Chapter 12
Ray sat on the sofa with his brothers, while his sisters occupied other chairs in the crowded living room.
He could not remember the last time his father had called a family meeting, and he assumed this one was important, because when Enrique returned home from the wedding of a coworker, he told his children he needed to talk to them.
I hope Papi and Mami aren’t splitting up. There are times when I hear them arguing, but they never talk loud enough for me to hear what they are saying. Ray shook his head as if to banish the thought. His parents were Catholic, and they didn’t believe in divorce.
Enrique Torres stood with his back to the windows, his hands clasped tightly in front of him. He wasn’t a tall man, but his ramrod-straight posture made him appear taller than he actually was. He rarely raised his voice, but when he did, his kids knew they were in trouble.
“Your mother and I have had long conversations about you kids, and we’ve decided that once school ends, we’re sending you to my cousin’s farm in Puerto Rico for the summer.”
“All of us, Papi?” Delores questioned.
“Yes.”
Ray felt his heart beating a double-time rhythm in his chest. “But why, Papi?”
“It’s because me and your mother plan to work a lot this summer to save enough money to buy a house. Mami has been approved to work double shifts, while I found a weekend job delivering newspapers.”
“Where are you buying the house?” Ray asked.
Mariana walked into the living room and sat on the arm of a chair next to her youngest daughter. “We’re thinking about a nice neighborhood in the Bronx. There are some two-family homes with front and back lawns and enough room where all you boys and girls won’t have to share the same bedrooms.”
“When are we moving, Papi?” asked the youngest girl.
“Not for two years. It’s going to take us that long to save up enough money for a down payment, closing costs, and if we have to make repairs.”
Ray met his father’s eyes. “Are you saying we have to spend two summers in Puerto Rico?” He was six when his parents took him and his older sister to the island to visit with relatives who owned a farm.
The days seemed to fly by when he woke to the sound of a crowing rooster.
Then he would scramble out of bed and go to the chicken coop to gather eggs that were still warm and bring them back to the house for breakfast. All of the food grown on the farm seemed to taste better than what he’d eaten on the mainland.
His fourteen-year-old cousin would settle Ray in front of him on a horse as they rode along unpaved dusty roads where people had erected makeshift outdoor structures to roast whole pigs.
It was the last time he’d visited his island relatives, because once Mariana had another four more children in rapid succession, she claimed it was impossible to travel with so many babies, some who still were wearing diapers.
Now that all of the Torres children were school age and becoming more self-sufficient, they were ready to visit the island of their ancestors.
Although he was looking forward to going back to Puerto Rico, Ray knew he had to tell Kenny and Frankie that they would have to scrap their plans to spend the summer together.
“I signed up to get working papers so I could get a job this summer,” Delores said, frowning.
“You’ll have plenty of time to work once you finish school, but right now you’re going to Puerto Rico to help look after your brothers and sisters,” Enrique stated firmly.
“But that’s not fair, Papi,” she retorted.
“What’s fair is you helping out when needed. Right now, your mother and I need everyone’s cooperation, and that means doing whatever we tell you to do.”
Mariana nodded. “I’m going to fly down with everyone and see that you get settled before coming back.”
“What about abuela?” Ray asked.
His mother met his eyes. “She will stay here. Not taking care of you kids will give the break she needs for a couple of months.”
“What’s going to happen when we come back? Will you still be working double shifts?” Delores asked her mother.
Mariana shook her head. “No. I will go back to my regular schedule, and so will your father. It is only during the summers that we will work overtime. Hopefully by the time you are ready to graduate high school, we’ll be living in our new home.”
Delores huffed. “Will I have my own bedroom?”
“Yes,” Enrique, confirmed. “As the oldest girl—and Ramon, as the oldest boy—you will have your own bedrooms. Juan and Carlos will share a room, and Bianca and Elena will share another.”
Ray quickly counted in his head the number of bedrooms needed for the entire family. “You’re going to need to find a house with five or six bedrooms because where is abuela going to sleep?”
Enrique smiled for the first time. “If the house has a basement, then we’ll convert a portion of it into a bedroom for your grandmother.
That’s why we have to save enough money to find a house big enough for everyone.
And that’s why I want a two-family. We can rent it to another family and use that money to offset the mortgage, utilities, and repairs. ”
“Papi, will we have to share our house with the new people?” ten-year-old Elena asked.
“No, mija,” Enrique said, shaking his head. “They will have their own home.”
Ray looked at Delores, and they shared a smile.
Both had complained to each other that nine people living in a three-bedroom apartment where no one had any privacy was a problem.
He’d had to wait for everyone to go to bed to sit up in the kitchen and do homework, or study for an exam.
There were times when it was past midnight before he got into bed, and once the alarm clock went off, he’d felt as if he hadn’t gotten any sleep.
If his parents had been arguing, it was about wanting better for their children.
“Okay, Papi. Let me know what you need me to do to help us move to a house,” Ray told his father.
“The only thing you need to concern yourself with is staying in school and out of trouble. And I don’t want to repeat myself when I say I don’t want to find out that you were smoking, drinking, and messing around with girls.
One slipup, and I’ll send you to my cousin Pedro who lives in the mountains, and he will work you like a slave. ”
Ray felt a rush of heat in his face, and he knew his father wasn’t issuing an idle threat. Pedro owned a banana plantation and had earned the reputation of mistreating his workers for the least infraction.
“I know, Papi.”
Enrique glared at him. “As long as you know, then everything is okay. It’s getting late, so it’s time some of you kids need to go to bed, because there’s school tomorrow.”
Ray sat on the sofa long after his parents and siblings left the living room.
He knew his mother and father worked hard to pay rent, buy food and clothes for their children.
They’d also preached relentlessly about them doing the right thing so they could stay out of trouble.
And by trouble, his father meant staying away from drugs.
Ray didn’t understand all that was going on in the world, because his social studies textbook hadn’t caught up with what was being reported by television news journalists or in daily newspapers.
The words counterculture and anti-establishment were just words that hinted of some upheaval that had nothing to do with him.
He knew there was a war going on in the jungles in a country called Vietnam and that American soldiers were being sent there to fight, yet he remained unaffected because no one he knew had been drafted or sent overseas.
He just wanted to finish high school, go to college, then onto medical school so he would become the first in his family to become a doctor.
He got up every morning, went to school, then came home to do homework, eat, then prepared to go to bed in the bedroom he shared with his two brothers.
He went to mass with his family on Sundays and served as an altar boy every other Sunday.
He also went to confession every Saturday to tell the priest what he’d done wrong and said the prayers he needed for absolution.
Ray would occasionally admit to fighting with his younger brothers, but he was reluctant to tell the priest that he liked masturbating.
That was a secret he would keep to himself.
Even when Frankie and Ray had mentioned they engaged in the practice, Ray had lied and told them it was something he wouldn’t do because it was a sin.
They would laugh and call him Father Torres, because they said he was better suited for the priesthood than medicine.
Ray waited until he knew his younger brothers would be asleep in their bunk beds before going into the bedroom and readying himself for bed.
He lay in the darkened room, his mind filled with memories of his first visit to the Caribbean island.
He recalled his mother telling him she was taking him and Delores to Puerto Rico because she’d wanted them to experience their ancestral roots.
Ray had believed she was talking about a plant until she opened an old family bible to a page listing the names, births, and deaths of people in her family going back four generations.
It wasn’t until he was much older that Ray realized he’d come from a long line of people who had survived slavery, being targeted for death or imprisonment from political opponents; although many of his relatives still lived in Puerto Rico, they were American citizens.