“What happened to Alejandro was not your fault. Getting involved with the rebels was his choice, and more than anyone, you did everything you could to help him. She is wrong to insinuate otherwise.”
“Wrong or not, it doesn’t really matter, does it? She’ll always look at me and see his death, always consider me responsible.”
“No one else feels that way, I promise you.”
“Father is angry about the scandal of my affair with Nick.”
“He’s changed since Cuba,” Elisa admits. “Business always mattered to him, but now it’s become more like an obsession. I think he’s afraid of what will happen next, attempting to shore up his resources and defenses before the next crisis strikes.”
“Is this to be our life then, existing between tragedies?”
“I hope not. I want better for Miguel. I want better for myself.”
Mr. Dwyer’s words come back to me now.
“You’re never going to leave Miami, are you?”
“I don’t know. I would love to go back to Cuba. I want to walk along the Malecón, want to see our house again, see Ana, and Magda. I want to go home, but things are different now. Juan has never been to Cuba. It’s not his home. And Miguel—
“I’m afraid for my son. Afraid to return after everything that has happened. And it’s hard. Too many ghosts. Too many memories.”
We’ve never spoken about it, but in the weeks after Fidel took power, something changed in Elisa, the revolution affecting her in different ways than it did the rest of us. We all cried, all mourned our brother, but her tears came before Alejandro was killed. I used to hear her crying quietly in her room at night during those weeks.
“Come home. You don’t have to make any decisions; it can just be to visit. I’ll ready the guest room.”
“I hardly think returning to South Florida will quell the gossip.”
“What gossip? Isabel is married. A fool for marrying a man who was more concerned with his reputation than her heart, but married all the same. Maria is older now. She’ll have to learn to survive in society on her own merits. And quite frankly, I couldn’t care less. And if our parents are embarrassed, that’s their problem. Come home.”
chapter twenty-nine
Now that the missile crisis is resolved, our attention turns to other things, the real world intruding, the problems we once faced creeping back in. When I was a child, I believed if you wanted something badly enough, if you worked hard enough for it, if you pushed your way past the obstacles presented to you, well, it would be yours. But now I’m learning it’s not simply a matter of will or desire; some things are perpetually out of our reach, and no matter how badly we wish it were otherwise, there are some battles whose outcomes are decided not in our hands, but in the stars.
As much as I wish it were otherwise, we are defined by these roles we play; the tensions between Nick and me creep into our relationship despite our best wishes.
“Have you heard anything from Dwyer?” Nick asks when we’re lying in bed one night in November, two weeks after the missile crisis has ended.
“No, I haven’t.”
Each day that I’ve walked home from the market or the store, I’ve wondered if Dwyer would be waiting for me on the front steps again, only to be greeted by bare stone.
“You sound disappointed.”
“Not disappointed—just—it felt good to be doing something,” I finally answer. “To not be so helpless.”
“Is that how you feel? Helpless?”
“How could I not? There are still men suffering in Fidel’s prisons.” I don’t say Eduardo’s name, but it doesn’t matter. He lingers between us anyway. “So many of my countrymen and women still suffer under Fidel’s rule.”
“I know they do, and I understand your frustrations, but you have to be patient. These things take time. We’re doing everything we can.”
“Are you? You worry about the United States looking weak in front of the Soviets, and yet, Kennedy hasn’t felt the same way about appearing weak in front of Cuba, has he? Where do the Bay of Pigs prisoners fit in all of this? They’re still there, languishing in Fidel’s jails, and Kennedy hasn’t exactly flexed his might.
“We’ve been patient. It’s been almost four years since Fidel took power. Don’t tell me to be patient.”
“There are other problems going on in the world, Beatriz. Other battles to be fought. It isn’t just Cuba.”
“At least some people are willing to do something.”
“Who? The CIA? The CIA isn’t the answer to all of your problems. The Soviets knew about the Bay of Pigs a week in advance. The CIA knew they knew. They chose not to tell the president, to let it play out even when they had to realize what the outcome would be. You want to be angry at someone, be angry with your Mr. Dwyer and his friends.”
“What is Kennedy doing to get them out?”
“These things take time, Beatriz.”
“Fidel wanted tractors for the men. How hard is that to do?”
“Yes, he did, and now he wants sixty-two million dollars. For now. But no one knows what Castro really wants. He aims to make trouble more than anything else.”
“Then do more.”
“I’m trying. We’re all trying. Bobby Kennedy is personally doing everything he can to help. As are many others.”
“Are you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that Cuba and its people feel like an afterthought. You were all content to send Cubans to Playa Girón to risk their lives in order to solve your Castro problem for you, but now that you’ve all failed them, you aren’t willing to do what you need to in order to save them.”
“Is that really what you think of me? That I’ve turned my back on Cuba?”
I hear the unspoken words in his voice—
That I’ve turned my back on you.
“They’ve been rotting in cells for over a year and a half,” I reply. “They’re sick; they’re suffering.”
“And we’ve been working on it.”
“Really? Your President Kennedy seems far more concerned with other matters. From what I hear, the family members of the prisoners are doing more to get them out than the U.S. Government that started all of this.”
“It isn’t just Cuba Jack has to worry about. You have no idea how many troubles he has on his plate.