The Dead And The Gone (4 page)

Alex had thought the ritual of the Mass, which he knew so well, would provide him with comfort, but his mind was reeling from all Father Franco had said. It wasn’t so much that he was taken by surprise. He knew about the phones, the electricity, the subways. But he hadn’t really known that everyone else knew. Somehow it had felt like the problems belonged to West Eighty-eighth Street. But it wasn’t just Papi stuck in Milagro del Mar; people all over the world were affected by the airports being closed. And Mami wasn’t the only person stuck at her job with no way of reassuring her family that she was all right.

Alex prayed to Christ for the wisdom to see what would be required of him and for the strength to do it. He prayed for the souls of those who were dead, and for the safe return of those who were gone. He thanked God for the Church, without which he would be lost.

He got home to find his sisters up and prowling around the apartment.

“You’re back!” Bri cried as though he’d been gone for weeks, not hours. “Where were you?”

“At St. Margaret’s,” he said. “I left a note. Didn’t you see it?”

“Yeah,” Bri admitted. “We were worried you might not come right back.”

“Well, I did,” Alex said. “And I’m hungry. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No,” Bri said. “We didn’t feel like eating until we knew you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” Alex said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. “Why don’t you make us breakfast, Bri. We’ll all be happier after we’ve eaten.”

“What do we have to be happy about?” Julie asked. “We don’t know where Mami or Papi are, or what’s happening, or when things are going to be normal again.”

“Well, you could be happy you’re not in school flunking your English test,” Alex said. “You could be happy because we have food in the house and we have each other. You could be happy because the sun is shining and because you got to sleep late. There are a lot of things you could be happy about if you wanted.”

“Do you want to smell the milk?” Bri asked from the kitchen. “I think it’s okay.”

Alex went into the kitchen and took a sniff. “It’s okay,” he said. “Let’s have cereal and milk while we can.”

“What does that mean?” Julie asked. “When won’t we be able to have cereal and milk?”

“Father Franco said they weren’t sure when we’d be getting electricity back,” Alex said. “That’s all. Maybe by Monday. No point buying milk before then.”

Bri put wheat flakes into three bowls and then poured some milk over hers. She took a bite and smiled. “It’s okay.” she said. She sliced a banana and distributed the pieces.

“What else did Father Franco say?” Julie asked.

“He said the airports are closed and phones are going to be out for a while,” Alex said. “Which is why we haven’t heard from Mami. I tried calling the hospital this morning, but the phone was dead. We were lucky Papi and Carlos got through to us yesterday. And they don’t know when schools will reopen.”

“That should make you happy,” Bri said to Julie.

“I miss school,” Julie said. “I’m bored. At least at school I do stuff and I hang out with my friends.”

“There’s stuff for you to do here,” Alex said. “For both of you. After breakfast, why don’t you put away all the food we got from Uncle Jimmy?”

“There may not be room for it in the cupboards,” Bri said.

“See if you can find room,” Alex said. “You know how Papi and Mami feel about the apartment being a mess. That reminds me. Julie, did you think to take batteries?”

Julie shook her head. “Did you?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I had,” Alex said.

“We’re okay without batteries,” Bri said. “The flashlights are working.”

“I wanted them for the radio,” Alex said. “I guess it’ll have to wait.”

“What are
you
going to do?” Julie asked.

“I have things to check,” Alex said. “You do your job and I’ll do mine.”

“Yes, master,” Julie said.

Alex left his sisters and went into his parents’ bedroom. If Mami walked in while he was going through their things, she’d kill him. But Alex figured he’d better see if there was any cash in the house. He had his tip money from Wednesday night, more than usual, thanks to 12B, but that wasn’t very-much.

He started with the drawers of his parents’ bureau, in case there was an envelope with money under their clothes. Then he opened the drawers of their night table. No money there, either. He fingered Mami’s rosary beads, wishing she had them with her.

Alex checked their closet next, rifling through his father’s pants pockets. He was rewarded with a handful of coins and two dollar bills.

