Blog 9-Lost Boys

I took Julia's hand and drew her away from the others toward the deck chairs. I sat her down. I decided we needed to talk about “it” before we landed on the Island. This was the moment. I hoped she was desperate enough, needed me and Machi too much in our present circumstance, to walk away from our friendship again. We had wasted our sons' childhoods. We had no more time to waste.
I spoke. “I'm glad you're back in my life, even like this.” She smiled. “It's only been a month. I almost feel like we were never apart.” I mirrored her smile, still hiding how much I resented her rejection. Did I ever tell the truth? I wasn't good at talking straight. “Why did we waste all those years, my dear estranged old friend Julia from the block?” She said nothing, looked at me hard, then closed her eyes and spoke. “Could it always have been this simple for us to find our way to each other? If we hadn't stopped them from being friends maybe our sons might not have been forced to find each other on the street." I didn't say, 'It was you, not we, who forbade the friendship.'
Her face hardened again. “Well, we're together now. Together since that morning you pounded on my door..."
I wove in, “That was the morning after my so called humanitarian lay-off. I was on my way to the first day of my last two weeks at my job. I saw the wanted posters wrapped around all the trees. I ran down the stoop dreading it would be Machi's face I'd see. I looked close and saw it was almost as bad. Up close I saw the photo was of David.”
She spoke to herself. “Staring from the tree trunks with that knowing look he always has.”
I went on. “I'm ashamed of the relief I felt, worried mostly because if David was in trouble Machi probably was too. It was an old photograph but I recognized his thin light skinned face and that intense, judging gaze. I stood and clenched my fists, held back a scream but couldn't stop the tears.”
Julia said something that surprised me. “I'm ashamed. We lived on the same block and barely spoke since Machi and Liani were less than Taina's age, more than a decade ago.”
I could see her make the decision to talk about the thing we never talked about. She blurted, “We never spoke since you made us lose the boys on the train on the way to the Island Day Desfile protest march you dragged me to.” I interrupted her. “It wasn't that we never spoke, it was that you refused to speak to me.” I didn't challenge her absurd idea that losing the boys had been my fault. (Did I still blame myself?)
She looked away from me, toward the water. “I wonder if dolphins are also always on the verge of losing their young in the huge sea?” I broke in. “You blamed me. And I was afraid of you. That morning of the posters a month ago my outrage at what was happening to David pushed me past my fear of your wrath and disapproval. My layoff would go into effect in two weeks and I would lose close to 100 sick days. All those years I hardly ever took a day... I decided to call in sick. It was a sick day because the world was sick. I walked across the street to your building, took the elevator to your fifth floor apartment, banged on the door. I could see you look at me through the spyhole. I kept banging until you let me in.”
Julia looked into my eyes. “You said, 'Que hacemos?' In that moment I felt ashamed. I thought, I've been afraid to catch her way of mothering and fail to save my son, and here she is, the only one who's come to try to help me. I fell into your arms sobbing. You stepped closer to me and said, 'You did everything a Mother could do for a son, everything.' How I wish that was true. I tried to keep him from ending up like his father Arturo, even kicked his father out to keep them apart.”
She laughed. “Remember Liani? You were standing at the door and I was blocking you from coming in and that was when Liani came up behind you, trying to get out the door to get to school.” She laughed louder. “My Liani's 17 and half the time she's the one scolding me.” Both of us were laughing, shaking with laughter. “She glared at both of us. I was just saying to you, 'Maybe there was nothing you or I could have done as mothers to keep our boys from that life. Maybe Arturo's was the one industry that was hiring.” Julia wiped off laughter tears. “Liani screamed, 'Bullshit' really loud, from behind me. That's when I realized she was there.” I shook my head. “Little Liani, who had been Machi's milk sister and then his girlfriend for a few weeks last year...”
“Until he got her pregnant and I broke them up.” Julia said. Now she was on the edge of fury. “What good did it do, my trying to protect everyone, my son David from his own father Arturo, my daughter Liani from her boyfriend Machi? David from his best friend...” Her knees gave way. I grabbed her. “As if you and I by ourselves could have stopped all that oppression from crashing down on our boys, your girl. The empire targets them for destruction, what are we in the face of that? It's going to take a revolution.” I looked into her eyes. “That was when you made your hands into fists and pounded on my back. 'Not my son. Not my little boy. Not my baby. He was my little baby boy.'”
She said, “Next moment we were crying in each others' arms.”
I said, “I borrowed your feelings to feel my own. I'd been surviving Machi being gone, a year on the street, by feeling nothing and I let myself cry in your arms. Whenever you said, 'Not my boy. He was my baby boy,' a wave of tears overtook me.” Julia laughed. “You were shaking. We were both crying so hard we were shaking. That was when Liani pushed past us with her backpack. We were still blocking the door.” I caught Julia's laughter. “ Thank God for Liani. She snapped us into the present. She said, 'You two are pathetic and my brother has a death wish. I'm getting the fuck out of here and going to school', and slammed the door.”
And for the first time in years I was inside your apartment!” Julia nodded. “I wish she was here. I'm worried about her living with Arturo and this year's BabyMama and his baby twins.” I was still laughing. “Now she'll just have to straighten them out too.” Julia held my gaze and I was afraid I'd gone further than our just reclaimed closeness allowed. But she laughed.
I repeated, “Not my baby boy”, and started to cry again. “I was a bad mother. I did everything wrong. Many things wrong.” She put her arms around me. “You tell me I'm not to blame for my son's struggles yet still believe you failed to protect your own son.” I sobbed. “I thought if I gave him politics he would know better than to let oppression take him. But oppression took my son, I couldn't save him. I let oppression win. I left his Father, I hurt my son.” I was sobbing. Racking sobs shook through me. Julia held me. “Now I'm going to say to you what you said to me that day. You are the good thing in Machi's life, not the hurting thing. I can remember it about you just like you can remember it about me.” I laughed even as I cried. We stared at the dolphins. “Look at them,” she said, “Are they always on the verge of losing their young?”