* * *
THE ROOM WAS clearly her office. There was a desk, but she had been sitting on an armchair in a corner of the room. The shutters to the room were drawn. Slats of light came through and the ceiling fan cut them into shadows. Blanca gave him a moment to collect himself, her face oddly expressionless. When enough time passed, she broke into a smile.
“Okay, mijo, it’s okay,” she said calmly. “Come. Sit with your mother.”
His ears took in her words, but his body was unable to process them, his legs laden down by the weight of the years that had passed since he’d seen her last. Sound faded, everything replaced by the pulsing of his heart pumping blood, rapid and hot, through his body. His heartbeat echoed into his brain, his head, his eyes, throbbed from it. A brain, a head, eyes, blood, a body. All of it sprung from this stranger before him. That a short cord connected them once, that her body once nourished his, felt a shocking notion.
“Prieto. Siéntate,” she now commanded.
He registered the impatience in her voice and felt a familiar, childish fear. He somehow willed himself to move. Slowly he crossed the room, his eyes transfixed by her countenance. Just the finest of lines drawn around her mouth and eyes betrayed her age. Up close, his fear melted away by the familiarity of her face; he saw a resemblance to Lourdes he’d never been able to see before and couldn’t contain his emotions.
“？Dios mío, Mami! I had never realized how much Lourdes has of you in her face! Damn! Wait until you see her; I have pictures from Mabel’s wedding and she’s so tall right—”
He moved to take out his phone, forgetting that the Pa?uelos had confiscated it hours earlier.
“Prieto,” his mother said, gesturing for him to stop, “we have other things we need to discuss. Things more important than genetic inheritance.”
“Don’t you want to see your granddaughter?” he asked, but as soon as he said it, he knew that she didn’t.
“I want you to know,” his mother said, “that in the end, you did us a favor with your PROMESA vote. The media rarely talks about it, but this austerity has caused an outrage. Students have been taking to the streets. I’ve recruited more brilliant puertorrique?os to our movement this year than in any other single year. PROMESA highlighted the neocolonialism that this pendejo governor and his father before him have tried to gloss over while they line their pockets with the Yanquis’ money.”
It was hard to comprehend that, after almost thirty years apart, she wanted to talk about PROMESA, and yet Prieto didn’t know what else he had expected her to say.
“Did you really try to assassinate the governor?” he blurted out, hoping he could at least use this time with her to parse fact from fiction about these missing years.
“Many years ago, yes,” she answered flatly, “and I would try it again now if I didn’t think the timing was wrong.”
“Is that what the guns are for?”
“I’m sure Tirso gave you a much more political answer, but in short, yes. The guns are for the day that we are truly ready for liberation.”
“And when will that be?”
“When half the island—and most importantly, the jíbaros—are running like we are, independent of the government for power and clean water.”
“And this is what you need me for? To help with this … sustainable energy project?”
She laughed, but her eyes, he saw, were cold. “No, Prieto, no. Your sister is helping with that—”
“Olga?” he asked with concern. He could not imagine how she could possibly help. “Does this involve Reggie?”
“Ay, bendito, now you care? After you stabbed me in the heart by being the worst of our kind—”
“What are you talking about?” He was angry now, frustrated by the singular lens of her worldview. “I just don’t want my sister doing something crazy—”
“Is this what you think of what’s happening here? We are saving our people: giving them water, food, medication. We are liberating them from one hundred and nineteen years of oppression. We are the revolution. But this, this here is what you think is crazy?”
She sighed before she continued: “I’m giving your sister a chance to finally put some purpose to an otherwise wasted life. I thought you would understand that. But, then again, I never thought you’d sell out your own community just to get your hands on some developer money.”
She was standing now, hovering over him. He looked her in the eyes.