“I have no—” Ana started to say, but then stopped herself.
The arrangement was supposed to be temporary. Ana was only thirteen, after all. Carmen deemed it irresponsible to let her live alone in the house indefinitely. Carmen had lived there only part of the time. But now she took all her things back to Coral Gables and made no mention of moving back. Months bleeding into months. Carmen helped Ana enroll at the local high school, the high school Jeanette herself had attended. But Ana wasn’t looking for a savior and wasn’t looking to save anyone else; she’d learned in Mexico how easily a person in a certain position over her could build that kind of story for themselves. She lied about her age and found a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant. School, work, five hours of sleep each night. Day after day. She offered money to Carmen for rent, but Carmen didn’t take the cash.
Ana didn’t actually see her that often, though Carmen did check in on her from time to time. Ana didn’t know how to feel about her, this woman who never knew her life. Who’d endangered it. She chalked up Carmen’s absence to memory, Ana embodying something Carmen wanted to forget perhaps.
But on Ana’s fifteenth birthday, Carmen gifted her an antique book. A copy of Les Misérables in Spanish, a first edition. Carmen said that after her own mother died, a niece in Cuba sent the book through a courier for Jeanette. This was months before her daughter’s death. Carmen hadn’t wanted to give the book to Jeanette, because she knew that after her relapse, she might sell it. Carmen said her niece in Cuba had remembered Jeanette loved the book during her last visit to the island, had remembered how she flipped its worn pages.
In the margin of one page, Carmen showed her, was Jeanette’s handwriting below another note in faded script that seemed to spell out the same thing. We are force, the scribble read. And then Jeanette had added her own words, We are more than we think we are.
And though Ana had no idea why Jeanette had written those words, she chose to believe the sentence, the scribble, was a cry across time. Women? Certain women? We are more than we think we are. There was always more. She had no idea what else life would ask of her, force out of her, but right then, there was cake and candles and this, a gift. She thought that she, too, might give away the book someday, though she had no idea to whom. Someone who reminded her of herself maybe. Someone drawn to stories. She said thank you and put the book aside.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Megan Lynch, for your unwavering support, for making this book better, for ushering it into the world during the strangest of times with so much grace and vision.
Thank you, PJ Mark and Marya Spence, for being a literal dream team and my style icons. Thank you for being so fierce and dedicated and thoughtful.
Thank you, Michael Taeckens, for your zeal and your kindness and your patience, for bringing so much beautiful energy into the publication of this book.
Thank you, Lauren Bittrich, Amelia Possanza, Katherine Turro, Nancy Trypuc, Nadxieli Nieto, and everyone at Flatiron and Macmillan. Thank you, Natalie Edwards, Ian Bonaparte, and the whole team at Janklow & Nesbit. Thank you, Katy Lasell and Broadside PR.
Thank you, Roxane Gay, for your unwavering belief in this book and my writing throughout so many years. Your mentorship and guidance have shaped me in ways both large and small. I am forever changed.
Thank you, Sharon Solwitz, for your keen eye and unwavering honesty, for always believing the best version of this book was within my grasp.
Thank you, Brian Leung, for sparking my unlikely foray into elements of historical fiction and for seeing my potential.
Thank you to the Purdue M.F.A. program and to Marianne Boruch, Don Platt, Kaveh Akbar, and Terese Marie Mailhot. Thank you, Adrian Matejka and Dana Roeser, for being the first to call me a poet. Thank you, Al Lopez, for taking me under your wing. Thank you, Jeff Amos, Laura Lee, Robert Powers, Samantha Atkins, Hannah Rahimi, Juliana Goodman, Diana Clarke, John Milas, Carey Compton, Megan Denton Ray, Mitchell Jacobs, Alex Stinton, Noah Baldino, Charles Peck, Caleb Milne, and Hannah Dellabella.
Thank you to the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University, the Indiana Arts Commission, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, Lighthouse Works, and Sarabande Books for your critical support that made writing this book possible.
Thank you to all of the organizers I ever crossed paths with in the years that shaped some of this writing, in particular my compañerxs at UltraViolet and Presente. Thank you to the latter for continuing the work with Dignidad Literaria. To all of the families I met in deportation defense work, to all of the women of Karnes, thank you for your fight.
Thank you to Casa Víctor Hugo in La Habana, Association Cuba Cooperation France, and the University of Miami Cuban Heritage Collection archives.
Thank you to everyone who read early portions of this novel and provided invaluable feedback, especially Diego Iñiguez-Lopez, Yareli Urbina, Christine Vines, Robert Powers, Jake Zucker, Jesus Iñiguez, Iraida H. Lopez, Alexander Chee, Carmen Maria Machado, and Oscar Villalon.
Mi gente de Cuba: este libro no hubiera sido posible sin ustedes. Tío Jorge, gracias por creer siempre en mí y por el gran regalo de un segundo hogar lleno de tanto amor, cariño, y jodienda. Te adoro. Gracias tío Pablito y Ramses. Gracias a Sara, Lina, Madelín, Ariel, Neisy, Robney y todas mis amistades cubanas. Yolanda, Yolita, Rosa y Yoan, siempre los llevo en mi corazón.
Gracias a toda mi familia de Mexíco, en especial mi abuela Raquel, mi hermana Geraldine, y mis sobrinos Toñito, Valentina, y Fer. Gracias a Brenda, Conchis, Carlos,
