Bait (16 page)

I
N THE WEEK THAT FOLLOWED
,
Diego stumbled through each day as though staggering out from a very long war. For over ten years, two sides of him had fought a constant battle: one side desperate to say something about Mac’s abuse while the other side struggled to deny it. War had become his inner default. With his mom’s acknowledgment of the abuse, the battle had ended, but the victory had left him dazed.

His mom seemed equally disoriented, neither nagging him about his chores nor scolding Eddie to gather his toys. At night, she quickly withdrew to her room, emerging in the morning with red and swollen eyes.

Diego retreated in turn, leaving for school early in the morning and closing his door upon hearing her come home at night.

Their distance became like a wall between them. She was a stranger living on the other side.

“You look like you got hit by a truck,” Kenny told him the day after the meeting with Vidas. “What happened? You okay?”

“Yeah,” Diego replied. “Just stuff at home.”

Thankfully, Kenny didn’t press the issue. At lunch, they mostly made small talk. On Sunday, they watched TV and biked to the beach without saying much. Diego didn’t feel the need to. All that mattered was that they were still friends.

Ariel noticed the change in Diego right away too. “What’s going on?” she asked at his locker. “You seem so far away.”

He felt far away—even from her. “I guess I am.”

“How can I help?” she asked.

The words jumped out of his mouth: “Just don’t leave me?”

He felt kind of pathetic saying it. But she merely smiled and said, “Okay.”

It almost made him want to cry. He felt that way a lot as he went through each day: constantly on the brink of tears. Even in his dreams he felt sad, as they changed too.

One night when the nightmare shark appeared, Diego was again in the open ocean, but this time he was in the safety of a fishing boat.

He watched as the familiar fin approached slowly, unthreatening—almost peacefully. Instead of attacking, the creature rubbed itself alongside the boat, as if marking its scent—more like a cat than a shark.

Diego felt enthralled rather than afraid, and as the shark swam away he felt an odd sense of loss that it was leaving.

One afternoon in his room, he began looking through old photos and stopped at one taken when he was eight years old, on the day that Eddie had come home from the hospital. In the picture, Diego smiled proudly, holding his newly born brother in his arms. Their mom stood on one side of Diego and on the other stood Mac.

Even with his face torn out, Mac seemed massive compared to little Diego. How could he have done such things to a boy? And how could his mom have suspected and kept silent?

As Diego stared at the photo, he felt tears rise, along with a tightness in his throat. His breath quickened. He couldn’t get sufficient air. He put the picture down and ran to the window, hurled open the sash, braced himself on the sill, and took in huge gasps until he finally calmed down.

At his next probation appointment, he described the experience and Vidas asked him to bring the picture in.

“Here.” He showed it to Vidas the following week.

Vidas cradled the photo in his palm, studying it carefully. “What do you feel?” he asked Diego. “When you see yourself as such a little boy and think back to what Mac did?”

“Sad…
more
than sad…” Diego inhaled a deep breath. “Like, what did I do to deserve it?”

“You didn’t deserve it, Diego.”

“Then why did it happen? Why
me
?”

“I don’t know.” Vidas let out a weary sigh. “Sometimes bad things just happen—really horrible things. That doesn’t mean we deserve them. We didn’t choose them and we can’t undo them. We can’t change the past. The best we can do is accept what happened and make a new future.”

Vidas handed the photo back. “If little Diego was here with us, what would you say to him?”

Diego gazed at the photo of his eight-year-old self. “That he should’ve fought harder, that he should’ve gotten away, that he should’ve made his mom believe him.”

“And what do you think little Diego would tell you?”

Diego stared into the lonesome eyes and his breathing faltered. “That he fought as hard as he could. But that he was only a little boy.” As he spoke, his voice cracked painfully. “That he’s sorry, and to please stop hating him.”

“Can you do that?” Vidas asked. “Can you stop hating yourself for what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Diego said, choking back sobs. “Sometimes I just feel so angry. I hate myself so much.”

“Of course you feel angry,” Vidas responded, “but you don’t have to hate yourself for what happened.”

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Diego asked, wiping his cheek.

