The light from the candle turns his eyebrows into thick brown triangles, and his fat cheeks cast a shadow on his neck. Manuelito looks at me from across the table. “I don’t want to listen to that foolishness,” she mutters.
Tía Carmen tries to turn the radio up, but Mami snaps the volume dial down. She dries the same bowl over and over until the dish towel is limp in her hands. The chair squeaks, prompting Mami to give me a quick look from the window. The waistband of my pants digs into my stomach, and I fidget in my folding chair. I shake my head and slap another domino down on the table. I try to focus on the tile in my hand, but the shouting outside increases. The candle on the table where Manuelito and I sit flickers, bouncing long shadows of dominoes across the plastic floral tablecloth. “Keep playing, Cumba,” Mami says as she waves her hand at me. From what Papi told me, this was our last hope of ridding our island of Fidel’s oppressive government. The refugees tried to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, but Fidel’s army quickly overtook them. Fidel’s soldiers defeated a force of Cuban refugees who had fled to the United States and were trained by the American government. They may be fooling Pepito, but they’re not fooling me. Mami and Tía Carmen exchange worried looks. My little brother, Pepito, starts to get up from his chair, but Mami puts her hand on his shoulder. Sharp shouts outside Tía Carmen’s house cut off the rest of her prayer. She reaches for the cross at her neck, and I hear her mumble the Lord’s Prayer. Mami paces behind Manuelito, twisting a red dish towel in her hands.
“Don’t call me stupid,” I say, narrowing my eyes. His stubby fingers fidget over the remaining dominoes in front of him. My cousin Manuelito slaps another domino down on the table. Instead of a mango tree out front with a tocororo nest in its branches, there’s a crowd of soldiers, slapping one another on the back and firing their rifles into the night air.
Tía Carmen’s kitchen doesn’t have my model of a P-51 Mustang or scattered pieces of Erector set.
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