Tell It to Me Singing: A Novel

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For my parents

and in memory of Nina Riggs

(1977–2017)

She wanted a little room for thinking…

—Rita Dove, Daystar

Every person who lives outside his context is always a bit of a ghost, because I am here, but at the same time I remember a person who walked those streets, who is there, and that same person is me. So sometimes I really don’t know if I am here or there.

—Reinaldo Arenas, 1983

(as published in Ann Tashi Slater, Fata Morgana: Reinaldo Arenas, Writers in Exile, and a Visit to the Havana of 1987, Paris Review, March 4, 2014)

Part I

1

The night before my mother’s surgery, we stretch out side by side on her hospital bed watching her telenovela, Abismo de pasión. I’m trying not to crowd her too much, so I rest my left arm on my pregnant belly, which I can do easily since I’m right at six months.

On the show, Armando is frantically rifling through a filing cabinet in his office.

What’s he doing? I say in English.

Looking for the money, my mom says in Spanish. This is how my parents and I always talk to each other: in two languages. Sometimes three if you count Spanglish.

So he was lying when he told Jaquelín he didn’t have it?

Of course, she says. Her faded yellow hospital gown is making her look glaringly pale. Her hair, dyed a reddish brown, is a little flat in the back, and her eyes are droopy, probably from the Ativan the nurse gave her.

When she came in for the pre-op tests this morning, she was having chest pains and her blood pressure was too high, so they admitted her right there. No suitcase, no nothing.

Her GP was the one who found the aneurysm. She had gone in for a slight cough; my mother’s a hypochondriac who goes to the doctor for everything. They took an X-ray and found a bubble-looking thing in her heart. Mirta, the doctor said. Eso está caliente.

She called me from the parking lot of his office. Mónica, she said. They found something in my heart. He said it could be an aortic aneurysm. She hadn’t even called my father yet. She wanted me to Google what the doctor had said and print out the results. When it’s important, she wants printouts. Hurricane shutter installation, eye serum for mature skin, fungus on tomato plants—I’ve Googled and printed it all at her request. This time, though, I had already typed it in and was starting to read: abdominal aortic aneurysm, thoracic aortic aneurysm.

I got it, Mom. I’m getting ready to know everything, I said.

Unlike my mother, I only watch Abismo on Fridays, when I go over to my parents’ house for dinner. After we eat, we drink Cuban coffee and she catches me up on the plot for that week. Then we sit down to watch.

Tonight, Armando checks one more drawer and finds a manila envelope with several stacks of money. He calls someone on his cell and whispers, I’ll be there by five. I look at my mom.

Sebastián, she says. If he doesn’t pay him by five—she slices the air in front of her— olvídate.

Armando’s office door swings open and his assistant, Jaquelín, comes in with a tray of coffee. She’s wearing a tight white dress and she bends over so her boobs are right in his face when she puts the tray down on the desk.

Oh my God, I say. She needs to get over this already. He’s with Clara now. She knows that.

My mom lets out a little huff. Mónica, she was pregnant with his baby. That’s not an easy thing to let go of.

But he never even knew, I say. Jacquelín lost the baby when she had to run through the jungle to escape the cult people. She never told Armando about any of it.

Armando sips his coffee nervously, keeping one hand on the manila envelope. Jaquelín asks him if he’s okay and I want to ask my mother the same. She seems weird now, a little far away. She’s not even looking at the screen.

I’m fine, he assures her, but it’s clear he’s not.

I turn to my mom to ask her if she thinks Clara knows about his dealings with Sebastián, but her eyes are drooping more now, so I just stay quiet and let the Ativan do its job. She falls asleep, and a few minutes later the baby wakes up and kicks me in the side. I take my mom’s hand and put it on my stomach. Mom, he’s kicking, I whisper, half expecting her to say what she always does when I let her feel him: Mi niño, estoy aquí. But she’s out cold, which is good. Better for her to get some rest.

My phone rings and it’s Robert. He’s probably driving home from the track and wants to check on my mom and to tell me how he did tonight. He’s in this car racing club and he likes to talk about his lap times, which I barely understand. I usually listen, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re engaged to someone and carrying their baby. But I’m too worried about my mom. In ten hours she’ll be asleep on a table with her sternum broken open. I silence the call and let it go to voice mail.

The lemon pomegranate lotion I bought her from the gift shop is sitting on the tray table next to me. My mom’s a hand lotion junkie and I knew she would like this scent. As I’m softly rubbing it into her hands, Armando goes into an abandoned warehouse to deliver the money, but there’s nobody there. Just as he’s about to leave, a shadowy figure appears in the corner and the episode ends.

