Authors: James Grippando
S
he is totally yanking your chain,” said Theo.
“You think?” said Jack.
“How many times did I fire your ass when I was on death row?”
“About every other week.”
“See. Ten years later, I still can’t get rid of you.”
Jack was about to point out that this was his house, they were cooking his food, and Theo had his carcass parked on Jack’s couch every weekend, all of which raised some pretty serious questions as to who couldn’t get rid of whom. But Jack decided to leave it alone.
Theo turned his attention back to the stove. He was searing two thick tuna steaks in a crispy coating of lemon pepper, sesame seeds, and ginger. He looked like a short-order cook, spatula in hand, greasy white apron wrapped around his waist. To most people, Theo came across as the kind of guy whose idea of a seven-course meal was a six-pack and a bag of chips, but he was actually quite a good cook, and he enjoyed it. And like most good cooks, he hated meddlers in the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asked Jack.
Jack was standing at the sink, washing the mixing bowl. “Cleaning up,” he said.
“Can’t it wait?”
“I suppose. But I guess it’s sort of an old habit.”
“We talking about your ex again?”
“Yeah. Cindy never used to let me near the kitchen unless I cleaned up as I went along.”
Theo looked at him as if he were from another planet. “Clean up while you’re cooking? That’s like stopping in the middle of sex to do the fucking laundry.”
Jack shut off the water, considering it. “I think Cindy actually did that once.”
“Jacko, that’s one woman you don’t need back in your life. But this Lindsey, she’ll be back. Trust me.”
“Aw, the hell with it. I’m better off without her.” He shook his head. “But then there’s Brian. I mean, what if his mother is innocent? He’s getting the worst of it at both ends.”
Theo smiled knowingly as he flipped the tuna steaks. “She’s manipulatin’ you, man.”
“If she is, she’s doing one heck of a good job of it.”
“Which sort of makes you wonder, don’t it?”
“Wonder what?”
Theo lifted the pan from the flame, then slid the steaks onto dinner plates. “Maybe you should be listening to that Mr. Potato.”
“Pintado.”
“Whatever. My point is this: Just maybe—she’s not innocent.”
Theo grabbed the plates and started toward the family room. Jack stood frozen at the kitchen counter. He’d had his doubts, to be sure. But coming from Theo’s lips, just hearing it out loud, gave it an entirely different impact.
“You coming?” said Theo.
Jack was sifting through a stack of mail at the kitchen counter.
“Hey, Clarence Darrow. I said it’s time to eat.”
Jack held up a large manila envelope. “It’s from Lindsey.”
“Wow. That is the fastest ‘I still love you’ card in the history of the U.S. Postal Service.”
“No. It’s postmarked three days ago. Before our blowup.”
Theo laid the plates of fish on the table. “This should be interesting.”
“It’s addressed to me, Theo. Not us.”
“I slave all day, cook your meals, and this is the thanks I get?”
“Go away.”
“Fine.” He took both plates of tuna and threw his nose into the air, a bit like an all-pro linebacker pretending to be a ticked-off housewife. “There’s Cheerios in the cupboard.”
Unless you already ate them, thought Jack.
He waited for Theo to sink into the couch and lose himself in ESPN before opening the letter with a kitchen knife. He hesitated, then reached inside and pulled out a handful of photographs. He sifted through the stack quickly, then went through them again more slowly. They were all snapshots of Brian, some of them quite old, others more recent. A picture of Brian with his soccer team. A picture of Brian and his mother. Another one of Brian and his dad. They were saluting the flag. Oscar was wearing his khaki Marine uniform.
The last photograph was of Brian as a newborn. His mother and father were with him, locked in the awkward and tangled embrace that was so typical of new parents who had no idea how to hold a tiny infant. Jack couldn’t be certain, but it appeared to be Brian’s first day with his adoptive parents. They looked so happy together, which gave him a good feeling. But then he wondered how Jessie must have felt at that very same moment, the birth mother all alone, far removed from any celebration. Jack’s sense of joy faded, and it vanished altogether as he thought about his own life on that day. By the time young Brian had looked into the eyes of his proud adoptive parents, Jack had completely moved on from Jessie, unaware that she was even pregnant. He’d already attained a remarkable level of self-delusion, having convinced himself that Jessie was not “The One,” that Cindy Paige would spend the rest of her life as Cindy Swyteck.
Jack put the photographs aside and removed the letter from the envelope. He unfolded it slowly, not sure what to expect. It was handwritten in smooth, beautiful cursive.
