When We Left Cuba

by Chanel Cleeton

How could I not see this a mile away? In the end, life always comes down to timing. It’s New Year’s Eve, 1958, and your world is parties and shopping trips; it’s New Year’s Day, 1959, and it’s soldiers, and guns, and death.

What is it with people throwing my brother’s name around as though I will simply bend to their will if they tug at my heartstrings? You can love someone and still not lose your reason.

Eduardo drives with the same carefree approach he adopts with everything else in life, and it is both his best and his worst quality. When you are along for the ride, that lassitude opens up a whole new world of possibilities. When you are caught up in whatever wreck his carelessness has caused, it is his tragic flaw.

I am so used to being surrounded by men intent on destruction and revolution that it is refreshing to hear a man growing excited about building something, however incrementally.