Ilustrado Part 5

"No. I never did get to visit him in New York. I wanted to, but I never had the chance."

"Did you write him letters there?"

"I'm sorry. Would you mind speaking up?"

"I said, did you write him letters often?"

"Yes. Every week. We'd done it since the fifties, when I was sent to receive my schooling at King George V, in Hong Kong. About ten years ago, we stopped writing. It was like quitting smoking, not receiving a weekly dispatch from him. But I was far too peeved by him."

"For what?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I said, for what?"

"His memoirs."

"What do you mean?"

"Indeed! They were mean! Mercenary, in fact. He may have waited for Mama to die, but what of the rest of us? My brother's response was: 'But it's art! It's the truth!' As if that made it acceptable. You think these people in this country understand art? Half can't write their names. Still we let them vote. The other half, they can read about us in his book. No good can come from that. I used to blame that book for our brother Narcisito's mental troubles. I'd even given Crispy my childhood diaries beforehand, hoping they'd help him write honestly."

"What particularly bothered you?"

"Oh, you know."

The maid beside us transfers the fan from one arm to the other and resumes waving it. She shakes out the tired arm.

"Were you upset about what he said about Narcisito and your father?"

"Things he said about the holy Church."

"What did that have to do with Narcisito?"

"Crispin also wrote ghastly things about the family connection with that fascist Respeto Reyes. Or insinuations about my father bodily abusing us, when really it was just the zeitgeist. Same with those stories about the women my father turned to when Mama was sick. Papa was a man man. Where else was he to find solace? And Crispy made public personal matters about my father's politics."

"Were the things he said untrue, or ..."

"The things he said were untrue. My father was ... Papa was a man who tried to help as many people as he could. But by Crispy's recollection, my father didn't have scruples. What a hypocrite. My father did have scruples, many, but he didn't let politics get in the way. You can't govern well if you have scruples. Everyone knows that."

"What about your mother?"

"Narcisito tried his level best to live up to Papa's expectations."

"No, I said, what about your mother?"

"Oh. I'm certain Mama turned in her grave until she was dizzy. Angels keep her. Crispy painted her as pitiful."

"So they were lies?"

"Of course there were no other guys!" Lena glared at me. "My mother was the definition of fidelity."

"No, I said, was what Crispin said lies?"

"I see. You have such a soft voice. Are you a seminarian? Well, I guess they weren't lies. They weren't how we we would have put them. Were my mother alive, Crispin would have been more respectful." would have put them. Were my mother alive, Crispin would have been more respectful."

"Do you think, in a way, Crispin meant the book to be a tribute? A chronicle of the truths that the family would otherwise lose?"

"That's a bit rich. Don't give my brother too much credit. He was in a purgatory of insignificance and wanted to resurrect himself. How does he do it? s.h.i.+rks his duties, as usual, and steps on those who love him. For a long time I blamed that silly girl, Sadie Baxter. The graduate student from Topeka, Kansas. She was less than half his age. Everyone was in absolute horror at how he he would corrupt would corrupt her her. Because, oh my, she was so curious. Oh my, so blond. Oh my, so pristine. But she she corrupted corrupted him him! It's not age that corrupts, it's youth. Plus, I think she was Jewish. It worried Papa, the idea that she was after our money. Her family had changed their name from Bachman or Bachstein or something like that. Why change your name if you have nothing to hide? Well, Crispy was mad for her. I hadn't seen him so smitten since that love affair with Mutya Dimatahimik."

"When was that? I'd never read about that."

"In the late sixties. The long love affair that would live in infamy. It affected him profoundly. It eventually broke up the Cinco Bravos. That's why he didn't write about it. He was culpable. Also, Sadie was the reason Crispy didn't do anything with his beloved Dulcinea, and why that relations.h.i.+p would be his most tragic failure ..."

"What do you mean? That name is on my list of people to ..."