Dear Jack,
I wanted you to have these photographs of Brian. He is a special little boy, and he’s becoming a young man in a hurry. I know that one day he will be so grateful for everything you are doing to help keep our family together, now that Oscar is gone.
Jack, I know it’s important to you that I be innocent. Believe me, I understand that. And I respect it, too. I would have no right to raise my son if the things people are saying about me were true. I don’t know how to give you the comfort you need, but if it would help, I would be more than happy to take a lie detector test. Just let me know when and where.
Thank you again for being there for us. Fondly, Lindsey.
Jack started to read it again, then quickly laid it facedown on the counter as Theo returned to the kitchen. His friend nearly broke two fishless dinner plates as he dropped them into the sink. In less than five minutes he’d eaten enough seared tuna to feed a Tokyo suburb.
“What’s the matter with you?” said Theo.
“Lindsey sent me some photos.”
Theo raised an eyebrow. “We talkin’ hot-moms-dot-com material?”
“No, pervert. Photographs of her son. And a letter.”
“What she say?”
“She offered to take a polygraph. And remember, this was written before our fight today.”
“Heh. Ain’t that a kick in the head?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you don’t believe in polygraphs.”
“I don’t. But I tend to believe a recent widow and single mother who offers to take one. Especially when she says you pick the time, you pick the place, you pick the tester. You see the difference?”
“Yeah, I do. So, now what?”
“I don’t know. You got any suggestions?”
“Yeah,” he said as he walked toward the fridge. “How ’bout dessert?”
Jack stared at the letter, hopelessly confused. Finally, he looked at Theo and said, “That’s the best damn idea I’ve heard in a long time.”
J
ack went food shopping with
Abuela
. This wasn’t just the dutiful grandson taking his grandmother to the grocery store. This was Jack’s biweekly lesson in Cuban culture.
“What you like for eating,
mi vida
?”
Mi vida.
Literally it meant “my life,” and Jack loved being her
vida. “Camarones?”
he said.
“
Ah,
shreemp.
Muy bien
.”
It was part of their routine, Jack speaking bad Spanish,
Abuela
answering in bad English. Jack did the best he could for a half-Cuban kid who’d been raised one hundred percent gringo, which, of course, was the point of their little visits together to the grocery store. Mario’s on Douglas Road was the neighborhood market in an area that began to establish itself as Cuban American with the first wave of immigrants in the 1960s. More than three decades later the conversion was complete, and Mario’s Market was virtually unchanged, owned and operated since 1968 by a smiling old man named Kiko (there never was a Mario, he just liked the alliteration). A cup of
café con leche
was still just thirty-five cents at the breakfast counter in front. Nine aisles of food were stuffed with the basic essentials of life, including twenty-pound sacks of long-grain rice,
bistec palamillo
sliced to order, delicious caramel flan topping, an assortment of cooking wines to satisfy the most discerning chefs, and glass-encased candles painted with the holy images of Santa Bárbara and San Lázaro. Established customers could buy on credit, and the best Cuban bread in town, baked on the premises,
could be purchased straight from the hot ovens in back. All you had to do was follow your nose, or for the olfactory deprived, follow the signs and arrows marked
PAN CALIENTE.
Jack had driven past the store a thousand times on his way downtown, and he would have kept right on driving for the rest of his life had his grandmother not come to the United States and opened a whole new set of doors for him. Twice a month they visited Mario’s together to select the freshest ingredients, and then
Abuela
would come over to Jack’s kitchen and demonstrate the old family recipes.
Abuela
was a phenomenal cook. She always seemed to be preparing a meal or planning the next one, as if on a mission to make up for thirty-eight years of living under Castro with virtually nothing to cook and nothing to eat. Almost five years had passed since Jack’s father called to tell him that
Abuela
was coming to Miami, and
Abuela
became Jack’s window to the past—to his mother’s roots. Of course there would always be the gap that no one could fill, the gaping hole of a life that was never lived, the tragedy of a mother who died bringing her son into the world. Jack’s father had told him stories about Ana Maria, the beautiful young Cuban girl with whom Harry had fallen head over heels in love. Jack knew how they’d met, he knew about the fresh yellow flower she used to wear in her long brown hair, he knew how jaws would drop when she walked into a party, and he knew that when someone told a joke, she was the first to laugh and the last to stop. All of those things mattered to Jack, but even on those rare occasions when his father did open up and talk about the wife he’d lost, he could offer Jack only a snippet of her life, just the handful of those final years in Miami.
