University of Northern Iowa

WakingAuthor(s): Albert GarciaSource: The North American Review, Vol. 288, No. 3/4, Annual Summer Fiction Double Issue(May - Aug., 2003), p. 30Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25126983 .

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N A R

"What does that have to do with anything?" "Just a

thought."

Chai points at her lacerated nose and says, "Boo-boo nose."

"You got a boo-boo, honey, a big boo-boo," Carmen

says and kisses her daughter's hair. "Do you think she

needs stitches?"

"Nah?she's not really hurt that bad. The blood made it

look a lot worse than it is. There are a lot of veins just under the skin on the face."

Now Chai has ice cream mashed all over her lips, mouth, and cheeks. She's smiling and happy again.

Carmen wraps her fingers around Sean's ice cream and

he allows her to pull it from his mouth. She licks all the

way down one long edge coating her tongue with vanilla.

This is typical. She hands it back. Wipes her fingers on his

shirt. Laughs.

"Take your shirt off and let me soak it. Maybe we can get the blood out." Then his wife moves out of the bed, turns

the window unit up to high, takes the box with the remain

ing semi-melted ice-cream sandwiches with her, and disap

pears into the kitchen. "I'm making tuna-fish sandwiches

for lunch," her voice trails back.

"With pickles? With pickles, Mama?" Bobby shouts and

is out of the bed and in pursuit. "With pickles." Sean finishes his ice cream, unbuttons his shirt, and wads

it up to clean Chai's messy face. She protests a little, but he

knows she's okay now, because as soon as he's done she

bounces out of bed and races after her mother and _ brother. Sean feels almost competent. Relishing his

role as a father for a change. A role that is increas

ingly hard to define. At lunch though he will take

pleasure in watching a rejuvenated Chai eat her

way through an entire tray of frozen French fries.

When the rest of the family crashes for naptime

immediately after eating, Sean moves onto the

screen porch. He's got an ice tea. He's relaxing.

Knows he's got two hours before his brood is up and energized. Time to ponder what he's gotten himself into. Old Man Rayburn is sitting in a lawn

chair playing with a big orange cat. He has a catnip mouse on a piece of nylon test and he's flipping it

just out of reach. Bra-and-panties woman is

nowhere to be seen. The techno softer now. The

gay couple don't seem to leave for work until

around 2 p.m. Sean reaches into his glass and pulls out a piece of ice to pop into his mouth and suck on. His head is still throbbing. He's trying to figure

I out if he should keep an appointment. He'd met

Irina last night on his solo reconnoiter. Last night in the doldrums, he'd wandered the streets in

search of something to do, something to distract

him from Carmen's big news.

Sean couldn't explain what had happened. He

couldn't tell you what he was doing in Key West, either. Carmen had wanted to go somewhere

warm. She was sick of the Chicago winters. So was

he. A stiff breeze coming off Lake Michigan could

turn your blood to ice on a summer day. In the

height of winter it acted more like a chilly recipro

cating saw. Carmen had tossed some names about

and he found himself infatuated with just one?

Key West. And so here they were only to discover

that it wasn't a place to bring preschoolers. | Carmen was furious enough about that. Sean had i been kind of dimly aware that something was up,

though what he couldn't guess. So after pizza last

_I night he'd been putting puzzles together on the

ALBERT GARCIA

Waking

He woke in the dark to feel

her changed. Her hip, the same

he'd let his fingers graze each morning before sunrise, felt cool, odd. Her hair?

what was it??almost

like a doll's, not real.

He touched her shoulder, that round knob, then reached for the nightstand lamp.

Her mouth, lips parted

nearly in a word, as if to say,

I'll be up, I'll get breakfast, as she'd done for forty years,

lay still, open. Under their lids

her eyes had receded. He felt

his own stubbled jaw, then her cheek, her neck

under the flannel, traced

with his eyes her body's length, the small mounds it made

in the quilt, then turned off

the lamp?carefully

placed his arm across her chest?

choosing to stay in bed

to wait for whatever would come

with morning's cold light.

30 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW May-August 2003

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