"That tiny Sadie Baxter stirred inside my brother adolescent delusions, made him selfish and reckless. Perhaps because she was constantly photographing him, with that camera she always carried. Suddenly, each morning he's taking ginseng and ma huang and rhino horn. Ridiculous! I laugh, but it comes from a place of love. My brother was silly. I know now that I despised Sadie so that I could preserve my love for Crispin. But it was my hate for her that made him resent me. What can you do? Don't we all need to blame somebody?"

"Can you tell me about Dulcinea-"

"Is that my brother's fountain pen?"

"Um. Yes. You said I could take-"

"Keep it. That's fine."

"It means a lot to me. I'm using it to write his biography. I thought it was actually fitting ..."

"It's fine. Really. It was just odd to see it in someone else's hands. It was our father's before Crispin had it. I'm sorry, what were we discussing prior? Ah, yes. After his memoir proved a failure, it was Sadie Baxter who left him."

"But I heard that he-"

"That's how it happened."

The maid with the fan s.h.i.+fts her weight onto her other hip and sighs.

"But your brother even dedicated Autoplagiarist Autoplagiarist to her." to her."

"I know. But in fairness to that hotsipatootsie, I can quite imagine how difficult it was being around my brother during that time. He never came to terms with failing. No, it wasn't Sadie's fault. She was young. She had hopes. Plus she was different different. Not so much Jewish, but Western. She couldn't be expected to understand how sacred family is to us. They cut their offspring loose right when they turn eighteen. The poor girl later died while bicycling in Monaco. I'm convinced her hard life was because she was never baptized."

"I'm sorry, but I have to ask again. Pardon my frankness. But do you think Crispin killed himself?"

Lena sighs and frowns. She thinks for a moment. "My short answer: No. Not directly. First, because it's a mortal sin, and Crispin, I have to believe, saw the light before the end. Second, he didn't have it in him. I mean, okay, fine, he wasn't quite sane. But suicidal?"

"What do you mean, 'not quite sane'?"

"When my mother was on her deathbed, that's when it all started. The corruption in Crispin's heart. I told him, it's a test, be like Abraham. Remember how the Lord tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his child Isaac? But after Mama died, Crispin was inconsolable. He'd flown from New York to see her and arrived the day of the night she left us for the Lord. He rushed to the hospital, but Papa wouldn't allow him into her room to say goodbye. It was for my mother's good. My father, you know, he loved her very much. He still had hope that, with prayers, her cancer could be defeated. He went all the way to the Vatican and donated a fortune. Papa got on his knees and begged the Pope to ask the Lord for His inter-cession. But Mama was in such pain. Such Such pain! Crispin had for weeks been saying maybe it was time to let her go. Easy to say while drinking martinis in Manhattan. So when Crispy arrived, Papa didn't allow him to see our mother. He told my brother it was Mama who refused to see him. I think maybe that was unfair. After, Crispin went back to New York and wrote his memoir. He refused to stay for the wake and didn't come to the funeral. When pain! Crispin had for weeks been saying maybe it was time to let her go. Easy to say while drinking martinis in Manhattan. So when Crispy arrived, Papa didn't allow him to see our mother. He told my brother it was Mama who refused to see him. I think maybe that was unfair. After, Crispin went back to New York and wrote his memoir. He refused to stay for the wake and didn't come to the funeral. When Autoplagiarist Autoplagiarist came out, my father felt betrayed. It was he who gave Crispin the money to publish it. Papa was always giving Crispin money, as an olive branch. So my father was very angry. As usual, he took it out on poor Narcisito. He treated him worse than the neighbor's dog. Narcisito gave Papa his whole life. But because he did, he could never get Papa's approval. I saw Narcisito in his room at the Fresh Starts Rehabilitation Retreat Home, and after I left, he hanged himself. I often wonder ... had I stayed ... or not visited that day ..." came out, my father felt betrayed. It was he who gave Crispin the money to publish it. Papa was always giving Crispin money, as an olive branch. So my father was very angry. As usual, he took it out on poor Narcisito. He treated him worse than the neighbor's dog. Narcisito gave Papa his whole life. But because he did, he could never get Papa's approval. I saw Narcisito in his room at the Fresh Starts Rehabilitation Retreat Home, and after I left, he hanged himself. I often wonder ... had I stayed ... or not visited that day ..."

