The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández Read Free Book Online Page A

my job was one thing over which I still had control. So I thought through the idea dispassionately, scientifically. And I can honestly say the best answer I could give was, “No. It’simpossible. It’d be just like Chase’s legs: the information vanishes as soon as you turn off the ClassAgg’s power.”
    There was relief in her voice. “That’s what I thought.”
    “There are other options.” This was me still being professional and self-sabotaging. “I could show you what your child or children look like in other universes. I could superport them a while into the ClassAgg. Maybe Chase would like to see them. Maybe you would, too.”
    She shook her head. Her voice was raw and tender when she said, “It’d be like seeing ghosts. That would break poor Chase’s heart.”
    At least she sounded raw and tender. I realized then I had no longer had any idea how to interpret her words. She had become a cypher to me, a placeholder zero of herself. Her words were dialogue from an audition-script: a good actor could play them a million different ways.
    Yet I still wanted her. What the fuck was wrong with me?
    I was awoken from my reverie by a touch. Karen’s hand had cautiously crawled over to mine, like a crab seeking a mate. I lay very still. She interlaced her fingers with mine. Neither of us said anything for a time.
    Eventually, her eyes jumping from star to star, she said, “Chase is coming back to himself. Those months when he first came home, there was nothing left of the man I’d fallen in love with. He was pure rage.”
    “He’d lost both his legs.”
    “Yeah. Who wouldn’t be angry?” She squeezed my hand a little tighter. “And I thought, ‘Karen, you slutty bitch, this is exactly whatyou deserve. You deserve a hateful husband you will treat you like shit for the rest of your life.’”
    “No one deserves that.”
    She looked at me for a second. Then she turned back to the sky and, rueful, said, “
You
should think that. You have every right to think I deserve every bad thing that could happen to me. What I did do you, Jesús—unforgivable.
    “Yet here we are. Not only did you forgive me, but you’ve given Chase his hope back. He feels like he’s living a miracle, thanks to you. You know what he says? He says, ‘I feel like every Chase in the universe is coming together to help me get through this.’”
    It was the longest we’d held hands since Chase had returned. “That’s a nice thought,” I said.
    “He’s not nearly as angry anymore. He can envision a future. He wants kids now.”
    “I can’t give him kids.”
    “But you made it possible for him to dream about the future again. You gave him his
vision
back. It’s the greatest gift anyone can give.”
    “Glad to help.”
    She laughed. “‘Glad to help.’ Really, that’s it? That’s all you want to say?”
    “What else should I say?”
    She shook her head and smiled. “Always so practical. So understated. You know why I fell for you, Jesús?”
    “Yep. Because I’m ‘Spanish.’”
    She squeezed my hand, hard, as punishment; I giggled evilly. “Never going to let me live that down, are you?”
    “It was pretty racist, m’dear.”
    “I know. I mean, now I know. I didn’t realize I was being racist. I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay. If I’m being really honest,” I said, letting go of her hand so I could roll on my side to face her, “I’m not really all that Puerto Rican. Really, I’m white.”
    Now
that
cracked her up. “Jesús, honey, have you looked in a mirror? You are
not
white.”
    “I know I look brown. But I’ve forgotten all my Spanish. I have a Ph.D. in Physics from an American university. I have money, a white ex-wife, a white ex-lover, and a Pennsylvania split-level I bought seventeen years ago. I don’t live the life of someone who has to struggle against racism every day. It’s not fair for me to call myself Latino.”
    I looked up. The moon pulled a curtain of clouds around itself like a