Fernando Rafael Izaguirre Jr.

Accordion: 

I was most likely seven when my family celebrated my grandparent’s 30th wedding anniversary. In the front yard I watched my abuelo strike a match and drop it on a bed of charcoal. The fire hiked out of the pit like a sheet of flame pouring from the exhaust of a Hot Wheel car. “Ahora esperamos,” abuelo said, smoothing out his mustache. Once the fire was hot, he rubbed the grill grates with an onion, placed fajita on top and flipped them every few minutes. Then I asked myself why Papá hadn’t showed me these things? Later, I noticed more people around me. I’m talking about tías, tíos, cousins, and even vecinos. Los Tigres del Norte were playing on the radio. I couldn’t help but take two steps para la derecha y izquierda. Somehow, I became the main attraction because I was the only child dancing with a toy accordion in my hands; even someone shouted: ¡Así se baila! Afterwards I dressed my tacos the way my abuelita taught me: first cilantro, second diced onion, third queso fresco, fourth salsa verde and lastly limón. The moment I bit into the taco, corn tortilla and greasy meat deployed. But what made me uneasy were my parents, who had been talking beside the driveway. As Mamá headed my direction, she covered her face with her forearm. Papá and her talked less after that.  

***

Rosary: 

I’m not sure how I started having feelings for my crush in junior high. Her name was Nicole, but she preferred Nicky. She liked punk rock music and skateboarding. It’s all I remember, really. At the time I didn’t know she had a boyfriend two years older than me. There’s no way I could have competed with him. Still, I asked her to hang out with me at the carnival and surprisingly, she said yes. I put on a woodsy scent cologne my abuelo gave me. I wore the best sneakers I could find in my closet, and the green polo shirt I had on was okay, I guess. Before leaving I looked at myself in the mirror; my eyes and thick brows resembled Papá’s. I hid them under my polo on the way out the door. At the carnival I waited by the entrance for what seemed like hours, holding the rosary around my neck, praying the same line 59 times in my head: Por favor, Dios, let her come. Beside the ticket line, funnel cake sizzled in oil and muddled the air. Carnival ride lights shimmered across a lake. After admitting to myself that Nicky wasn’t going to show up, I went on the Ferris wheel alone. At the highest point of the ride, I saw a guy buy his girlfriend cotton candy, my heart sling shotted down my gut. Is this how Mamá felt after her divorce? I thought. I wasn’t sure, but what I felt that night hurt me more than the week before when I found Papá’s pocketknife and accidentally cut my hand. 

***

Agua de Melón: 

It was hot outside. I inserted batteries in a little fan and let the air circulate across my body, but the damn thing turned off after 30 minutes, which pissed me off. Mamá hadn’t paid the electric bill and because of that I couldn’t invite anyone over to watch Netflix. I had a year left until college and, honestly, I couldn’t wait to pack my stuff and stay away permanently. The following day was fucking terrible; while I washed my hair with shampoo the shower stopped running. The soap burned my eyes, so I ran to the kitchen without a towel, opened the fridge, and dumped the first liquid I could find over my head. I smelled like melón for the rest of the day. At 7 p.m. Mamá got home; she immediately fell asleep on the couch with her work clothes on. I took off her boots and put a blanket over her. I clenched my sticky hair, contemplated whether if Papá being here would have made a difference. Then I went around the neighborhood, knocked on doors and asked if they could hire me to cut their yard.  

***

Arroz Con Leche:

On Christmas Eve, 2016, my siblings and I joked about Papá not being around. We said things like: “Maybe we’re adopted?” and “I never knew my father!” Eventually it wasn’t funny when Mamá started showing us old photographs of him. In one of them, we were at church for a wedding. I was smiling. Claudia looked bored. Miguel stared at the floor. Roberto was crying. But what shocked us was that we looked like an actual family. We never did when I was older. Lo amabas mucho? I asked Mamá. She nodded, turned on the sink, scrubbed the pan that had arroz con leche on it and left it clean and empty.

***

Ropa:

I had crossed the Río Grande on multiple occasions, but never on foot. Back in 2020, I reached the center of the puente, looked out and saw that the sky was torn in half by sun and clouds. During my visit in Mexico, I bought a pair of jeans from a woman selling clothes and wore them that evening. Next, I went to a cantina, drank a beer, and listened to a jukebox shuffling through different songs. A man with dark hair sat on the other end of the bar. He looked familiar, though I couldn’t quite make out his face because of his hat. The only thing I recognized was his round jaw. My father had an identical one. I wondered if it could be him? I was wrong the moment the man showed his eyes to light a cigarette. 

***

Arisa:

In my early twenties, my day consisted of making the most of my mornings. I often wrote things in my diary: will I matter like a ship carves the waters and leaves an open wound for the sun to cage? I knew how selfish that sounded, especially because by then, I had a wife who loved me for my flaws: easily frustrated and sin paciencia. Five months ago, she told me: I missed my period. We discussed plans for the baby: work full time, put grad school on hold, postpone being a bilingual educator. But when the pregnancy test returned negative, we didn’t cheer or scratch off baby names. I imagined holding my daughter, telling her about my heartbreaks, showing her pictures of her grandfather, playing her música norteña, and feeding her arroz con leche. Some part of me believed I could have been a better father than mine ever was.