Lisa Wixon - Dirty Blonde and Half-Cuban

But Victor flashes a stoic smile and shakes his head. “You think we do everything just for money?”

“Take it,” I say.

In response, Victor puts his hand on his heart and quotes José Martí, a habit of conversation shared by many Cubans.

“‘Men of action,’” Victor recites, “‘Above all those whose actions are guided by love, live forever. Other famous men, those of much talk and few deeds, soon evaporate.’”

Before he can finish, I’m dashing down the steps, away from the protection of philosophy and logic and mathematics and history. Toward my future and my family and the unknown.

T he old clockon Avenida Quinta reads eight P.M. Much too late for my mother and me to be returning home from our day at the beach with José Antonio. John is expected back from the States within the hour, and my mother is irritated at herself for losing track of time. There are precious few minutes to shower away the sand from our outing, or the signs of affection from her lover, José Antonio.

In the taxi, she removes my Santería beads of protection. At our mansion’s entrance, my mother slows her walking to a standstill. Where the house should be buzzing and warm, she finds it deserted and cold, lights off, the staff gone. My mother is mystified, as she’d instructed them to prepare a welcome-home dinner for three.

The handwriting in her faded diaries becomes elliptical as she describes what happens next.

With me on her hip, she cautiously explores each room, switching on lights and radios. As is her custom, she kisses and presses two fingers to the lips on the framed photograph of President Carter.

Slowly, she climbs the stairs. It’s not until we arrive in the bedroom that she places me on the ground. John’s suitcases sit open and unpacked on the dresser. On her bed—on their bed—is a single telegram. It’s open. On it, she reads the words destined to change the course of our lives.

It’s addressed to John, and it’s from Washington, dated nearly two months earlier. It reads:

REQUEST FOR IMMEDIATE TRANSFER ACCEPTED, PLEASE VACATE HAVANA POST AND REPORT TO WASHINGTON DC ON MARCH 10, 1980

The day’s date, she records, is March 6. Four days from their expected arrival in Washington. It all begins to make sense to her now: John’s several trips to the States, the improvement in his mood. He’d been planning the move without telling her.

An hour goes by, maybe two, she doesn’t remember. She’s on autopilot, feeding and bathing me. Tucking me into bed. Waiting and wondering what is to happen next. Her thoughts are filled with José Antonio, his easy wit and generosity and cariño.

It’s with resignation that she answers the phone.

“I’ve just come from your lover’s house.” John is shouting. She can’t remember the last time he shouted. “What’s his name, José? Never expected you’d go for the younger type. What do you have, eight, nine years on him?”

“You went to his house?” she asks, shocked.

“There are pictures of you and Alysia everywhere. How the hell do you think that makes me feel?”

My mother can’t respond, rubbing her temples instead, and pacing as far as the phone cord will allow. The cord is like John, she thinks, restricting her movements, keeping her posted and confined. She’s ashamed but she’s also angry. Was she expected to suffer through a lonely marriage forever?

“How could you? All you do is work, you leave me alone. What did you expect?”

But he’s not listening. “Pictures of my daughter and my wife with this man. How the fuck am I supposed to handle that?”

“John—”

“Is she even mine?”

My mother doesn’t answer, and the question hangs heavy in the air. Finally, he speaks.

“Jesus Christ, you don’t know, do you?” He slams the phone down.

A FEW MINUTES later, he calls again.

“We’re returning to Washington,” seethes John. He is only sightly more calm.

“When? Tell me when we’re going to Washington.”

“We’re scheduled out on the four P.M. plane.”

“Four P.M. when?”

“Tomorrow. God, I can’t believe you did this—”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The obvious. That you’ll have your things sorted by morning.”

“Please come home, John. Can’t we talk about this?”

But he’s not listening. “I want you to tell him that your relationship is over, and I want you to come back with me. You know,” he says darkly, “you can’t stay in a Communist country. You can’t live on pesos. I knowyou.”

She sighs. “Where are you?”

“I’ve checked into the Nacional. I…” His voice has changed tone and is quieter. “I need you, I’ve always needed you. You know I’m no good without you. Please come home with me tomorrow.”

My mother softens. She knows too well her husband’s emotional handicaps. She partly blames herself for their distance, for not attending better to his needs. She also knows that her mores would never allow her to leave her husband, no matter how strongly José Antonio has wrested her heart. Even if she wanted to, she reasoned, how could she live under an enemy regime?

JOSÉ ANTONIO ARRIVED within minutes of her call. He’d never been inside a diplomat’s home, and he bristled at the luxuriousness of my mother’s surroundings. When José Antonio’s chest puffed, when he stiffened at her embrace, she knew her clever husband had anticipated José Antonio’s reaction to their wealth. It was John’s profession to know his enemy, and he understood all too well how American prestige could demoralize a foe.

John had to have believed José Antonio would come to my mother that night, she reasoned, knowing she’d never leave her sleeping daughter alone. John had to trust that if José Antonio pled a case for love in the intimidation of their home, then the defense would surely score a defeat.

But my mother felt she could live drunk on the love of José Antonio and the warmth that glowed from his family. A family she wished could also be hers.

My mother wrote that their conversation lasted until dawn. How they were by turns angry and sad and passionate. She wrote that she agonized over staying in Havana with the man who excited her mind, ignited her body, and gave her the greatest regalo.Her child.

José Antonio told her that in his country, people were poor, but they were happy. He told her that a daughter should know her real father. That material possessions were second to the love of a good family.

But it was my mother’s Southern sense of propriety that won out, just as June, her sister and my aunt, had suspected. My mother believed herself unable to change the motion of her life, or to impose upon the strictures of marriage a new thinking. Hadn’t she promised until death? José Antonio countered: Staying in Havana, he pled, would be following her life’s true path.

My mother said she would be strong for both of them, and tearfully refused to give in, citing the unrealistic dreams that sprouted in the heat of passionate love.

They were together for the last time on the rooftop, under the stars, my mother imprinting their patterns in her mind. The distant lighthouse, the same one that signaled the beginning of her affair with José Antonio two years before, directed its beam through treacherous waters and crossed the terrain of their bodies. As the sun rose, the reach of the lighthouse faded, and with it the beacon she’d come to depend upon.

As they held each other, she heard him swear he would come and find her. That he was determined to know his daughter.

He promised me, too, leaning over my small body in the bed where I slept.

“M’ija,”he said, tears in his eyes. “Go with your mother now. We’ll be together again soon. Your father promises to find a way.”