Exiled Read online

  "You're not doing it alone, Isabel."

  "But I don't . . . I don't know how to be a mother. I barely even remember my own. A few snatches of memory. Her cooking for me when I was a little girl. Her singing an old lullaby to me in Spanish. But . . . how do I mother a child? I'm not--I don't--"

  "Love, Isabel. That's how. Hugs, kisses, lullabies. Be there. Just . . . love. The rest we'll figure out together, as we go. That's all anyone has ever done, I think. I don't think anyone is ever ready for a baby, sweetheart. No one really knows what they're doing. You just . . . do the best you can. Love them, be there for them, take care of them to the best of your ability. That's all you can do."

  "But what if . . . what if it's his?"

  "Will he want it? Will he want, like, joint custody or something, if it is?"

  "I have no idea, Logan. I don't even know how to tell him. I don't know if I ever want to see him again." I shake my head against the pillow. "He has answers. He knows things about me. There's a history, there, somewhere. He knew me. I know he did. But . . . if I see him again, I'm afraid of what will happen. Me changing has changed him. I don't want to . . . to see him anymore. Even if I never find out the answers, I don't want to see him. I am Isabel now, yes. But I am also the woman who was Madame X. I am both. Madame X is still a part of who I am. So is he. But now . . . so are you."

  "We're a part of each other."

  "It's all so . . . messy."

  "Life is messy, Is. We're all just . . . fumbling around out here. Living, doing the best with what we've got. It's never easy, and it's never simple."

  "I wish it were."

  "So does everyone else."

  "Not everyone has been through what I have."

  "True. And I'm not trying to make light of that. Just saying, you're not alone in this mess called life."

  "I have you."

  "Exactly." He pulls at me, so I'm on my back. I turn my head to look at him. He's removed the patch, and the space where his eye used to be is a wrinkled, scarred hole. It's strange, but it's part of him. "Listen, Isabel. I promised you I'd love you, no matter what. I do. I will. I'm making that promise again. I love you. No matter what. Okay? You want to tell him, I'll go with you. You want to stay clear of him, we'll make sure you never see him again. We'll move to freakin' Thailand if we have to. Okay? I'll take care of you."

  "And the baby?"

  "And the baby."

  I can't help crying again at that.

  And again, he kisses me. Kisses the tears away. Wipes them with the broad pad of his thumb. Kisses my lips.

  It's going to be okay.

  *

  It is early in the morning, and we are having breakfast. He shoots me a glance, sets the newspaper down. "Babe?"

  I lower my mug of tea. "Yes, Logan?"

  He snorts. "You gotta loosen up, honey." He straightens his spine, makes a tight, sour face, raises his voice to a falsetto, and captures my inflections precisely. "'Yes, Logan?' Like for real, if I say, 'Hey, babe,' you should say something simple and normal, like . . . 'What's up, buttercup?'"

  I frown at him. "What does that mean, 'What's up, buttercup?' It strikes me as trite and empty."

  Another laugh. "It is. Which is why it's funny. Just . . . try it. So let's start over." A pause, and he clears his throat. "Hey, babe?"

  I slouch in my chair, make a grumpy face, affect as deep a voice as I can. "Yo dude, what's up?"

  A big broad shout of genuine laughter. "Exactly! I love it!"

  I straighten. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, what is it you wanted to ask me?"

  "You ever see the touristy stuff around here? Like, the Statue of Liberty and all that?"

  I shrug. "Probably before, but not recently that I am able to recall."

  He slaps the table with his palm. "It's settled, then. Time for a field trip!"

  "Really?"

  "Really. I'll take the day off and we'll just hang out and do the tourist thing. I've never really done it myself, for as long as I've lived here. You just . . . take it all for granted, you know?"

  I shake my head. "Not really."

  "I suppose you wouldn't, huh? It's like, you live here, you work here, and the tourist stuff will always be here so there's no point in going to look at any of it, because you live here. So you never end up going to see it." He pulls out his phone, glances at me. "I'm gonna get us an Uber so I don't have to worry about driving. You'll want a sweater or something for when we're on the ferry."

  "Ferry?"

