Dante’s hand was on my shoulder. It was as if that hand was holding me up.
Mrs. Quintana was quiet.
“Thank you for bringing Dante over,” I said.
She smiled. “I brought me over too,” she said. “I brought my family to grieve with yours. I’m old-fashioned in that way.”
Mrs. Quintana took my mother’s hand, tears running down her face. Everywhere, tears, tears of sorrow, of grief, of disbelief. Rivers, streams, and where did tears come from and why did people laugh and cry and feel pain and why did emotions come with having a mind and a body? It was all such a mystery, unsolvable and cruel, with a little kindness thrown into the mix. Pain and joy and anger and life and death—everything present all at once—everything reflected in the faces of the people in this room, people I had come to love even as I didn’t understand love at all. I remembered reading one of the letters that my aunt Ophelia wrote to my mother, and she’d written: God has no face but yours. God has no face but mine. Were we all the face of God? I thought that was a beautiful thing—though I couldn’t quite believe that anyone saw God when they looked at my face. Dante’s face, yes. My face—not so much.
And Sophocles, his was the face of an innocent God. I smiled at Mr. Quintana. “You certainly know how to hold a baby, Sam.”
He handed Sophocles to me. “He’s asleep. Holding babies is good therapy.” He mussed Dante’s hair. “Only Dante doesn’t think so.”
Dante decided to mess his father’s hair up too. That was totally sweet.
“By the way, Ari, you do realize you just referred to me as Sam.”
“Oh, shit! I’m sor—”
“No, don’t be. It just came out sounding perfectly natural. Not at all disrespectful. So I expect you’ll be calling me Sam from now on. Or else—”
“Or else what?” I joked. “You gonna beat me up?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “I’d never take it outside with you. You’d have me for lunch.”
They were such good people, Dante’s parents. Good-natured and they had a sense of fun—and their hearts were brilliant like their minds. Dante was so like them.
“You can call me Soledad, Ari. I wouldn’t mind.”
“Oh, that one I can’t do. No way. But how about ‘Mrs. Q’?”
“Mrs. Q.” She laughed. “That’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.”
* * *
My mom and Mrs. Q went to the mortuary to make arrangements. Sam was walking back and forth, trying to get Sophocles to go to sleep. Dante and I were sitting on the couch and holding hands. It was kind of weird but kind of nice.
Of course, Dante wasn’t going to leave it alone. “Is it weird for you to see us holding hands, Dad?”
“A lot of things you do are weird, Dante.” He looked at us, then cocked his head to the right, then to the left—and I knew he was going to make a joke of it. “Hmm. I’m not sure you’re doing it right. Am I going to have to give you lessons?”
He didn’t laugh—but he had that little-boy look on his face.
“So, Professor Quintana, if you were to assign me a grade, what grade would I get?”
“Well, if I would have to assign each of you a grade, I’d give you a C, Dante. You’re just trying too hard. Not at all relaxed. Ari gets a D. He looks like he’s about to die of embarrassment.” And he was right.
“I make jokes sometimes. I like to play around. But I don’t want you to feel ashamed of who you are. Things can be awkward and uncomfortable, yes, so what? Two boys holding hands. One of them is my son. Is that a crime?” Where are the cops when you need them?
“Will you take the baby, Dante? I need to step outside and get a breath of fresh air.” Dante took Sophocles in his arms and we both kind of doted on him.
Sam stepped outside.
“Your dad okay? He seems sad.”
“He really loved your dad.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
I decided to step outside to see if Sam was okay. He was sitting on the front steps and sobbing. I sat next to him. “Sorry,” he said. “I just lost a good friend today. A very passionate and wise and good friend. I don’t want to grieve in front of you. It seems disrespectful. What is my grief compared to yours?”
“You know what my father would have said?”
“Yeah, I think so. He would have said something like, Sam, it’s not a contest.”
“Yup, that’s what he would have said.” We sat there for a moment.
“The world seems so quiet.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” I said. “Sam, I don’t know how to say this. I guess I want to thank you for your grief. Maybe that’s what I want to say. Because it means that you loved him. I don’t have him anymore. But I have you.”
“You’re turning into one helluva man right before my eyes.”
“I’m just a kid.”
“No, you’re not.”
I don’t know how long we sat there. “This feeling, this grief, this sorrow. It’s a new thing. It seems like it owns me.”
“It does own you, Ari. But it won’t own you forever.”
“That’s good to know.”
As we walked back inside, we heard Dante’s voice. “Sophocles! You just pooped all over the map of the world.”
Sam and I busted out laughing. “That’s why we keep Dante around. He’s always good for comic relief.”
“Yeah, well, now I have to go change him.”
“It’s a rough life, Dante.”
“Don’t go there, Dad,” he said, though he was smiling.
* * *
I watched Dante as he took off his baby brother’s diaper. Mrs. Q had a service that delivered cloth diapers. Dante sang to him, “The wheels on the bus go round and round. Little man, you really made a mess this time.” Dante grabbed a small plastic tub—and we both bathed Sophocles in the kitchen sink. He was squealing and gurgling and making noises. “Here,” Dante said, “dry him off.”
“You’re kinda bossy.”
“I get it from my mother. Take it up with her.” He kissed me on the cheek and took Sophocles from my arms. He placed a soft folded towel on the kitchen table. He knew what he was doing. I’m sure Mrs. Q was a strict teacher.
He took Sophocles from my arms. “Look at you, all clean, Mr. Sophocles.” I loved the way Sophocles looked up at him. He took a clean diaper out. “Sing to him, Ari. He likes people to sing to him.”
“Let’s see,” I said. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Mama’s gonna get you a mockingbird”—and then Dante was singing too. And we sang—and Dante held Sophocles in his arms, and we sang. And he had the most amazing look on his face. And I really wanted to ask him, Sophocles, did you come into the world to comfort us? To give us hope?
I noticed Sam standing in the doorway, and he was singing too. I thought of my dad, when we’d sung together along with Paul McCartney.
* * *
It’s strange to wake up and then realize that there is sadness in the house. And there is sadness everywhere inside you. I knew that Jaime the almost doctor was right. That once the energy of something living enters the world, it never dies, and that we are, and always will be, connected. But my father didn’t live in this house anymore. And I felt cheated. Just when my father had learned to be my father and I had learned to be his son, he left this world.