Lena sits silently, gazing away as if having her portrait painted. I watch and wait. Finally, she dabs at her eyes. Her face jells slowly into its former composure, then breaks into a little smile.

"Well," she says. "Just your typical rich family, I guess."

The maid with the fan looks toward the house. She sticks her tongue out at someone inside, scrunches up her nose, and blinks repeatedly in an odd way.

"What happened to Crispin?"

"One thing you'll learn when you get older is that when you hate someone so much, a part of you wants desperately to forgive them. But you can't decide if it's because you really want to, or if you just want to stop hating. I still don't know if forgiveness is generous or selfish. Maybe both. Crispin was such a talent as a young man. So mischievous. But he grew so angry. There's expedience in anger. Simplicity, too."

The final strains of oboes playing "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" fade away. The CD loops to the start and "Misty" fills the air.

"Did you ever get to make amends with Crispin before he died?"

"Before he died, that last time he was in Manila-you know, in February, for his infamous fiasco at the Cultural Center-well, Crispy visited me before that. Just appeared. The maids said I had a visitor and I came down and there he was, suitcase beside him, fanning himself with his panama hat. I was convinced I was seeing a ghost. I even did the sign of the cross. When he looked up and smiled that irritating smile of his, I told him: 'What makes you think you're welcome here?' But even I was surprised that I didn't mean that."

"He came here? Did he mention writing The Bridges Ablaze The Bridges Ablaze?"

"We didn't talk about his work."

"For how long was he here?"

"I had nothing at all to fear. He was my baby brother."

"No, I said, how long was he here?"

"I'm sorry?"

"How long was he queer?" I couldn't resist.

"I see. Less than a week."

"That long?" I'm trying to keep a straight face.

"Weren't you his friend?"

"I was. I'm sorry, I am." I feel guilty. "But I was out of town, too. My girlfriend and I were in Costa Rica, helping build wells. My girlfriend at the time."

"Why not the Philippines? Isn't Costa Rica relatively well off?"

"Um, we didn't know that till we got there. What I want to ask is, did Crispin do any research? Like, take notes? Or ..."

"No. Nothing. Really, it was divine. I admit, I didn't dare ask about his writing. It was just wonderful to see him. I didn't want to ruin it. He'd aged so. During his stay, he strolled barefoot around the garden. Ate very well. We took walks to the beach where we used to swim as children. Talking only about wonderful things. He read to me every night. That was something we did as kids, read to each other, especially during the war. He always did the best voices. He recited 'The Raven' with all sorts of trilled r r's and all. I should have known it was too superlative not not to be the last time." Lena pauses. She wipes the sides of her eyes again. to be the last time." Lena pauses. She wipes the sides of her eyes again.

"I'm sorry. It's just ... Growing up, it was just us three children. Papa was always away. Mama, well, she wasn't really present. Despite what you read in Crispin's memoir. Mama didn't have a good relations.h.i.+p with her affections. Because of my father, Mama retreated into her painting, her botany. I rarely saw her laugh. Except with her best friend, Miss Florentina. Whom I a.s.sume you are interviewing. No? You must. Amazing woman. Still she lives alone. The archangels are protecting her. Other than them, she refuses to have household help. She was a legendary beauty. Not at all like me."

"No," I say, "um, I'm sure that wasn't true."

The maid with the fan rolls her eyes. She fingers the hem of her skirt, playing with a spot where the mint-green fabric has become frayed.