Abuela
was the rest of the story. When she talked of her sweet, young daughter, her aging eyes would light up with so much magic that Jack could be certain that Ana Maria had truly lived. And
Abuela
could be certain that she
still
lived, the way only a grandmother could be certain of such things, the kind of certainty that came when you took a grandchild by the hand, or looked into his eyes, or cupped his cheek in your hand, and the generations seemed to blur.
Abuela
placed a loaf of Cuban bread in their shopping cart, then continued down the aisle. “So, who is the young lady?”
“What young lady?”
“I see you at Deli Lane the other day. Very pretty young lady with you.”
Jack realized she was talking about Lindsey. Obviously she’d spotted them before things had turned nasty. “Her name is Lindsey.”
“She live here?”
“She does now. She moved here from Guantánamo Bay.”
“Cuba?” she said, her eyes sparkling. “She Cuban?”
Jack smiled, knowing that nothing would have made
Abuela
happier than for her grandson to meet a nice Cuban girl. “No, she just lived in Cuba.”
“Not Cuban, but she lived in Cuba,” said
Abuela
. “Maybe I can live with that. She good friend?”
“She’s actually more of a client than a friend.” An ex-client, but Jack didn’t want to get into that.
“She have trouble?”
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
“They say she killed her husband.”
Abuela
’s mouth was agape. “She kill her husband?”
“No. She’s accused of it.”
“
Dios mío!
” she said with a shudder. Then she did a double take. “That’s her, no? That your friend Lindsey?”
The man behind the checkout counter was watching a small portable television, and
Abuela
was pointing in that direction. Sure enough, Lindsey’s image was on the screen, the lead story on one of the Spanish-language news stations. Jack understood the language much better than he spoke it, so he stepped closer to catch the report in progress.
“Lindsey Hart, the daughter-in-law of Brothers for Freedom founder and president Alejandro Pintado, surrendered to federal marshals this afternoon after a grand jury returned an indictment charging her with murder in the first degree. Ms. Hart allegedly shot her husband, Oscar Pintado, a captain in the United States Marine Corps. Captain Pintado, the thirty-eight-year-old son of the well-known Cuban-exile leader, was found shot to death in his home on the U.S. Naval Air Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. At a press conference today, United States Attorney Hector Torres announced that he, personally, would see to it that his office would commit whatever resources were necessary to ensure that justice was done in this matter. Mr. Pintado is reportedly pleased by today’s developments and was unavailable for comment. However, Sofia Suarez, the attorney for
Lindsey Hart, had this to say about the indictment—”
“Her
attorney
?” Jack said, his words coming like a reflex.
The on-screen image switched to an attractive female attorney, standing on the courthouse steps and speaking to a bouquet of microphones. “My client is shocked by today’s indictment. Lindsey Hart is completely innocent. I cannot get into the details of our defense at this time, but suffice it to say that we smell a cover-up. We are convinced that Captain Pintado was murdered for reasons that this indictment does not even begin to describe, and we intend to prove that the military has something to hide here.”
Jack had no idea who this Sofia Suarez was, or when Lindsey had even hired her. But the whole idea of taking on the U.S. military from the get-go seemed a bit over the top.
The anchorman returned to the screen and said, “Ms. Hart entered a plea of not guilty at her arraignment late this afternoon. She was denied bail and will remain in custody pending trial.”
The newscast switched to another story, and Jack turned away from the television set. He’d known for some time that an indictment was looming, and it certainly wasn’t unusual for the accused to be denied bail in a case of first-degree murder. But the thought of young Brian having to deal with his mother’s incarceration was still difficult for Jack to stomach.
Abuela
grabbed his hand and said, “Listen to me,
mi vida
. I saw how this Lindsey look at you in the restaurant. It seem nice, when I thought she maybe was good for you.”
“Looking at me how? She was a client.”
“
Aye,
you are so blind. That woman is big trouble. You forget that one. Understand me? Forget that one.”
He was still reeling from the news of the indictment, but
Abuela
’s words struck a chord.
Forget that one.
People were so quick to judge, and Lindsey was getting it from everyone—from people she once considered friends at the naval base, and from people she’d never even met, like
Abuela
. Who could blame her for having been so angry at the restaurant, after her own lawyer had laid on a hefty dose of doubt?
“Forget about her, you say?” said Jack.
“
Sí, sí.
Forget her.”
Jack shook his head, his thoughts still with Lindsey’s son. His son. “It’s not that easy.”