Sin Zapato

“He came here for you,” his Lovely Wife, Denise says to me.

I’ve heard these words before, almost exactly, and so I pause. I take them in, the words and Denise’s expression, looking for signs of distress. It’s what I do. Because I am careful. But I don’t see anything to worry about in her megawatt smile.

We are at a small gathering of high school friends. I have only just been introduced to Denise. Husband Emilio and I were classmates one thousand years and one minute ago, a couple of silly kids in an English class, made legendary by our teacher, the inimitable “Uncle Bernie.”

Like good Roman Catholic school teenagers, we addressed him properly as “Mr. O’Toole.” But the tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, somewhat disheveled man allowed us the occasional term of endearment. And Uncle Bernie was that kind of magical beast, one who inspired respect without fear, affection without confusion.

At least once a week, his bright eyes and dark moustache, all of which sloped downward at the outer edges, would stop me dead in my tracks on my way out of class.

“Young lady, are you fluent in Spanish?”

“Yessir.”

“Do you have Don Quixote in Spanish?”

“Nosir.”

“You must read Don Quixote in Spanish! Another language…this is a gift!”

He would speak the words and then gaze out the windows at the back of the classroom, his head shaking slowly in deep disappointment, the tragedy of my wasted privilege bearing down on the corners of his moustache.

“Yessir.”

I hated disappointing him. I got the book in Spanish. But never got past the first two pages of the blasted thing.

Emilio loved Uncle Bernie too. (There was a lot to love.) The epic interchange that stayed with Emilio for decades?

Despite knowing what the exact repercussions would be, Emilio the Rebel neglected to read one of our assignments, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. On quiz day, having defied all warnings, Emilio decided to not go silently into that big, honking Zero he was about to receive. Written boldly along the top of his quiz sheet for Uncle Bernie:

“HIGH SCHOOL IS WACK. I WANT MY MONEY BACK.”

Bernie was not to be out-poeted, and so, right next to the Zero, for Emilio:

“EMILIO IS A CROOK. HE DOES NOT READ A BOOK.”

I didn’t get to know Emilio well. We moved among our other 500 classmates without exchanging more than a smile in that crowded maze of hallways. We didn’t have many other classes together either. What’s more, with our last names on opposite ends of the alphabet, even in the classes we shared, we were several rows – and therefore, planets – apart. But for some reason, at the start of Uncle Bernie’s classes, Emilio would continue to buck the system and sit next to me.

Whether he did it once or hundred times, it doesn’t matter. My memory of it is as clear as a Sunday morning mass ritual. As the entire class, including Mr. O’Toole, watched…

Emilio ever-so-matter-of-factly standing up from his side of the room, gathering his books, and marching over to my side.

Emilio dropping his books on the desk next to mine. The thump loud. Unapologetic.

Emilio dragging the empty desk over to mine, legs squeaking along the floor, and not stopping until the edges of his desk bump up against mine.

Emilio sitting down, adjusting his glasses against the bridge of his nose, and then politely crossing his hands in front of him.

Emilio looking at Uncle Bernie and giving him a gentleman’s nod. As if to say, “Yes, we can begin class now.”

Uncle Bernie observing this performance and eventually nodding back, the look on his face something between amused and the-cojones-on-this-kid.

Desk rows now unparallel, surnames now out of order, class begins.

The scene – open and closed without a word – was no small miracle in this little corner of the Bronx. Detention in Cardinal Spellman High School was doled out for things as insignificant as wearing the wrong color socks. But I guess that as a man of literature and a father of young sons, our beloved Bernie was intimately acquainted with rebelliousness, poetry, and how these two things show up in a boy’s life.

Equally as miraculous was my own ease in this scene. I was outwardly joyful and open and engaged in high school, but as plagued by insecurities as the next adolescent girl. I could not receive attention that wasn’t strictly brotherly and playful. Something like this – a rare occasion – should have launched me into the girl’s bathroom or behind a wall of embarrassed cackling. Somehow, though, I was a peace with it.

Maybe it’s because it was all there was. No notes. No whispers. No hidden agenda. Just Emilio wanting to change his place.

We blinked.

And over 40 years later, Emilio is a husband, a father, and a happy ex-classmate walking toward me in this local restaurant. We are a long way from Needham Avenue and 1981, and we’re all joy and hugs and heartfelt Oh-my-Gods. I am so pleased that he’s as happy to see me as I am to see him.