"Miss Florentina's name was whispered whispered in the Spanish royal court. Ask her about her many suitors. It will make her happy. They were mad for her. She could have chosen from dozens. But she was never to be tied down. Even in conversation. Beware: you think you're fooling her when all along she's fooling you." in the Spanish royal court. Ask her about her many suitors. It will make her happy. They were mad for her. She could have chosen from dozens. But she was never to be tied down. Even in conversation. Beware: you think you're fooling her when all along she's fooling you."

"What was the family connection?"

"She was the dearest dearest of all our t.i.tas, though we weren't related. She was first a friend of our t.i.to, Herculeo. You know, my father didn't even attend his funeral? His own brother. t.i.to Herculeo was, you know. A confirmed bachelor. At that time, it wasn't something you could be. t.i.to Herculeo always had the most beautiful clothes, and made gazpacho that was famous from here to Shanghai. Sorry, what was I discussing?" of all our t.i.tas, though we weren't related. She was first a friend of our t.i.to, Herculeo. You know, my father didn't even attend his funeral? His own brother. t.i.to Herculeo was, you know. A confirmed bachelor. At that time, it wasn't something you could be. t.i.to Herculeo always had the most beautiful clothes, and made gazpacho that was famous from here to Shanghai. Sorry, what was I discussing?"

"You were talking about Crispin's last visit. Was there anything strange?"

"Come to think of it, there was was something surprising. I've had a long involvement with this group of children. My old cla.s.smate from the a.s.sumption, s.h.i.+rley Nunes, a nun, a living saint, she educates the children of two towns in Antique province. I told Crispin, you know, your trip isn't so well timed, because I'm going up to visit. I go each February, before the season becomes hot. I've always loved children. So anyway, Crispy, he tells me, I'll go with you. I said, Ha! You won't last the day. But he came. We spent two days and one night. We looked at the cottage-industry projects I fund. Weaving, that's what they do. Remind me to give you one of the loincloths they make. They're wonderful as table runners. Anyway, all the children were so happy to see us. You see, many of their parents are gone. Then the kids get to a certain age and the light dulls in their eyes. Sorry? Oh, their parents go to the fish farms in the estuaries by the coast. Milkfish. Or many become domestic helpers or contract workers in Manila. Maybe Brunei or Saudi. It's hard. My friend s.h.i.+rley is aging, and these people keep having children. I remember when s.h.i.+rley wanted to introduce condoms to the people there and I had to stop her. Imagine?! I told her: 'Don't you dare! I'll cease my funding! I'll tell you to the diocese.' I don't know why those men and women just can't control themselves. I did. I think it's like animals. Bless them all, but still. s.h.i.+rley says many children ensure a family of helping hands. I don't know about that. Don't get me wrong, you should see these children. Miracles, each one. something surprising. I've had a long involvement with this group of children. My old cla.s.smate from the a.s.sumption, s.h.i.+rley Nunes, a nun, a living saint, she educates the children of two towns in Antique province. I told Crispin, you know, your trip isn't so well timed, because I'm going up to visit. I go each February, before the season becomes hot. I've always loved children. So anyway, Crispy, he tells me, I'll go with you. I said, Ha! You won't last the day. But he came. We spent two days and one night. We looked at the cottage-industry projects I fund. Weaving, that's what they do. Remind me to give you one of the loincloths they make. They're wonderful as table runners. Anyway, all the children were so happy to see us. You see, many of their parents are gone. Then the kids get to a certain age and the light dulls in their eyes. Sorry? Oh, their parents go to the fish farms in the estuaries by the coast. Milkfish. Or many become domestic helpers or contract workers in Manila. Maybe Brunei or Saudi. It's hard. My friend s.h.i.+rley is aging, and these people keep having children. I remember when s.h.i.+rley wanted to introduce condoms to the people there and I had to stop her. Imagine?! I told her: 'Don't you dare! I'll cease my funding! I'll tell you to the diocese.' I don't know why those men and women just can't control themselves. I did. I think it's like animals. Bless them all, but still. s.h.i.+rley says many children ensure a family of helping hands. I don't know about that. Don't get me wrong, you should see these children. Miracles, each one.