I haul myself out of the bed and tidy up the room a little more: water cups into the trash, pitcher back by the sink. Then I check to make sure my mom’s suitcase is packed. I slip the lotion and the James Patterson book she’s been reading into the front pocket and zip it up.

Good night, Mom, I say to her softly. See you tomorrow. I’ll be here at seven with Dad. You’re going to do great.

What I think is: You have to do great. I can’t imagine my life without you. Who would call me at 5:30 to pick up their dry cleaning at the place all the way in Coral Gables that closes at 6:00? Or teach me how to make the frijoles from scratch at Christmas? Or help me be a mother?

I put one hand on my stomach. With my other hand, I stroke her arm softly. I think of my father at home, getting ready to sleep in their bed alone for the first time in thirty-five years. I don’t go to church anymore, but I do sometimes pray. I close my eyes now. Please, God, I say in my head. Please, keep her safe. I need her. I can’t do this without her. The this is the baby, but it’s also everything. I press on my stomach and squeeze my mother’s arm one last time.

2

My mom and I talk every day. She helped me figure out that I want to study interior design. (A woman needs a purpose, Mónica.) And she was the one who finally convinced me to break up with Manny, who kept reenlisting in the Army instead of staying here to make a life with me. (He’s a patriot, which is honorable. But he will never love you the way you want him to.)

I lived with my parents until I was twenty-six—not because it was convenient and cheap, as I said to my friend Lisa, but because I felt like I wasn’t allowed to move out. My mother wanted me to stay for the same reason every Cuban parent wants their daughter to stay: a woman should move from her parents’ house to her husband’s house. But, more than that, she wanted me to stay because I belonged to her. When I finally told her I had to leave, she nodded and said in English—as if I were a stranger, not her daughter—Well, if that’s what you feel is best. Then she pulled a dead leaf off the plant she had been watering, put it into the pocket of her shorts, and went to her room, where she stayed for the rest of the night and most of the next day.

The apartment I found was on the edge of Coral Gables, almost in Little Havana. It was two little rooms on the back of a larger house with a tiny airplane bathroom and half a kitchen. Manny called it the Mouse House, it was so small. But I didn’t care. I loved it. I loved the plaster walls and the fact that it had hardwood floors instead of tile. I loved that I could be completely alone if I wanted to. A few months after I moved in, Manny deployed for the third time, so that’s where I was living, thank God, when I broke up with him via Skype. I could never have survived that experience living in my parents’ house. Every night for the next three months, I came home from work, drank three beers, ate a bowl of cereal, and cried on my sofa until I fell asleep.

When I could finally get through an evening without dissolving, Sandra at work started talking about the water delivery guy, Robert—how cute he was, how she thought he was flirting with me. We work at a small dermatology office and we both sit at the front desk. Sandra answers the phone and checks in the patients. I do the billing. When Robert leaned over the counter and asked for my number, she said, right in front of him, ¿Que te dije?

I ignored her, hoping he didn’t understand, and wrote my number on an appointment card.

Sweet, he said. You like sushi?

That weekend we went out for dinner and had sex. I cried silently through most of it. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. On Monday he left a Deer Park spring water invoice on my car that said, You like Mexican? The next weekend we went for Mexican and had more sex. That time I only cried a little. Soon I wasn’t crying at all. When I was with him, I was happy. We went Jet Skiing and out to bars for trivia nights and to the movies. We stayed home and cooked. He made me steak on the grill and I made him carne con papas.

A few months in, I brought him to my parents’ house for dinner. They liked him instantly. He has a gentle way about him, my mother said. Like my father. Her only complaints were his tattoos, which were peeking out from the sleeves of his polo, and the fact that he’s American. My father liked that he had a steady job and that he was going to school at night—at FIU, no less—studying finance and accounting. Eso es una decisión muy prudente, my father declared when I told him. They liked the idea of their daughter being with someone who had plans, given that I’m still sitting here with no degree—just my forty-some-odd credits from Miami Dade College.

We’d been together for eight months when I suspected I was pregnant. I waited until the weekend to take a pregnancy test, to give my period a few more days to show up. Then, on Sunday morning, after Robert left for the track, I took the test. Positive. I didn’t want to be pregnant—not with Robert’s baby. But I didn’t want to have an abortion, either. I was twenty-eight and Robert was a good guy. A great guy, in fact, with a decent job and a solid future.