On his father’s night table, Alex found the key to Papi’s office, where he kept his supplies. It was unlikely Papi kept any money there, but it needed to be checked out. Papi never let any of the kids into his office unless he was there, and even then only Carlos had ever hung out with him.

As Alex crossed through the living room, he found Bri and Julie hard at work. “Where are you going:” Bri asked him.

“To Papi’s office,” Alex said.

“Papi won’t like that,” Julie said.

“He’ll understand,” Bri said. “Especially when he sees how many cans of mushrooms you got for him, Julie.”

Alex grinned at the thought of Papi eating nothing but mushrooms for the next month. He left the apartment and walked the few feet to Papi’s office. It wasn’t much more than a supply closet, but Papi had a desk, and maybe he kept some cash there.

There was a minifridge in the corner, and out of curiosity, Alex opened it. There were three cans of beer and an untouched six-pack. Well, if Julie drove him to drink, Alex wouldn’t have to go very far.

In Papi’s desk drawer he found a directory of all the apartments, a deck of cards, and two envelopes. Both envelopes were sealed, but Alex could tell they held keys. One envelope said 11F, the other 14J. 11F felt like it had money in it. Curiosity and desperation overcame fear, and Alex opened the envelope. He found two twenties and a paint chip. Apparently Papi had agreed to paint 11F and was to use the cash to buy the paint. Well, if Papi couldn’t make it home for a few days, the odds were neither could 11F or 14J.

Alex put the envelopes in his pants pocket. He debated about the beer, but then decided it was safer in the apartment. Besides, Papi would want a beer the minute he got home, whenever that might be.

Between his tip money, the couple of bucks in Papi’s pants, and 11Fs forty dollars, Alex figured they had a little more than fifty in cash. With the food in the house they should be okay until Mami got home.

He went back to the apartment, beers in tow. “Papi’s really going to kill you,” Julie said.

“I’m holding them for him,” Alex said. “Count them. Nine cans.”

“When do you think Papi’ll get home?” Briana asked.

“Late next week probably,” Alex replied. “They have to get the airports open first, so it’ll take a while.”

“Do you think Mami’ll be back tonight?” Bri asked.

“Mami may be stuck in Queens,” Alex replied. “Father Franco said the subways aren’t running.”

“It’s funny to think she’s stuck in Queens and Papi’s stuck in Puerto Rico,” Bri said. “Like they were both really far away.”

“What’s funny about it?” Julie asked. “How do we even know
⁷
they’re okay?”

“Our Madre Santisima is looking after them,” Bri said. “Isn’t that right, Alex.”

“Of course she is,” Alex said, praying that the Most Holy Mother’s arms were big enough to embrace the millions of souls, dead and gone, crying for her mercy.

Saturday, May 21

Alex knew his sisters would expect to go to Mass on Sunday, but he wasn’t sure he wanted them to hear what Father Franco might say. It didn’t help that the panic inside him was growing stronger and more uncontrollable by the minute. He told himself repeatedly that it had been Papi who’d called, that Bri couldn’t be wrong, that it was just a matter of time before Papi made his way back home. But he couldn’t shake the image of the tiny seaside town being swept away, Papi screaming as twenty-foot tidal waves carried him to certain death.

And Mami. The longer they went without hearing from her, the more terrified Alex became that they never would. Had she drowned on the subway like thousands of others?

It was only three days, Alex reminded himself, and three days was nothing when the world was in chaos and communication was impossible.

They had plenty of food. They had a home. They had the church. They had each other. They had Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Lorraine. If it came to it, they had Carlos. They were better off than millions of people. And it wasn’t as though they didn’t have Papi and Mami. They just didn’t know how they were.

It would be all right. It had to be.

Still, before he let his sisters go to Mass, he wanted to know as much as he could about what was going on, at least in their neighborhood. So he decided to take a walk.

“Where are you going?” Bri asked with that tinge of fear he’d come to expect in her voice.

“Just for a walk,” Alex said.

“Can we come with you?” Julie asked.

“No,” Alex said.

“Why not?” Julie demanded. “I’m bored. There’s nothing to do here. Why can’t we go on a walk with you?”

[_Because I’m trying to protect you! _] Alex wanted to yell, but he knew that would only scare Bri.

