My father tells my abuelo he’ll leave the island and never come back.
He watches the massive, other-worldly cruise ships pull out of Old San Juan Port miles and miles away. They take so long to sail over the horizon.
MI PADRE BY EMMELIE CORA 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 100
My father, just a boy back then, dozes on the beach under the palm trees on a sunny Sunday afternoon. His sister and brother call for him to play with them in the water. He pulls his hat over his eyes. Coconuts fall near him with soft thuds. Stray dogs sniff his pockets. Sometimes he watches the massive, other-worldly cruise ships pull out of Old San Juan Port miles and miles away. They take so long to sail over the horizon.
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My abuelo drops off my father at the army recruiting office in Cayey. He looks ahead in dark sunglasses as his son with a black eye and only a book bag gets out of the car.
My father tells him that if this is what he wants for him then he’ll leave the island and never come back. He won’t call, won’t write, won’t visit for Christmas. He won’t come back for anyone’s birthday or funeral.
My abuelo drives off without saying goodbye.
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My father, the army private, wipes the sweat from his forehead. The sergeant barks at him that his kind was made for this, taking orders from men like him, bright pink and swollen under the hot sun. The sergeant calls him “American only by default” and a spic, a shipwrecked Mexican. He makes him run further than the white boys.
My father returns to barracks after everyone else is asleep. He drops his rucksack on the floor, pulls off his shirt, exposing his back rubbed ground beef raw and red. He unties his boots, biting his lip as he peels his socks off his bleeding heels and blistered toes. He scrubs the blood out of his boots with a toothbrush.
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In a a small kitchen in a town in Germany my father sits with my mother, her five sisters and her parents around the table, their knees and elbows bumping together, drinking the beer my opa brought up special from the cellar.
Everyone goes quiet when my father clears his throat to make a speech he has rehearsed, written by his mother. He recites in stunted and slow Schwäbisch that he wants to marry my mother and take her to America. He’ll get a college education, buy her a home and a car. They’ll have a beautiful family, a beautiful life.
My oma and opa don’t know that I am growing in their daughter’s belly, alive enough to make her sick in the mornings and tired in a way she hasn’t been before.