By S. L. Edwards
Dear Katie,
The
question that you’ll be asking the most is, “Why?”
I
am ashamed to say that I don’t, and probably never will, have an answer good
enough for you.
What
I do know is that all started with your mother.
You’ll
never be able to truly understand how much I loved her. The way we grew up, I was
both her brother and her father. Neither of us ever talked about your
grandparents, and it because we never knew
them ourselves. They were killed when I was 11 and your mother was 4. My
father, Raul, was big, strong and (I believe) a good man. You’ve probably only
ever seen one picture of your grandmother, Juana, who died when she was 32.
I
remember her face, right before she hid us.
She
was smiling, though it was obviously hard for her to do so. Her smile was
something weak and strong all at once, if you can imagine that; A resolute
façade ruined by weeping, wide eyes. She folded a photo of all of us into my
hands, stroked your mother’s hair and put a finger to her lips.
“Shh,”
was the last thing she said to us.
Not
“I love you,” though we knew she did. Not, “take care of each other,” though
she knew we would.
Only
a simple demand that kept us alive.
I
don’t know where the soldiers took them, where they executed them. But I
remember the yelling, the screaming and weeping. They never looked for us, those
soldiers. I don’t believe that they knew what or who they were looking for, only
that they were ordered to kill anyone who put up a fight. Anyone with certain
books on their shelves and anyone who had ever known names on a secret, fatal
list.
But
our parents never came back.
Gabbi
and I slept under the floor for two days, drinking the rainwater that seeped
through.
I
try not to remember what came next. I don’t like talking about it. Sometimes,
it is good to leave things behind, especially when there is so little to learn
from them.
What
can I tell you, that it is easy for an 11-year-old to grow up overnight? It is.
Your mother and I dodged bullets, we slept in trees, we buried ourselves in the
dirt next to dead bodies in the hopes that soldiers would look us over. Jaws
were open wide on both sides, the rebels and the government alike had their
arms aimed at any and everyone in the countryside. We heard that the cities
were safe, but then there were stories about war-orphans who were picked up by
black cars and never seen again. Stories about boys who were forcefully
tattooed by carnivorous alleys, and little girls who became at once mature and
broken in the matter of hours.
So,
we rode the train into this country.
Your
mother never did anything wrong in coming here. But I won’t lie to you. Not
now, and not ever.
To
keep your mother safe, I did many, many things that a man should never do.
I
stole, I lied.
I
killed, Katie.
Do
not ever let anyone tell you that this country is not great. We found an aunt
of ours, Tia Carla, and she did her best to raise children whose hearts were
far too old. Tio Adolfo died before we came here, a car accident with a drunk
driver.
Over
time, Gabbi became a girl again. She was young enough to adjust from what she
had witnessed. She brushed the hairs of dolls, she made her room pink, she
giggled and laughed when she teased her “too serious” brother.
I
couldn’t follow her.
Tia
Carla did her best by me, but I had already become someone else. I struggled in
school when I was there, not understanding how I would ever need Math or
Science. But I buried myself in learning English, in understanding the
literature and history of the country that I so desperately wanted to be a part
of. I forsook my mother tongue, divorced myself from my history entirely.
This
broke Tia Carla’s heart, but I believe she understood.
I
never wanted to go to college, to be anyone other than the man I was. But
Gabbi, your mother, she had dreams. God, what beautiful dreams…to go to college, to so thoroughly understand all
the charts and math that I found so useless, that she would command them.
“They’re
not useless!” She told me once,
angrily.
“You
could be so much more if you understood them, Javi!”
She
made me smile. No girlfriend, no wife ever made me smile the way my strong
little sister did. And I believed that she would be worth more than both of us,
worth every moment of horror that we endured.
Valedictorian.
Medical School.
It
was going well. And, if I had to wash dishes or fix cars so that Gabbi could
afford a private tutor and SAT classes, well so be it. There was nothing that
she couldn’t do, that I wouldn’t do.
Then
she met your father, Rodger.
Growing
up as I did, you develop a series of senses which normal people do not have.
One of those is a keen, almost supernatural awareness of a person when you
first see or meet them. You can tell from their walk, from the angles of their
smile. You know immediately who is a threat, who is a friend.
You
might feel that I denied you the right to know your father, just as I was
denied the right to know mine.
You
would be perfectly right to feel that way.
I
feel differently.
I
do not expect you to forgive me. I do not need
you to forgive me.
