A Sea between Us by Yosely Pereira & Billy Ivey

Author:Yosely Pereira & Billy Ivey [Pereira, Yosely & Ivey, Billy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General
ISBN: 9781496448538
Publisher: Tyndale
Published: 2022-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

10“Ahora Estamos Completos”

I ENTERED A different kind of prison when I returned home. The policia had their eyes on me at all times. I couldn’t walk down the street without being stopped, questioned, or told to go back to my home. Friends in Cumanayagua were warned not to interact with me. I was a pariah, with no way of making money. And even if I had money, I wouldn’t be able to buy wood or tools for carpentry. It was illegal to buy them, and sellers were in even more danger of being punished.

For weeks, we had to beg, borrow, and even steal to survive.

Depression is common in Cuba, but I had always prided myself on being above the darkness. I watched up close as my father wasted into despair, and I wasn’t about to become a victim. But the unceasing struggle to feed and care for our growing family brought both Taire and me to tears almost every day. Taire cried for our child. Our children.

And I cried for Taire.

Every night, she would stand outside Orlando’s door and listen as he whimpered himself to sleep, his stomach never full, always aching for more. The pain of seeing our child suffer was almost too much for her, and now she was pregnant with another.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Yosely,” she whispered through tears as she leaned against Orlando’s door. “I don’t think I can bring another child into this home. I’m scared, Yosely.”

The only thing I ever wanted for my family was for them to feel safe, protected, cared for, and free—free from worry, free from fear, free from pain.

It broke my heart to see her fight each and every day to smile, to play with Orlando, or to teach him even the most basic things: “Sí, no, el gato, un perro, uno, dos, tres, cuatro; la vaca dice: ‘muuuu.’” Yes, no, the cat, a dog, one, two, three, four; the cow says, “moooo.”

I took her hand and slowly led her to the mattress in our bedroom, where I held her for a while. “Do not be afraid, mi amor,” I whispered. “We are going to be safe soon. Very, very soon,” I offered again, pulling her forehead to mine. “You can do this, my love. And I will be with you, always.”

The words from my tiny prison Bible resounded over and over in my head: Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. And they softly echoed through my whispers, over and over again until she drifted to sleep in my arms.

That night, the streets were quiet. No voices of neighbors. No passing cars. No barking dogs or screeches of fighting cats. I sneaked out of the house to a faraway farm on the outskirts of town. The farmer was a friend of my father’s, and he raised pigs and chickens for the government.

Farmers and others often resorted to keeping pigs and chickens, goats, and other animals in their houses because, while

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