"This is the strange part. On the day we leave for home, s.h.i.+rley and two kids are coming with us in the car to drop us at the town where we catch the ferry. As we enter the car, Crispy notices the other children are crying. A few are being unpleasant to the two dears accompanying us. What's wrong? he asks s.h.i.+rley. She explains: Every year, the two with the best grades make a trip to see the sea. Only two, because she can't afford to bring them all. Most of the children had never seen the sea, even if it's only three hours away. Bear in mind, they're very remote. They don't even have television, so how will they know what an ocean looks like? s.h.i.+rley explains: 'You should hear them trying to describe it to their friends. They simply cannot. I try to help, then I realize how impossible it is.' Well, Crispy, he's upset. Angry. The way he gets. He pulls out his wallet and sends s.h.i.+rley with our car to contract jeepneys from the nearest town. Crispy just sat and waited, like a mule chewing gra.s.s. Nearly two hours in silence. I think he felt ashamed. He'd famously hated hated children. He thought I'd criticize him. The school motto we had at KGV is children. He thought I'd criticize him. The school motto we had at KGV is Honestas ante Honores Honestas ante Honores. Honesty before glory. Not the sort of rot the Salvador men believed. I dare say, on that last trip, Crispy came round. Just like Saint Augustine."

A clock inside the house makes electronic cuckoo sounds, four times. A maid in a pink uniform comes out. She takes the place of the maid in the mint-green, hoisting the fan and moving it gently above us. The off-duty maid walks to the house, slowing a few yards from the door, waving, gesticulating, and acting all goofy to someone in the shadows of the sala.

"And that is how we took all all the children to see the sea. Thirty-seven of them. I'll never forget it. Many children, mostly the older ones, were afraid of the water. But a few brave ones jumped right in. The younger ones, would you believe? A few who thought they were courageous came running back each time a wave came. Eventually, they were all in the water, splas.h.i.+ng and tumbling. I've never heard so much laughter. And Crispy just stood there, among all the excitement, hands in pockets, trousers rolled up and the water coming and going around his knees. He's always had that smug way of whistling his own tune, all my life, like he's ignoring you. Or as if he knows better than you. Narcisito and I hated that. But that afternoon, when Crispy whistled like that, it was more than okay. the children to see the sea. Thirty-seven of them. I'll never forget it. Many children, mostly the older ones, were afraid of the water. But a few brave ones jumped right in. The younger ones, would you believe? A few who thought they were courageous came running back each time a wave came. Eventually, they were all in the water, splas.h.i.+ng and tumbling. I've never heard so much laughter. And Crispy just stood there, among all the excitement, hands in pockets, trousers rolled up and the water coming and going around his knees. He's always had that smug way of whistling his own tune, all my life, like he's ignoring you. Or as if he knows better than you. Narcisito and I hated that. But that afternoon, when Crispy whistled like that, it was more than okay.

"Afterward I made a mistake. On the ferry, I guess I was feeling sentimental leaning on the railing with him, watching our island on the horizon. I asked if he ever thought about what he'd leave behind. Those children had affected me. Crispin grew irate and stormed off. He didn't talk on the car ride home. Then he went straight to bed. The next morning, he was gone."

I don't really miss Madison. I don't have any regrets. I know everything ends, eventually. Another obvious statement is that, usually, when things are done and dusted, you can make sense of them. She was the love of my life until suddenly she wasn't.

