When Bluebirds Fly | ✔

Part Three : Chapter Thirteen

I nibbled my salted caramel doughnut, avoiding Isaac's penetrating gaze.

"Can I come to visit you?" he asked in a defeated voice laced with frustration that he fought to suppress.

"I don't know. My abuela's kinda conservative," I said, feeling the moist doughnut suddenly go dry in my mouth. "She's sick, so I'll be super busy looking after her and the house."

"Aren't there any other cousins who could help you?"

"There are some . . . But it'll take over two hours for you to reach. A total waste of time. Forget it, Isaac. I won't be gone for long."

"When will you come back?"

Sighing, I wrapped the half-eaten doughnut. "I don't know."

"Is something wrong---"

"My grandma's sick."

"---Not that," he said. "Is something wrong with you? With us?"

I let out a laugh which sounded awkward and unnatural. "Why would you think that?"

"It almost feels like you don't want to be with me," he mumbled, looking sideways towards the speeding cars on the road. "I can drive there. I don't have a problem with it."

"Don't be stupid," I said, throwing my arms around his torso, but he remained immobile. It was like hugging a cold statue. I gripped his jaw and forcefully made him meet my eyes. "I'll try to sneak out, okay?" He gave a hesitant smile, a smile so small that didn't wrinkle his skin. "Hey, I love you."

"Yeah, I know." He bent down to give me a kiss which seemed formal and not like us at all. "Take care, yeah?"

"I'm not the sick one, silly," I said, caressing his cheeks, but the hardness in his otherwise gentle, pale-grey was as evident as a film of tears in a grieving widow's. "I'll give you a call when I reach. Send me links to the furniture pieces for our apartment. I want to be entertained in the bus." I hoped the promise of our future would bring back the old Isaac, but he was still detached. His small smile grew a little wider and taking solace in that, I let him go and crossed the road. "Bye-Bye, Isaaaaaaac!"

"Bye-Bye Ana." He half-heartedly waved back. No exaggerated Anaaaaaa. I swallowed, mentally chiding myself for feeling upset over such a tiny thing when the larger cause was looming over me like a shadow.

The hazy memory of my crumpled underwear under his bed.

*

"Papá, I can go alone," I said, stuffing my large backpack and a zipper tote bag in the compartment above the seat, knowing fully well that from the number of things I was asked to carry, I wouldn't return home soon. "You don't have to make this trip."

He pushed me, arranging the bags in such a way that they could accommodate the little space. "I'll see to it you're comfortable there, mija."

He was being cautious with me, his conversations tender as if dealing with an overripe fruit, afraid of overwhelming and squishing it.

The bus had started and I found it futile to try to persuade him to leave me alone. We sat next to each other on the same seats like the last time's trip to grandma's, but we lacked the cheerfulness. Even when the troubled mother with her two naughty kids kicked our seats from behind, we didn't bitch about them in Spanish. We endured it all, the same, dutiful way in which we were enduring each other's presence.

Isaac kept sending me all the furniture pieces, wallpaper designs and house plants and one such piece was of three ancient dolls in a fornicating position. I choked at the sudden image and my dad's attention was immediately on me, alertly asking if I was alright. I cleared my throat and nodded, refusing the bottles of water that he was offering me.

I typed rapidly, fighting an odd smile. What the hell, Isaac. Where is the gentleman in you?

His reply as presumed came in a few seconds. Hahahaha. I have ordered those dolls, so you'll have to put up with them.

Please tell me you're joking.

If this joke makes you laugh, then, of course, I will buy them.

How did he know that it made me laugh? I blinked at the screen, feeling a painful tug in my stomach. A delayed tug of internal pain.

I blindly reached for the water bottle and gulped the tepid water, nearly emptying it, but the tugging only intensified. I felt a warm hand on my back and eyes filled with trepidation met mine. I said to my father, "I'm alright. No se preocupe."

"When can a parent not worry?" he mused, his weary, charcoal-coloured eyes looking out of the window.

The journey felt long and excruciating, but I didn't wish to reach the destination either. I wished for some mishap, anything that could take me back. However, over two hours later, my dad was bidding me farewell as my abuela welcomed me with her usual warmth.

She was in her late seventies, her figure hunching like a half-opened umbrella and loose, pigmented flaps of skin dangling on her arms. She was always dressed in floral nightgowns covered in flour and food stains and even with her slow gait, she managed to keep the one-storey suburban house pretty clean. Not tidy because recently, my twenty-year-old cousin Marta from Mexico with her one-year-old son had moved in. She came here for studies and getting pregnant at eighteen without a husband had created quite a scandal, yet she wasn't the disgrace of the family with her ambitions.

The real disgrace was my father and me.

When I entered the house, I was taken aback by the boisterous noise of the one-year-old who was shouting while banging his toys against the floor. My abuela tried to coerce him into letting go of the toys, but he would start howling. Marta who had briefly exchanged pleasantries with me was busily typing in her laptop, her eyebrows furrowed more in concentration than in irritation at the noise around.

"Ever since he's come here, I can't do a thing in this house!" My abuela told me, her voice affectionate towards the chubby child instead of being reproachful.

An involuntary smile graced my lips at seeing the merry kid. Suddenly, I smelled something bitter in the air and Marta smelling the same, shouted, "The chicken, abuela!"

"I got it," I said, placing my bags aside and rushing to the kitchen, feeling at peace at finally having something to occupy my mind and time.