Besides Joanie, Sam, Zero’s daughter, was the first to know about his cancer. After completing her BFA at RISD, she traded the quiet of Providence for the restlessness of New York City, where she began working as a book designer for Wanton House, the esteemed publisher.
12. Of course, besides Joanie, Sam, Zero’s daughter, was the first to know. After completing her BFA at RISD, she traded the quiet of Providence for the restlessness of New York City, where she began working as a book designer for Wanton House, the esteemed publisher. Despite Zero devoting the best years of his productive life to guiding Sam through the finest private education, things grew cold once she discovered his middle-age transgressions. Sam bore the exoticism of her father and mother, Julianna, but her olive skin gleamed tersely from her grandfather’s recessive genes. Proud of her thick, soft curly hair, she, like many teenagers losing their child-self, struggled with the rules and conventions dictating her public behavior, the manifestos of Caribbean identity, and the expectations others placed on her. Though Julianna and Zero opened their hearts to her, embracing the rainbow cascading from her soul, Sam fought the hard battle of being herself in a world too authoritarian to let her spread her wings. The days were sad when Sam felt her life was an investment in misery, bound to multiply. The worst of it unfolded before Zero’s eyes without him even noticing.
Zero marked the days on the calendar with expectations of a better life. Someday the money will start pouring in, he often told Sam and Julianna. He had abandoned a promising future in the publishing business, choosing instead to write his book. The impact on their finances was brutal, and as Julianna grew disappointed and distant, coldness froze their attempts to bridge their differences until their relationship seemed unsalvageable.
Zero discovered his talents as an editor and writer could be useful, offering services, teaching workshops, or ghostwriting. He even called himself a writing coach, helping others find their writing ambitions. So many people want to write their memories, he told Julianna when the idea struck him. It’ll be a great gig. Julianna, ever skeptical, voiced her truth. I don’t think you’re going anywhere with this writing coach thing if it’s even a thing. That’s not a stable salary to help with the mortgage, and how long do you intend to coach wanna-bes?
Her words were harsh, cruel. Zero took exception. That is as good a job as anything, puñeta. I get paid well, he insisted. But Julianna disarmed him, asking how many great big gigs in the sky would it take to cover their daughter’s college expenses?
Zero fell silent, walking toward the window. From there, he saw the beach, reminiscent of the old Rincón beach house. Seagulls plowed the sunset in the pink distance as he realized the gravity of his mistakes. Your daughter is growing; she needs her father.
I’ve been taking care of her since you took that job at the advertising agency, he reproached.
You often came home at ten or eleven at night, and she was already asleep by then.
I was working.
You were doing more than just working.
Don’t offend me.
I’m not. I’m stating truths you need to live by; it’ll make you a better person, a happier one.
That night, Julianna realized that the times they crammed into a twin-size bed in a studio apartment in Ocean Park during college had become a dim reverie of when they believed nothing could break them apart. The Saturday evenings at the Argentinian restaurant, the nighttime beach walks, the discussions about the Beat Generation, of which Julianna knew nothing, while Zero felt like the ultimate Beatnik lecturer—all seemed distant. Separate. Things used to be so simple. They rented an apartment while Julianna finished her degree in public relations and Zero his master’s in literature. Two good-for-nothings, they used to joke. I have no choice, Zero always remarked; I have no one to go back to.
This is why he sang Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time” to Sam every night since he first held her in his arms. If you fall, I will catch you. I will be waiting.
Time. After. Time.
13. Sam and Zero had lost contact with each other after Zero and Julianna finally separated. Zero gave up his personal literary ambitions to make sure that his daughter would have everything she needed to make it to a great school. The girl loved art and drawing. She couldn’t fail, like he felt he did. She had to pursue her artistic ambitions and do great in life. In a way, it’d made Zero feel accomplished himself since, when he was accepted at Brown, his family turned their back on him alluding to their financial debacle.
Zero spent several days like a shadow looking for its body. He couldn’t understand why the world out there seemed so perfect, so Dolby-sound and technicolor, widescreen and bright, but it seemed like a world one could only reach through a looking glass. Or perhaps at the bottom of his closet, there’d be a secret door that gave way to that world of shiny red cars and blonde women. Summers, like the Bananarama song, were cruel, cruel summers. Everybody left the town, everybody traveled and by the end of July, early August, they brought in tales of Magic Kingdoms, islands in the Mediterranean, or impressive monuments in the middle of the New York Harbor. Zero’s world was an architecture of paper and visions of places, he was sure, he’d never reach. It was a world only possible for him on TV.
He promised Julianna they would roam around the world, like in a B-52’s song.
She believed him.
14. Zero remembered the tiny, naked, bloodied body, still resisting the nurse's hygienic treatment, until he whispered, "Welcome to your life." The second line, “There’s no turning back,” he kept to himself. Then she calmed down and opened her eyes, but she did not understand his gaze. The girl scrutinized him with her eyes, as if two halogen orbs were piercing through dense nothingness. He wondered what thoughts were running through the baby's mind at that moment. Like father, like... Three years later, Zero's life took another turn, and he sat on the deck of his home, watching an unusual star show. In his hometown, stars were the night ceiling, but in the city, they were a delicate rarity. When Sam saw him in awe of the sky, she asked, "What are the stars made of?" Hydrogen and helium and other hot gases, Zero thought, would be a convincing answer, but instead, he said, "Light. The stars are made of light."
Sam remained thoughtful, her eyes flooded with watery emotion, and finally, wrapped in the cosmicity of a great new truth, she said, Like us. Made of light.
And she asked no more questions as she settled into his arms. It was a scene reminiscent of a story written three years earlier.
Comments