Any other time I imagined having a kid, I saw Manny standing in the backyard on Nochebuena, drinking a beer with my father and Tío Fermín, watching the pig roasting in the Caja China. I saw a brown-skinned, curly-haired child running to catch up with the older cousins. But now it would be Robert, who, according to the pictures in his mom’s house, was blond until he was ten. Maybe that kid in the backyard would be, too, if that was even possible.

Sitting on the closed toilet seat, looking at those two pink lines on the pregnancy test, I felt something inside me break. Having a baby with Robert meant I would never be with Manny again. It would excise him from my life in a way nothing else had, and the thought of that was like a punch I had to recover from before I could tell anyone what was happening.

The next Sunday night, I muted the episode of Breaking Bad we were watching and turned to Robert. I need to tell you something, I said.

He took a sip of his beer. I wasn’t having one. Yeah?

I’m pregnant.

Oh shit, he said, but couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Wow. He put his beer down. Mónica. Whoa. He shook his head. Damn. Sorry, I’m just really surprised.

Me too, I said, wiping my palms on my shorts. I thought we had been careful enough.

You’re sure? You, like, took a test and all that?

I had taken another one that afternoon. I’m positive.

Okay, okay. So, what, uh, what are you thinking? What do you want to do?

I wanted to click the back button and return to the previous version of my life, the one where I was just riding out the aftermath of Manny with this sweet guy who made me laugh. But, of course, I couldn’t. So I said, I have to keep it.

He took a long sip of his beer, nodding while he drank. Okay.

"Listen, you do not have to stick around for this," I said, even though I knew he’d be sticking around for this. His own father had taken off when he was three. It was just him and his mom until he was in high school, when she met his stepdad.

He put his beer down hard on the table. "Mónica, are you kidding me? I am not taking off on my kid. Listen—he took my hand—my clammy, sweaty hand—and held it between both of his—I love you." It was the first time he had said it.

I had been thinking about whether or not I loved him for a week. Whether there was a difference between loving someone and being in love with them. I wasn’t sure how I felt. I liked him. I knew he’d be a good father. Beyond that, I didn’t know. So, instead of saying I love you too, I just kissed him and said, Okay, thanks.

I told my parents a couple of weeks later, right at the end of our Friday night dinner. It was just the three of us. Robert was at the track that night. My mother closed her eyes and raised her face to the ceiling. Ay, Mónica, she said.

I forced myself not to say I’m sorry.

She got up from the table, lit the San Judas candle, crossed herself, and said, ¿Pero como pasó esto? Robert doesn’t like to use condoms?

I put my hands over my eyes. Oh my God, Mom. Please. Who cares how it happened? You’re going to be a grandmother. Aren’t you happy about that?

We would be happier if you were already married, my father said. When are you getting married?

I took a deep breath. The kitchen still smelled like pork chops marinated in lime and garlic, garbanzos and white rice. We haven’t talked about getting married.

My mother said, Are you joking?

We haven’t even been together a year, I said softly.

My father shook his head in disgust and ran a hand through his hair, which was still mostly black, with a few silver strands here and there.

And I feel like you should be with someone for at least a year before you decide to marry them.

My mother was still in her work clothes: black pants and a white blouse with tiny yellow flowers on it. There was a grease stain on one of the flowers, but I didn’t tell her. She leaned in. You don’t think he wants to marry you?

I’m not sure what he wants. That wasn’t true. Though we hadn’t talked about it yet, I thought he probably did want to marry me.

Well, you need to find out, she said.

My father said, You need to talk to Robert. He needs to do the right thing. He pointed at me. You’re not going to be one of these single girls with a baby. That baby needs a father.

Something about that pissed me off. I was almost thirty years old. So I said, "That baby has a father. I’m just not married to him."

My father got up and poured himself a glass of Pepsi from the two-liter he always keeps on the counter. Then he went to the cabinet above the sink, took down a bottle of rum, and poured some in—something he rarely does. He took a sip. Mónica, you’re our daughter and you’re pregnant. You need to get married. Think about what people are going to say about you.

"About us," my mother said.

Look, I know it’s a surprise, and it’s not ideal, but I’m not a teenager. I can handle this. We’ll probably move in together at some point. I realized it was true as I said it and I felt both relief and dread.

My mother started talking about my job, whether Dr. Peña would offer me maternity leave and for how long. My father mentioned that I didn’t even have my associate’s yet, and didn’t I want to be an interior designer one day? As I cleared the last of the dishes and wiped down the table, I listened to all of it, thinking how right they were and how all of that sucked, but that maybe having a baby could also somehow be a good thing. When I finished, I got my purse. I’m leaving, I said.

