The Other Half of Happy

The Other Half of Happy — page 3 — Quijana we need another pair of hands here Is she outside I wish I were I'd jump on the swing pump my legs climb high and whoosh through the air Then I'd sing It's my secret favorite thing even better than peach cobbler When I sing out there something rises up my spine and tingles the top of my head The notes lift me up until I weigh nothing I could almost let go and sail over the treetops Which is another good thing about this tilted house We can sing in it Back at the apartment way back when my little brother was born Dad would strum his guitar and we'd sing ballads in English boleros in Spanish Then a neighbor would pound on the wall Or the ceiling Apartment walls are nothing nothing but panels of saltine crackers I'll check the backyard No one can tell me why this house tilts The landlady tried That ol Texas sun turns dirt to dust Can't build nothing nothing on dust Mom says it's the clay soil that's under the house that slickens in the rain Dad tells me the builders tried to stairstep a hill putting each house on a bulldozed shelf But no one cheats Mother Earth She's remaking her hill filling in the shelves to make a slope again Mostly I don't notice the tilt But sometimes like now the walk from my room to the kitchen seems steep Quijana Dad's face appears at my bedroom door Of course I should be helping I hang my head The thing is those boleros we sing in Spanish I've memorized the

The Other Half of Happy — page 4 — sounds But I don't know what they mean And now Mom and Dad are Spanish izing the whole house Dad looks toward the ceiling as if he'll find a power up of patience there Ever since Tío Pancho called and said Adiós Chicago I got a job in Dallas Dad's been different He's playing playing more marimba music on his phone He talked me into taking taking Spanish instead of Mandarin in school Last night Dad went over to help unload the moving van We're all going to visit when they get settled Then I'll meet the whole family Tío Pancho Tía Lencha and three cousins They've lived in the States for a while now but We've never been able to visit them in Chicago The door flies all the way open and Memito tumbles in He thrusts a book in my face and climbs on my lap He thinks my body is a big chair just for him He wants to read I say to Dad I'd much rather read A knot kinks in my chest when I think of taking down pictures of me and putting up paintings of Guatemala the place where Dad was born but I've never been Can't we read first Read afterward Dad says I start seventh grade in forty eight hours so I also want to load my backpack My folders and notebook paper are still slouching in Kroger bags They'll have to wait I stand up slowly tipping Memito onto his feet I guess we better Dad leaves but Memito's bottom lip pooches out I know He waves the book again and stomps his foot

The Other Half of Happy — page 5 — It wasn't my idea His face starts to crumple into a cry Ride I say He drops the book as I lift him up I hear Mom ask You didn't tell her did you Tell me what He's almost too heavy but I hoist Memito over my head onto my shoulders We march toward weavings and clay pots and volcano pictures all pretty but not home We march up up up Up the hill of this tilted house

The Other Half of Happy — page 6 — TWO I SET MEMITO DOWN in a room I don't recognize The walls are in the same places but everything on them has changed On both sides of the TV hang curtains of cloth each zigzagged with sunshiney yellow and fiery orange On the bookshelf sit two tall pots with red and green painted animals chasing each other around the sides Dad leans over the computer desk and hangs a photo of people I've never seen before My whole family he says I guess he means his parents and brothers and sisters since me and Memito and Mom aren't in it Where'd the baby pictures go I ask Mom nods toward a cardboard box They're online anyway anyway We'll make a photo book sometime Sometime Sometime always means never Hold that side for me would you Qui My nickname sounds like key but I'm not a key player or a key factor I'm not keyed up or keyed in If anything I'm off key especially today

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