  "Well yeah, how else are we gonna see the statue? It's way out in the bay, right?" A shooing gesture. "So go get some sturdy walking shoes on and grab a sweatshirt. The Uber will be here any minute."

  I do as instructed, putting on a pair of running shoes and a zip-up hoodie, by which time Logan has locked up Cocoa and is waiting outside by the Uber car, a black Mercedes sedan. He locks the front door, and we're off.

  I'm excited, actually. A day off, out with Logan. Exactly what I need, really, especially since I've already dealt with the morning sickness today.

  Our first stop is a pier on the Hudson River, where Logan buys us a ticket for the full tour of the island. We find seats on the upper deck, in the open air, and wait for the boat to fill. Within fifteen minutes or so, the ropes are thrown off, a horn sounds, and we back out of the slip, pivot, and trundle out into the river. Another couple of minutes, and then a voice fills the air, coming from a PA system, narrating our journey, describing landmarks of the island on our left telling us which number avenue we're passing and explaining how the number of the pier corresponds to the street number nearest it. I pay close attention, sitting on the inside of the row, closest to the water, feeling as giddy as a little girl.

  Mile by mile, however, a strange sensation grows within me. Familiarity. As if I've been here, before. The sun is midway up toward the zenith, beating warm on my face, and the boat is rolling gently, an elderly, stentorian male voice guiding the tour. Behind us, a woman and her two young boys chatter to each other in Spanish:

  "Mama, where is the Statue of Liberty? Are we going to see it soon, Mama? Can we go up in it?"

  "No, 'Jandro, we are going to go past it, but not on it. I think the man will tell us when we will be able to see it."

  "Can we get some food, Mama? I'm hungry. It's been hours since breakfast."

  "My God, Manuel, you only think of your stomach. We have to save our money, so we cannot get anything to eat just yet. We will have lunch after the tour."

  I hear their voices, feel the sun. I'm floating.

  Dizzy.

  Something sparks, tumbles in my mind.

  Clicks.

  *

  Mama is on my right, Papa to my left. We are up on the very top of the boat, sitting as far forward as we can. I am excited, flush with exuberance, but I am trying to keep it in, to be more like Mama, who has her hands folded on her lap and her ankles crossed beneath her, under the bench. She is calm, quiet, watching the buildings of Manhattan float past us.

  We are really in New York! I am as excited as I am frightened. I know no one. I have no friends. We have no family. Papa speaks the best English of any of us, and mine is a close second to his, but Mama speaks barely any at all. I think it is okay for her, though, since because she is so very beautiful most men will do whatever she asks, even if she is asking it in Spanish, and they speak not a word. They'll trip over themselves just to get a smile from her. I've seen it happen. She wanted a bottle of water but couldn't figure out the money. The paper bills were all too big and they all looked the same, but the coins were too small and all looked different, and she was worried about getting cheated. The man trying to sell us the water didn't speak any more English than we did, but he was a man, and a man with eyes for a beautiful woman. So when Mama let out a frustrated sigh, smiled that smile of hers, and held out the money to the man, he made the correct change for her. I am good at math, so I counted it, because really it's very simple, and tried to tell this to Mama, bu
t she just shushed me. But she got the bottle of water, and the correct change, and all she had to do was smile.

  That's Mama.

  Papa is more trusting. He would have given the man the money and trusted him to make the right change, and wouldn't have realized he'd been cheated until much later, when it was too late. But Papa knows this, which is why he let Mama buy the water. Because he is smart about being stupid.

  That is most men, I think.

  Or so I have observed.

  We have only been here two days, Mama and I. Papa came first, a month ago, and found us an apartment to live in near where both he and Mama worked, registered me for school, and signed us up for our citizenship classes. He'd even managed to get a few days of work in but hadn't had a chance to see anything fun. So the moment Mama and I arrived in the baggage claim area, Papa piled our suitcases onto a trolley and led the way to our car. It's not a new car, and not a very nice one. It has rust on it, and there is a crack in the windshield, but Papa said it was a cheap rental just for the day, because taxis cost too much money and the subways are very confusing, the roads only marginally less so.

