Chapter 48
LEO
I’M WALKING OUT OF TEACHER in-service when I see the profile of a man with slumped shoulders. I feel a sense of familiarity before I realize who it is.
“Hola, Leonardo.”
My shoulders tense. I’m completely unprepared to figure out how I feel about him, or what I might want to say to him after the blow he delivered at Slovacek’s. “I told you I needed time,” I say.
“I gave you time. Now I’m asking for the same.” Rico gestures toward an empty bench.
The sun is setting behind the school, long shadows extending from the trunks of trees.
Where there will soon be a horde of teenagers, there’s just a scatter of people: teachers leaving in-service, a woman walking her dog, a father holding the back of his daughter’s bicycle and saying, “I’m letting go this time. ”
I sigh. “How’d you know where I was?” But I go to the bench and sit. It’s the type of bench with a metal armrest in the middle to prevent anyone from using it as a bed. A municipal middle finger to the down-and-out. I wonder if my father knows this from experience, as I do.
He sits on the other side of the armrest and answers, “April told me.”
I want to hate both of them, but I can’t quite do it.
Rico and I have the same hair, cheekbones, eyes.
The same way of running a hand down the face.
Sitting beside him now, I’m overcome with a feeling that no time has passed.
That I still know every detail of this man.
His smell, his throat-clearing, the lines on his hands.
It’s as though my first seven years were a million, and the years since then were nothing.
“Why didn’t you try harder to tell me about Mami?” I ask.
He picks at a dot of spackle on his pants.
“Yo no sé. I thought Nacho was right, that he was protecting you and I would only make it worse. But,” he says.
“I should have come for you. I should have gotten help for her. I should have done so many things I didn’t do, and maybe our family could have stayed together. ” He faces me now. “Lo siento.”
I swallow and, not knowing what else to do, I swallow again.
The girl on the bicycle succeeds. She jumps off and runs to her father, who cheers and lifts her off the ground. I look away and ask quietly, “Did April tell you we’re divorcing?”
“No,” he says. “She didn’t.”
“We are.”
“You shouldn’t.”
My head snaps toward him. “How can you say that? You don’t even know—”
“I know she helped me find you. And I know family is hard. And I know it’s too late for me, but it might not be too late for you.”
I shake my head. “But she…” I haven’t told a soul about April and Cody, because it’s humiliating to not be enough for someone. “Never mind.”
“She what? Hurt you?”
I don’t respond.
“Well, is she sorry?”
My anger crackles. “Sorry can’t change what happened.”
A sharp quiet follows. Rico grips his knees, the lion snug inside its jungle of ink.
His jaw is tight. “I know that,” he says, each word a staccato shot of his own regret.
“But it can change what will happen. Listen, I have no place to give you advice, so I won’t.
But you have something I’d give anything for: a chance to keep your family together. ”
I wish I didn’t have good memories of Rico Torres, but I do, and they barrage me now.
Him, teaching me to skip rocks and tie shoes.
Him, giving me his own scoop of beans when there wasn’t enough food.
He and Mami singing Selena in the kitchen.
I buried these scenes when I got to Nacho and Izzy’s.
I rehearsed the bad memories, chanting to myself that my parents didn’t want me so I didn’t want them.
Rico stands. “I shouldn’t have come here.”
“Wait.” I stand. “It does mean something to me that you came.”
An uncertain softness pillows between us. He nods, running his hand down his face. From his pocket, he pulls out a torn piece of paper with a phone number written neatly on it. “I want to know you.” He looks down at the torn paper. “Someday, maybe, if you want to know me.”
I don’t crumple the paper, and I don’t toss it in his face. With this, he seems satisfied. “Thanks for listening a este viejo,” he says, looking at the school and back at me. “Have a good year.”
He turns to go.
But then I say, “Papi?”
He turns carefully back around. Papi.
I nod toward his arm. “I’ve always wanted to know about that lion.”
He looks down. “?Esto?” A sad smile. “Got it when you were born, Leonardo. I fucked everything up, but my love for you is permanent.” He drops his gaze again to the lion. “You’ve been with me every day.”
It pierces me like a needle in skin. During my years with Nacho and Izzy, I believed my parents didn’t care, that they never even thought about me. But the truth is that my mother was gone and my father loved me. And love hurts so much more than indifference.