When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [9]
He looked at me with a scared expression.
“She’s my daughter,” he said after a pause. My heart shrank. Having to share my father with Delsa, Norma, and Hector was bad enough. I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He sat on a stump and stared at his hands, calloused where the hammer and saw handles rubbed against his skin. He looked so sad, it made me want to cry. I sat next to him.
“Where does she live?”
He seemed to have just remembered I was there. “In Santurce.”
“How old is she?”
“Just a year older than you.”
An older sister! I’d wondered what it would be like not to be the oldest, the one who set an example for the little ones.
“How come she’s never been to see us?”
“Her mother and your mother don’t get along.”
That much I’d figured out. “You can just bring her sometime. Her mother doesn’t have to come.”
Papi sighed then chuckled. “That’s a good idea,” he said and stood up. “I have to get some work done. Can you help me mix concrete?”
I poured the water for him while he stirred cement and sand together. I asked him many questions about Margie, and he answered them in short phrases that didn’t tell me much. If we were talking about her and Mami came near, he’d put his hand to his mouth so I’d quiet, and we’d work in silence until she was out of earshot.
At night I tried to imagine what Margie looked like. I envisioned her skin the same carob color as my father’s, her eyes as black and her lips as full as his. Her hair kinky like his, not lanky like mine. I imagined her voice to be musical, lilting, the way his was when he read poetry to us.
What times we could have if we were together! She’d be someone I could have fun with, not be responsible for. She’d be able to keep up with me when we ran across the field. She’d climb a tree without being helped. We could play hide-and-seek in the jungled back yard. We’d climb the fence behind the house and steal into Lalao’s grapefruit grove to fill our faces with the bittersweet pulp while juice dribbled down our chins and our fingers got sticky. I swayed in my hammock dreaming about Margie, determined to talk my mother into asking Papi to bring her to live with us.
The next day I stood on a stool while Mami pinned the hem on my school uniform.
“Mami, why don’t you like Margie’s mother?”
“Who?”
“Provi, my sister Margie’s mother.”
“Negi, I never want to hear you mention that woman’s name again, you hear me?”
“But Mami ...”
“I mean it.”
“But Mami ...”
“Stand still or I’m going to have an accident with these pins.”
I stood still as a statue while she finished.
Papi dipped his trowel into the cement mud in the wheelbarrow by his side and slapped the mud onto a foundation block.
“Papi, are you going to bring Margie to see us?”
“I don’t know.”
He stacked another cinder block and scraped the ooze that came out the sides and bottom.
“She can sleep with me.”
“Negi!” Mami sat just inside the door of the house sewing. “Leave your father alone.”
“I was just asking a question.”
“Get away from there and go play with your sisters. Now!”
Papi looked at Mami from the shadow of his straw hat. He tipped the brim up and pointed to the pyramid of cinder blocks by the front gate. “Can you bring me one of those?”
I looked at Mami. She stared at Papi, not at me, her needle suspended above green fabric.
“Can you try it?” Papi said softly.
It was heavy and slipped from my fingers, almost crushing my toe.
“Ave María, Pablo, don’t abuse her. She’s just a kid.”
“I think she can do it,” he shot back at her.
He turned the block so that I could hold it along the sides, where there was a place to grab onto. The rough edges scraped against my legs and belly. It was heavy and awkward, but I managed to carry it over next to the wheelbarrow and drop it.
“Can I bring another one?” I asked, rubbing my hands against my teeshirt. They smarted from the weight and the grooves that the block had dug into my skin.
“No, I can manage.” He carried two blocks stacked one atop the other, set them down carefully, then stood with hands on hips, his back