The unfathomable Madison Liebling. The girl whose laughable name I fell in love with first. Environmental science student and minor-celebutante daughter of the Lincolns.h.i.+re Lieblings' "ball bearings baron," the unexpressive father who had controversially, and uncharacteristically, married and claimed his Filipina "lady friend" after a stint in the U.S. Emba.s.sy in Manila during the David W. Newson tenure. Madison, equestrian prim and Miss Manners proper, with her improbably narrow waist, with her one blue eye and the other one brown (freckles in between spangling the perfect nose). We were made for each other. Except for, of course, the differences. How did we become so prejudiced by our idiosyncrasies? Despite her Puritan ancestors, her own half-breed background, the childhood that coincided with her parents' midlife study of Eastern philosophies and the healing powers of crystals, her extensive teenage travel, her Upper East Side and Seven Sisters refinements, she still could neither decode nor understand the nuances of our shared background.

Ident.i.ty was never a quest for her. We shared the same languages, but spoke of worlds so subtly different that language was not enough. Over time the big things were left unsaid; they gave way to the little things, those once-endearing imperfections that had somewhere become deal breakers. Like how-despite her senior thesis on the environmental impact of public bathroom air hand-dryers versus recycled paper towels-she persisted in leaving on all the lights in our apartment when she went out. Or how she liked to watch her favorite show, The Golden Girls The Golden Girls, with the volume too loud, even when I was working in the next room. And especially how she had, despite my well-voiced aesthetic preference, enlarged and framed a photo to affix over the mantel of our Williamsburg flat: the blue Earth rising over the horizon of the moon. Astronaut James Lovell had taken it during the Apollo 8 mission. Madison and I would sit on the couch, pa.s.sing the bong, staring at the picture. She loved that photo. She said that it made everything look peaceful. No people, no countries, no borders. I found the sentiment cheesy. I liked to say I could see the hole in the ozone. This would upset her. Usually, we sat in silence, exhaling smoke.

Despite it being agreed, by one and all, that married life and fatherhood suit him well, Cristo cannot evade his fears. What of the rumors? And the connections? It is no better than the Inquisition, and guilt is often a.s.sumed before innocence can be proven.

Late that evening, long after the guests have left and his wife and children have gone to sleep, he writes in his diary: "The developments in the provinces around Manila make me both fear and long for trouble here. This is what we've been working for so long! It is close and I'm strangled by fear. I awaken weeping, alone in my room. Suddenly it is bigger, as if I'm in a strange field. The shadows are friars, soldiers, traitors, streaking through underbrush just beyond my seeing. If I suffer such nights, what must that final one have been like for my poor old friend Jose [Rizal]? Only upon entering Maria Clara's room, to hear her and the children's breathing, do I find the bravery to s.h.i.+rk my ideas of independence. Listening to them renews my faith in the reform movement, my conviction that soon will come concessions from Mother Spain-perhaps even representation in the Cortes. And yet, hardly a year has pa.s.sed since these reasonable requests brought Jose before a firing squad. It seems only yesterday he and I were together in Madrid, young men in love with our own promise. Dawn arrives. Poor Maria Clara mistakes my fatigue for melancholy, something of her doing. Her tears devour me. But it must be my own cross. For my sons. My pride! Narciso Junior, the running terror. Little Achillo, only now beginning to hold his neck up. My third still in Maria Clara's womb. When I'm greeted by them in the morning, I wipe my heroic thoughts from my mind. Then an evening like tonight's entangles me. Aniceto, Juan, and Martin come for supper. Our ideas and the possibilities for change, our impatience, are as thick in the air as the smoke from our tobacco. These ignite again the fire that burns in my head through yet another sleepless night. Until the infernal process renews itself yet again come morning."

Cristo puts down his pen and rubs his eyes. Pondering the decisions, crushed by their opacity, he cries out: "Blessed Mary, Ever Virgin, a.s.sist me!"

-from The Enlightened The Enlightened (page 165), by Crispin Salvador (page 165), by Crispin Salvador *

It was raining heavily the morning my sister Charlotte left. At least I think it was. I was only thirteen, yet she'd intimated her decision only to me. Our rooms in the house in Iligan, which our family rented after moving from Vancouver, were connected by a bathroom. Or maybe Charlotte and I had been close. I'm not sure. When she told me-her bags already packed-I wanted to stop her, but I wanted her to be happy. So I swallowed the heavy secret. I think it was the only one I've ever properly kept.

