It’s my last night. The kids are all in my room, climbing
over my bed and the mountain of clothes I still have to squeeze into a
suitcase. Ally pulls a sweater off the pile and insists in putting it on. It hangs
down almost to her ankles, and she runs around the room swinging the extra-long
sleeves. Paolo is glued to Plants vs. Zombies on my phone. David is playing
with the stuffed cat I had found hidden in my dresser in case I ever needed a
last-minute gift. Tonight is my last minute.
“Hey kids, come see this” Hector, their dad, calls from the
next room. Since the boys who used to rent the room moved out, it’s been the
banana room, where my host family stores the hundred-pound bunches of fresh-cut
bananas to sell in the downtown market. I run over behind the kids and see a
mouse frozen on the window screen.
“They come down from the mountains in the bananas”, he says,
“David, bring me a stick”.
The mouse is a chubby, soft thing with a fluffy tail like a
gerbil. It darts down the wall and into a bunch of bananas, burrowing close to
the stem. It has hidden in the bunch ever since it was cut from the stalk, holding
on as it was hoisted into the back of a pick-up truck and driven two hours into
the city, clinging tight even as Hector hoisted the bunches one by one onto his
back and up the three flights of stairs.
“Ugly things,” Hector frowns, “They eat my bananas,” and points
with his toe towards a mouse-sized bite.
David brings a broom handle and Hector rolls the bunch over
until the mouse runs out, scurrying around the room. The kids cling to me
and squeal as their dad chases it.
He catches it in a corner, not with one clean blow, but with
a few sharp taps. It twitches for a second, then is still. Hector picks it up by its tail with a piece of
toilet paper and carries it down three flights of stairs to throw it out in the
street.
“It was not so ugly,” David says, staring at the tiny spot
of blood on the ground. “Not so very ugly.”
We go back to my room. The boys hug me – tackle me, so as to disguise the
sentimentality. I promise to visit when I return to the country, promise to
take them out to the movies.
“Or Aqua Splash?” Paolo asks hopefully. It’s the waterpark
just outside of town and they pass it every time they drive to their cousin’s
house.
“And Aqua Splash,” I say, already thinking ahead to the
crowds and the sun and the cracked plastic slides. I kiss the boys on the tops
of their heads and push them out of my room. It’s late. Ally’s already gone
downstairs. She doesn’t know I’m leaving tomorrow.
The next morning I squeeze the rest of my clothes into the
suitcase. I hear the clatter and murmur
of the boys downstairs getting ready for school. I think about going down for
one last hug, some meaningful words, but nothing I say would capture this last
year, our games and heart-to-hearts, their jokes, that mouse on the window
screen. I hear them leave.
It’s only Martha in the house when I come downstairs. I sit
and wait for my ride. She smiles at me though her eyes are watery. “Allisson’s
still asleep,” she says. “She won’t know why you’re gone.”
I know Ally will ask for me, like she would do when I
left for a weekend or even a walk down the street. She would wait for me, face
pressed to the window, until I walked down the steps, and squeal “Kat-ah!” grabbing my knees and pulling
me to the dining room. “Num num num?” she
would mime, with her hand at her mouth, asking me if I want to eat.
I know she’ll wait by the window for days before she realizes
I’m not coming back.
But I will come back. On weekends – when I can. Ally will
grab my knees and the boys will show off their new high score on Angry Birds.
Martha will bring me a bowl of soup and Hector will offer me bananas,
It will never be quite the same. I won’t fit any more in the
house or the family. I’ll check the time on my phone, say it’s time for me to
be back.
Maybe I’ll ask to see my old room before I leave. I know
already, it will be filled with bananas.