22. Lost Wallet

“There’s different things a kid sees.” Ori sat sunk in his chair looking at his feet.
“Do you mean seeing me freak out is hard on Machi?”
“Some kids see their brother getting beat.”
“Or their sister.”
“Or their Mother.”
“They see their father come home with blood all over.”
“Do you mean the things I do are hard on my son?
Marina couldn’t get anything more out of Ori. She left him in the living room and hid in her little bedroom that was once her study. She curled up on her futon as if Papi had just scolded her. Since she’d been laid off and moved back home into her old study, and she’d been working for Women in Action for a stipend for travel and lunch, she had afternoons off and Machi had gotten used to finding her after school and going for pizza and to the park. He liked routine. She heard him bounding up the stairs, tossing his backpack into the living room and pounding on her door. Her heart filled her chest.
Within minutes they were out the door. She reached into her bag for her sunglasses and they set off toward the pizza parlor halfway to the park. She went to pay for Machi’s slice and soda and her wallet was gone. Since she moved out she’d lost a camera, Papi’s engraved gold fountain pen. She squatted on the sidewalk and pulled out everything from her bag: keychain, checkbook, journal, book, umbrella, newspaper, hat, toy fire engine, toy car, action figure of a war lord, Machi’s juice box. No wallet. Machi stared at her, scared. There’s different things a kid sees. A mother going nuts, crying, cursing under her breath, her entire mind filled up with the pain of every loss. She felt more pain over losing this wallet than over having lost Ori, or her family, or her country. This she could feel. She grabbed Machi and waved to the pizza worker. “I lost my wallet on the street.”
Machi could barely keep up with her as she marched uphill to their block looking at the ground. “It must have dropped when I reached for my sunglasses.” She wanted to hit herself hard. “Diantre muchacha.” She’d just berated herself with her mother’s words. “Diantre.” Her eyes were filled with tears, she could barely breathe. Her son was seeing her fall apart.
“Look at the ground. Look for my wallet on the ground.”
“I’m looking, Mami. I’m looking.” He was trotting behind her looking down. “Look Mami, I’m checking under the cars.” Here now was her son, taking care of her.
From the corner she saw Ori standing on the stoop.
In his hand she saw the wallet.
“A woman called five minutes ago. She found the wallet on the street a few doors down.”
“How did she know where to call?”
“You have a card in there with emergency numbers.”
“I do?”
“It’s the card you made to tape inside Machi’s lunchbox. You had one right under your driver's license.”
Machi jumped one step up and one step down on the stoop.
“Who was she? Do we know her? Have we ever seen her on the block?”
Ori grinned. “She was out with her baby in a stroller, a new neighbor. One of the gentrifiers so to speak. She’s new at Elena’s and had just picked up the kid.
Machi squeezed between them. “I know her, I know her name. Her name is Myra.. Her baby’s name is Lisa. I like to crawl around on the floor with her. When am I getting a baby sister?”
Marina shook her head. “You know what, we’re celebrating that people are good. Ori, come with us.”
She walked inside the pizza parlor waving her wallet. “Do you believe it? A woman I’ve never met found it and brought it right back to my door.”
Machi tugged on her hand. “Pizza picnic. Pizza picnic.”
Ori got their pizza slices in a box, their sodas in a sack and they made their way to the park, set up their picnic on the overlook, gazing at the river.
Machi finished his pizza and reached in Marina’s bag for his fire engine. Her book fell out. Ori grabbed it. “Reading the letters of Clauvell..”
Marina took the book and opened to a page marked by a slip of paper. “Listen to this.” She waited until Ori looked at her and began to read, “We’ll never free La Isla, nuestra Karaya, if as leaders we persist in thinking we are exceptional. Those who emerge as leaders are nothing if there were not millions like them among the masses, waiting to fully emerge, waiting to reclaim the parts of their mind that oppression has muddied….”
Ori took the book and read the sentences under his breath.
“Clauvell is magnificent and he is right. There are millions like him among the masses, each of us is Clauvell, or can be Clauvell…”
Marina gazed at the water. The setting sun tinted the water almost pink, shades lighter than the burning sky.
“Sometimes when I read him my heart bursts open and I think, I love this man. This man did everything he did for me. I feel I can touch his mind and actually know him.”
Sometimes when Ori listened her mind opened up and she found thoughts she didn’t know she had, or she made thoughts with him that otherwise would not exist. He was following her mind and she went on. “I have a relationship with him, this man who died before I was born. I’m friends with his mind.”
Ori set the book down. “Actually if Clauvell hadn’t fought for La Isla, gone into the mountains, been an insurrectionist, you and I might not exist.”
“Or might not have met.”
“So you’re in love with a dead man?” He laughed.“Why is it easier to love a dead man than it is to love me?”
Machi ran his fire engine up Ori’s back over Ori’s head, on the grass between his parents, on Marina’s head and down her back. Over and over, humming. He stopped and stood facing them with the river and the red sky behind him. “I now pronounce you man and wife.” He kissed each of them and ran with the fire engine in his hand straight toward the sun.