This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz

hair, tells us he likes us. He served in our country during the Guerra Civil. Nice people, he says. Beautiful people. The house is not entirely a ruin and we’re both nervous. Ramón stalks about like a cat searching for a place to whelp. He steps into closets and bangs against walls and spends close to five minutes running his finger around the basement’s wet seams. He smells the air for a hint of mold. In the bathroom I flush the toilet while he holds his hand under the full torrent of the shower. We both search the kitchen cabinets for roaches. In the next room the grandfather calls our references and laughs at something somebody has said.
    He hangs up and says something to Ramón that I don’t understand. With these people I cannot even rely on their voices. The blancos will call your mother a puta in the same voice they greet you with. I wait without hoping until Ramón leans close and tells me it looks good.
    That’s wonderful, I say, still sure Ramón will change his mind. He trusts very little. Out in the car he starts in, certain the old man is trying to trick him.
    Why? Did you see anything wrong?
    They make it look good. That’s part of the trick. You watch, in two weeks the roof will start falling in.
    Won’t he fix it?
    He says he will, but would you trust an old man like that? I’m surprised that viejo can still get around.
    We say nothing more. He screws his head down into his shoulders and the cords in his neck pop out. I know he will yell if I talk. He stops at the house, the tires sliding on the snow.
    Do you work tonight? I ask.
    Of course I do.
    He settles back into the Buick, tired. The windshield is streaked and sooty and the margins that the wipers cannot reach have a crust of dirt on them. We watch two kids pound a third with snowballs and I feel Ramón sadden and I know he’s thinking about his son and right then I want to put my arm around him, tell him it will be fine.
    Will you be coming by?
    Depends on how the work goes.
    OK, I say.
    My housemates trade phony smiles over the greasy tablecloth when I tell them about the house. Sounds like you’re going to be bien cómoda, Marisol says.
    No worries for you.
    None at all. You should be proud.
    Yes, I say.
    Later I lie in bed and listen to the trucks outside, their beds rattling with salt and sand. In the middle of the night I wake up and realize that he has not returned but not until morning am I angry. Ana Iris’s bed is made, the netting folded neatly at its foot, a gauze. I hear her gargling in the bathroom. My hands and feet are blue from the cold and I cannot see through the window for the frost and icicles. When Ana Iris starts praying, I say, Please, just not today.
    She lowers her hands. I dress.
    —
    HE’S TALKING AGAIN about the man who fell from the rafters. What would you do if that was me? he asks once more.
    I would find another man, I tell him.
    He smiles. Would you? Where would you find one?
    You have friends, don’t you?
    What man would touch a dead man’s novia?
    I don’t know, I said. I wouldn’t have to tell anyone. I could find a man the way I found you.
    They would be able to tell. Even the most bruto would see the death in your eyes.
    A person doesn’t mourn forever.
    Some do. He kisses me. I bet you would. I am a hard man to replace. They tell me so at work.
    How long did you mourn for your son?
    He stops kissing me. Enriquillo. I mourned him a long time. I am still missing him.
    I couldn’t tell that by looking at you.
    You don’t look carefully enough.
    It doesn’t show, I don’t think.
    He puts his hand down at his side. You are not a clever woman.
    I’m just saying it doesn’t show.
    I can see that now, he says. You are not a clever woman.
    While he sits by the window and smokes I pull the last letter his wife wrote him out of my purse and open it in front of him. He doesn’t know how brazen I can be. One sheet, smelling of violet water.
Please,
Virta has written neatly in the center of the page.