This Is How You Lose Her

Invierno

FROM THE TOP OF WESTMINSTER, our main strip, you could see the thinnest sliver of ocean cresting the horizon to the east. My father had been shown that sight — the management showed everyone — but as he drove us in from JFK he didn’t stop to point it out. The ocean might have made us feel better, considering what else there was to see. London Terrace itself was a mess; half the buildings still needed their wiring and in the evening light these structures sprawled about like ships of brick that had run aground. Mud followed gravel everywhere and the grass, planted late in fall, poked out of the snow in dead tufts.

Each building has its own laundry room, Papi explained. Mami looked vaguely out of the snout of her parka and nodded. That’s wonderful, she said. I was watching the snow sift over itself, terrified, and my brother was cracking his knuckles. This was our first day in the States. The world was frozen solid.

Our apartment seemed huge to us. Rafa and I had a room to ourselves and the kitchen, with its refrigerator and stove, was about the size of our house on Sumner Welles. We didn’t stop shivering until Papi set the apartment temperature to about eighty. Beads of water gathered on the windows like bees and we had to wipe the glass to see outside. Rafa and I were stylish in our new clothes and we wanted out, but Papi told us to take off our boots and our parkas. He sat us down in front of the television, his arms lean and surprisingly hairy right up to the short-cut sleeves. He had just shown us how to flush the toilets, run the sinks, and start the shower.

This isn’t a slum, Papi began. I want you to treat everything around you with respect. I don’t want you throwing any of your garbage on the floor or on the street. I don’t want you going to the bathroom in the bushes.

Rafa nudged me. In Santo Domingo I’d pissed everywhere, and the first time Papi had seen me in action, whizzing on a street corner, on the night of his triumphant return, he had screamed, What in carajo are you doing?

Decent people live around here and that’s how we’re going to live. You’re Americans now. He had his Chivas Regal bottle on his knee.

After waiting a few seconds to show that yes, I’d digested everything he’d said, I asked, Can we go out now?

Why don’t you help me unpack? Mami suggested. Her hands were very still; usually they were fussing with a piece of paper, a sleeve, or each other.

We’ll just be out for a little while, I said. I got up and pulled on my boots. Had I known my father even a little I might not have turned my back on him. But I didn’t know him; he’d spent the last five years in the States working, and we’d spent the last five years in Santo Domingo waiting. He grabbed my ear and wrenched me back onto the couch. He did not look happy.

You’ll go out when I say you’re ready.

I looked over at Rafa, who sat quietly in front of the TV. Back on the Island, the two of us had taken guaguas clear across the capital by ourselves. I looked up at Papi, his narrow face still unfamiliar. Don’t you eye me, he said.

Mami stood up. You kids might as well give me a hand.

I didn’t move. On the TV the newscasters were making small, flat noises at each other. They were repeating one word over and over. Later when I went to school I would learn that the word they were saying was Vietnam.

—

SINCE WE WEREN’T ALLOWED out of the house — it’s too cold, Papi said once but really there was no reason other than that’s what he wanted — we mostly sat in front of the TV or stared out at the snow those first days. Mami cleaned everything about ten times and made us some damn elaborate lunches. We were all bored speechless.

Pretty early on Mami decided that watching TV was beneficial; you could learn the language from it. She saw our young minds as bright, spiky sunflowers in need of light, and arranged us as close to the TV as possible to maximize our exposure. We watched the news, sitcoms, cartoons, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, Jonny Quest, The Herculoids, Sesame Street—eight, nine hours of TV a day, but it was Sesame Street that gave us our best lessons. Each word my brother and I learned we passed between ourselves, repeating over and over, and when Mami asked us to show her how to say it, we shook our heads and said, Don’t worry about it.

Just tell me, she said, and when we pronounced the words slowly, forming huge, lazy soap bubbles of sound, she never could duplicate them. Her lips seemed to tug apart even the simplest vowels. That sounds horrible, I said.

What do you know about English? she asked.

At dinner she’d try her English out on Papi, but he just poked at his pernil, which was not my mother’s best dish.

I can’t understand a word you’re saying, he said finally. It’s best if I take care of the English.

How do you expect me to learn?

You don’t have to learn, he said. Besides, the average woman can’t learn English.

It’s a difficult language to master, he said, first in Spanish and then in English.

Mami didn’t say another word. In the morning, as soon as Papi was out of the apartment, Mami turned on the TV and put us in front of it. The apartment was always cold in the morning and leaving our beds was a serious torment.

