Pride (Page 47)

Madrina would know.

It’s the middle of the night and our bedroom is almost emptied out, with only a few open boxes left. Our mattresses had to be wrapped in plastic and stacked in the living room for the movers in the morning. So we lie on blankets. But I can’t sleep.

I sneak down to Madrina’s apartment, where the door is unlocked and it’s completely empty, but her scent still lingers in the air—cigar and sage smoke, Florida water, incense, and cheap perfume. These smells are even stronger as I make my way down to the basement.

This is no longer Madrina’s temple for Ochún. It’s as if everything has been poured out into a flowing river.

But Madrina’s chair is still there. Stripped of its white fabric and yellow cushion, it’s more like a skeleton of itself. I sit in it and fold my hands over my belly, just like Madrina used to. I lean my head back and close my eyes to hear her voice one last time.

Ah, mija! There you go! Rivers flow. A body of water that remains stagnant is just a cesspool, mi amor! It’s time to move, flow, grow. That is the nature of rivers. That is the nature of love!

Thirty

EVERYONE IS DOWNSTAIRS waiting for the moving truck to pull off, and I’m the last to take a tour of the place before I say goodbye forever. I finger a layer of dust on my bedroom windowsill. Our apartment looks way bigger without all the furniture and stuff. And much more broken too. There’re cracks in the walls, mold, chipping paint—this crowded apartment probably wasn’t good for our health.

The kitchen looks even smaller, though. I can’t believe that Mama has cooked all those meals, enough to feed a whole block, in that tiny kitchen. The stove and countertops have been scrubbed clean, and I wonder if it will all be torn away to make room for a bigger kitchen like the one at Darius’s house.

I take another look at the whole apartment, inhale deeply, step outside, and close the door.

I did not want to cry, but the tears burst out of me like a newly opened fire hydrant in the summer. I hug myself and press my head against the closed door. All of me, everything I’ve ever known and loved, was once behind that door. I feel as if I’ve stepped outside my own body, and I’m leaving it behind.

“Zuri?” Someone says my name quietly.

I sniff and try to hold back my tears, but I can’t. I don’t turn around to see who it is, but I know the voice. I don’t dare move.

He touches my shoulder. Still I don’t move.

“Hey.” He gently turns me around.

I cross my arms and don’t look up at him.

He pulls me in, hugs me, and kisses my forehead. So I just let it all out again, in his chest, in his arms.

I pull away from him a little and look into his eyes. He wipes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs and kisses me on the lips.

The very last thing I do in this building is kiss a boy—the boy who moved in across the street and changed everything. Maybe this is what Madrina wanted all along: for me to find love and take it with me when I leave this place.

So we walk down the steps and out of the building hand in hand. Half our block is out on the sidewalk, saying goodbye to my sisters, Mama, and Papi. They all turn to see me and Darius holding hands again. Of course they all have to comment all at once. Some whistle, others cheer, and the rest of them laugh as if we’re five-year-olds and this little thing is cute but won’t last.

I catch Papi’s eyes smiling. He quietly nods and turns away.

Manny from down the block has offered his minivan to drive Mama and my sisters out to our new place. I got dibs on riding with Papi in the moving truck.

Before I hop onto the middle seat between the mover and Papi, Darius pulls me aside again. “I can come pick you up. Take a long drive through Brooklyn. From Canarsie all the way to Brooklyn Heights.”

“Nah,” I say, shaking my head. “I am not your Brooklyn tour guide, Darius Darcy! You want to come pick me up, take the train.”

“How ’bout a cab?”

“No, Darius! The subway. Last stop on the L. You’re in Brooklyn now.”

“Last stop on the L,” he repeats, smiling, and takes the tips of my fingers until I climb into the truck.

Papi takes his hand and gives him a hard dap. “You take care, okay, buddy?”

Then Papi pulls Darius in and gives him one of those homie hugs. This is the thing that melts my heart the most. It’s as if my whole neighborhood has said yes to the boy who moved in across the street, to me and him.

Papi, I met this boy.

Even though he’s not old enough yet, I know you will

tell him to get a case of Presidente beer from Hernando’s

to share on the stoop one last time with this boy

who likes your daughter because you will hope that he

has a heart big enough to love me much more than you

because this is what you want for all of us, Papi.

You want your daughters’ boyfriends to have wisdom

as layered as pages in a book, memories as old

as slave ships at the shores of Hispaniola,

and love as endless as bottles of Presidente beer

shared on the stoops all over Bushwick

late into the night, Papi.

I met this boy.

Canarsie really is the very edge of the world, or at least Brooklyn. It feels that way since it takes so long for me to get to and from my old neighborhood. My sisters and I have to leave the house by six thirty in the morning just to get to school on time. Canarsie is the first and last stop on the L train, just like Darius said.

My new hood is nothing like my old hood. If there are newcomers here, they’re black or Latinx like our family. No one is coming here to throw anything away. There’s room to spread my arms and not hit anybody in the head. I can go a whole day sitting in front of the house and only see about five people. But no one sits on stoops here. No one pulls out a barbecue grill on the sidewalk, or a small table for a game of dominoes. The bodega is more than five blocks away, and we have to drive to the closest supermarket or Laundromat. But Mama and Papi still don’t know how to drive and don’t have a car. So most of our days are spent commuting to and from everywhere and stuck inside the small two-story house, minding our own business. Marisol and the twins spend more time at school with extracurricular activities, and Mama cooks way too much food, since our kitchen is much bigger now. Howard University has my new address, and they’ve been filling our mailbox with catalogs and postcards. I take that as a good sign.

We have more space and less time. And the love we had for our whole neighborhood now only fits into this wood-frame house in the middle of a quiet block. We don’t know the people who live across the street or on either side of us.

After my first day of senior year, I take a trip to my old block. Darius has been wanting to come see me, but we still had boxes and I was still trying to make sense of it all. I wanted more than anything to step back onto Jefferson and Bushwick Avenues, but only when I knew I was ready.

Darius meets me at the Halsey Street and Wyckoff Avenue station off the L train. It’s as if he hasn’t seen me in years, the way he hugs me and lifts me off my feet. We walk through my old hood, hand in hand, talking small talk about school, college, SATs, and Bushwick. I can spot the renovations happening to our old building from a block away.

The windows have been taken out, and the whole inside of the building has been gutted. My stomach sinks, and a wave of sadness makes me want to fall to the ground and wail. Darius squeezes my hand.

“Do you know who bought it?” I ask.