“What’d you do all night?” asked Ingrid.
“I was at the creek,” said Camilo.
“What’d you do there, your laundry?” said Ingrid, cackling.
“Very funny. No, I just laid down beside it, like I always did when we took the girls there.”
“I remember that! We used to go there all the time.”
“Yeah, it reminded me of Huajuapan. Me and my friends used to go to the mountains and find streams. You can’t swim in Buena Vista Creek, but lying beside and listening to it is good enough.”
“Well, look, I called the girls and told them to find another babysitter just for today. There is something I want us to do,” said Ingrid.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Never mind that. Just get ready!”
Camilo retired to the bedroom and began undressing to take a shower. An hour later, they were driving into the Carlsbad State Beach parking lot.
“We haven’t been here since the girls were in middle school,” said Camilo.
“That’s right,” said Ingrid.
When their daughters were eleven and twelve, Camilo and Ingrid were separated and on the verge of divorce when, on the advice of a priest, they began meeting at the same beach every Sunday morning.
“There is a promontory there that juts out one-hundred yards into the sea. Go there together and sit on the rocks. It will put you in the mood to talk,” the priest had said.
Camilo and Ingrid followed the priest’s prescription faithfully until one morning they left holding hands.
The couple got out of their car with Thermos in hand and a bag, bulky with tamales strapped across Ingrid’s back. The parking lot, strewn with light gray sand was mostly empty. Only the most devoted surfers sat floating on their boards, waiting for their next thrill.
The salty aroma of the water greeted them. Camilo took a deep breath. The ocean’s briny air filled his nostrils, washing out the smell of concrete mix that lingered from work.
The couple walked towards the beach and climbed up the embankment where the promontory started. Before them, large, brown, moist rocks piled next to and on top of one another reaching safely out into the sea. They began walking out, rising and falling like yo-yos as they negotiated the uneven terrain, sometimes jumping from one rock to the next. At the end of the pier, they picked out a rock and sat on it. The Pacific glittered like a dazzling promise, crashing against the rocks at steady intervals.
The couple unscrewed their Thermos’ lids. Steam undulated out from the containers, quickly vanishing with the gusty breeze. Ingrid opened the lunch bag and pulled out the tamales, handing one to Camilo. They ate, satisfied.
Ingrid was wiping her mouth when she turned towards her husband and said, “Camilo? It’s been fifteen years since we saw Zyanya and Elías. If we hadn’t run into each other the other night, it could have been another fifteen. It could be never before we meet again.”
A large wave struck the promontory, sending whitewater high into the air.
“This is why you’ve brought me here?” said Camilo.
Ingrid put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.
“It’s important to me,” she said.
A formation of seagulls flew by. Camilo glanced at them as he sighed, lengthily.
Ingrid added, “I think we owe them at least the courtesy of a visit. If you don’t want to stay friends, fine. Let’s visit, make nice, and leave.”
“If that is how these things went down, I would go, but it isn’t. People ask questions. Before you know it, you’re telling your life story.”
Ingrid shrugged.
“So what?” she asserted.
“I would rather not,” Camilo replied.
“There’s no sense in hiding from them. We lived with them for years. They know our lives.”
“In the past. They don’t need to know anything about our life now.”
Taken aback, Ingrid said, “Are you ashamed of something?”
Camilo did not respond but he trembled and, by and by, a tear escaped down his face. He turned in the other direction and squeezed his fists fighting back additional tears. Ingrid bent down to get a good look. His face was a prune of sorrow.
She pulled back and turned towards the fuzzy horizon. She squinted as she tried to define it but it remained blurry. She looked at Camilo who was sniffling by now and returned her sight towards the offing. She understood Camilo’s reaction, his reticence about going.
The Pacific washed the promontory for minutes before anything else happened between them. Then, she put her arm around Camilo again and laid her head on his shoulder, her own eyes sparkling with disillusionment.
“I know things haven’t turned out as we had once dreamed, but sometimes things were out of our control. And others, well, other times we were just human,” she said.
Over their shoulder, a surfer with golden hair caught a wave and rode off like a cowboy.
“We’ve been here for twenty-five years. Why don’t we have papers yet? We work, we pay taxes, but we can’t have a social security number,” he lamented.
One foot free, the other bound to a ball and chain.
“It’s the hand dealt to us, honey. We play it as best we can,” said Ingrid.
“I’m tired,” said Camilo.
“Me too,” she said.
Another big wave struck the rocks. Ingrid and Camilo pressed closer to each other, expecting to be soaked in water at any time but staying put. The waves died down again.
“Remember when Elías went off to college?” asked Camilo.
“Yup,” answered Ingrid.
“I was envious at first. Then I realized that his story was not mine but it was our daughters’. They would grow up here, graduate high school, and have the opportunities he had.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
“And look what happened!”
“Yes, it was a disappointment but do you want to know what Yesenia told me about that?”
“Of course.”
“That we did not live up to their expectations either.”
Camilo lowered his gaze and focused on the water below. The tide was rolling back.
“Well, you want to know which was our story?” said Camilo.
“Sure.”
“Zyanya’s! Zyanya’s was our story! We had a right to our own home if not for a long overdue amnesty.”
“Yes. Promised every four years,” said Ingrid, rolling her eyes.
In the distance, a boat sped north across the ocean, its bow bouncing against the water which parted violently into billowy foam.
“Meeting with Zyanya and Elías, the portraits of success, is not how I want to spend an evening,” said Camilo.
“I understand, and if it weren’t for our debt to Zyanya I might turn down Elías’s invitation too.”
“You mean the whole They Were There for Us When We Arrived sense of debt you’ve been hitting me over the head with?”
“No, an actual loan” said Ingrid.
“A loan? For what? How much?”
“Amway, darling. And a thousand dollars,” declared Ingrid.
It had been fifteen years since he had thought about the pyramid scheme even though at the height of his fever there was nothing else he could think of.
“I don’t blame you for ‘forgetting,’ honey. It was a disaster for us.”
“It was all a scam,” he said bitterly, “but I fell for it hook, line, and sinker,” he said as he threw a rock into the sea.
“We sold all the little land we had back home thinking we were going to get rich and the only thing we did was sell all we had, give it to Amway, and bother our friends and family for money, including Zyanya. We asked her for cash three times until the last time when we decided not to pay it back. And that was the end.”
“That is why we stopped seeing them?” asked Camilo, suddenly sober.
“Yes!”
“Shit!” he said.
The couple was silent for a moment.
“We don’t have money to pay them back,” asserted Camilo.
“We have some savings!”
“Those are for a rainy day!” he protested.
“It’s always rainy when you have outstanding debts. Now, how about you accompany me, just like you did when we asked for the money, to pay this debt,” said Ingrid.
Camilo threw up his arms in resignation but managed one last objection.
“Oh, no! You can pay her back, but I am not going.”
“Good enough to ask for money but not for paying it back? You’re breaking my heart!” said Ingrid.
“Don’t make me feel like that!”
“Then stand by my side when I pay off Zyanya and apologize for taking so long.”