It’s too early, we said.

It’s like school, she suggested.

No, it’s not, we said. We were used to going to school at noon.

You two complain too much. She would stand behind us and when I turned around she would be mouthing the words we were learning, trying to make sense of them.

—

EVEN PAPI’S EARLY-MORNING noises were strange to me. I lay in bed, listening to him stumbling around in the bathroom, like he was drunk or something. I didn’t know what he did for Reynolds Aluminum, but he had a lot of uniforms in his closet, all filthy with machine oil.

I had expected a different father, one about seven feet tall with enough money to buy our entire barrio, but this one was average height, with an average face. He’d come to our house in Santo Domingo in a busted-up taxi and the gifts he had brought us were small things — toy guns and tops — that we were too old for, that we broke right away. Even though he hugged us and took us out to dinner on the Malecón — our first steaks ever — I didn’t know what to make of him. A father is a hard thing to compass.

Those first weeks in the States, Papi spent a great deal of his home time downstairs with his books or in front of the TV. He said little to us that wasn’t disciplinary, which didn’t surprise us. We’d seen other dads in action, understood that part of the drill.

My brother he just tried to keep from yelling, from knocking things over. But what he got on me about the most was my shoelaces. Papi had a thing with shoelaces. I didn’t know how to tie them properly, and when I put together a rather formidable knot, Papi would bend down and pull it apart with one tug. At least you have a future as a magician, Rafa said, but this was serious. Rafa showed me how, and I said, Fine, and had no problems in front of him, but when Papi was breathing down my neck, his hand on a belt, I couldn’t perform; I looked at my father like my laces were live wires he wanted me to touch together.

I met some dumb men in the Guardia, Papi said, but every single one of them could tie his motherfucking shoes. He looked over at Mami. Why can’t he?

These were not the sort of questions that had answers. She looked down, studied the veins that threaded the backs of her hands. For a second Papi’s watery turtle eyes met mine. Don’t you look at me, he said.

Even on days I managed a halfway decent retard knot, as Rafa called them, Papi still had my hair to go on about. While Rafa’s hair was straight and glided through a comb like a Caribbean grandparent’s dream, my hair still had enough of the African to condemn me to endless combings and out-of-this-world haircuts. My mother cut our hair every month, but this time when she put me in the chair my father told her not to bother.

Only one thing will take care of that, he said. You, go get dressed.

Rafa followed me into my bedroom and watched while I buttoned my shirt. His mouth was tight. I started to feel anxious. What’s your problem? I said.

Nothing.

Then stop watching me. When I got to my shoes, he tied them for me. At the door my father looked down and said, You’re getting better.

I knew where the van was parked but I went the other way just to catch a glimpse of the neighborhood. Papi didn’t notice my defection until I had rounded the corner, and when he growled my name I hurried back, but I had already seen the fields and the children on the snow.

I sat in the front seat. He popped a tape of Johnny Ventura into the player and took us out smoothly to Route 9. The snow lay in dirty piles on the side of the road. There can’t be anything worse than old snow, he said. It’s nice while it falls but once it gets to the ground it just turns to shit.

Are there accidents like with rain?

Not with me driving.

The cattails on the banks of the Raritan were stiff and the color of sand, and when we crossed the river, Papi said, I work in the next town.

We were in Perth Amboy for the services of a real talent, a Puerto Rican barber named Rubio who knew just what to do with the pelo malo. He put two or three creams on my head and had me sit with the foam awhile; after his wife rinsed me off he studied my head in the mirror, tugged at my hair, rubbed an oil into it, and finally sighed.

It’s better to shave it all off, Papi said.

I have some other things that might work.

Papi looked at his watch. Shave it.

All right, Rubio said. I watched the clippers plow through my hair, watched my scalp appear, tender and defenseless. One of the old men in the waiting area snorted and held his paper higher. I was sick to my stomach; I didn’t want him to shave it but what could I have said to my father? I didn’t have the words. When Rubio was finished he massaged talcum powder on my neck. Now you look guapo, he said, less than convinced. He handed me a stick of gum, which my brother would steal as soon as I got home.

Well? Papi asked.

You cut too much, I said truthfully.

It’s better like this, he said, paying the barber.

As soon as we were outside the cold clamped down on my head like a slab of wet dirt.

We drove back in silence. An oil tanker was pulling into port on the Raritan and I wondered how easy it would be for me to slip aboard and disappear.

Do you like negras? my father asked.

