The Book of Broken Hearts (33 page)

His smile was full of hope, but it was fragile and fleeting, not strong enough to climb over all the boulders in our path.
Later meant more discussions and arguments and painful choices about Papi’s care, about the fate of the four Hernandez sisters, about Mom. Later meant me facing the reality of college, packing up my life, moving on, growing up, starting a new chapter.

Either way, Emilio and I would have to say good-bye.

I laced my fingers through his. “You can’t wait on me forever. You have to go. For Danny, like you promised.”

Emilio watched me with deep, intense eyes, full of fire, full of possibility. I waited for him to invite me again, to insist that I come with him, to tell me that nothing ever meant anything until he met me. I waited for him to grab me by the shoulders and push me against the wall, to smother my mouth with his, to swallow all the protests and doubts.

I wanted him to kiss me and make me believe it all again, to say that he wanted nothing if not to take me on his motorcycle, to ride all the way to the sea.

Maybe I would’ve said yes, if he’d asked one more time.

Maybe I would’ve left immediately, jumped on the back of that bike and never looked back.

But he didn’t ask again, and when I wrapped my arms around him, he pressed his lips to my forehead, lingered for an eternity. When he finally pulled away, I looked into his eyes and smiled.

He squeezed my hand, whispered my name.

My heart fluttered.

My heart aches.

To feel it.

To deny it.

Life.

Death
.

Possibilities.

Endings
.

The Holy Trinity had arrived. A blessing and a curse, as it had always been with my sisters.

I’d been hiding in the barn, waiting until they unloaded the luggage and cleared all the small talk. My heart was still raw from this afternoon, from watching Emilio test the kitchen door one last time, pack up his tools, start up his motorcycle. I’d memorized the smell of his leather jacket, the feel of his lips on my skin, the way the bike’s deep rumble rattled through my chest. I’d archived it all, replayed it a hundred times to be sure, because he’d be gone tomorrow, a new life on the road.

I’d given him no reason to wait. I had to let him go.

Now, as I walked up toward the house, a dull ache throbbed with every step.

Lourdes, Celi, and Mari were in the dining room with my parents, chatter floating out through the window like little birds. They were playing the “everything’s gonna be okay” game. In this round, they passed around Mom’s empanadas,
fresh from the new oven, and poured Malbec that Lourdes had brought from their winery in Mendoza.

I leaned against the side of the house and listened, let their laughter seep into my heart. This is how I wanted to remember us. Happy. Carefree. Together. Unbroken. I let it fill me up, imprint on my memories. If I was lucky, when the demon struck, it would let this one be.

I slipped inside. Tiptoed through the kitchen, air still scented with smoke and fresh sawdust, things ruined and rebuilt. I stopped in the dining room doorway before anyone noticed. They looked different in person than they had on Skype. Lourdes was tan and fresh faced, her dark hair gleaming. Celi looked more like her each year, and now they had the same hair, long and full like mine. Mari sat between my parents, and both of them looked happy too, eyes shining, the mood deceptively light.

“Welcome home,” I said.

“Juju! Where were you?” My sisters squealed in unison and pulled me into a group hug, and I marveled again at the miracle.

For the first time in five years, all four Hernandez sisters were together under our Blackfeather roof. All four of us were home.

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to say good-bye.

Mom sat across from me at the kitchen table after she’d tucked Papi into bed, her hands wrapped around one of Celi’s bird mugs. She’d replaced her usual late night maté with coffee.

“Papi’s not well,” she said. “Juju, you have done wonders for him this summer,
mi amor
. But he’s . . . Very soon he’ll need professional care.”

From the chair next to me, Mari reached under the table and found my hand.

“Home care is too expensive,” Lourdes told me. That’s how it felt, as if she were telling me, as if they’d already had this discussion without me. “It’s not really an option for us.”

I knew this conversation would happen, but now that I was in the middle of it, everything felt surreal and twisted, and beneath the table, my legs trembled. “So we let him get worse? Ignore him?”

“No, Juju,” Celi said.

Mom pulled a letter from beneath her place mat. “We’re not ignoring him,
querida
. Never.”

I took the paper from her hands, but as soon as I saw the letterhead, I knew what it meant.

Transitions.

It was a welcome letter.

They’d already made the arrangements.

“It’s a nice place, Juju,” Mom said. “Top-notch. And they have excellent financial assistance. It’s right near my hospital. I’ll go every day on lunch hour, after work. You can see him too, whenever you want.”

I squeezed Mari’s hand, crushed it under the table, waiting for her to put up a fight. To jump up and knock over her chair and convince Mom and Lourdes we’d find some way to keep
him home. But she just frowned at me, big and compassionate, and then it hit me.

“You knew,” I whispered. “All this time . . .” The rest of the pieces clicked into place, a picture emerging from the broken haze. I pulled out of Mari’s grasp. “All you guys knew.”

“You’re going off to college,” Mom said. “It’s not safe for Papi to stay here alone. Home care is too expensive.”

“What about your retirement money?” I asked.

“I went over the statements.” Lourdes thumbed through a pile of paperwork spread out on the table. “They can’t dip into the retirement accounts without penalties since Papi’s so young. Even if they liquidated some of their other investments, it wouldn’t be enough. Not long term. And where would that leave Mom?”

“Use my college money,” I said. “I can take out more loans.”

Celi sighed. “No, Juju. Anyway, it’s not enough.”

“It’s like, tens of thousands—”

“Celi’s right,” Lourdes said. “We’d burn through it fast. Transitions is the best option.”

“But Papi—”

“Papi knows what’s best too. It’s what he wants.” Mom tried to be firm, but her voice was weary, as if the weight of one more decision would break her. “The best thing we can do now is live. Live your life, Juju. Make your college plans. See your friends.
That’s
your life,
querida
. It’s important to Papi that you enjoy it.”

