I’ll Give You the Sun(41)
Author: Jandy Nelson

“I lost the stars and the oceans too,” I tell him.

“This is terrible,” he says, his eyes widening inside the clay mask of his face. “You are a terrible negotiator. You need a lawyer next time.” There’s amusement in his voice.

I smile at him. “I got to keep the flowers.”

“Thank God,” he says.

Something strange is going on, something so strange I can’t quite believe it. I feel at ease. Of all places, here, with him.

Alas, that’s what I’m thinking when I notice the cat, the black cat. Guillermo leans down, takes the black bundle of bad luck into his arms. He nuzzles his head into its neck, cooing to it in Spanish. Most serial killers are animal lovers, I read that once.

“This is Frida Kahlo.” He turns around. “You know Kahlo?”

“Of course.” Mom’s book on her and Diego Rivera is called Count the Ways. I’ve read it cover to cover.

“Wonderful artist . . . so tormented.” He holds up the cat so she’s facing him. “Like you,” he says to the cat, then lowers her to the floor. She slinks right back to him, rubbing herself against his legs, oblivious to the years of rotten luck she’s filling our lives with.

“Did you know that toxoplasmosis and campylobacteriosis are transmitted to humans from the fecal matter of cats?” I ask Guillermo.

He knits his brow, making the clay on his forehead break into fissures. “No, I did not know. And I do not want to know that.” He’s spinning a pot in the air with his hands. “I’ve erased it from my mind already. Gone. Poof. You should too. Flying bricks and now this. I never even hear of those things.”

“You could go blind or worse. It happens. People have no idea how dangerous having pets is.”

“This is what you think? That it is dangerous to have a little kitty cat?”

“Most definitely. Especially a black one, but that’s a whole other bunch of bananas.”

“Okay,” he says. “That is what you think. You know what I think? I think you are crazy.” He throws his head back and laughs. It warms up the entire world. “Totally loca.” He turns around and starts talking in Spanish, saying Clark Gable knows what as he takes off his smock, hangs it on a hook. Underneath he’s wearing jeans and a black T-shirt like a normal guy. He pulls a notepad out of the front pocket of the smock and slips it into the back pocket of his jeans. I wonder if it’s an idea pad. At CSA, we’re encouraged to keep an idea pad on our person at all times. Mine’s empty. He turns both faucets on full blast, puts one arm underneath, then the other, scrubbing both with industrial soap. Brown water runs off him in muddy streams. Next he puts his whole head under the faucet. This is going to take a while.

I bend down to make friends with bad-luck Frida, who’s still circling Guillermo’s feet. Keep your enemies close, as they say. What’s so odd is that even with Frida and the toxoplasmosis and this man who should terrify me for so many reasons, I feel more at home than I have anywhere for so long. I scratch my fingers on the floor, trying to get the cat’s attention. “Frida,” I say softly.

The title of Mom’s book Count the Ways on Kahlo and Rivera is a line taken from her favorite poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “Do you know it by heart?” I’d asked her one day when we were walking in the woods together, just us, a rarity.

“Of course I do.” She did a joyful little skip and pulled me close to her so that every inch of me felt happy and leaping. “‘How do I love thee?’” she said, her big dark eyes shining on me, our hair whipping around our heads, blending and twisting together in the wind. I knew it was a romantic poem, but that day, it felt about us, our private mother-daughter thing. “‘Let me count the ways,’” she sang out . . . wait, she is singing out! “‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach—’”

It’s her, here, now—her deep gravelly voice is reciting the poem to me!

“‘I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.’”

“Mom?” I whisper. “I hear you.”

Every single night before I go to bed, I read this poem aloud to her, wishing for this.

“Okay down there?” I peer up into the unmasked face of Guillermo Garcia, who now looks like he just got out of the ocean, his black hair slicked back and dripping, a towel thrown over his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” I say to him, but I’m far from it. My mother’s ghost spoke to me. She recited the poem back to me. She told me she loves me. Still.

I get to my feet. What must’ve I looked like? Squatting there on the floor, no cat in sight, totally lost, whispering to my dead mother.

Guillermo’s face now resembles the photos I saw online. Any one of his features would be dramatic, but all of them together, it’s a turf war, a rumble for territory, nose against mouth against flashing eyes. I can’t tell if he’s grotesque or gorgeous.

He’s examining me too.

“Your bones”—he touches his own cheek—“are very delicate. You have the bird bones.” His eyes drop, sweeping past my breasts, landing with confusion somewhere in the middle of me. I look down, expecting the onion to be in plain view or something else I forgot I was carrying for luck today, but it’s not that. My T-shirt has risen up under my unzipped sweatshirt and he’s staring at my exposed midriff, my tattoo. He takes a step toward me, and without asking, lifts my shirt so he can see the whole image. Oh boy. Ohboyohboy. His hand’s holding up the fabric. I can feel the heat of his fingertips on my belly. My heart speeds up. This is inappropriate, right? I mean, he’s old. A dad’s age. Except he sure doesn’t seem like a dad.

Then I see in his face that my stomach’s about as interesting to him as stretched canvas. He’s mesmerized by my tattoo, not me. Not sure if I’m relieved or insulted.

He meets my eyes, nods approval. “Raphael on the belly,” he says. “Very nice.” I can’t help but smile. He does too. A week before Mom died, I spent every penny I’d ever saved on it. Zephyr knew this guy who’d tattoo underage kids. I chose Raphael’s cherubs because they reminded me of NoahandJude—more one than two. Plus they can fly. Mostly now I think I did it to piss off Mom, but I never even got to show it to her . . . How can people die when you’re in a fight with them? When you’re smack in the middle of hating them? When absolutely nothing between you has been worked out?