I turned my head to look at the women we had just passed. I turned back and realized that he was waiting for an answer, that he wanted to know, and while I wanted to blurt that I didn’t like girls in any denomination, I said instead, Oh yes, and he smiled.

They’re beautiful, he said, and lit a cigarette. They’ll take care of you better than anyone.

Rafa laughed when he saw me. You look like a big thumb.

Dios mío, Mami said, turning me around. Why did you do that to him?

It looks good, Papi said.

And the cold’s going to make him sick.

Papi put his cold palm on my head. He likes it fine, he said.

—

PAPI WORKED A LONG fifty-hour week and on his days off he expected quiet, but my brother and I had too much energy to be quiet; we didn’t think anything of using our sofas for trampolines at nine in the morning, while Papi was asleep. In our old barrio we were accustomed to folks shocking the streets with merengue twenty-four hours a day. Our upstairs neighbors, who themselves fought like trolls over everything, would stomp down on us. Will you two please shut up? and then Papi would come out of his room, his shorts unbuttoned, and say, What did I tell you? How many times have I told you to keep it quiet? He was free with his smacks and we spent whole afternoons on Punishment Row — our bedroom — where we had to lay on our beds and not get off, because if he burst in and caught us at the window, staring out at the beautiful snow, he would pull our ears and smack us, and then we would have to kneel in the corner for a few hours. If we messed that up, joking around or cheating, he would force us to kneel down on the cutting side of a coconut grater, and only when we were bleeding and whimpering would he let us up.

Now you’ll be quiet, he’d say, satisfied, and we’d lay in bed, our knees burning with iodine, and wait for him to go to work so we could put our hands against the cold glass.

We watched the neighborhood children building snowmen and igloos, having snowball fights. I told my brother about the field I’d seen, vast in my memory, but he just shrugged. A brother and sister lived across in apartment four, and when they were out we would wave to them. They waved to us and motioned for us to come out but we shook our heads: We can’t.

The brother tugged his sister out to where the other children were, with their shovels and their long, snow-encrusted scarves. She seemed to like Rafa, and waved to him as she walked off. He didn’t wave back.

American girls are supposed to be beautiful, he said.

Have you seen any?

What do you call her? He reached down for a tissue and sneezed out a doublebarrel of snot. All of us had headaches and colds and coughs; even with the heat cranked up, winter was kicking our asses. I had to wear a Christmas hat around the apartment to keep my shaven head warm; I looked like an unhappy tropical elf.

I wiped my nose. If this is the United States, mail me home.

Don’t worry. Mami says we’re probably going home.

How does she know?

Her and Papi have been talking about it. She thinks it would be better if we went back. Rafa ran a finger glumly over our window; he didn’t want to go; he liked the TV and the toilet and already saw himself with the girl in apartment four.

I don’t know about that, I said. Papi doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere.

What do you know? You’re just a little mojón.

I know more than you, I said. Papi had never once mentioned going back to the Island. I waited to get him in a good mood, after he had watched Abbott and Costello, and asked him if he thought we would be going back soon.

For what?

A visit.

You ain’t going anywhere.

—

BY THE THIRD WEEK I was worried we weren’t going to make it. Mami, who had been our authority on the Island, was dwindling. She cooked our food and then sat there, waiting to wash the dishes. She had no friends, no neighbors to visit. You should talk to me, she said, but we told her to wait for Papi to get home. He’ll talk to you, I guaranteed. Rafa’s temper got worse. I would tug at his hair, an old game of ours, and he would explode. We fought and fought and fought and after my mother pried us apart, instead of making up like the old days, we sat scowling on opposite sides of our room and planned each other’s demise. I’m going to burn you alive, he promised. You should number your limbs, I told him, so they’ll know how to put you back together for the funeral. We squirted acid at each other with our eyes, like reptiles. Our boredom made everything worse.

One day I saw the brother and sister from apartment four gearing up to go play, and instead of waving I pulled on my parka. Rafa was sitting on the couch, flipping between a Chinese cooking show and an all-star Little League game. I’m going out, I told him.

Sure you are, he said, but when I pushed open the front door, he said, Hey!

The air outside was very cold and I nearly fell down our steps. No one in the neighborhood was the shoveling type. Throwing my scarf over my mouth, I stumbled across the uneven crust of snow. I caught up to the brother and sister at the side of our building.

Wait up! I yelled. I want to play with you.

