Molina by Bengie Molina

Author:Bengie Molina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

KELSSY WAS BORN in Yuma three weeks after the end of the season. When my wife’s water broke, we drove from her parents’ home across the border to an American hospital. We flew to Puerto Rico soon afterward so I could play winter ball. My family of four crammed into the guest bedroom at Mai and Pai’s. Kyshly slept in the bed with us and Kelssy in the crib. I loved my two babies, but more and more I was realizing the marriage was crumbling.

All my wife and I seemed to talk about was money. I earned a little more in winter ball than the previous year—$1,300 a month—and received food from the government. I gave money to Mai and Pai for groceries, gas, and rent. I saved for our plane fares back to Arizona in January. There was nothing left at the end of each month. I was working as hard as I could. But every discussion seemed to spin off into a fight about money. Neither of us knew how to talk to the other. We were too immature and inexperienced. Our fights had none of the underlying affection that smoothed the edges of Mai and Pai’s arguments. Whatever affection we once felt was all but gone. I’m sure my absences didn’t help. But it was deeper than that. We didn’t seem to like each other. I wasn’t happy, and she sure didn’t seem to be happy. But I couldn’t leave my daughters. I would be there for them no matter what, the way a father should be, just as Pai was for my brothers and me.

One day in Puerto Rico, the rain drummed the roof so hard we could barely hear the television. Then it knocked the reception out altogether. My game in Mayaguez had been canceled. My wife was in the bedroom taking a nap with Kyshly and Kelssy. Mai was in the kitchen. Cheo and Yadier were out. It was just Pai and me in the living room. I mentioned how many trophies used to be crammed onto every shelf when I was growing up. Now there were only a half dozen or so.

“Mmm.” Pai folded back a page in the newspaper.

“I remember the one with the wood base and big cup,” I said. “I looked for it all day after the flood.”

Pai lifted his eyes and scanned the shelves, as if only now realizing the trophy had been missing all these years.

“That was for the batting title,” he said.

“It was always my favorite.”

Pai laughed. “You don’t know what I had to go through to win that thing.”

I waited for him to elaborate. But he rose and fiddled with the rabbit ears on the TV.

“Did scouts ever talk to you?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. They were around.”

He walked into the kitchen and asked Mai what was for dinner. The conversation was over.

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