Carmen Speaks.

I’ve arrived at tomorrow, but the sign says yesterday. The top half, pointing in the opposite direction, says future, but it’s just an arrow to indicate the way. Not the kind of future for which one can plan, calculate the weather, and decide which shoes to bring. I stand here, an old woman with a suitcase full of regrets, knowing I can’t go on until I unpack and iron out the creases. I can’t keep living in yesterday.

            Don’t worry if you can’t understand all I’ll tell you; I don’t understand it myself. I’ll never understand your father’s death nor why I made the mistakes I did. I don’t understand why, when I was trying to do the right thing, the worst possible things happened. And I’m sure you don’t understand why I’m writing after so many years. 

            The reason is simple, predictable, and in light of what I’ve done, almost obscene. I want forgiveness, and if we were standing face to face, I wouldn’t have the nerve to ask for it. Maybe I was such a bad mother that I have no rights left, but I do have a defense: there has never been a day since I left when the thought of you hasn’t entered my mind.

If I were to tell you my life has been all bad—a deep pit I’ve never been able to claw my way out of—I’d be a liar. A lot of good things have happened to me, positive changes, achievements, turnarounds, but one night, Lyle said cautiously, as if he’d been thinking about this for a long time and was even now debating whether to say it, “Carmen, you’ve been grieving for something all your life.”

            I nodded yes, then shook my head no. Sometimes, I feel that way, but the truth is, I wasn’t born melancholy or even moody. Of course, I’ve changed over the years, gained weight until my body is more like your grandmother’s (bottom heavy, like a pear), but I still resemble my father, both in looks and temperament. Like him, I’m made happy by both big and little things. I was contented so easily, it used to drive your grandmother crazy—she who was always striving for something out of reach.

            I was happy with Samy, if happiness is the right word for something you expected to happen. I remember telling my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Hutchinson, right over there is the boy I’m going to marry. I had a best friend, Teresa Blake, but I wanted to tell an adult who wouldn’t laugh at me. 

            “Which one?” Mrs. Hutchinson and I were standing on the steps leading out to the playground, apart from the other children.

            “That one. Him.” I thrust out my arm, my pointer finger jumping as it followed your father. The boys were playing dodge ball against the only section of brick without windows, and Samy was the last one standing from his team. Rubber stung the wall as he leaped and shouted, “You can’t get me!”

            “Why, you little . . .” Mrs. Hutchinson covered her mouth. “You’re a deep one, Carmen Amber, as deep as you can be.”