Martina Hernandez hugged her youngest son goodbye, but her arms were empty; she bade him vaya con dios, but he didn’t hear; she watched Jinny and the rest of Bravo Company cross the tarmac, ascend the tongue-like ramp by ranks of four and disappear into the aircraft, but her Daniel was not among them. As the ramp lifted from the deck, its lidded portal closed like an eyelid but left the darkness outside. Martina felt dark inside.
She had come to the airport alone hoping to warm close to coals of familial fragility—quailing companions in huddled bevies—most of them ill-prepared to say goodbye. Martina knew how to say goodbye. She stood close enough to fellow congregants to join hands, but she didn’t. Streaking mascara betrayed her inner cry as she watched pushback tractors prod the last winged lion until it roared and rumbled angrily down the runway. Martina choked but no words came out.
She watched children unsuction one by one from the windows. To them, Martina was but a reflection, a shadow. She turned and smiled at people she didn’t know, but knew, and then—without an invitation—she apportioned Kleenex tissues among those bereft of kin as liberally as a child might scatter gardenia blossoms at a Cuban wake.
“Are we too late?” A clean-shaven African-American, clutching two small children in his arms, brushed past Martina. Parishioners curtained aside to permit three crestfallen faces to stare through their own reflections at the candled tarmac—the twins clad in toed pink fleece pajamas, their father in a clean, blue-collared shirt, and striped-denim bib overalls. His white socks showed over the tops of engineer boots whose crepe rubber soles audibly signaled his alarm.
The jet engines roared, the windows rattled, and then, nothing—nothing but disappointment. “Mammy on her way, li’le sis. Bid ‘er’ ‘fare ye well’ n’ wave her a gubye . . . You, too, li’le Gloria, blow mammy her kiss.”
“But Poppy, she cain’t see us.”
Out of Kleenex but unable to give away her own misery, Martina—heaven’s probationary proxy–stepped quietly alongside the latecomers, and, while looking through the glass darkly, yearned for the liberation of her limited English lexicon; all she could proffer the twins was a weary smile. Leery of the golden-skinned stranger, one of the children pressed her lips to her father’s ear. “How wull Mama know we didn’ forget, Poppy?” The weary railroad foreman knelt so his children could stand. Touching their fingers to his chest, his reply was barely audible.
“She’ll know in hea’, honeychiles.” Two curly-headed faces puzzled and sighed. Each received a father’s gentle caress before, one knee at a time, he jacked himself up from the floor. He glanced at Martina—who looked away—then gloved the twins’ hands with his own. Straightaway, the engineer, knowing the tracks to the past had been levered, sidelined, and locked, puffed toward tomorrow.
The slump-shouldered father looked like a defrocked priest—his motherless children in tow—leading his congregation toward a distant cemetery, with Martina, now shrouded in a shawl, bringing up the rear. Behind her an outcry broke the silence. “Stop it. Let me go-o-o.” Startled, Martina braked, turned, and looked up to see a wailing woman. “Get your hands off of me.” A high-angle shot filled every TV monitor in the long, straight concourse and tracked the flailing captive being dragged across the floor of the House Chamber. When she disappeared between the large paired doors, the camera cut-away and an eye-level shot consumed the screen. A robust little man, obviously shaken, held a tasseled staff in his left hand which he tapped three times against the floor.
“MR. SPEAKER, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
“Dónde están mis lentes?” Martina glanced down and pawed her blouse in search of her glasses. Her bifocals came out of hiding, slipped free of her netted hair, skidded down her forehead, and free-fell into her cupped hands. “Ahí tienes.” She hugged them to her breast. After centering the glasses on the bridge of her nose and tucking them over her ears, she exclaimed, “Mr. President, eres tu! ¿a esta hora?” It’s you! At this hour?
The leader of the free world walked briskly across the polished marble floor, stepped up to the podium, and unbuttoned his blazer–all without shaking hands. His necktie had been wrenched into a small knot. He adjusted the microphone. It didn’t need adjusting. Behind him, the Speaker of the House stood alongside the president pro-tempore of the Senate, whose head was bowed.
Like spent dandelions, drooping faces feigned smiles at the camera, but no one waved. No one spoke. Collegial Congressmen and women had come to their feet slowly like children told to turn off the video-game controller and go clean the House.
“Aye caramba??” Indignant at their tardiness, Martina stretched to forty-eight inches and reverently winged a salute to the man who had shaken her trembling hand in a drafty hanger, on a dreary day in Dover, Delaware.