Black Dove by Ana Castillo

Author:Ana Castillo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781558619241
Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY

Mi’jo and I in the Galápagos (2006).

Swimming with Sharks

Since his father and I split up when our child was still a toddler, I became head of household and both the doting and disciplinarian parent. I’ve always believed in protecting children from grown-up concerns and never let him know how I managed when I stayed up worrying about bills, when he became asthmatic and we didn’t have medical coverage, or, for example, what I thought about the chick his father was screwing around with when we were married.

Mi’jo was thirty when he mentioned the name of the woman himself. I was surprised he knew it. He informed me that when his father had been in town recently he took him to visit his old—let’s call her—mistress. I’m sure his dad wanted to show her how the child he took around to her had grown. Back in the days of fincas and hacendados, this was not unusual behavior, the privilege of men with women. We were, however, not only in the twenty-first century but his father had been a communist, not a patrón.

In fact, it was when my ex-husband was—let’s just say—out of town on business for an unusually extended period that my infant son and I went through potty training, bottle weaning, and his first nursery school. We had moved to San Francisco, his hometown. On my own, while he returned to Chicago, I established a life for Mi’jo and me in our new home and location.

After our separation, by taking up teaching creative writing residencies to support us both, I caused a lot of moving. When he was twelve and about to start the seventh grade, we went back to Chicago where I went to take care of my ailing mother. Later, when he graduated from elementary school, I decided to buy him a shiny new bike. The one he learned to ride on in kindergarten was a tiny two-wheeler from the flea market. But several years later, I was able to afford a little better. At the Schwinn bike shop he picked out something snazzy with cruiser handlebars and low wheels.

Mi’jo, mostly a good kid, nevertheless seemed intent on finding ways to undermine my goal to be the perfect single parent. For better or worse, my idea of it included giving him, perhaps not everything he wanted, but everything I’d wanted as a kid. The bike was my idea. Perhaps that was why, while I was at the hospital caring for my dying mother, he decided to sell it. Or better put, a kid in his class had offered full price, cold cash.

Mi’jo brought the kid over to show him the bike in the garage. I didn’t know about any of this. The enterprising young man didn’t buy the bike. Instead, as best as I was able to conclude later, he told some gangbangers about it. We were at home that afternoon when the heist took place. Our small dog’s barking in the backyard alerted us. It was a Boston terrier, not a pit bull, so the thieves had no resistance.

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