More Than Words

“I didn’t know him, but I heard him speak once. And it actually changed my life.”

“You’re not serious,” Nina said. She couldn’t believe that in all of their talks, all of their work sessions, this had never come up. “Why didn’t you ever mention that?”

“I’m completely serious,” Rafael answered. “And I never said anything because I didn’t want it to change your perception of me. I . . . I always wanted you to know that I valued your contribution to my campaign for who you are, not because of who your dad is.”

“Was,” Nina said, looking over at the body that looked now like a wax museum version of her father. No chest rising and falling, no eyelashes fluttering.

“Is,” Rafael repeated. “Even if he’s gone, he is your father. He doesn’t stop being your father just because he’s not here anymore.”

Nina had always thought about her mom in the past tense after she’d died. And in some ways that made sense. Her mom was funny. Her mom was smart. Her mom was beautiful. Her mom loved to take Nina out for frozen yogurt with rainbow sprinkles, just the two of them. But what Rafael said made a lot of sense, too. Phoebe Gregory would always be her mom, no matter how long she’d been gone.

“Is,” Nina echoed. “I like that.”

She imagined Rafael smiling on the other side of the phone. “So my story,” Rafael said. “About your dad.”

“Yes,” Nina said. “Your story.”

“I was in high school,” he started.

“Bronx Science,” Nina supplied. She knew his official bio probably as well as he did.

“Right,” Rafael said. “And I was part of Junior Achievement.”

“What’s that?” Nina asked.

“A kind of club where volunteers show kids the options that are out there. They were trying to get us to achieve great things in the future,” he explained.

“I guess it worked,” Nina said.

Rafael laughed. “Well, perhaps. But it was more about going into business, not so much politics. It was your dad who changed my mind. He came to speak to the group, and he talked about the fact that creating a business wasn’t just about money—it became who you were, something to put your stamp on, a part of your legacy as a person. Something your children and your children’s children would inherit. I’d never thought about it before, what I hoped to leave behind when I was gone. I decided then that I wanted to become an immigration lawyer, to help people like my dad and my grandma. And I thought about your dad’s speech again before I decided to run for mayor. Basically it’s because of him that we’re having this phone call right now.”

Nina hadn’t known any of this. “You should’ve told me,” she said.

Rafael was silent, and Nina could visualize him running his fingers through his hair. “I . . . that’s not why I hired you,” he said. “I want to make sure you know your dad didn’t come into the equation at all. I hired you because I was impressed with your writing. And because you seemed easygoing and smart, like someone I could work with. And because—well, I liked talking to you. I still like talking to you.”

“Me, too,” she said, softly, trying not to read into his words, wondering if she should. “My dad told me—” Nina didn’t get any further than that. She looked over at her dad, who would never tell her anything again and she started to cry. It was more than tears, she felt her breath coming in gasps, tried not to let Rafael hear.

“Hey,” Rafael said. “You okay over there?”

“Not really,” Nina sniffed, when she gained enough control over herself to speak. Pencils, she thought. Paving stones. Street signs. She looked at the clock. It was five A.M. They’d been on the phone for an hour and a half. Sidewalks. Traffic cones. Manhole covers.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?” he asked. “I’m only on Central Park North. Not far from you at all.”

Nina wiped her eyes with her T-shirt again. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” she added. “I came up with a kind of poem for my dad.”

“Yeah?” Rafael asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Nina answered. “A villanelle.”

“Highly structured,” Rafael said. “Well thought out. I can see that.”

They were both silent for a moment. She heard fabric shifting on Rafael’s end of the phone and wondered if he was lying back down in bed, rearranging his pillows or his blanket. Maybe he was on his couch.

“I think I have one for my mom, too,” Nina told him. “I think she’s a haiku. Her life was purposeful and elegant—and far, far too short.”

“That’s beautiful,” Rafael said.

Nina looked out the window again, and the sky was now turning pink, streaked with orange. “The sun is starting to rise,” she said. “I think I should probably make some calls now.”

“Okay,” Rafael said. “I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks for calling,” Nina answered.

“Anytime, Palabrecita.”

Hanging up with him felt like it compounded her loss. And it made Nina wish she’d agreed to him coming over. She felt centered now, after talking to Rafael.

She wondered if she would’ve felt the same way if she’d spoken to Tim.

27

After she hung up, Nina tried Tim again, but it still went straight to voice mail. Then she tried Leslie again, who picked up on the first ring this time—she was up and heading to the gym but turned her car around immediately. “I’ll be in New York City by dinnertime,” she said. Nina texted Pris after that, sure there was no way she was up yet, promising more details about the wake and funeral when she had them. And then Nina went to call TJ and Caro.

She dialed their landline. It was the first number she’d memorized after the one at her own house. It rang three times. Then four. Then she heard Caro’s voice.

“Nina?”

“It’s me,” Nina said. She wished she could put her father on the phone. That he could say, I died last night, so she wouldn’t have to say it. He was the one who’d done it, after all.

You have to take responsibility for your actions, he’d always told her. All Nina could think now was that her father was the one who’d died; he should take responsibility for that. Nina could hear Caro’s breath speed up. “Is your dad . . . ?” she asked.

“Gone,” Nina said. She still couldn’t say the word. Dead. The shape of it felt wrong in her mouth.

“Oh, darling,” Caro said. “We’ll be right over.”

When Nina hung up with them, Carlos came back into the room. “How are you doing in here?” he asked.

Nina nodded. She didn’t trust herself to talk about how she was feeling. She was worried that if she let herself cry again, it would take far too long to stop. When her mother died, it had felt like she’d cried for hours at a time, whole afternoons filled with tears, and she was unable to stanch the flow.

It was easier to talk about memories and poetry, speeches and ambitions. She wanted to call Rafael back. She felt it like an ache deep inside her. “TJ and Caro will be here soon,” she told Carlos. “TJ knows everything my dad wants.”

She looked over at her father again. His face was so relaxed. In real life it never looked like that.

* * *

• • •

Nina sat there, lost in a rubber band of time, until she heard a commotion in the apartment. A door opening and shutting. Footsteps on the gallery floor. “Nina!” It was Caro, walking through the apartment.

She came into the room, followed by TJ, whose eyes were already red and swollen.

“Oh, Sweetheart,” TJ said, as he embraced her.

In TJ’s arms, Nina finally let herself stop battling against her tears. “I don’t have any more family,” Nina said to TJ, the lump in her throat making it hard to talk, the sobs making it hard to catch her breath. It was the one thing that she couldn’t stop thinking about. Caro answered, taking Nina into her arms next, rubbing her back the way she did when Nina or Tim needed comforting as children.

“You have us,” she said. “You’ll always have us.”

Which was true, but it wasn’t the same. Not yet. Nina took a long, shuddering breath and pulled herself away from Caro. I am an adult, she said to herself. I can handle this. But even as she was telling herself that, she knew she couldn’t.

“Have you spoken to Tim yet?” TJ asked.

Nina shook her head, wiped her tears. “His phone went to voice mail,” she said.

“For us, too.” He pulled out his phone and dialed again.

Nina looked at her father once more, her breath still unsteady, her emotions threatening to breach their dam again. She walked over and kissed him on the cheek one last time, feeling his stubble against her lips, and looked at Caro through a screen of tears. “You can take care of him now,” she said. “With you both here . . . it’s too real. I can’t anymore.” She wanted to stay caught in that moment of time, stretch it even more so she wouldn’t have to deal with everything that came next. But time wasn’t like that. You couldn’t get lost in it forever. It marched onward, pulling you with it, a leash around your neck.