Vidas gestured to the photo. “Ask your little boy.”

Through a blur of tears, Diego stared at the picture, and in his mind he listened as the boy spoke. “He says for me to stop trying to kill him, that he didn’t mean to do the things he did, and he just”—Diego struggled against his tears—“he just wants me to love him. All he ever wanted was to be loved.”

“Can you tell him you love him?” Vidas asked.

“I don’t know.” Diego sobbed.

“I believe you can,” Vidas said. “Imagine yourself holding him, the same way you held your baby brother, and imagine saying ‘I love you.’”

Diego did as Vidas suggested. His eyes clenched shut and he brought his hands to his face as tears poured down his cheeks uncontrollably—crying for the boy he might have been, the childhood he might have had, and all that the little boy inside him had survived….

Diego had no idea for how long he wept. When at last he finished, he wiped his eyes, embarrassed. “Man, where did that come from!” It was an exclamation, not a question; he already knew the answer. Apparently, so did Vidas.

“How’re you feeling now?” he asked.

“Good…weird…like I’ve been holding my breath underwater for years and I’m finally surfacing.”

With the mention of water, Vidas poured Diego a cup from his desk. Diego downed it thirstily and asked for seconds, feeling like he needed to replenish himself after all the tears. They sat quietly for a while until Vidas asked, “Do you feel all right to go or do you need more time?”

“I think I’m good,” Diego said.

Vidas walked him down the hall and told him, “Be careful biking home.”

Diego nodded, regretting the time he’d lashed out at Vidas, saying not to touch him. At this moment, he would’ve given anything in the world for a pat on the back.

“Y
OUR MOM PHONED ME
,”
Vidas told Diego at their next meeting. “She said she’s tried to talk with you but you ignore her.”

It was true. If she knocked on his door, he wouldn’t answer. When she made Sunday breakfast, he ate it but didn’t acknowledge her. And on payday, when she’d brought him a new pair of sneakers, he took them without a word.

“Why should I talk to her?” Diego asked Vidas. “She didn’t talk to me all those years about what she suspected Mac was doing.”

“You’ve got every right to be angry,” Vidas said calmly. “But if you let your anger trap you, you’re hurting yourself.”

His response made Diego madder. “So, I should just forgive and forget? Pretend like it never happened?”

“No, I don’t think you should pretend anything. And I doubt you’ll forget it. But she said she’s sorry. Do you believe her?”

“I guess.”

In fact, she’d been showing a new deference toward him—maybe because she felt guilty, or maybe because he’d finally had the courage to confront her.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Vidas rolled his chair across the carpet to the bookshelf and pulled the dictionary out. “Look up ‘forgive.’”

Diego propped the book onto his lap and turned the pages till he found “forgive.”

“What’s it say?” Vidas asked.

Diego read the first entry aloud: “‘To give up resentment.’”

“Good,” Vidas told him. “Now, what does ‘resentment’ say?”

Diego flipped through the pages again. “‘A feeling of ill-will and deep bitter anger.’”

“Is that how you want to go through life?” Vidas asked.

Diego frowned in response. Of course he didn’t. But how could he let her off after what she’d let happen?

That evening, while talking with Ariel on the phone, he asked, “Remember what you told me about your dad hitting your mom and all that? Like, how did you forgive him?”

Ariel became quiet and Diego wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have asked.

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” she replied. “That’s for sure. For a long time I
didn’t
forgive him. I wanted him to feel bad for how much he’d hurt Mom and me.” She paused for a breath. “But after a while I realized that I was mostly making
me
feel bad. I got tired of it, you know? I wanted to feel happy. The only way I could do that was by forgiving him. It’s how I set myself free…. Besides,” she added, “we all do stuff that hurts people. I’m no saint. If I can forgive others, I figure it’s good karma.”

Diego pondered what she’d said. Maybe he should forgive his mom—not so much for her, but for himself.

He was lying on the living room sofa, still talking with Ariel when his mom arrived home.

“Hi,” she said after he hung up. “How was your day?”

He hesitated to answer, wanting to walk out on her like he’d been doing, but he forced himself to say, “Fine.”

