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Rain lashed Isabel as she shoveled water out of the boat. Scoop, pitch. Scoop, pitch. The bottom of the boat filled as fast as they could bail it out. Isabel, her mother, her father, her grandfather, Luis, Iván, Señora Castillo, they all worked feverishly, none of them talking—not that they could hear each other over the storm. The only ones not bailing were Señor Castillo, who looked like a ghost, and Amara, who clung to the rudder with white- knuckled hands and tried to keep the boat turned into the churning waves so it wouldn’t capsize. The engine hadn’t worked since their escape from the tanker.
The storm clouds turned the day into night, and the driving rain soaked Isabel to the bone. She shivered in the cold wind, her feet numb in the water sloshing at the bottom of the boat. Sea spray stung her eyes, and in between scoops of water she dragged her arm across her face, trying to wipe away the saltwater tears.
As she watched the surging waves, Isabel remembered the last time she had seen her abuelita, her grandma. She remembered Lita’s hand reaching
out for help as the tide swept her away. Isabel had been nine years old. Her parents had sent her to stay with Lito and Lita in their little shack on the coast. They hadn’t said why, but Isabel was old enough to know her parents had been fighting again, and they wanted to be alone while they worked things out. All that spring Isabel had waded without joy in the ocean, waiting for the storm to come that would tear her family apart.
And then the real storm had come.
It wasn’t a hurricane. It was bigger than a hurricane—a gigantic cyclone that stretched from Canada down through the United States and across Cuba and into Central America. Later they would call it the Storm of the Century, but to Isabel it was The Storm. The shrieking wind ripped roofs off houses and pulled palm trees straight out of the ground. The rain fell sideways. Hail shattered windows like a never-ending shotgun blast. And the ocean, the ocean rose up like a giant hand and reached inland, over Lito and Lita’s little house by the sea, smothering the house in its giant paw and dragging the shattered pieces back into its lair.
Lito and Lita hadn’t known the storm was coming or they wouldn’t have been there. They would have been inland. Found higher ground. Castro had promised he would protect them, but he didn’t. Not then. Not Isabel’s grandmother.
Lito had been able to hold on to Isabel, but Lita had been swept away. She had slipped under the waves, her arms still reaching for Lito. For Isabel.
And that was the last they had ever seen of her.
Lito’s arm found Isabel again now and wrapped her in a hug.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said close to her ear where she could hear him. “I’m thinking about it too.”
“I miss her,” Isabel told her grandfather.
“I miss her too,” Lito said. “Every day.”
Real tears came into Isabel’s eyes now, and Lito hugged her tighter. “That was her song’s end,” Lito whispered. “But ours plays on. Come.
Keep bailing, or soon it’ll be up to our eyeballs.”
Isabel nodded and returned to scooping water. What if her life were a piece of music? No, not just a song. A life was more like a symphony, with its varied movements and intricate forms. A song was a shorter, smaller segment of a life’s grander composition.
This journey, Isabel realized, was like a son cubano, with each stage being a verse. The first verse was the riot—a burst of trumpets and the rapid rhythm of a snare drum. The pre-chorus was trading her trumpet for gasoline—the piano that set the rhythm of the son. The chorus was leaving home. They were still in that chorus, still on the road to somewhere new. They would circle back to this chorus repeatedly before their journey ended.
But what would the refrain be? And how many more verses would come before reaching the climax—the bold finale of a son cubano that echoes the refrain, followed by the coda, the few notes that wrap everything up?
She couldn’t afford to think about that now. All she could focus on was scooping water. Scoop water and hope they didn’t drown in the chaotic conga solo pounding against the side of their tiny metal boat.
