Dante, I have so many things going through my head sometimes. It’s as if the whole world is in chaos and it’s all living inside me. It’s as if all the riots in San Francisco and New York and London and Chicago—all those riots, all the broken glass and the broken hearts, are cutting up my own heart. And I can’t breathe. I just can’t breathe. And I want to be alive and be happy. And sometimes I am. I’m going to write Rico’s name in this journal.
Rico Rubio. Rico Rubio.
Rico Rubio was here. He was alive. And now he’s dead. It wasn’t drugs that killed him. It was that word “hate” that killed him. And that word is going to kill us all if we don’t learn how to fight it. Loving you, Dante, helps me fight that word.
In another week, it will be a new year. And maybe in the new year, we’ll do better. I’ll do better. In another week, maybe the world will be new again. Like Sophocles. He makes the world new again, doesn’t he, Dante?
A new year. A new world. A chance to start again. My dad and I will be going to see my brother. Well, my dad is taking me—but it’s me who’s going to visit him. My mom and dad, they’ve come to terms with the whole matter. But I haven’t. I love my parents for respecting what I feel I have to do. What am I expecting when I see him? I don’t know, Dante. I just don’t know. Maybe something important. Maybe something that matters. Maybe I’ll have some peace. “Peace” is not a word that lives inside me. The year ends with me and my brother.
You’ll be back by then, and when the new year arrives, I’m going to kiss you. That’s what everybody does when the new year arrives. We may have to be far away from the eyes of a watching world that disapproves, but I don’t give a shit. I want to kiss you when the new year arrives. We should get to do what everybody else gets to do—even if we have to do it in secret.
I have felt a change in me that began the day I met you. And I don’t even think I can put into words or map out the changes in me since that day. I make for a terrible cartographer. The way I think and the way I see the world—even the way I talk—have changed. It’s as if I was walking in a pair of shoes that fit so tight on me because my feet had grown. And then it finally occurred to me that I needed a new pair of shoes—a pair of shoes that fit my feet. The first time I walked down the street wearing those shoes, I realized how much it had hurt, how much pain I had been in, when I did something as simple as walking. It doesn’t hurt anymore to walk. That’s what it feels like, Dante, to walk in the changes that have occurred in me since I met you. I may not fit the definition of a happy guy. But it doesn’t hurt anymore to be me.
And all of this is because you looked at me one day at a swimming pool and said to yourself, I bet I can teach this guy how to swim. You saw me and I wasn’t invisible anymore. You taught me how to swim. And I didn’t have to be afraid of the water anymore. And you gave me enough words to rename the universe I lived in.
Twenty-Three
Dear Dante,
It’s two days after Christmas and—
I stopped right there. I just didn’t have anything to say. Actually, I think I was something of an emotional mess. I kept staring at my journal. My mom walked into the kitchen and watched me for a second. “You nervous?” she asked me.
“Yeah, well, maybe a little anxious.”
“Tell your brother…” She shook her head. “No.” She had a look that was unbearably sad. “It’s broken. What was, no longer is. I know that. I have been through all this before. I know you think I’m a fixer. You don’t say it, but you think it. And you would be right about that. But there are a lot of things that can’t be fixed. I don’t blame myself anymore. That took a long time. There is nothing left to be said.”
I nodded. I wanted to say I understood. But I didn’t. I would never be a mother and would never know what it was like to lose a son—to lose a son who was still living.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“I hope so too, Mom. I’m not going with a lot of expectations. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m just kidding myself. I just know I have to do this.”
“I know you do.”
I nodded. “It’s time. ‘Some children leave, some children stay. Some children never find their way.’ ”
I always wondered why sometimes, when we smiled, the smile didn’t make the sadness disappear.
My mother hugged me. “I’m going to Tucson for a couple of days to see your sisters. I’ll tell them you send your love.”
“Tell them I still have Tito. He’s in a box in the basement.”
“Tito.” My mother laughed. “You loved that bear.”
“I used to talk to him. He never talked back. I think that’s why I loved him.”
Twenty-Four
WHEN I WOKE, MY MOTHER was sitting on my bed. “I’m off to Tucson. I just wanted to give you my blessing.”
I sat up on the side of the bed.
I felt her thumb on my forehead as she made the sign of the cross. And she whispered her blessing. “Father of all nations, look upon my son Ari. Watch and protect him and fill his heart with the peace that only you can give.”
She crossed herself.
And I crossed myself too—and tried to remember the last time I had done that.
She kissed me on the forehead.
And after a moment of silence, she left the room.
I envied my mother for her faith.
I fell asleep again.
When I woke up again, I wondered if I’d been dreaming.
I reached to pet Legs—but I’d forgotten my mom had taken her to Tucson. I remembered the day she followed me home. When I sat down on the front steps to slow down my breathing, she licked me and wouldn’t stop. And then she put her head on my lap. It was as if she’d loved me from the moment she saw me. And I loved her too. I loved her because I was lost and she was lost, and a lost boy and a lost dog equals love.
When I took a shower, I looked at the cross hanging on my chest. I thought about God. I wondered why everyone thought about God so much and I tried not to think of him at all. Because so many people had decided he didn’t love me. I wondered why people felt they could speak for God.
Had my brother ever loved me like I’d loved him? But why did that matter? Maybe it wasn’t true that I had no expectations. Maybe I wanted to know that there was still something left in my brother that was sacred. My father said that every human life was sacred—that’s what fighting in Vietnam had taught him. I wanted to ask him about that. I wanted to know exactly what he meant.
And then I thought, Well, if Jesus gets along with Mrs. Alvidrez, he can get along with anybody.
God contained all the mysteries of the universe. Did he love the world and everyone in it?
I thought of Dante. One of the things we had in common was that we asked questions that no one knew the answers to. But that didn’t stop us from asking.
* * *
My father had an interesting look on his face when I came into the kitchen. “I got a call from the Huntsville prison this morning. You were scheduled to spend tomorrow afternoon with your brother. Apparently, your brother isn’t a model prisoner, and they weren’t going to allow him any visitors. But since he doesn’t ever get any visitors, you’ll be allowed to see him for one hour and not out in the open, but behind a glass barrier and using a speaker.”