued to stab at the plate. She didn’t look up when she spoke. “He said something about starting over, setting up, calling for us later, maybe one day going home.”

“Where did he go?” I asked, as if I couldn’t figure it out for myself.

Mami didn’t answer, so I stood up and walked over to her, thinking that I was going to shake her until she told me. But when I got close to her, she looked up at me, and I could see that her eyes were focused somewhere far away and that she wouldn’t tell me anything no matter how hard I might shake her. At that moment, I wanted to run outside and look for Papi’s car in the hope that I would at least catch his tail lights as they drove away down the street, but I knew it was too late.

“Go lie down, Mami,” I said. “I’ll pick up.”

With surprise on her face, she looked at me as if she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. She just got up and walked to her room and closed the door. I didn’t see her come back out all night.

My brothers enjoyed one of the most anxiety-free nights they had ever known. When it got late and they saw that Papi still had not returned, they asked me if they could watch TV a little while longer. I let them, giving them an extra hour before marching them off to bed.

“We didn’t get our blessings,” Garcinez said after he had jumped into the top bunk bed.

“Mami’s asleep and Papi’s out,” I said.

“We don’t need them every night, do we, Alonzonito?” Constalbón asked.

“That’s right,” I answered, “we don’t need them every night.”

I turned off the light and lay down. My single bed was less than two feet from their bunk bed, and as they chattered into the night, it felt as if they were talking inside my head, which made it hard for me to fall asleep. Eventually I did, and as I fell asleep, I could hear my brothers’ voices growing fainter and fainter until I soon lost them and drifted into dream. Next thing I knew, I was watching Papi, who was saying something to Mami, but they were so very far away that I couldn’t hear them. Then, Papi looked at me. He winked and put up a finger to Mami like he was telling her to wait, and then he spoke to me without moving his lips. “To La República one day,” he said, and then everything went blank, and I was awake, staring up at my bedroom ceiling. My brothers were both snoring, their heavy heads sunk deep into their pillows.

I got out of bed and made my way in the dark to the living room. I looked out the front window to see if Papi had returned, but he hadn’t.

I fixed a glass of milk and then walked to the back of the house, to Mami and Papi’s room. Mami had fallen asleep with all of her clothes on. She was only half-on the bed, with both her legs hanging off the edge from the knees down. I watched her for a while before going over to her and straightening her out over the bed, and as I did so I thought that wherever Papi had fallen asleep, he too would need someone to help him like this.

When Garcinez woke me up later in the morning, he asked me if I knew where Papi was. I told him that I didn’t know, but that since it was early Saturday morning, Papi would probably be back any minute to put him through hell if he didn’t go brush his teeth. And if Papi didn’t come back, I thought, I will line both of them up the way Papi would and ask Mami to help me break the news to them.