My grandparents were five hundred miles away, in Manila. Only three hours by plane, but absent again. Grapes and Granma had lately been fighting badly, taking it out on Charlotte, on me, on all of us grandkids. Granma was sure Grapes had another woman and she therefore refused to leave his side. She was convinced politics was either an excuse or an aid for his trespa.s.ses. And so, when he went to the capital for the national conference of governors-the final one for his term of office-Granma went with him.

Charlotte was gone when they returned.

Before anyone discovered that her bedroom was empty, I sat there among her orphaned possessions. The room still smelled of her, this fresh smell that I do not remember enough to describe, though I remember it sufficiently to know it was only hers. I went through her Elle Elle magazines, cutting out all the photographs of girls in swimsuits, keeping them under my s.h.i.+rt to later hide away between the pages of my Bible. magazines, cutting out all the photographs of girls in swimsuits, keeping them under my s.h.i.+rt to later hide away between the pages of my Bible.

I was young, but I understood. I couldn't blame my sister. She'd been wrested from her high school sweetheart and brought a world away to this paradise of hackneyed exoticism-golden mangoes, sun-drenched white-sand beaches, reef diving, and a language still so foreign to us our trying to speak it made the locals smile. We kids had been a.s.signed bodyguards, drivers, maids to iron even our socks. Luxuries that improved then dissolved the sense of freedom we grandchildren knew in Canada. I hated hearing Charlotte downstairs in the corner of the playroom, crying long distance over the phone. I hated my grandparents-for bringing me here, to a new school; for screaming at Charlotte; for relocating us to a home from which they were still so often away.

In Charlotte's room, her bed was still unmade. I sat at its foot and went through the CDs she didn't take. On the new boombox Granma gave her for her birthday, I played Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All." It was one of Charlotte's favorite songs, which she used to belt out beautifully as she accompanied herself on the baby grand that Grapes bought her. Whitney sang: "I believe the children are the future, teach them well and let them lead the way." By the time she reached the chorus-about making the choice not to follow in another person's shadow, and then that powerful bit about winning or losing but at least living a life that she believed in-by the time Whitney got to that part about keeping our dignity, I could hold back no longer: I crumpled and cried, once again, as I have many times when faced with no other options. In my s.h.i.+rt, the pages with the swimsuit girls crinkled and bent.

The weeks and months and, finally, the year after her departure were like a bad movie. Grapes disowned her, had us sign new articles of incorporation in which her name was excised from owners.h.i.+p of his a.s.sets, the material proof of his love for his family. He told people he had one fewer grandchild. I don't remember much of Granma during that time, which meant she was in her room too often. What must it have done to them to have lost, this time, a grandchild?

Mario told me that he hadn't seen Granma like this since I was too young to remember, since when my parents died. He told me that even through the rough time when our grandmother found out about Grapes's other woman-when Granma left him and brought us children to the country's nicest hotel for over a month, on Grapes's credit-Granma had held strong, for us. My brother made as if he were rea.s.suring me that our grandmother would be okay, but by the act of sharing that weight with his thirteen-year-old brother, he ended up revealing how he, too, felt alone, jostled precipitously by my sister's departure. So close were Mario and Charlotte in age that they'd constantly fought, in the manner of those who share so much. He began to have trouble at university. He never went to cla.s.s. Who would want to go to a university where everyone spoke in the local dialect that you couldn't understand, some even mocking him for being wealthy and only speaking English? One evening, my grandparents were berating Mario in the playroom. He sat between them, Grapes against the far wall, Granma leaning against the pool table. My brother's reticence likely infuriated my grandparents as much as Charlotte's insolence had. Granma grasped a billiard ball in frustration. Threw it at the floor. It bounced and hit Grapes smack-dab on the forehead. To this day, we kids laugh at this, though my grandparents cannot yet.