Chapter 15
LEO
I’M GRADING AN ESSAY ON the battle of the Alamo when April says, “We should go to Mexico. Take a vacation.”
The essay is laid out in front of me, and I feel it in my bones—Santa Anna, Davy Crockett, bloodied men, and the burning question: To whom do we belong?
I set my pen down. “Why Mexico?”
“I was just thinking about how we haven’t taken a vacation since our honeymoon.”
Our honeymoon is a sore spot. I took April camping only to find out later from Cameron that she was disappointed not to do something nicer. April grew up taking family vacations every year, while I never once traveled for leisure. Our expectations were worlds apart.
She picks at her fingernail. “Josie told me about a nice rental option in Cabo.”
Cabo. Not Chiapas, where my parents are from. Or Juárez, where I have a cousin I haven’t seen in decades. She isn’t thinking about my history, or any history at all. Just vacation for vacation’s sake.
“Something wrong?” she asks.
“Uh, what about somewhere on the Texas coast instead?”
She crinkles her nose, so I guess this is Honeymoon Disappointment 2.
0. But if I were to go speak Spanish in Mexico, I’d be an imposter.
I wouldn’t have the privilege of clearly being a foreigner.
People would wonder why I’m Mexican but not.
Why I don’t have the right clothes or slang or cultural understanding.
And I thought April knew that I avoid reminders of my parents, who probably haven’t thought of me one way or another since they washed their hands of me twenty-six years ago.
I’m not inclined to vacation in their homeland, where the language and traditions would mock me, son of a place where I’ll never belong.
April brightens. “Maybe South Padre! Pretty beaches, practically Mexico.”
And with that, she has me. I open an internet browser to search places to stay. The Alamo’s rotation of flags and violence can wait.
As I browse hotel options, April comes around beside me and rests her chin on my shoulder. I click the ones with medium-level dollar signs and tell her that I’ve actually never seen the ocean.
Her jaw drops. “What?!”
“Nope.”
This has long been part of my life, mentioning things I’ve never done and then absorbing people’s shock. I’ve never been to the ocean or the state fair. Never learned to swim or ride a bike. Never had cable television or made a Christmas tree ornament.
But now there will be one fewer thing on that list, because I click and then double-click.
April squeals and says she’ll need a new swimsuit. Maybe a sun hat.
We’ve officially booked an ocean-view room at Margaritaville.
Our first day on the island, all at once I understand the appeal of vacations. And the sea.
Dios mío, the sea.
The sun sets behind the dunes, and the crashing waters are altogether magnificent. They are loud. Frightening, almost. They put me in my place, demanding that I acknowledge my smallness. I take April’s face in my hands and kiss her hard on the mouth. When I pull back, the waves crash in her eyes.
“I can’t believe this is your first time seeing the ocean.”
I brush hair from her face. “Technically, it’s the Gulf.”
She laughs and shoves me. “It counts!”
The sunlight is nearly gone. Our shoes dangle from our fingers as we walk back to our room, where April closes the window. Even with that double-paned barrier, the waters don’t let us forget their presence.
April lights a candle, cupping her hand around the flame as it establishes.
She walks toward me with a look of meaning and play across her face.
With one tug, she undoes the drawstring of my American flag swimsuit, which drops to the floor. She pulls my T-shirt over my head and puts a hand to my chest. “Lie down.”
I most certainly obey.
Slowly, she takes her sundress off.
Then, standing beside me in her swimsuit, she reaches across me to adjust my pillows so I can watch her comfortably. My body tingles with aliveness.
In the flickering light, she unties her swimsuit top and lets it fall.
I reach to trace the tan line at the curve of her breast, but she grabs me by the wrist, shaking her head and biting her lip.
I groan. “Why not?”
She tugs down the bottom of her swimsuit and steps out of it, and I need my mouth on her skin as badly as I’ve ever needed anything, that triangle where the sun has not kissed, irresistible in the candlelight.
But she stops me again. “Because—” She floats her fingers cruelly down her own body, looking right at me as she pauses to enjoy her own touch.
My hands twitch for her, and my breathing goes shallow.
“There’s so much you haven’t had. But—” She moves now to straddle me, her thighs my torture.
“I want to give you—” She reaches down and touches me with such soft precision that I gasp.
“Every—” She is touching both of us now.
“Possible—” Her hands move faster. “Pleasure.” Her eyelids flutter closed.
Finally, she lets me take her by the hips.
The candle wick burns low and the waves roll on.
I have absolutely everything.
Our week is spent in a blink. We eat lobster, read aloud on the beach, and get sunburned. It’s perfect.
When we go to the beach for one last sunset, April’s cheeks are as pink as the sky, her hair dancing around her face. We listen to the sea, a gull’s keow, a child’s laugh sailing on the wind. I look at April and say something I’ve been thinking about all week. “I want more of you.”
She’s leaning back, fingers buried in the sand, ankles crossed in front of her, shoulders boasting dots of sun. With a relaxed smile, she says, “I’m all yours.”
I look so intently at her that I can almost see her at every age. And I’m filled with a certainty I thought I would never have. “I want to have a baby with you.”
She sits upright in surprise, lifting a sandy hand to her own cheek.
When we got married, there were unanswered questions.
I knew she had a savings account; she knew I didn’t.
I knew she voted for Romney; she knew I voted for Obama.
I knew she might want kids; she knew I might not.
These were things that we, young and in love, assumed time would solve.
And in this instance, we weren’t wrong. Four years in, and time has opened something up in me.
It’s true that I didn’t want children, but I do want her children.
Here beside the sea, I feel a wisp of the strength it takes to become a father.
“Oh my gosh, you do?”
“Yes.” I nod. “I do.”
It’s like a new vow.
She throws her arms around me and says into my neck, “I want a baby with you too.” Her hair is gritty and glorious in my face, and I feel bone-deep gratitude.
The tide creeps closer as if the grinning Gulf knows what we’ve just decided.
This bit of earth that once belonged to the Texians, the Mexicans, the French, the Spanish.
Through it all, waves have lapped this shore, ever patient with the claims of men.
The question of belonging is a real one, and it is one that plagues me.
Don’t ask me about Texas or Mexico or my parents—what I know is that I belong to April.
A few months after our time on the island, we celebrate a double-pink line. Brainstorm baby names. And lay our hands tenderly across April’s belly, a country all our own.