The Accidental Native (34 page)

“You just had the baby blues,” I said, holding her hand.

She gave me a sad nod, biting her lip. Her eyes, all around the sockets, wet with tears.

“But we didn't know that. We were so ignorant,” she said, her mouth and face twisted with self-hate and anger.

“You kept crying and crying,” she said, exploding into heaving sobs. “I couldn't find a way to make you stop. Maybe you were colicky, who knows. I put you down in the crib, still crying, all red. Crying, screaming, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know. You crying and crying and crying, and me pacing the room, pulling my hair. Yelling at you, ‘Be quiet, please!' I just wanted you to stop crying, to stop, I was so tired, I wanted sleep, just a few hours of rest, and your father … he … he … found me with the pillow in my hands, standing over the crib.”

She shoved her face into her hands with a howl that I'm sure the neighbors and the people at the beach must have heard. She wouldn't meet my eyes, kept crying into her hands, the tears rolling off her hands. I bent over her on the chair, put my good arm around her, and she wailed into my chest. She slipped to her knees.

“Forgive me, René, por favor, perdóname, hijo.” She repeated this in a groaning voice as she embraced my legs with such intensity that I started to cry.

Over coffee, she told me how my father freaked when he saw her gripping that pillow over my crying body. He seized the pillow and pushed her to the floor, yelling at her.

“His eyes said it all,” she said. “In a flash, they switched from shock, anger, contempt, disgust, to fear and sadness.”

She shook her head, her eyes shut.

“‘What kind of mother does that?' he kept screaming. If he had only looked into my eyes, my heart, he would have known I was not well. But, in his mind, he was being the good father, protecting you.

“‘You're not fit to be a mother for my son,' he yelled. He grabbed you in his arms, cradling you as you continued crying, and ran downstairs, and drove to his mother's. I ran after him, pleading with him, screaming and beating on the closed door like the mad woman I had become.

“That was the last time I saw you until that day at the cemetery.

“Juanma cancelled the wedding plans. While I was walking in a daze, trying to understand what was happening to me, his family's
lawyers pushed the papers on me and made me sign over custody of you to Juanma. My parents advised me against it, and to this day they can't believe I did it, but I did it because I believed I was an unfit mother, that there was something flawed with my maternal instincts. What kind of mother tries to suffocate her baby for crying? Who does that? At the signing, your father told me to forget you, to never contact you or him ever again. I nodded yes and walked away.

“I withdrew from UPR law school. With the help of some professors, I transferred to U Penn Law, and while there, I learned that your father had married Magda, and she had become your adopted mother. That night I walked the streets of Philadelphia feeling such an engulfing emptiness that I thought I'd disappear into oblivion. I passed a dance studio, which was at street level, and wandered in just to sit down. It was African dance, and the beat was inviting.

“The instructor, a black woman with wavy hair, must have seen my sad face. Instead of throwing me out, she shouted from the front, ‘Come join us.'

“And, I did. I danced, stomping my feet on those mats like I wanted to smash through the floor and reach a part of me gone forever. I kept dancing through that semester, that year and afterward. I danced until my muscles ached and knew I was alive. I danced to forget. I danced and danced. Always remembering, in my heart, what Beverly, our instructor, would tell us: ‘When the music changes, ladies, so does the dance.'”

Lolita Lebrón departed the island she loved and defended so fiercely on an early August morning. My mother was devastated. She kept shaking her head, repeating she could not believe it. Lebrón was ninety, yet my mother and others found it difficult to accept that her days on earth had run out.

“How does one replace an icon, an everyday inspiration?” she asked me.

“You can't,” I answered.

The organizers of her funeral asked my mother to deliver one of many eulogies, which she felt honored to do, but not without some trepidation.

“I'll start crying halfway through it, I know it,” she said, shaking her head, tears already rolling down her cheeks. “She was my mentor, my strength, like another mother to me.”

At the Ateneo Puertorriqueño, my mother gave one of the most stirring eulogies among many. She had to stop a few times, to catch her breath, to fight back the tears, but her words were personal, full of love and respect for a woman who, as my mother said, had received deserved praise for her commitment and courage from Puerto Ricans of all political stripes.

Crowded among the many packed into the building, I could see Lebrón in her polished wooden coffin, her beautiful white hair covered by a lace shawl, her corpse surrounded in pink fabric.

My mother finished her remarks with “Viva Lolita Lebrón” and “Viva Puerto Rico Libre.”

Those phrases would echo throughout the day, along with the constant chant of “Se siente, se siente, Lolita está presente,” meaning “We feel it, we feel it, Lolita is present.” The phrase was intended to mean something deeper, that Lebrón's spirit, her dedication to the movement for independence, was still alive.