“
This
is my life,” I said. “You guys. And Papi.”

“Don’t be upset,” Celi said, clearly upset. She kept blowing her nose on a napkin. “We still have time with him. This probably won’t happen right away—we could be talking weeks. Months, more likely. The doctors can’t predict—”

“Then why did you already sign the papers?” I asked.

“We had to be prepared,” Mom said. “And now, after the fire . . . now we know it’s happening sooner rather than later.”

“It was an accident,” I said. “It could’ve happened to anyone.”

“But it didn’t.” Mom shook her head. “It happened to your father.”

“It was my fault. I shouldn’t have left him alone and—”

“He’s sick,
mi amor
,” Mom said. “He can’t stay at home with you forever. We have to start making the transition.”

Transition.
If I never heard that word again, it would be too soon.

Mom had obviously made all the arrangements, and my sisters had known, and no one told me, and soon they’d ship Papi off to a new home, a strange place, a room without sharp corners and stoves and other dangerous objects.

My sisters looked at one another around the table with sad eyes and frowns and crinkled foreheads, and I opened my mouth to scream, to fight, to take a stand where Mari wouldn’t. But I didn’t make a sound.

Beneath all the anger at being edged out of the discussion, behind the embarrassment at not being able to look after Papi, a single emotion rose from the darkest part of my heart
and sucked up my voice, my air, all the fight I had left. It was blacker than anything I’d ever felt, even the day of the fire.

Relief.

I closed my eyes and pressed my cheek to the place mat. It smelled like coffee, and Pancake shuffled across the kitchen and put his head on my lap.

Mari inched closer, ran her fingers through my hair. My nerves untangled, and I let myself be lulled by her touch.

“There’s one more thing, Juju,” she whispered, and I knew what was coming. It was in the gentleness of her hands, the softness of her voice. She didn’t want to say it, but she had to, and I squeezed my eyes shut harder, focused on Pancake’s warm breath on my legs, his fur tickling my knees.

They were selling the bike.

Valentina was silent in the early morning, statuesque in the old barn. Sunlight filtered in through the gaps in the wood, and dust motes swirled before my eyes, but not a speck landed on the motorcycle. Back at the house my sisters flitted and buzzed, cooked breakfast, divided up the newspaper. But in honor of the day that officially started my summer, I’d put on the too-tight cutoffs and the ripped-up Van Halen shirt and snuck outside alone.

Now I sipped my coffee in the dusty barn, shared the solitude with Valentina.

A beige envelope poked out from between the speedometer and the handlebars. It was addressed to me.

After the family meeting with my sisters and Mom, I’d spent last night in my room, recording my long good-byes on the final pages of the
Book of Broken Hearts
. Emilio. Papi. Valentina. I’d fallen asleep like that, the book a cold weight across my lap, my soul wandering through a shadowy
dreamscape. It was dawn when I opened my eyes again. Something had tugged me from sleep, a gentle, familiar sound that enticed me to open my eyes, but it was gone by the time I’d fully awoken, a fading and irretrievable dream.

Only it wasn’t a dream. It was Emilio, the growl of his motorcycle. He’d snuck in at dawn, left his final good-bye in an envelope scrawled with my name, underlined twice.

I set my coffee on the workbench and straddled the bike, turned the ignition key. It took me seven tries at the kickstart, pausing intermittently to de-wedge these impossible shorts, but I finally nailed it. Valentina thundered beneath me, anxious after her thirty-year idle to hit the road.

Papi was right—it was the sound of happiness.

No one heard it but me.

I couldn’t argue with my sisters about selling it. Papi had more important things to focus on now, and the money would help, and it’s not like Transitions had a motorcycle garage for all their ex-biker clientele, just in case one of the patients wanted to take the ol’ girls out for a spin.

I tugged the envelope from the handlebars. It was heavier than I’d expected, thick with a letter and a trinket. I removed the note first, crumpled and soft as if had been written decades ago instead of hours. It looked like something from the book, which is exactly where it would end up, tacked at the end of all the heartbreaks. It was our legacy, the Hernandez sisters and those notorious Vargas boys. Mari’d been right all along, and now my heart was broken by a Vargas too, even though
he hadn’t done it on purpose. Even though he’d saved my heart first.

The end result was the same.

I unfolded the note.

J—

Hey. Everything should be set with the bike. Any problems, call Duke or Samuel.
NOT
Marcus—he’s a little too excited to help you, if you know what I mean.

I wanted to see you one more time

I’m writing this because I know you’ll still be snoring away when I get there. I hope you’re at least having a few good dreams (about me—ha ha). Anyway, I prolly won’t see you today before I hit the road — I’m leaving right after work. My last day at Duchess.

I don’t I’m not No matter what happens with your family or anything else

Whatever happens

Sorry. I’m all over the place. I’m telling you something here, for real. Don’t settle, okay? Not for anything. I mean it. You only get this one chance at life, far as I know. Take it. Even if it’s not with me.

Man. If I keep philosophizing like this, Samuel’s gonna kick my ass. Better keep it our little secret.

I’ll be thinking of you. Always.

Love.

—E

P.S. I stole the flower from your hair that night at the Bowl (another thing you can’t tell Samuel—goes without saying). Sorry, but I’m keeping it. I’m leaving you a fair trade. Something to remember me by.

P.P.S. No regrets, princesa.

I tipped the envelope into my hand and examined Emilio’s fair trade, sparkling in the sunlight like it had the first time I’d
seen it dangling from his fingers. The key chain, the Puerto Rican flag with the silver star, something to remember him by. I folded it into my hand and closed my eyes, felt the rumble of the bike deep in my bones.