  Papa was very excited, babbling a mile a minute, talking about how our new apartment is nice, very nice, but of course not so nice as our home back in Barcelona, but still nice.

  Even now, despite the fact that there is a tour guide, Papa is talking, talking, talking, pointing out buildings he recognizes, laughing at what I assume was a joke the tour guide made that I did not quite understand.

  Eventually, as she always does, Mama quiets him. "Luis. You are babbling, my love. Hush, please, and let the tour guide be the tour guide."

  Papa pretends to be grumpy and embarrassed, but he reaches his arm behind me and Mama reaches up, holds on to his fingers with her own. I roll my eyes at their display and get up, move to the front of the boat.

  "Isabel, please be careful," Mama says.

  "I will," I say, stuffing down the impulse to say something rude and childish about how I'm not a child that I need a reminder to be careful.

  As soon as I am up, Papa takes my seat and Mama leans into him, tucks her head against his shoulder. I sigh and look away, turn my attention forward, hoping to see the statue. There is nothing to see yet, though, but the island on our left and the place called New Jersey on our right, and water between. I like the wind in my hair, because it reminds me of home--of Spain.

  This is home now.

  I feel a pang in my chest at that. This is home.

  I'll never see Maria or Consuela again, my best friends since I was a baby. I told them I would write letters, but in my heart I know I probably won't. I'll be busy with school, and trying to make new friends, and learning to speak English. Maria and Consuela were jealous of me for getting to move to America, but I think maybe it isn't going to be as fun and exciting as everyone thinks.

  It is scary. This is a huge place, this New York. Everything is so tall, so wide, so fast, so new. There are millions of cars, taxis, buses, trucks, and there is the rumbling of trains underfoot and the crush of people, so many people.

  And they are all so rude, so unfriendly. As if they cannot be bothered to even look at me, because their lives are so important, so much to do. At home--back in Spain--people would smile at you as you passed them. You might see someone while you're sitting at lunch in a cafe, not even someone you know, but you could become friends with them, talk to them. Smile at them, at least. And no one was in as much of a hurry as they are here. You take too long ordering food or even walk on the sidewalk too slowly, people get so irritated, push past you, yell at you to hurry up. I do not understand why everyone is in such a rush here.

  I am not sure I like it, really.

  Even though I am a little excited to see the Statue of Liberty in person. I've seen it in American movies a thousand times, but now I'm about to see it for real, right in front of me.

  And then it happens, the tour guide tells us we'll see it on our left first if we're on that side, but no matter which side we're sitting on, everyone will get a good look. I am in front, in the best spot to see it as we approach. There it is! Huge, so big, so much larger than it seems even in the movies, soaring so high into the sky, impossibly vast. It strikes something deep inside me, the statue. It is just a big green woman with a torch and a book, but it means something. It inspires something in you, something beyond being the symbol of America, the symbol of so-called freedom. I don't know the words to capture my own emotions, but I am full of thoughts and words and pictures and hope, so full my chest hurts as if they're all trying to rupture out at once.

  I forget myself, that I am fourteen and not a little girl anymore. "Mama! Papa! Do you see it!"

  She smiles, that soft bright smile she gives only to me. "Yes, mija, I see it. It is very big, isn't it?"

  Papa just smiles, and watches Mama and then me, as if capturing the moment in some internal, mental camera. Remembering. But not the statue, not the trip . . . us, Mama and me.

  *

  We came here," I say, when the memory breaks and I am once again myself, an adult, here and now, with Logan. "My mama and papa and I. On this tour."

  Once again, the tour guide makes the announcement that the Statue of Liberty will be visible soon. I am compelled forward, to the bow once more, hands on the railing, eyes scanning the river for the first sign of the statue. I feel Logan beside me, and he puts his arm around my waist. He's quiet, letting me experience it in my own time. Letting me feel it, I think.

  There it is. God, so vast. Arm raised high, torch flames looking as if they could flicker alight at any moment, sleeve tumbling down her arm, the other hand wrapped around that big book, on which--so says the guide--is written the date of the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. Two days after my birthday. Her full title is Liberty Enlightening the World, and she represents Libertas, the Roman goddess.

  I am dizzy from the overlap of memory and reality.