You’re not staying for the show? my mother asked.

I shook my head. No. I need to go. I walked past them and left without giving them a kiss goodbye—something I never do.

Then I did something else I never do: I didn’t call or visit them all week. Every day I told myself I should call, but every day the mix of anger and fear paralyzed me and I just didn’t. They didn’t call me, either: they were punishing me. Finally, on Friday, I called before leaving work and asked if Robert and I could come for dinner. Of course, my mother said. We’ll be happy to have you. When we arrived, my parents hugged and congratulated him and all they said to me was How are you feeling? and When is your first appointment with the doctor?

After dinner, my mom and I made coffee. Since Robert was over, I served it in the red espresso cups instead of just orange juice glasses.

My father and Robert took theirs out to the garage while my mom and I watched Abismo de pasión. By the end of the night it was like any other Friday. Except for the fact that it wasn’t. As I sat there drinking my coffee, watching Armando and Clara kiss on the beach, I felt how different my life was about to become.

Robert suggested, a few weeks later, that I move in with him. We’ll be spending all our time together when the baby’s born anyway, he said. Logistically, it made sense. The Mouse House was tiny. Too small for a crib, even. So, two months later, even though I wasn’t sure I was ready, Robert’s roommate moved out and I moved in.

The next weekend was our eleven-month anniversary and Robert announced he was taking me to dinner. He said he wanted to take me someplace that we never go to, so we went down to South Beach. We walked up and down Lincoln Road, looking at all the beautiful people in their beautiful clothes, the tourists and the beach kids with their skateboards and blown-out pupils. It was a nice night—not too hot, with a little breeze off the water a few blocks away. That helped with my nausea, which had kicked in hard by then. Everywhere we tried to eat was packed. Finally, we found a place that could fit us in. It was some kind of Asian place where the floor was covered in actual grass. They made us take off our shoes at the door and sit on a woven mat. There were no tables.

As soon as we were seated, I realized I had to pee. That was another symptom that had recently kicked in. I was about to get up when Robert said, Well, I was going to wait until after dinner to do this, but I can’t. He smiled and pulled a small white box out of his front pocket. Oh my God, I thought. Oh my God. It felt like an emergency was happening—a fire or a tornado—and I needed to get out. I actually looked at the door, but only for a second. I brought my eyes back to Robert’s.

He smiled and held the ring out toward me so I could see it better. It was my grandmother’s, he said. If you don’t like it, we can get another one. I just didn’t want to do this without a ring. Then he said the words, asked me the question.

I breathed slowly, deeply. I thought about how sweet and attentive he was—how he brought me crackers every morning to help with the nausea. I thought about how he was smart and funny and good in bed and, even though the car racing was a little stupid, he was also serious about getting his degree and making a good living. We had been together for only a fraction of the almost five years I had been with Manny, but maybe that didn’t matter. We were having a baby. We were already living together. I looked down and closed my eyes for a second. I saw my mother in the kitchen, lighting the San Judas candle. My father frowning, pouring that drink.

Yes, I said, looking back up at Robert.

He slipped the ring on my finger, and then we were kissing. I kept my eyes open and all I saw were legs—of the servers, of the people coming in and going out. When Robert pulled away, he said, I love you.

I took another one of those slow, deep breaths to steady my voice. I love you too, I said.

3

Normally, only one family member is allowed in the pre-op area. But my mother shames the nurse into letting me in here. "Are you going to tell me that you’re not going to let my only daughter, who is pregnant with my only grandchild, say goodbye to me before I go into open-heart surgery?" she says. My mother can be very persuasive. So I’m allowed in, but only while my father is out in the hallway with the surgeon.

Mónica, she says. They’ve given her the first round of drugs. Her eyes are glassy and she looks like she’s feeling pretty good.

Yes, Mom?

Last night, while we were watching the show, I realized I need to tell you something.

She has a blue surgical cap on and it looks like it’s pinching her forehead. I run my finger under it to reposition it a little. Is this better?

I need to tell you. Please.

Mom, you don’t need to tell me anything. There’s nothing you need to tell me. You’re just a little high right now. I smile. Everything’s going to be fine.

She shakes her head. No, no. I need to tell you. Watching the show last night was a sign.

She loves signs. A sign of what? I rub my arms, trying to warm up. Are you cold? It’s like thirty degrees in here.

Listen to me, she says. This might be my only chance.

Mom, c’mon. Don’t talk like that. Everything’s going to be fine. I’m reassuring her and myself at the same time.

