Read Online This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Junot Díaz
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his wife and about his son. I was mulling over the information, saying nothing, letting my feet guide us. We met a group of boys playing baseball and he bullied the bat from them, cut at the air with it, sent the boys out deep. I thought he would embarrass himself, so I stood back, ready to pat his arm when he fell or when the ball dropped at his feet, but he connected with a sharp crack of the aluminum bat and sent the ball out beyond the children with an easy motion of his upper body. The children threw their hands up and yelled and he smiled at me over their heads.
We walk the length of the park without talking and then we head back across the highway, toward downtown.
She’s writing again, I say, but Ana Iris interrupts me.
I’ve been calling my children, she says. She points out the man across from the courthouse, who sells her stolen calling-card numbers. They’ve gotten so much older, she tells me, that it’s hard for me to recognize their voices.
We have to sit down after a while so that I can hold her hand and she can cry. I should say something but I don’t know where a person can start. She will bring them or she will go. That much has changed.
It gets cold. We go home. We embrace at the door for what feels like an hour.
That night I give Ramón the letter and I try to smile while he reads it.
Y OUR LEFT EYE USED TO drift when you were tired or upset. It’s looking for something, you used to say and those days we saw each other it fluttered and rolled and you had to put your finger over it to stop it. You were doing this when I woke up and found you on the edge of my chair. You were still in your teacher’s gear but your jacket was off and enough buttons were open on your blouse to show me the black bra I bought you and the freckles on your chest. We didn’t know it was the last days but we should have.
I just got here, you said and I looked out where you’d parked your Civic.
Go roll up them windows.
I’m not going to be here long.
Someone’s going to steal it.
I’m almost ready to go.
You stayed in your chair and I knew better than to move closer. You had an elaborate system that you thought would keep us out of bed: you sat on the other side of the room, you didn’t let me crack your knuckles, you never stayed more than fifteen minutes. It never really worked, did it?
I brought you guys dinner, you said. I was making lasagna for my class so I brought the leftovers.
My room is hot and small, overrun by books. You never wanted to be in here (it’s like being inside a sock, you said) and anytime the boys were away we slept in the living room, out on the rug.
Your long hair was making you sweat and finally you took your hand away from your eye. You hadn’t stopped talking.
Today I was given a new student. Her mother told me to be careful with her because she had the sight.
The sight?
You nod. I asked the señora if the sight helped her in school. She said, Not really but it’s helped me with the numbers a few times.
I’m supposed to laugh but I stare outside, where a mitten-shaped leaf had stuck to your windshield. You stand beside me. When I saw you, first in our Joyce class and then at the gym, I knew I’d call you Flaca. If you’d been Dominican my family would have worried about you, brought plates of food to my door. Heaps of plátanos and yuca, smothered in liver or queso frito.
Flaca.
Even though your name was Veronica, Veronica Hardrada.
The boys will be home soon, I say. Maybe you should roll up your windows.
I’m going now, you say and put your hand back over your eye.
—
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED to get serious between us. I can’t see us getting married or nothing and you nodded your head and said you understood. Then we fucked so that we could pretend that nothing hurtful had just happened. This was like our fifth time together and you got dressed in a black sheath and a pair of Mexican sandals and you said I could call you when I wanted but that you wouldn’t
We walk the length of the park without talking and then we head back across the highway, toward downtown.
She’s writing again, I say, but Ana Iris interrupts me.
I’ve been calling my children, she says. She points out the man across from the courthouse, who sells her stolen calling-card numbers. They’ve gotten so much older, she tells me, that it’s hard for me to recognize their voices.
We have to sit down after a while so that I can hold her hand and she can cry. I should say something but I don’t know where a person can start. She will bring them or she will go. That much has changed.
It gets cold. We go home. We embrace at the door for what feels like an hour.
That night I give Ramón the letter and I try to smile while he reads it.
Y OUR LEFT EYE USED TO drift when you were tired or upset. It’s looking for something, you used to say and those days we saw each other it fluttered and rolled and you had to put your finger over it to stop it. You were doing this when I woke up and found you on the edge of my chair. You were still in your teacher’s gear but your jacket was off and enough buttons were open on your blouse to show me the black bra I bought you and the freckles on your chest. We didn’t know it was the last days but we should have.
I just got here, you said and I looked out where you’d parked your Civic.
Go roll up them windows.
I’m not going to be here long.
Someone’s going to steal it.
I’m almost ready to go.
You stayed in your chair and I knew better than to move closer. You had an elaborate system that you thought would keep us out of bed: you sat on the other side of the room, you didn’t let me crack your knuckles, you never stayed more than fifteen minutes. It never really worked, did it?
I brought you guys dinner, you said. I was making lasagna for my class so I brought the leftovers.
My room is hot and small, overrun by books. You never wanted to be in here (it’s like being inside a sock, you said) and anytime the boys were away we slept in the living room, out on the rug.
Your long hair was making you sweat and finally you took your hand away from your eye. You hadn’t stopped talking.
Today I was given a new student. Her mother told me to be careful with her because she had the sight.
The sight?
You nod. I asked the señora if the sight helped her in school. She said, Not really but it’s helped me with the numbers a few times.
I’m supposed to laugh but I stare outside, where a mitten-shaped leaf had stuck to your windshield. You stand beside me. When I saw you, first in our Joyce class and then at the gym, I knew I’d call you Flaca. If you’d been Dominican my family would have worried about you, brought plates of food to my door. Heaps of plátanos and yuca, smothered in liver or queso frito.
Flaca.
Even though your name was Veronica, Veronica Hardrada.
The boys will be home soon, I say. Maybe you should roll up your windows.
I’m going now, you say and put your hand back over your eye.
—
IT WASN’T SUPPOSED to get serious between us. I can’t see us getting married or nothing and you nodded your head and said you understood. Then we fucked so that we could pretend that nothing hurtful had just happened. This was like our fifth time together and you got dressed in a black sheath and a pair of Mexican sandals and you said I could call you when I wanted but that you wouldn’t
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