Make Your Home Among Strangers Read Online Free PDF Page A

taste like anything, and little traces of the paper wrapper once protecting it somehow materialized and scratched around in my mouth like bits of sand. I swirled this almost-something for a long while, tricked myself into believing the cough drop hadn’t yet totally disappeared.

 
    4
    I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE MY MOM’S new building in the dark, couldn’t remember right away which window on the second floor was hers: I’d lived there only three days before leaving for Rawlings. The complex was a brighter peach than my memory had made it over to be, an orangey hue that too closely matched the Spanish tiles curving their way across the flat roof. A reggaetón remix blasted from the open windows on the building’s first floor, the noise giving me permission to ignore the male neighbors leaning against the chain-link fence that separated a block’s worth of sidewalk-hugging grass into lawns. On my last day there, Mami, Leidy, Omar, and I had each pulled a stuffed suitcase down the stairs; now I replayed each turn we’d taken in reverse, decided on a window, and tugged my bag up the too-tall front steps of the building’s entrance.
    My knock on the apartment door was answered only by the suddenly-gone sound of the television as someone on the other side muted the volume, pretending no one was home. I heard Dante’s baby-quack, then a sharp Shh. I’d planned to yell Surprise! from outside the door just as it opened, but instead, after knocking two more times, I had to say, You know I can hear you guys. It’s me.
    Then, a few seconds later, Me as in Lizet?
    I heard the chain slide back, then hands moving down to the other locks. My sister opened the door, Dante on the floor behind her.
    â€”What the fuck are you doing here? she said.
    Her emphasis should’ve been on the word fuck , or maybe on here , but not on you . She’d been expecting someone else? But seeing how much she looked exactly like herself—her smooth cheeks with only the left one dimpled, her almost-black eyes and their long lashes, her dark and falsely blond-streaked hair pulled up in the same loose, messy bun she always wore around the house to avoid denting her blowout—made me so happy that I didn’t think to ask what she meant.
    â€”Leidy! I screamed. Oh my god, Dante! He’s so big!
    â€”Lizet? my mom said from somewhere behind the door, which Leidy still hadn’t opened all the way. I pushed it slowly with my whole hand just in time to see my mother rushing at me from the couch, already crying.
    â€”Pero niña, she said, her hands in the air like someone getting called on stage for The Price Is Right , que tú haces aquí? You’re supposed to be at school!
    I didn’t even recognize the squeal of my voice when I said, Mom!
    She coiled her arms around my neck, latched her hand to the back of my head and pulled, buried my face in her shoulder. Her own neck was damp—wet from sweat or tears—and the salt from either or both met my lips.
    â€”You’re not supposed to be here, she said, then said again.
    She swayed our hug side to side. Her fingers fanned open to cradle my head, and one of her rings got tangled in my hair, tugging my scalp. Instead of ouch , I said, I know, I know.
    Behind her, the TV glowed with the still-silent news, which wasn’t normally on at that hour. On the screen was the dirty, tanned face of a little boy not looking at the camera: my first glimpse of Ariel Hernandez. A young woman was dragging a wet towel up and down and across his cheeks. Without me knowing, without me even being aware of the race, he’d beaten me to Miami by a few hours. I looked away from the TV and over Mami’s shoulder back to Leidy, whose hand still rested on the doorframe, her mouth a half smile.
    â€”But – here I am, I said. Surprise, happy Thanksgiving.
    â€”Get inside, come come, Mom said, ending our hug by pulling my arms, her rings