I did not share that optimism. I looked around and could not help thinking the movement was literally aging, dying even. My mother, and others like her, represented the type of undying sacrifice and commitment necessary for its success, but they were in short supply. As my mother gave her eulogy, my heart filled with pride for her, a woman who understood love and sacrifice firsthand. Through my mother I had learned to respect and understand Lolita Lebrón, to appreciate the leadership qualities of Puerto Rican women in the vanguard. Exceptional women, extraordinary individuals. But even with this type of leadership, the masses languished under a boulder of inertia and indifference.

So it was that as I walked with my mother and hundreds of others along with Lebrón's casket, toward the cemetery, listening to the militant version of “La Borinqueña,” I sensed yet another nail in the coffin of the independence movement, and that along with Lebrón's corpse, the issue was again being buried.

After the funeral, Mom and I found ourselves lunching at Amadeus. Not very hungry, we picked at our food. The conversation naturally turned to the future of Puerto Rico.

“Love for your family or love for your cultural heritage,” I told her, referring to the status issue, “for some it always comes down to one choice.”

I looked at her, as she shook her head. “Sacrifice and hard work. That's what's needed, and it's missing.”

During a pause in our conversation, I blurted out: “I really don't care which side wins.”

Before she would have been outraged. But perhaps my mother was tired of fighting, of this polemic, or the sadness in her heart had punctured her combative spirit. Maybe she had mellowed. She looked at me, waiting for the necessary explanation.

I smiled and shrugged. “I can live with statehood or independence. Anything but this mess we have now.”

“The worst of two worlds,” she joked, laughing softly. “We agree there, m'ijo.”

She bounced her cigarette lighter on the table. “The U.S. keeps saying, ‘It's up to the Puerto Rican people.' What a cop out,” she said, disgusted.

She set her fork down, leaving her dessert half unfinished. After running her tongue over her front teeth, she threw herself back on the chair as she reached for a cigarette. She made a sign for the check.

“The U.S. needs to play parent and give the island some tough love.”

We both had decided to attend El Grito this year. This time around, the trip to Lares was filled with grief and sadness, not only because Lolita would not be there in body, although for so many her spirit lived on, but because the future looked so grim. It was much harder for my mother. This time, I was accompanying her because I wanted to go along, but my heart, if not my mind, wasn't really into it.

Marisol was back home fussing over the marriage preparations, and it was supposed to be a small wedding. Teaching at Bayamón required her moving back to her condo for an easier commute. I stayed in the Baná house a good portion of the time but spent weekends with her in San Juan. We planned to live in San Juan when we married, renting out the house in Baná. I worried about her health and if the current stress could affect it. Her last checkup was good, and for that we were thankful.

That move fit my plans to resign from the college after my yearly contract was over. I didn't want to confront Rector Vigo, still upset and feeling betrayed by my “dabbling in politics.” I had decided to work as a paralegal in my mother's firm, with an eye toward getting my law degree. The news made her very happy. I loved teaching and the students, but not the university. I told my mother I wanted to focus on environmental law, which she embraced and supported.

“You'll get hands-on experience with the Baná case,” she promised.

I was working part-time on the case, which was proceeding well. Rumors circulated about a settlement. Several times during
the semester, Micco tried to change my mind about leaving, telling me I was a natural teacher. But changing the island needed finding the surest ways to achieve change. Even Foley agreed with me on that. On one of those rare moments when he was on campus, I met up with him.

“You'll make a helluva litigator,” he said, and then with a strange smile told me he was taking an offer for early retirement, heading back home to Chicago. “Back to the dogs and wife, in that order,” he said. He didn't get into details, and I didn't ask. He held out his hand to shake. I thought about everything he had done to undermine our efforts. That he was perhaps responsible for something sinister still rifling through my trash can and lurking in the shadows. Who knows what else he had done in all those years living in Puerto Rico. But I shook his hand anyway. He was leaving—that was worth celebrating.

Driving toward Arecibo, “I Hope You Dance,” came on the radio. I thought of Rita Gómez and raised the volume. My mother started singing, much to my dismay. I stifled a laugh, looking away, but she saw me and slapped my thigh.

“You can dance, but you can't sing, deal with it,” I responded.

“Oh? I was planning to sing at your wedding.”

I turned to her, wide-eyed, and she laughed.

I shook my head and we both laughed; and then we listened to the rest of the song, letting the sorrow in our hearts drift into the wind. As the car consumed the curves heading west, my head tilted toward the window. The blistering midday sun melded into the surrounding tropical greenness, and we dissolved into that unbearable green light.

Also by J.L. Torres