“That’s good.” She smiled, obviously relieved that he’d answered. “Was that Ariel? Why don’t you invite her for lunch one Sunday? I’d like to meet her.”

“Why?” Diego asked suspiciously. Ariel was one of the best things to ever happen to him, and he didn’t want his mom to ruin it. What if she said something to embarrass him? Could he trust her not to?

“Because she’s your friend,” his mom replied. “That’s all.”

“I’ll think about it,” Diego said and went to his room. He lay in bed awhile, thinking about the things Vidas and Ariel had said. Even though he still felt angry with his mom, he wanted Ariel to come over. He wanted to be normal. He wanted to feel happy.

We can’t undo the past,
he remembered Vidas saying.
But we can make a new future.

“Cool,” Ariel responded the next day at school when Diego proposed coming over for Sunday lunch. “I finally get to meet your family.”

Her excitement made him even more nervous. As soon as he got home that afternoon, he started to clean up his room, plucking clothes off the floor and tossing junk into the closet. When his mom arrived home from work, he told her about Ariel coming on Sunday.

“Great!” His mom smiled wider than she had in weeks. “What would you like me to make for lunch?”

“I don’t know.” He hadn’t thought about that. “Something really good.”

She decided on Enchiladas Suizas, one of his favorite dishes, made with fresh cream, roasted tomatoes, and jalapeño peppers. Once again, she put the little clamshell soaps in the hall bathroom, ordered Eddie to collect his scattered toys, and asked Diego to vacuum the carpets.

He was glad she made a fuss. Like her, he wanted to make a good impression. And on Sunday, when she dressed up in one of her shimmery dresses and heels, he didn’t complain. He was too busy pacing in front of the living room window, waiting.

When Ariel arrived, his mom seemed impressed by her, chatting and listening intently to things Ariel said. To Diego’s relief, his mom didn’t say anything that embarrassed him. And Eddie liked her too, showing her his games and drawings.

After Ariel left, his mom remarked, “She seems like a very nice girl. I’m happy for you,
mijo
.” Her voice was earnest; clearly she meant it.

Maybe it would be possible for him to eventually forgive her. But there remained one person he could never forgive. How could he, after what he’d done to him?

On Thursday, he told Vidas about Ariel’s visit and how normal it had seemed. “It felt so good.”

“That’s great,” Vidas told him.

“Yeah,” Diego agreed. “But I’m scared it won’t last.”

“That’s normal too,” Vidas said with a slight smile.

Diego nodded and glanced at the carpet, thinking about the question that had been nagging at him. “And, um…what about Mac?”

“What about him?” Vidas asked.

Diego sat up in his chair. “Am I supposed to forgive him, too? I don’t think I can. I don’t think I’ll
ever
be able to.”

“That’s up to you,” Vidas said simply.

Diego clenched his fists and cracked his knuckles. “I wish I could confront him, the same as I did my mom.”

“Hmm…” Vidas leaned back in his chair and pursed his lips, thinking. “Have you ever heard of something called a guided visualization?”

“No. What’s that?”

“It’s sort of like…a daydream. You close your eyes and I talk you through a scenario while you imagine it. In this case, you’d confront Mac as though he were still alive.”

Diego glanced at the empty chair beside him and pictured Mac. His legs began to jiggle. “What would I say to him? It’s not like with my mom. He knew what he was doing.”

“Right. So, you’d tell him how you felt about it. And how you feel about him now. Anything you want to say. Everything you wish you’d said when he was alive.”

Diego shifted in his seat. The idea of facing Mac again filled him with doubt.

“How exactly would it work? Does he respond somehow? Is it like some sort of séance?”

“No, it’s nothing mystical. It’s a therapy technique that was helpful to me.”

Diego stared out the window, trying to decide: should he go through with it?
Could
he? As overwhelming as confronting his mom had been, this felt even more daunting, despite Mac being dead.

“Think about it,” Vidas suggested. “If you want to do it, just let me know.”

On his ride from the courthouse, Diego biked fast and hard, propelled by the thought of facing Mac again, even if it would be just a daydream.