Katie,
I know the following words will hurt. And I will not forgive myself for writing
them but you must know:
Your
father was evil.
He
was not the sort of evil that I was used to, the kind that carefully and
ruthlessly targets and destroys. No, your father was a chaotic, careless evil;
a black hole with tendrils that ensnared and swallowed anyone who let it get
close enough.
But
he was quite an actor. He had a very nice smile, a soothing voice, a certain
poetry and cadence that melted too-trusting hearts and won him many false
friends who he would exploit along the way. Rodger was not stupid, by no means
was an idiot, though sometimes he wanted people to believe he was. And he was afraid of those who saw him for what he
was.
So,
he told your mother lies, lies about both myself and Tia Carla. And she was
young. I don’t blame her for believing him. At that age, it is so easy to
believe that your family does not care about you, especially when they so adamantly oppose someone who you love. It
is easy, when you feel love, which is so intoxicating and wonderful, to follow
it.
And
so, your father took her from us.
And
it was a long time before she looked back.
I’ve
loved too, Katie. I’ve been married twice now, and I loved both of my wives
with all my heart. Allie left me because I was morose and poisonous, and I left
Deb because she cheated on me, probably for the same reason that Allie left me.
I
am telling you this because as horrible as things may get, I never want you to
blame your mother. You too, will grow to be wild and foolish. You too, will
make mistakes. We all do.
If
you must hate anyone in all of this, I pray that it will be me.
Never,
for even an instant, should you blame your mother, who loved you more than you
will ever know.
She
had you after she had been with Rodger for three years. Rodger had indulged in
every vice you could imagine, because he had your mother as a tether and pillar
of stability. Drugs, prostitution, nothing was too low for Rodger.
When
I first saw your mother with a bruise, I did not give her the chance to answer
a question. I did not ask her one.
A
door comes off its hinges with one strong kick to the right place. A man who is
high is not fast enough to dodge a fist. If his mouth is swollen and bleeding,
he will not be able to ask why.
I
let him know that if he ever hurt my sister again, I would kill him.
I
had done it before, I told him.
This
scared him enough, I believe, for two years.
And
you were born.
God,
your mother loved you so much. I loved
you so much. So did Tia Carla.
Your
mother wanted a baby to do good in this life, to make someone better than
herself. Someone who she could to right by.
Rodger
wanted leverage.
You
are too young to remember, the way he used you to extract money from us. He
would tell us things you needed, supposedly needed, and he would use the money
to find his high. He would threaten to stop me from seeing you, to stop Tia
Carla from seeing you.
I
wasn’t going to let that happen.
And…Katie,
it broke your mother’s heart how he began to treat you both. He ignored the two
of you, leaving you with a dirty diaper for hours while your mother was at
work. He would scream at you when you cried, if you can imagine something so
horrible.
Gabbi
would tell me all of this, crying in the dead of night over the simple cup of
tea that I made her.
And
I would tell her, beg her to take you and run. To come to us, to live with us.
But
she couldn’t. And I knew that.
So,
she began seeking her highs with Rodger.
Maybe
she was too sad. I wonder if I had stolen you, if I had forced her to leave
him, would she still be alive? If I had acted sooner…would you have ever known
the incredible woman your mother became?
You’ll
hate me for that, too.
Her
death was hard on me. Hard on Tia Carla.
We
tried to get custody of you, but there are so many laws and all of them are
slow moving. And all the while, Rodger kept threatening to neglect you and take
him wherever he went.
He
had forgotten to be afraid of me.
And
I used that, the way he used so many people.
I
hope that, one day, you’ll visit me in jail. I hope that you’ll put your little
hand up to the glass, and I’ll put mine there with it. I hope that it will be
just like when your mother held my hand, when she smiled and told me that I was
far too serious.
If
you don’t, maybe you’ll see me when I get out, be it in 10 or even 30 years. I
have daydreams of you having a family of your own, of Tia Carla having raised a
woman who will be worth every ounce of pain that came into making you. I pray
for a woman created by destiny and nurtured by incredible love.
And
you may not believe it, but I love you.
I
don’t know when, or even if, Tia Carla will show you this letter. I wouldn’t be
surprised if you don’t know my name, if Tia Carla has told you a loving fiction
to shield you from the truth. But I want you to be able to know, if you so
choose.
I’ve
already denied you so much, it’s not fair that I deny you anymore.
Please
be good, be kind to others, and be better than we ever were.
Forever
with Love,
Uncle
Javi.