Does he remember English class, I wonder? We all keep different memories. But in this moment, it seems that at the very least, the details don’t matter. We remember each other.

After our affectionate hello, I tell him that he must introduce me to his famous wife, please. Her smile on his social media posts is as potent as a Broadway spotlight. To top it off, she has recently let her stunning gray hair reveal itself. Not a big deal for men, I know, but for us women, a truly revolutionary act.

Emilio walks me over to where Denise is already seated. Her gorgeousness and authenticity pack a mighty punch.

From behind the megawatt smile, she says, “He came here for you.”

Oh. “Did he?”

She looks over at her husband, tells him what she’s told me, and they both look back at me, heads nodding, true sentiment confirmed.

I try not to gush. But instinctively, my hand comes up to my deeply grateful heart.

Denise has no way of knowing my history with those words, spoken so matter-of-factly in this happy moment. She has no clue that there are other “here for you’s.” Complicated ones delivered by bitter wives, who would just as soon deliver an elbow to my teeth.

But on this night, at this fabulously noisy table among my fellow high school crazies, my heart recognizes something different. A gift. A “here for you” that sticks in its truth and simplicity.

No notes. No whispers. No hidden agenda.

I have never been a wife. It’s the way my path has unfolded. And I believe I’ve carried its gifts and burdens gracefully. Some of the heavier burdens, though, have not come from the likely places.

Mami never told me I had to be married, or that my worth was contingent upon a man’s romantic attention. So where did the burdens come from? A thousand random places, really. The morning after our reunion, as I lay on my acupuncturist’s table, forced into stillness by a hundred needles, I recognize that they live somewhere inside of me.

I ponder the words, “here for you,” and scan my body for where they ache. Some of them feel like a gathering of pebbles, some of them like boulders, and all of them are firmly lodged in the spot between my heart and stomach.

I address them without blame or judgement. Don’t try to fix them or tell them they shouldn’t be there. As a matter of course in my existence as a human being, I bear a certain weight, especially in the places where I’m vulnerable. It sits, this rock formation, waiting for the Truth to dissolve it.

How is a rock formation built? Slowly but surely. It begins with the question that has no quick answer, posed by everyone from the caring Tia to the curious coworker to the chatty hairdresser.

“Why aren’t you married?”

The wall is held firmly in place by every hideous bridesmaid’s gown created, every toss of a bouquet, at the endless string of wedding celebrations that crop up during our family-creating years.

As the decades pass and the questions subside, the hope of white gowns and offspring shifting from Search and Rescue to Recovery, a new rock arrives. It comes in the female form, sometimes from the spouse whose husband likes to chat with me.

I am the conversation they interrupt.

Sometimes it’s in that single friend, whose only and every conversation turns to the desperate search for partnership.

I am their failure personified.

Sometimes it’s in that sad creature in a devastatingly bad marriage, who takes many pains to appear to be happy, to convince themselves that what they have is healthy.

I am the aloneness they dread.

And let me set my battle with Self-Pity aside. The world does not celebrate an unmarried life. It pities it. This is an absolute truth. Despite its own potential for Divinity, there is no Sacrament of Singlehood. If I’m chosen, only God knows it. And so, more times that I can count, I’ve found that my place at this Earthly table is often forgotten. Negotiable. And when it can’t be forgotten, when “my place” exposes itself, I’m often shoved into hiding. Or flashed as a warning. Or contorted into something menacing.

But suddenly, My Place has cleared itself. Revealed itself to me.

As I lay with my eyes closed, thinking of Emilio and Denise, of the words they gave me and all the other times I’ve heard them, I suddenly know-see-feel-hear a spot, my very own spot, like a patch of Spring grass in Central Park, where the sun hits just so.

I suddenly know-see-feel-hear that I’ve chosen who and what can reside here. And I know-see-feel-hear that its existence marks its worthiness. Nothing else.

As my chest expands with a deep, grateful breath, I see other places I reside, places in other people’s hearts, sacred and untouchable. What magic it is to visit them all, past and yet-to-be-cleared, here, today, yesterday, and tomorrow, for me.

This blog post has been reposted on August 10, 2023, a day after our beloved Emilio’s sudden passing. It is dedicated to Emilio, Denise, and their children. My gratitude and heartache are immeasurable. May his Ride Home be glorious, and may your hearts hold fast to the love you share for all eternity.