She pulls her hand out from under the blanket and grabs my arm. Mónica. Please. Listen. She squeezes. You need to know this. She’s speaking English and I don’t like it. I’m already scared about this surgery and what’s wrong with her heart, and now she’s doing this. She blinks slowly. She lets go of my arm but takes my hand. Look at me, okay? She looks right into my eyes, almost frantic. My heart starts going faster. Mi niña, I have to tell you. Rolando will never tell you. And if I die, you need to know the truth. It’s not fair to you.

What truth? Mom, let’s just relax. Let’s take a deep breath. I take one to show her.

Mónica, your father is Juan.

What? What are you talking about? What is she talking about? My father is Rolando. Rolando Campo.

She’s still looking right at me. I was pregnant and I never told him. Just like on the show.

"What show? Abismo?"

She nods. I loved him so much and he never knew about you. Her eyes begin to water and she looks at my stomach. "But now you’re going to be a mother. And you deserve the truth."

What truth? What are you saying? What are you telling me? My legs are shaking and I’m not cold anymore. What the hell is happening right now? There is no way she’s telling me my father is someone else. No way.

The door opens and it’s the nurse. Time to go, she says.

Wait, I practically yell. No. Can we have another minute, please?

The doctor is on a very strict schedule this morning.

I lean over my mother. I can smell her breath, a little sour from the drugged sleep last night. Mom, I say, in an almost whisper. What do you mean Juan is my father? Who’s Juan?

She touches my arm. I had to tell you. In case I die.

But are you telling me Dad is not my father?

My mother nods with her eyes closed. My toes feel so good, she says.

My father walks in then and the nurse tells us we need to leave, that they’re taking her in. He kisses my mother’s cheek and says, I’ll see you in a few hours. Behave yourself, okay? and laughs a little.

A wall of confusion rises up in front of me. I don’t know what to say or do, especially with my father right there. I look down at my mom. I touch her shoulder. I love you, Mom. I’ll see you in a few hours.

The nurse wheels her out and I stand there, my entire body trembling. The term tectonic plates comes into my head and I start thinking it over and over. Tectonic plates, tectonic plates. I guess because the ground, or what I thought was the ground—the place or thing that was holding me—is no longer holding me. All I can think is that she was just super high. Just mixing up her telenovela—the fantasy world she loves to live in—with her real life. But something about her voice, her eyes—the way she looked right at me—made it sound like she knew what she was saying. And like what she was saying was the truth.

Mirta

I swore to your father I would never tell anyone, and I never did. Not even Teresita, and she’s my best friend. For twenty-nine years, I’ve kept it all in. But I couldn’t go into this surgery without telling you. What if I don’t wake up? Rolando would have done what we planned to do all those years ago, which was to never say a word, to take it to our graves.

If I live through this, Mónica, I will tell you everything—all the things about my life you don’t know, all the things you deserve to know. I will tell you about Juan and my life before you were born. I will tell you how I almost lost you because of how weak I became and because of the darkness that nearly consumed me. And I will tell you about your father—how strong he has always been, and how he saved me over and over.

4

In the waiting room, it’s me and the fake plants and the brown carpet and my father, having no idea that my mother just said to me, Your father is Juan. I loved him so much and he never knew. The words float through me like poison, burning up my insides. What could they possibly mean? There’s no way they could mean what I fear they do.

My father yawns, takes off his glasses, and cleans them with the little black cloth he always keeps in his pocket. It says Campo Optical—his business, which he’s owned since I was a kid—in gold letters. He chooses a Time magazine with Mitt Romney on the cover from the side table. It’s from a few months back—a special issue about the convention, which my parents watched like it was the Olympics. A few minutes later, he asks me to text my brother, who has an 8:00 a.m. meeting and can’t come until after that. Tell him she’s gone into surgery, he says. My father has a cell phone but refuses to carry it unless he’s traveling.

Okay, I say, but then I just stare at my phone without moving.

Mija, he says, she’ll be okay.

Mija: my daughter. But what if I’m not his daughter? What if, somehow, that crazy, terrible thing she said was the truth? I can’t bear to think about it.

I have to get away from this room—these plants and this carpet and my father’s face. Coffee, I say, slinging my purse over my shoulder. It’s leather and big and heavy because I never clean it out and it feels good now, pulling on my shoulder, grounding me a tiny bit. I’ll go get us some coffee. Okay? And I’ll text Pablo. I’ll be back.

I ride the elevator with an older white janitor and his cleaning cart. I smile at him the way you smile at people in