  I could close my eyes and be fourteen.

  I could turn my head and see Mama and Papa.

  I am so tempted to turn my head, to look. But I do not. It is just a memory, a precious memory. I lean into Logan, and focus on each breath.

  "You remember something?" he asks.

  I nod against his shirt. "Yes. But I'm not sure how to put it into words. I mean, it's a simple memory, really. Us, the three of us, on a boat just like this, about to see the statue. Being a young girl in a new place. I think we'd just come here a few days before. I was unsure of so much. Trying to be adult about it, but really, I was just fourteen."

  "A big change for anyone, much less a girl at that age."

  I nod. "Yes, exactly. It was very scary. I didn't understand--oh, so many things. Why everyone was in such a rush, for one, and why everyone seemed to be so rude, for another."

  Logan laughs. "Ah, New York. Those aspects of this city are a culture shock for people born in the States, much less someone like you from a much slower-paced, friendlier place like Spain."

  "What was it like for you, when you moved here?"

  He tilts his head to the side. "Oh man, it was . . . kind of the same, honestly. I mean, I'd already been stationed in Kuwait and fought combat missions in Iraq, flipped houses in Chicago. So . . . I wasn't a kid, you know? But it was still a culture shock. Everything happens so fast, here. Like you said, everyone is in a rush, you're always getting jostled and told to hurry it up. Plus, there's just . . . so much. You could live your entire life in this city and there'd still be things you've never seen, places you've never been, restaurants you've never heard of."

  "I get that feeling too, the little of it I've seen."

  "It's weird, to me, how you can have been here since you were fourteen and still know nothing about the city."

  "Not by choice."

  "No, that's for sure. I get it. It's just . . . weird." A shrug. "Twelve years, and it's like you're seeing it for the first time."

  "Because I am, really."

  "And that's why we'r
e here, babe. I want your memories of New York to be of me, of us. I want . . . I want to give you good memories."

  I melt into him. "Every day I spend with you, it's a good memory."

  "Good answer, sweetheart, but we gotta make you some new ones, some real memories. That's what today is about."

  I watch the statue drift past us as we glide around it, across the bay and to the opposite side of the island. We sit again, once the statue is out of sight, and the rest of the trip is quiet, slow, and peaceful. I hold Logan's hand and listen to the tour guide, and enjoy the sun on my face.

  By the time we've returned to the dock, it's well past lunchtime, and my stomach is grumbling, so Logan hails another Uber and has us taken to Times Square, another place I've never been, or don't remember coming. The driver deposits us at the edge of the square, and we get out, make our way on foot through the bustling crowds to the giant red staircase. I look around in awe at the myriad flashing lights and mammoth screens and endless advertisements, finding it hard to breathe from the grandeur of the place, the chaotic wilderness of lights and lives and frenzied exuberance.

  There are thousands of people, just like us, taking photographs, posing for selfies, pointing, just sitting and taking it in. After a moment, Logan leads me across the square, consulting his phone now and again. A map, directions to something. A restaurant, I assume. Indeed, he guides us unerringly to a little place not far from the square itself, called Ellen's Stardust Diner. It doesn't look too impressive from the outside, and indeed, the interior is that of an aging diner, vinyl seats and Formica tables. But once we're seated and we've ordered food, I see why he brought me here.

  The servers all sing.

  I smile the entire time as a flamboyant young man with bouffant red hair climbs up on a little catwalk between a row of booths, microphone to his mouth, singing an old show tune for all he is worth. And then, after a moment, a girl starts singing a different song, and while she's singing she's inputting an order and carrying a glass of soda to a table, and then she's dancing past the tables and shaking her butt and holding the end note until I begin to wonder if her lungs can possibly contain any more oxygen. The whole lunch is like that, me watching the waitstaff singing and forgetting to eat, while Logan watches me.

  And then, once we're done eating, Logan leads us back out to the square, and to a theater a block away, where he buys tickets for a show called Aladdin. A real Broadway show? I'm so excited for that it's hard to contain it, and I find myself wishing the day would pass more swiftly, so it would be seven o'clock sooner. But then, I don't want to miss anything else Logan has planned for us.