I got up at three in the morning and drove to my uncle’s. Tio Alejandro was a small man in a big house. He took after the Castilla aesthetic: jet black hair, brown eyes, and an unattractive aquiline nose, sharing in the family’s heritable professional success as a tenured professor at a local university. He loved his daughter dearly, and because of that developed a love for Miguel himself in his later years. I was curious to see how he would handle the reception of his brother’s gift.
Just after five, one of Miguel’s old friends, Gabriel, appeared around the corner with a package slung under his arm. It was composed of two individually wrapped rectangles, one large and thin, the other stout and short – probably a sketch pad and pens. I slowly got out of the car and approached him, causing him to freeze in place in front of the house. He watched me carefully, and as I got closer I could see his nostrils flare and his body tense up. I put my hands up and called out to him.
“Gabriel, it’s good to see you. I don’t want to start a fight, I just want to know where Miguel is. I want to talk to him about what happened.”
The man did not relax, instead slowly crouching to place the present on the sidewalk.
“I can’t tell you anything man. I’m just here to drop off the present, see? I promised.”
“I won’t call the cops on him, I just need to understand. Please, Gabriel, I know he must have a reason. I think I can convince family to forgive him.”
This last part made Gabriel pause. His face scrunched up, and looked at the floor before looking up again to me.
“There’s no way, dude. Miguel says he knew he wouldn’t be able to come back anyways. He’s made his peace.”
“He didn’t kill her. Abuelita is okay. She’s mad, but she loves her son.”
Gabriel shook his head at this, responding, “It doesn’t matter. He tried, that’s what counts. Look I’ll tell him you asked about him, but I don’t want to get any more involved,” and with that he turned and sped away. I sighed and picked up the package. I walked up through the small garden that preceded the patio and rapped twice on the intricate glass door that stood tastefully off center on the front of the house. As I knew he would, Tio Alejandro answered after a minute of shuffling around; he always woke up around this time, claiming he was most productive in the morning before any of his children were awake. He opened the door in a dirty white shirt and pink pajama bottoms and ushered me inside, not at all surprised by my early house call. I followed him to his kitchen where he poured me a cup of coffee in silence, adding just a hint of cream as I’ve always liked. I traded him Miguel’s present for the mug and he cleared away a mess of papers on the table top.
“Is this from Miguel?” he asked, mud-colored eyes alert despite the hour.
“Yeah, Gabriel delivered it. I tried asking him where Miguel was, but he wouldn’t say. I want to ask him why he did it.” I took a sip of my coffee and sighed. Maybe I’ve been trying too hard to play the hero.
Tio Alejandro rattled the present thoughtfully and, apparently deeming the contents satisfactory, allowed it to balance upon his scientific article hill.
“Miguel has always been a kind man. What happened was…. uncharacteristic of him,” the professor responded, “I also think that that there is something we don’t know yet.
“He called me that night,” he continued, looking at me intensely. “He asked if Abuelita was okay. His voice was breaking – I think he was crying. I told him she was fine and he was so relieved. Somebody must have pressured him. It’s not as if I don’t see where he’s coming from, though.” He shook his head and leaned back in his chair, letting his fingers toy with the handle of his coffee up.
“My mother did some truly terrible things to him – funny, because I don’t think she realizes how terrible they were. Miguel’s passion was everything to him, and even though he doesn’t like to show his art, it’s good. He painted what he loved: people, using these thick brush strokes kind of like van Gogh. He would tell me people were more than their faces, more than their details, and that he wanted to capture that essence through texture and location. He would take these barren landscapes and fill them with the most vague outlines, sometimes just a few strokes in detail, but you could tell anyways that they were people enjoying themselves. To him it was most beautiful when people were together, not alone. Magic in community and relationships. In family.
“You can see how hard he worked to make good friends, too. Who else would know anyone willing to drop off his niece’s birthday present right after he tried to murder someone? Those men would do anything for Miguel.” I glanced down at the articles my uncle had been reading – humanities stuff, theories on power structures, stuff I had taken classes on in college. Not the usual papers on protein folding or purine synthesis.
“Tio,” I hesitated, then asked, “Is it okay to forgive someone if they’ve done something bad?” My uncle looked away and didn’t say anything for a while. Eventually he turned back to me and sighed.
“That depends on the person. It’s a lot easier to forgive someone when it wasn’t you they wronged,”
The Scenic Climax 