Twenty Dollar Masks at the Cozumel Pier

I want to be honest about that. It hurt. I am not a saint, and I went up the stairs to the top deck and stood at the rail by myself and was plain angry for a good twenty minutes.

Then I made myself think about why a man who had never once been rude to me in eleven years would tear up a gift in front of his own children.

Ivan was the one who drove four hours to Houston with a trailer when Fletcher and I bought our first couch.

Ivan was the one who stood up at our wedding and could not get through his toast.

He was the one who sat with Fletcher all night in the hospital parking lot when their dad had his heart attack, two years ago, because neither of them could stand being inside.

That man did not tear up tickets for no reason. There was a reason. I just did not know it yet.

That night Fletcher and I sat out on the little balcony of our cabin, which on that ship was really just a strip of steel with two chairs and a view of black water and stars.

“He won’t talk to me,” Fletcher said. “I knocked. Carla said he’s asleep. He’s not asleep. I could hear the TV.”

“Did your mom say anything?” I asked.

Fletcher’s parents were on the trip too. The whole cruise was for their fortieth anniversary. His mother, Bernadette, had been planning it since February, and she had made everybody promise to come.

“Mom doesn’t know,” Fletcher said. “Dad saw some of it from the hot tub. He just shook his head and went back under. You know Dad.”

I did know Dad. Linus Jensen was a retired welder who believed most family trouble would sort itself out if you left it alone and went fishing. He was right about half the time.

“Fletcher,” I said. “Has anything happened with Ivan? At work, or with money? Anything you’d tell me?”

He was quiet for a while. Then he said, “Not that he’s told me. But he paid for this trip back in March. Before the plant started talking about cutbacks. I remember because he was proud of it.”

I sat with that. Back in March. Before the cutbacks. I thought about the way Ivan had looked at the tickets, and it was not the face of a man who was insulted. It was the face of a man who was ashamed.

I grew up in Vidor, in a rented house with a window unit that did not cool anything past the hallway. My mother ran the cafeteria line at the junior high for twenty-two years.

There were three of us kids, and no father in the picture after I was six.

Mama worked the cafeteria in the day and cleaned offices at night, and we were fine. We were fed. But we were not comfortable.

When I was ten, our church put us on the Christmas list.

A lady from the women’s group brought a box to the door, with a ham and canned goods and wrapped presents with our names spelled right.

My mother thanked her. She thanked her twice. Then she shut the door and went in the bathroom and ran the water so we would not hear her, and I heard her anyway.

I did not understand it then. I thought she should be happy. It took me until I was grown to understand that nothing hurts a proud parent like being given a thing she could not give.