minutes earlier than school actually let out—because they knew she’d be late. The reason my grandma was always late, my dad had said, was because she had lived for so long in the Dominican Republic and that people in the Caribbean have no sense of time.
My grandma honked her horn and then stuck her whole arm out of the window to wave. She was always one to make her presence known, even if we were the only two people around. I leapt off the swings and raced to the car. Without acknowledging that she was late, my grandma drove me home. After letting us in with her spare key, she made me oatmeal—just like my mom had done that morning. While we sat at the table, I had her tell me stories I’d heard hundreds of times, stories of living in the forests outside of Santo Domingo, where the monkeys would come right up to you and snatch food from your hands if you weren’t watching, and how my mom used to climb trees higher and hold her breath underwater longer than all the boys.
“You should have seen her, Lucas,” my grandmother had said. “Like a deer, that girl could run—fast and graceful through the grass. No one could catch her. She would point to the highest of the mountains and tell me that she was going to live there someday.”
Along with my mom, my grandma was one of the first storytellers in my life, and for a long time the Caribbean islands seemed like a land of fantasy, where myths passed for history and my mother was a marvelous daredevil, whose speed and agility was the envy of everyone.
When my dad came home in the early evening and saw my grandma and me sitting by ourselves at the kitchen table, he told me to go to my room. It was there that I saw a note from my mom on the bed. As I read it, I could hear my dad yelling from the other side of the house, saying that he should have known better and demanding information my grandma couldn’t or wouldn’t give.
Mom’s note was written in black pen on a piece of green construction paper she’d taken from my desk. The note said that she’d never thought she was a very good mom and I’d grow up stronger without her. She told me she loved me and that even though I might be mad at her for a little while, I’d soon see that her moving away would turn out to be the best thing for the both of us. I’m doing this for you, she’d written. On the bottom of the page, she’d drawn a picture of a palm tree.
My dad never found out about the note. I’d hidden it in a shoebox under my bed and would only pull it out every so often. I finally threw it away a couple of years ago. I’d learned enough by then to know my mom was full of shit. She’d claimed her decision to leave had been about me and my well-being, when, in reality, it had been about her and her nagging regrets about marrying my dad, starting a family, and leaving a place where she could climb to the tops of the highest trees and swim in clear warm water. There were no mountains for her to live on in Houston.
During the cab ride east toward Condado Beach, with Isabel beside me in the backseat, I was reminded of my mom. Something Dr. Ford had said earlier, about how marvelous Isabel was, had triggered my memory. He was acting in her best interest, he’d said; he’d been doing it all for her. Bullshit. He was doing it all for himself. Just like my mother had done. At least Isabel had the guts to own up to her atrocity. Her father had hit the floor still clinging to the belief that his actions were somehow justifiable.
“I hope you’re right about this,” I said.
Isabel shifted, slanting her knees away from me and toward her door. The duffel bag stuffed with stems and leaves from the plants in the Ford’s courtyard was wedged between Isabel’s feet, and the little green plastic suitcase sat between the two of us. Folded on Isabel’s lap was the white blanket. Folded on that blanket were her hands. They trembled slightly, along with the breaths she was trying hard to keep smooth and quiet.
“I am.” Isabel had her gaze directed toward the