The brother watched me with a half grin, not understanding a word I’d said, his arms scrunched nervously at his sides. His hair was a frightening no-color. His sister had green eyes and her freckled face was cowled in a hood of pink fur. We had on the same brand of mittens, bought cheap from Two Guys. I stopped and we faced each other, our white breath nearly reaching across the distance between us. The world was ice and the ice burned with sunlight. This was my first real encounter with Americans and I felt loose and capable. I motioned with my mittens and smiled. The sister turned to her brother and laughed. He said something to her and then she ran to where the other children were, the peals of her laughter trailing over her shoulder like the spumes of her hot breath.

I’ve been meaning to come out, I said. But my father won’t let us right now. He thinks we’re too young, but look, I’m older than your sister, and my brother looks older than you.

The brother pointed at himself. Eric, he said.

My name’s Yunior, I said.

His grin never faded. Turning, he walked over to the approaching group of children. I knew that Rafa was watching me from the window and fought the urge to turn around and wave. The gringo children watched me from a distance and then walked away. Wait, I said, but then an Oldsmobile pulled into the next lot, its tires muddy and thick with snow. I couldn’t follow them. The sister looked back once, a lick of her hair peeking out of her hood. After they had gone, I stood in the snow until my feet were cold. I was too afraid of getting my ass beat to go any farther.

Rafa was sprawled in front of the TV.

Hijo de la gran puta, I said, sitting down.

You look frozen.

I didn’t answer him. We watched TV until a snowball struck the glass patio door and both of us jumped.

What was that? Mami wanted to know from her room.

Two more snowballs exploded on the glass. I peeked behind the curtain and saw the brother and the sister hiding behind a snow-buried Dodge.

Nothing, Señora, Rafa said. It’s just the snow.

What, is it learning how to dance out there?

It’s just falling, Rafa said.

We both stood behind the curtain and watched the brother throw fast and hard, like a pitcher.

—

EACH DAY THE TRUCKS would roll into our neighborhood with the garbage. The landfill stood two miles out, but the mechanics of the winter air conducted its sound and odors to us undiluted. When we opened a window we could hear and smell the bulldozers spreading the garbage out in thick, putrid layers across the top of the landfill. We could see the gulls attending the mound, thousands of them, wheeling.

Do you think kids play out there? I asked Rafa. We were standing on the porch, brave; at any moment Papi could pull into the parking lot and see us.

Of course they do. Wouldn’t you?

I licked my lips. They must find a lot of stuff out there.

Plenty, Rafa said.

That night I dreamed of home, that we’d never left. I woke up, my throat aching, hot with fever. I washed my face in the sink, then sat next to our window, my brother asleep, and watched the pebbles of ice falling and freezing into a shell over the cars and the snow and the pavement. Learning to sleep in new places was an ability you were supposed to lose as you grew older, but I never had it. The building was only now settling into itself; the tight magic of the just-hammered-in nail was finally relaxing. I heard someone walking around in the living room and when I went out I found my mother standing in front of the patio door.

You can’t sleep? she asked, her face smooth and perfect in the glare of the halogens.

I shook my head.

We’ve always been alike that way, she said. That won’t make your life any easier.

I put my arms around her waist. That morning alone we’d seen three moving trucks from our patio door. I’m going to pray for Dominicans, she had said, her face against the glass, but what we would end up getting were Puerto Ricans.

She must have put me to bed because the next day I woke up next to Rafa. He was snoring. Papi was in the next room snoring as well, and something inside of me told me that I wasn’t a quiet sleeper.

At the end of the month the bulldozers capped the landfill with a head of soft, blond dirt, and the evicted gulls flocked over the development, shitting and fussing, until the first of the new garbage was brought in.

—

MY BROTHER WAS BUCKING to be Number One Son; in all other things he was generally unchanged, but when it came to my father he obeyed him with a scrupulousness he had never shown anybody. My brother was usually an animal but in my father’s house he had turned into some kind of muchacho bueno. Papi said he wanted us inside, Rafa stayed inside. It was as if the passage to the U.S. had burned out the sharpest part of him. In no time at all it would spark back to life more terrible than before but those first months he was muted. I don’t think anybody could have recognized him. I wanted my father to like me too but I wasn’t in an obedient mood; I played in the snow for short stretches, though never out of sight of the apartment. You’re going to get caught, Rafa forecasted. I could tell that my boldness made him miserable; from our windows he watched me packing snow and throwing myself into drifts. I stayed away from the gringos. When I saw the brother and sister from apartment four, I stopped farting around and watched for a sneak attack. Eric waved and his sister waved; I didn’t wave back. Once he came over and showed me the baseball he must have just gotten. Roberto Clemente, he said, but I went on with building my fort. His sister grew flushed and said something loud and then Eric moved off.

