Page 21 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
FOR ANY OTHER MARRIAGE, THISwould probably be the end. Losing your son to the Great Beyond and your husband to a wheelchair in just a few months? Nail in coffin; signatures on stiff legal paper. But not Wendy Beck.
Not only does Dad’s illness not push him and Mom to divorce—it saves them.
Mom quits all her side hustles: resigns from boards, tastefully turns down invitations, pulls her name from the ballot for the Board of Education. Nobody faults her; they see us around town, our strange, grieving clan—three children, one beautiful wife, one aging husband. A man whose face, upon further inspection, isn’t actually old but whose skin bears early wrinkles, as if sagging beneath the weight of something immense—a man on the cusp of age, drawing closer every day. We move through life together, our clan, and the community watches. At Christmas Eve service. In line at the grocery store. In the aisles of Barnes & Noble. At every theater performance and soccer game and orchestra concert I’m forced to attend. The adult worlds in which I pass my youth. At every one, Mom tends to Dad. Pushes his wheelchair. Marches right into the public bathrooms with him. Absorbs his pain, letting it make her stronger. Once, a condescending soccer dad remarks on how “noble” it is of my mother to stay married to “a cripple.”
She punches him in the nose.
Caring for Dad gives her strength. Eventually, she doesn’t just push his wheelchair through the grocery store parking lot; she runs behind it like a child, Speedy clutching a six-pack of black cherrysoda in his lap, hollering, “Faster!” The rest of us pant close behind. Everyone on the sidewalk—mothers carrying plastic bags, crotchety old men instructing boys in blue aprons on how to carry plastic bags—stares like they’re watching a clutch of chickens flapping across the lot.
You wouldn’t know it from his gruff exterior, but Speedy is fiercely devoted to my mom. Fiercely. As if she’s his first love, not his third. As if she’s the only thing keeping him alive.
And maybe she is.
The illnessdoestake its toll on my parents’ marriage, as all illnesses do. It’s not as if they’re so deeply, deeply in love that divorce is unthinkable. No—they stay together for the Family, that strange concept created as much by the collective belief in a thing’s existence as by the thing itself.
—
MY MOMENT ARRIVES A MONTHafter Manuel does. It’s recess. He is doing what he always does: roaming around the edge of the field, muttering to himself, and hitting things with a stick. I’m doing what I always do, monopolizing the swing set and spying on Manuel.
Some of the kids nearby must hear him. As I watch, the boys—three of them, large, round like overripe pears—approach Manuel and start to circle.
“Hoe-la, Juan.”
“Whatcha doin’ this far away from Mexico?”
Manuel ignores them.
“Where’re your tacos? Mama didn’t pack none?”
Nothing scares a bully more than something they don’t understand.
“Not gonna say hi back?”
“What’s the matter, no speak-o English?”
“Nah. Look at his face. Juan here doesn’t understand a goddamn word.”
As they speak, my temperature rises. It doesn’t feel like anger; it feels like foresight. The more they say to Manuel—the more abusive and hateful their words become—the more clearly I see my future. I see why I spent the last month browsing Spanish slang websites, why I listened so carefully to the things Manuel whispered during class. I see the things I have gathered, and I see what to do with them.
At the height of the swing’s arc, I leap. I soar through the air and land with both feet in the woodchips, a wild splash of shaved earth. I don’t even use my hands to steady myself. I straighten up and march toward the bullies. They’re still circling Manuel, drawing closer, growling with their juvenile ignorance. I bend low as I approach the edge of the field. Just before the woodchips turn to grass, I scoop two handfuls into my fists. Don’t even pause in my strides, just dig both hands into the ground midstep and keep walking, the movement smooth as an outfielder.
“¡Oye!” I yell, winding up both fists. “¡Hijos de puta!”
All three boys turn. As they do, I release my fists and launch two jets of wood straight into their faces.
“¡Cabrones! ¡Hijos de puta!” I yell every phrase I remember reading online. “¡Ándate a la mierda! ¡Cago en tu leche!”
They turn and flee, all of them, three overripe pears waddling in terror across the field.
I keep hollering, recycling phrases I already used and sprinkling in a few more. “¡Chúpame la peña! ¡Béisbol! ¡Mariposa!” I don’t really know what I’m saying. I don’t care. It feels so good to yell.
When they retreat far enough, I turn to Manuel.
I’m not sure what I expect to see on his face. Gratitude? Anger? I find neither. Instead, I see the same thing I always do: that blank wall. That portrait of incomprehension. The one I’ve seen every dayfor a month. Eyes squinted, lips slightly ajar. A face of mahogany concrete.
Then it cracks, all of it, and his face spreads into a grin wide enough to hold every drop of water in Lake Michigan.
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