“I have our boat passage here,” I say, picking up the wooden box from the ground. My fingers slip against the edge.
They’re covered in the splatter from Javier’s blood.
I shudder. “Let’s go home.”
chapter thirty-five
Eduardo finds a man at the docks who is more than happy to run us back to South Florida for the remainder of my family’s fortune. It’s an absurd amount of money, but I don’t have another option.
Who knows what happened with the rest of our valuables, if my father entrusted them to family friends, or other family members, of if those items simply disappeared, swept away by the revolution that took everything else? Does it really even matter anymore? You can’t put a price on everything we’ve lost.
I wait while Eduardo and the sea captain negotiate the details of our passage, doing my best to clean myself off with the rag the boatman provided me, my gaze on the city, on the Malecón, the five miles of seawall between the city and the sea.
I grew up along this seawall, dangling my legs over the edge, feeling the ocean spray on my skin.
Will I ever see it again?
I turn as Eduardo comes to stand beside me, his gaze cast out to sea as well.
“He says there are only a few minutes left before it will be too dangerous to leave.”
“I’m ready. Let’s go.”
Eduardo snags my wrist. “Beatriz—” He swallows. “I’m not coming.”
“What do you mean, you’re not coming?”
He doesn’t say anything else.
He doesn’t have to.
I can read it all over his face and in his eyes, and where I always thought looking at Eduardo was like looking in a mirror, now a stranger stares back at me.
“When?”
“After Playa Girón,” he answers.
“Why?”
“Because I was sick of losing. Sick of being used by the CIA. Of the Americans making promises they don’t keep. Because I wanted to go home.”
“Fidel took everything from you and your family.”
He has the grace to look embarrassed. “It turns out he’s willing to make some amends on that front.”
“In exchange for you selling secrets, double-crossing the CIA.”
Everyone has their price. Eduardo’s was always his pride.
“And me?” I ask. “Did you sell me out to Fidel?”
“He wanted to know about any assassination attempts on his life.”
“It must have been valuable information to him. Did I win you back your estates?”
I want to slap him. I want to scream.
I’m too numb for any of it.
“He said he wouldn’t hurt you. I would never let anyone hurt you. When Kennedy died, Fidel was desperate to make sure the Americans knew he wasn’t responsible for it. He said he just wanted to talk to you. So you could carry the message back to the CIA. Dwyer trusts you.”
“He trusted you, too.”
“He used me,” Eduardo retorts.
“We all used one another. And if I’d been successful? If I’d killed Fidel? What would you have done then?”
He gives me a sad smile. “I wasn’t opposed to that happening, either. You always have to hedge your bets.”
“So what? You’re a communist now? You think Fidel is a great man? I don’t understand how you could change your opinion so drastically, so quickly.”
“Quickly?” He laughs, the sound devoid of humor. “I’m tired, Beatriz. We left almost five years ago. What’s changed? Maybe we were wrong all along. Some of Fidel’s ideas aren’t that far off what we dreamed of years ago.”
“You can’t believe that.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You’re in bed with the CIA now. Who would have imagined that five years ago? We all do what’s necessary to survive.”
“He killed my brother. Your best friend.”
“He says he didn’t.”
“He told me the same thing. Do you believe him? How can you trust him?”
“Of course I don’t trust him. I don’t think I believe in anything anymore.”
I give a bitter laugh. “That makes two of us then. After all, I always did see myself in you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No, I suppose I’m not. Please don’t hate me. I never meant to hurt you.”
“What’s happened to us? How did we get here?” I shake my head. “When we left Cuba, it was supposed to be temporary. A few months at most.”
“The world changed. Left us behind. I have to change with it. I want to be home. And maybe things will get better. Maybe he will bring freedom to the country.”
“And if they don’t get better?”
He doesn’t answer me.
Once, I would have felt anger. But we’ve all come too far, seen and done too much, for there not to be a sliver of understanding inside me.
I can’t agree with what he has done, can’t condone it, but I know more than anyone how far one will go to return home.
And that is enough.
“She’s a beautiful city,” I say softly, taking Eduardo’s hand, lacing our fingers together.
Saying good-bye.
“A heartbreaker,” he replies.
“Do you think I’ll ever see her again?”
Eduardo squeezes my hand, pressing a kiss to my cheek before he releases me.
“Of course you will. We’ll dance at the Tropicana someday.”
* * *
• • •
The boat begins to move, cutting through the sleek water, through the dark night. The waves hit the sides with thick slaps. Havana drifts farther and farther away, until the city is little more than a speck in the distance, the open water ahead.
Dreams never die all at once. They die in pieces, floating a little farther and farther away each day. So there’s no longer an island before you, no longer Havana, the crash of waves along the Malecón vanishing, until the speck disappears completely. All you once clutched to your breast and held so deeply in your heart ceases to exist, slipping through your fingers like the sand that once lay beneath your feet.