One day the sister was out by herself and I followed her to the field. Huge concrete pipes sprawled here and there on the snow. She ducked into one of these and I followed her, crawling on my knees.

She sat in the pipe, crosslegged and grinning. She took her hands out of her mittens and rubbed them together. We were out of the wind and I followed her example. She poked a finger at me.

Yunior, I said.

Elaine, she said.

We sat there for a while, my head aching with my desire to communicate, and she kept blowing on her hands. Then she heard her brother calling and she scrambled out of the pipe. I stepped out too. She was standing next to her brother. When he saw me he yelled something and threw a snowball in my direction. I threw one back.

In less than a year they would be gone. All the white people would be. All that would be left would be us colored folks.

—

AT NIGHT, MAMI AND PAPI TALKED. He sat on his side of the table and she leaned close, asking him, Do you ever plan on taking these children out? You can’t keep them sealed up like this.

They’ll be going to school soon, he said, sucking on his pipe. And as soon as winter lets up I want to show you the ocean. You can see it around here, you know, but it’s better to see it up close.

How much longer does winter last?

Not long, he promised. You’ll see. In a few months none of you will remember this and by then I won’t have to work too much. We’ll be able to travel in spring and see everything.

I hope so, Mami said.

My mother was not a woman easily cowed, but in the States she let my father roll over her. If he said he had to be at work for two days straight, she said OK and cooked enough moro to last him. She was depressed and sad and missed her father and her friends, our neighbors. Everyone had warned her that the U.S. was a difficult place where even the Devil got his ass beat, but no one had told her that she would have to spend the rest of her natural life snowbound with her children. She wrote letter after letter home, begging her sisters to come as soon as possible. This neighborhood is empty and friendless. And she begged my father to bring his friends over. She wanted to talk about unimportant matters, to speak to someone who wasn’t her child or her spouse.

None of you are ready for guests, Papi said. Look at this house. Look at your children. Me da vergüenza to see them slouching around like that.

You can’t complain about this apartment. All I do is clean it.

What about your sons?

My mother looked over at me and then at Rafa. I put one shoe over the other. After that, she had Rafa keep after me about my shoelaces. When we heard our father’s van arriving in the parking lot, Mami called us over for a quick inspection. Hair, teeth, hands, feet. If anything was wrong she’d hide us in the bathroom until it was fixed. Her dinners grew elaborate. She even changed the TV for Papi without calling him a zángano.

OK, he said finally. Maybe it can work.

It doesn’t have to be anything big, Mami said.

Two Fridays in a row he brought a friend over for dinner and Mami put on her best polyester jumpsuit and got us spiffy in our red pants, thick white belts, and amaranth-blue Chams shirts. Seeing her asthmatic with excitement made us hopeful too that our world was about to change for the better, but these were awkward dinners. The men were bachelors and divided their time between talking to Papi and eyeing Mami’s ass. Papi seemed to enjoy their company but Mami spent her time on her feet, hustling food to the table, opening beers, and changing the channel. She started out each night natural and unreserved, with a face that scowled as easily as it grinned, but as the men loosened their belts and aired out their toes and talked their talk, she withdrew; her expressions narrowed until all that remained was a tight, guarded smile that seemed to drift across the room the way a shadow drifts slowly across a wall. We kids were ignored for the most part, except once, when the first man, Miguel, asked, Can you two box as well as your father?

They’re fine fighters, Papi said.

Your father is very fast. Has good hand speed. Miguel leaned in. I saw him finish this one gringo, beat him until he was squealing.

Miguel had brought a bottle of Bermúdez rum; he and my father were drunk.

It’s time you go to your room, Mami said, touching my shoulder.

Why? I asked. All we do is sit there.

That’s how I feel about my home, Miguel said.

Mami’s glare cut me in half. Shut your mouth, she said, shoving us toward our room. We sat, as predicted, and listened. On both visits, the men ate their fill, congratulated Mami on her cooking, Papi on his sons, and then stayed about an hour for propriety’s sake. Cigarettes, dominos, gossip, and then the inevitable, Well, I have to get going. We have work tomorrow. You know how that is.

Of course I do. What else do we Dominicans know?

Afterward, Mami cleaned the pans quietly in the kitchen, scraping at the roasted pig flesh, while Papi sat out on our front porch in his short sleeves; he seemed to have grown impervious to the cold these last five years. When he came inside, he showered and pulled on his overalls. I have to work tonight, he said.