“You’ll be going to church tomorrow,” he said instead. “Have either of you done any homework since Wednesday?”

They shook their heads.

“I expect to see it completely done by the time I get home,” Alex said, the way Mami would have. “And I tell you what. If I find anything is open, a store or a coffee shop, we’ll go as soon as 1 get back. All right?”

“You won’t be gone long?” Bri asked.

“Not long,” Alex said. “I promise. Now start your homework.”

“Come on, Julie,” Bri said. “I’ll help you with your math.”

“I don’t need any help,” Julie grumbled, but she followed her older sister to their bedroom. Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn’t blame his sisters for wanting to get out. But they had to be protected.

He knew he needed to check the bulletin board at St. Margaret’s, if for no other reason than to see if there was a notice about the schools reopening. But instead of walking east to the church, he went west.

Alex told himself as he walked toward Riverside Drive that the Hudson River would be fine, but even so, when he got to the river, he felt a sense of relief. The river was agitated, but that could have been from the heavy rains on Thursday. New Jersey, across the river, was right where it belonged. If rivers had tides, and Alex had to admit he didn’t know if they did, they didn’t seem too bad.

Alex turned around and began the walk to St. Margaret’s. There was hardly any traffic compared to the days before, and there weren’t many people on the streets, but there was plenty of noise coming from the apartment buildings. Alex grinned. Usually when the weather was this hot, people had their air conditioners going, but with no electricity, windows were open instead. He heard quarrels, laughter, scoldings, even lovemaking, many of the same sounds he’d heard in Uncle Jimmy’s neighborhood, only now in English instead of Spanish.

But for all the sounds of life on Eighty-eighth Street, Broadway felt dead. Nothing seemed to be open, not the supermarket, or the coffee shop, or the deli, or the Korean grocery, or the dry cleaner, or the Laundromat, or the liquor store, or the florist, or the Chinese takeout, or the movie theater. He saw a couple of cops but very few other people walking around. Even the fire engines and ambulances seemed to have stopped their downtown runs.

At least St. Margaret’s had people in it. The bulletin board was surrounded, and it took Alex a couple of minutes before he could see everything that had been posted.

There were so many sheets that the walls around the bulletin board had been drafted into service as well. The first thing he noticed was a listing of the dead. There weren’t really that many names on it: two sheets, single spaced, three columns across, alphabetical order.

Alex forced himself to look at the Ms. Nobody named Morales. His knees buckled with relief. As long as Mami wasn’t on the list, there was no reason to think she was dead. That was something he could tell his sisters.

“Not many names,” a man said, looking over the list.

“Most of the bodies can’t be identified,” another man replied. “A lot washed out to the sea. And they’re still removing bodies from the subways. You looking for anyone in particular?”

“No,” the first man said. “Well, a couple of people, but not family. How about you?”

The second man shook his head. “There’s one friend we’re concerned about but that’s it. We’re lucky.”

Alex turned away from the list of the dead and saw several pages of handwritten names, with phone numbers next to them.

HAVE
YOU
SEEN
ANY
OF
THESE
PEOPLE?

Write Down the Name, the Last Known Sighting, and Phone

Number to Contact with Information

Willing his hand not to shake, Alex wrote down his parents’ names, putting
Puerto Rico
next to his father’s and
7 train
next to his mother’s. Then he wrote their home phone number, sending up a quick prayer that his sisters wouldn’t be the ones to answer the phone if anyone called with bad news.

The first man looked over at Alex and read what he’d written. “Your parents?” he asked.

Alex nodded, not sure he could trust himself to speak.

“You okay?” the man asked. “You have someone to look after you?”

Alex nodded again.

“Puerto Rico,” the second man read. “By the coast or inland?”

“Coast,” Alex choked out.

The second man shook his head. “San Juan was hit hard,” he said. “All the coast. You and your family will be in my prayers.”

“Mine, too,” the first man said, gently resting his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “If you need help, you know someone at St. Margaret’s will be here for you. We’re family here, don’t forget that.”

“I won’t,” Alex said. “Thank you.”