27. Everyone Wants a Piece of Her

Machi screamed. Marina had been lying awake on her little bed waiting for the screams. Ori had disappeared again, probaby arrested during the civil disobedience last week at the City Harbor. His disappearance rekindled Machi’s night terrors. “Is Papi going to be like Arturo?” He'd asked her again at dinner. They’d been sitting at the kitchen table pushing the food around their plates, neither of them able to eat much. She said no. But what did Machi’s question mean? Was Ori going to be in and out of prison? Was Ori going to shoot men in El Patio? Was Ori going to dictate to Marina even when he no longer lived with her? Was being a revolutionary the same as being a criminal? Were all revolutionaries potentially street thugs? Were all street thugs secretly revolutionaries? Machi didn’t press her for a better answer. He reminded her of herself. At his age she had already given up expecting true answers from adults and made up her own answers.
He screamed again and she heard him arriving in his sleep at her door. Screaming and pounding. He’d fallen asleep on the couch watching a Japanese ninja cartoon he liked to watch over and over. He couldn’t get enough of the omnipotent little boy in the cartoon. She hadn’t wanted to wake him by moving him and had covered him with a quilt and with the frayed once yellow blanket he dragged with him everywhere when he was a toddler and had recently taken to sleeping with again.
He pounded and screamed and she rose and went to him, let him in. He clung to her, still asleep, still screaming, and they lay together, him nestled into her. She could feel tremors running through his body. She looked at her son, held him close. I am that terrified, I just can’t quite feel it or show it anymore. Her Papi conspiraba. Where did he go? One afternoon her Tia came to visit and her Papi went away. The women waited and waited, her Tia visibly more terrified as time passed. They were still up when Marina was made to go to bed. Later she overheard enough conversation to figure out the men had been conspirando. What had been most terrifying had been the throbbing terror of the grownups. Machi was now responding to the terror that throbbed in her, always there although she could no longer tell.
The phone rang and Marina ran to get it. Machi screamed, hung onto her hand, followed her. It wasn’t Ori. It was Fara, slurring. “I heard that Ori was arrested at the civil disobedience at the harbor.” Marina took a deep breath. She wanted to hang up. She didn’t like to notice how much she hated drunks. “Claraberta called me and told me. She wanted me to come help you out. I’m at the payphone in the corner. I just banged on your door.” Marina shook her head. What was she going to do now? On top of dealing with Machi she’d have to deal with Fara, drunk. The clock showed three am. She wanted to send Fara home. “Where were you knocking?” Fara described a house with a blooming lilac in front. “That’s not my house. Mine is the one next door, going up the block.”
She made it downstairs with Machi hanging from her leg, let Fara in. Even sober Fara never stopped talking. She narrated everything she saw as she climbed up. “Que lindas fotos de familia. Is that your Mother?” She pointed to the photographs on the stairwell wall, stopped and brought her face close to the wedding portrait in a carved wood frame. “She’s got to be your mother. She looks like you.” On the landing Fara steadied herself on the rail and stepped into the kitchen. “You’ve still got your antique stove!” She came over and played around with the knobs. With Machi hanging from her leg Marina could barely keep up with her but she managed to turn off the knobs, make sure no gas would be leaking out to kill them.
She led the group into the living room, pointed Fara to the couch. “Sleep there. You can use that quilt.” Fara stretched out. “I’m glad you’re fine. I should call Claraberta to let her know.”
“I think Clara can wait until morning. You just go to sleep.”
She picked Machi up and walked back into her bedroom, closed her eyes and pummeled her temples with her fists. She pushed her face into her pillow and muffled a scream. Machi moaned. She pounded her fists on the bed.
Next morning Fara was unconscious on the couch so she left her there, gave up on getting Machi ready for school and took him with her to Women in Action. She walked in and straight up to Claraberta. “Thanks for sending Fara to my house drunk out of her mind at three in the morning, like I didn’t have enough fucking problems.” Claraberta opened her eyes wide, covered her mouth. “La ticher diciendo malaspalabras.” She burst into laughter. Alta, Asia and Ginny turned around and came to where Marina and Claraberta stood in the center of the room. Ginny looked at Marina. “Go girl.”
Marina collapsed into a chair and burst into tears. Machi clung to her, climbed onto her lap. She clutched him and sobbed. The women crowded around her. Claraberta and Lula pulled chairs close to her and put their arms around her, and suddenly Lula reached over and pulled Marina onto her lap with Machi still on the chair, clinging and now also crying. Claraberta boosted his legs as he reached for his mother with his arms and eased him onto Marina's lap. Lula held Marina. Marina held Machi. Some force in Marina’s mind decided to just let go. She sobbed hard, the tears rising from her gut and coursing through her. She lost all embarrassment, all inhibition. Some part of her mind imagined she would be ashamed, later, but the tears washed the thought away. She cried, she screamed. She cried as hard as she used to cry in her crib. She screamed. She screamed loud enough that Jimmy materialized at the classroom door.
“I thought I recognized the sound.” He walked in, knelt beside her and took her hand. She opened her eyes and looked at him, looked at the women surrounding her, knowing that for all they knew Ori would now be disappeared, renditioned. Jimmy came closer and when he put his arm around her the tears waved forth again.