Mami stopped scratching at the pans with a spoon. You should find yourself a more regular job.

Papi shrugged. If you think jobs are easy to find, you go get one.

As soon as he left, Mami ripped the needle from the album and interrupted Felix del Rosario. We heard her in the closet, pulling on her coat and her boots.

Do you think she’s leaving us? I asked.

Rafa wrinkled his brow. Maybe, he said.

When we heard the front door open, we let ourselves out of our room and found the apartment empty.

We better go after her, I said.

Rafa stopped at the door. Let’s give her a minute, he said.

What’s wrong with you?

We’ll wait two minutes, he said.

One, I said loudly. He pressed his face against the glass patio door. We were about to hit the door when she returned, panting, an envelope of cold around her.

Where did you go? I asked.

I went for a walk. She dropped her coat at the door; her face was red from the cold and she was breathing deeply, as if she’d sprinted the last thirty steps.

Where?

Just around the corner.

Why the hell did you do that?

She started to cry, and when Rafa put his hand on her waist, she slapped it away. We went back to our room.

I think she’s losing it, I said.

She’s just lonely, Rafa said.

—

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE SNOWSTORM I heard the wind at our window. I woke up the next morning, freezing. Mami was fiddling with the thermostat; we could hear the gurgle of water in the pipes but the apartment didn’t get much warmer.

Just go play, Mami said. That will keep your mind off it.

Is it broken?

I don’t know. She looked at the knob dubiously. Maybe it’s slow this morning.

None of the gringos were outside playing. We sat by the window and waited for them. In the afternoon my father called from work; I could hear the forklifts when I answered.

Rafa?

No, it’s me.

Get your mother.

We got a big storm on the way, he explained to her — even from where I was standing I could hear his voice. There’s no way I can get out to see you. It’s gonna be bad. Maybe I’ll get there tomorrow.

What should I do?

Just keep indoors. And fill the tub with water.

Where are you sleeping? Mami asked.

At a friend’s.

She turned her face from us. OK, she said. When she got off the phone she sat in front of the TV. She could see I was going to pester her about Papi; she told me, Just watch your show.

Radio WADO recommended spare blankets, water, flashlights, and food. We had none of these things. What happens if we get buried? I asked. Will we die? Will they have to save us in boats?

I don’t know, Rafa said. I don’t know anything about snow. I was spooking him. He went over to the window and peered out.

We’ll be fine, Mami said. As long as we’re warm. She went over and raised the heat again.

But what if we get buried?

You can’t have that much snow.

How do you know?

Because twelve inches isn’t going to bury anybody, even a pain in the ass like you.

I went out on the porch and watched the first snow begin to fall like finely sifted ash. If we die, Papi’s going to feel bad, I said.

Mami turned away and laughed.

Four inches fell in an hour and the snow kept falling.

Mami waited until we were in bed, but I heard the door and woke Rafa. She’s at it again, I said.

Outside?

Yes.

He put on his boots grimly. He paused at the door and then looked back at the empty apartment. Let’s go, he said.

She was standing on the edge of the parking lot, ready to cross Westminster. The apartment lamps glared on the frozen ground and our breath was white in the night air. The snow was gusting.

Go home, she said.

We didn’t move.

Did you at least lock the front door? she asked.

Rafa shook his head.

It’s too cold for thieves anyway, I said.

Mami smiled and nearly slipped on the sidewalk. I’m not good at walking on this vaina.

I’m real good, I said. Just hold on to me.

We crossed Westminster. The cars were moving very slowly and the wind was loud and full of snow.

This isn’t too bad, I said. These people should see a hurricane.

Where should we go? Rafa asked. He was blinking a lot to keep the snow out of his eyes.

Go straight, Mami said. That way we don’t get lost.

We should mark the ice.

She put her hands around us both. It’s easier if we go straight.

We went down to the edge of the apartments and looked out over the landfill, a misshapen, shadowy mound that abutted the Raritan. Rubbish fires burned all over it like sores and the dump trucks and bulldozers slept quietly and reverently at its base. It smelled like something the river had tossed out from its floor, something moist and heaving. We found the basketball courts next and the pool, empty of water, and Parkwood, the next neighborhood over, which was all moved in and full of kids.

We even saw the ocean, up there at the top of Westminster, like the blade of a long, curved knife. Mami was crying but we pretended not to notice. We threw snowballs at the sliding cars and once I removed my cap just to feel the snowflakes scatter across my cold, hard scalp.