Spotlight: The Waves Take You Home by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
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Fiction/Magical Realism/Family Life Fiction
From María Alejandra Barrios, a writer and educator from Barranquilla, Colombia, comes this heartfelt debut about how the places we run from hold the answers to our deepest challenges, the death of her grandmother brings a young woman home, where she must face the past in order to become the heir of not just the family restaurant, but her own destiny.
Violeta Sanoguera had always done what she was told. She left the man she loved in Colombia in pursuit of a better life for herself and because her mother and grandmother didn’t approve of him. Chasing dreams of education and art in New York City, and with a new love, twenty-eight-year-old Violeta establishes a new life for herself, on her terms. But when her grandmother suddenly dies, everything changes.
After years of being on her own in NYC, Violeta finds herself on a plane back to Colombia, accompanied at all times by the ghost of her grandmother who is sending her messages and signs, to find she is the heir of the failing family restaurant, the very one Abuela told her to run from in the first place. The journey leads her to rediscover her home, her grandmother, and even the flame of an old love.
Excerpt from THE WAVES TAKE YOU HOME by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez
©2024 Published by Lake Union Publishing March 19, 2024. All Rights Reserved
“What are you doing here, Rafa?”
“Do you want to get some fresh air?” Rafa’s eyes were pleading, as if he wanted to tell me something but not here. I softened for a moment, imagining how it would feel to hold his hand then.
“Um.” No, the answer needed to be no. We had both made mistakes. I should have been clearer about my reason for turning down the proposal, and he should have given me some closure. He’d owed me at least a goodbye. There was no use in messing with the ghosts of the past.
“Only for a minute, they need me here,” I said. Always contradicting myself. I didn’t feel good, my skin was tender, and I felt tired from the hurt.
Rafa nodded and followed me to the back door that connected the restaurant to the back patio. The night outside was balmy, and the sky was covered in stars. I could hear the beating of my own heart blended in with the sounds of the crickets on a rainy night.
“Vi,” he said, and my heart stopped. When he said my name, my knees felt weak. No one else had ever said my name right, as if he were singing it, almost a whisper.
“I came here to see you.” A sigh escaped his lips.
My heart stopped, all the hairs in my arms lifting up. I recapped how the day had gone so far: We buried Abuela today, I got burned, and now Rafa was here. To see me.
His black wavy hair was longer than he kept it years ago, and his dark eyes were still as bright and big as I remembered. His luminous brown skin looked golden under the backyard’s dim light. “You know how this barrio is, todo se sabe.” Everyone knows everything. “I knew how much your abuela meant to you. I wanted to say I was sorry for your loss in person.”
“How did you know I was going to be here?”
Rafa looked to one side, as if he were searching for the answer in the air. “I just knew, Vi,” he brought his gaze back to me and half smiled. I wondered if he was nervous, because he was moving from side to side, unable to stand still. “I knew you wouldn’t have missed Doña Emilia’s funeral.”
My hand was still throbbing. The words on the tip of my tongue were coated with tenderness. I had missed him. Even if I didn’t dare to think about it too much or admit it to myself, the truth was that I was angry too.
“All those years ago, you never said goodbye. I didn’t imagine you’d be here.”
I couldn’t move closer. I wouldn’t. All those years ago, after I returned home from that night at the beach, he wouldn’t pick up the phone, wouldn’t come to the door, it was as if he had vanished from Barrio Prado, and Barranquilla. I was going crazy with regret and heartache. The States was my only option to forget. And here he was, as if the earth had spit him back out. Why now? It wasn’t until I’d met Liam that I was able to breathe easier.
Liam. I took a deep breath, remembering. The crickets intensified their noises, and although I was in Barranquilla and the earth was below my feet, I knew I needed to ground my heart in New York, to the life I had with him.
“Yo sé, I’m really sorry, I think I also came because—” Rafa stopped pacing and looked at me.
“Bueno, I sure appreciate you’re here. But if you’ll excuse me.” I released a deep breath, turning to return to Caminito. I felt my mouth unclench. I wanted to sit down; my legs were weak, and the tiredness of the last few days hit me like a wave.
Seeing him was a reminder of everything one leaves when life folds in half and the two sides don’t connect. This half, this man, belonged to the side I couldn’t bring with me.
“Wait!” Rafa said. “Wait. I’m sorry, Vi. I was so immature all those years ago.” He folded his arms. “I should have said goodbye. I should have picked up your calls and offered closure. I denied us both that.” It was his turn to release a breath, and I caught a whiff of his scent: oranges and spices.
“Thank you for saying that. And for being here. Abuela wasn’t always so kind to you.”
Rafa nodded and turned his head to the side. “Yeah, she wasn’t my biggest fan.”
He laughed, and I remembered his sonorous laugh—more a cackle. It was contagious. It always made me smile.
“I’m sorry about Emilia—I really am.”
I nodded, feeling softer. We were distant, standing on opposite ends of the patio. Rafa had been my first love, a significant love, and we both had been marked by the impossible weight of family expectations. Me, a life in the States. And him, a life as a doctor. We both complied. Was he happy? Was it enough for him? I shook my head; it didn’t matter.
I marveled at his strong shoulders and the way he always stood straight, even when he was nervous. Rafa was of Lebanese descent. He had thick brows, eyes with long pitch-black eyelashes, and a strong build. From the moment I had met him at a party when I was fifteen, I had been drawn to him. He always made me smile, even when I wasn’t expecting it.
“I used to look through the glass windows just to see what this place looked like on the inside. ‘Over her dead body,’ she used to say about me coming to her restaurant. I guess she was right.”
“Abuela always kept her promises,” I said, feeling multiple eyes on me. From the restaurant, you could see the patio. I looked over to see the people in the restaurant, many of whom had been witnesses to our love over the years, ever since we were teenagers and unable to escape something that felt stronger than us. The voices of the other conversations were traveling in the room, the constant clinking of glasses and the laughter reminding me of where I was, my so-called legacy. The family restaurant was heavy and burdensome, tangled and complicated with so many decades of pain, and yet here I was, my past looking at me, materializing in the form of a man I had loved once.
Rafa took a step toward me, risking being electrocuted by the invisible fence we had built. I wondered if his arm was going to burn or turn to dust, but he rested his hand on my shoulder with the ease of before.
“Vi,” he said, his touch on my uncovered skin. “I’m happy to see you. You look great.” Rafa’s hand lingered; his smile was the same.
I took a deep breath, taking in the familiar weight of his touch. My body remembered, and every inch of me hurt with the desire of wanting it all back at once. But it wasn’t possible; I didn’t know this man in front of me. We hadn’t seen each other in so long. We weren’t the same.
“Sorry, I should—”
“Viiiiiii.” I heard Anton’s desperate voice from the kitchen. “Viiiiiii.”
I took a deep breath and turned; Anton was in front of the kitchen, rolling pin in hand, waiting for me. I sighed, relieved to be needed.
“Perdóname, Rafa,” I said, and I felt his hand moving away. I ran toward the kitchen without looking back at him.
“Cuidate. Take care of your hand.” He was standing in the same place as I got farther away from him.
Bless Anton. I needed to be whisked away from Rafa and my past. I went inside and closed the kitchen door. I rested my back on a wall and shut my eyes, memorizing Rafa’s touch and his eyes and the way that he said my name, like no one else could, and inside my chest a little fire burned: for what I couldn’t have again, for what I felt I had lost and no return could bring back.
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About the Author
María Alejandra Barrios Vélez is a writer born in Barranquilla, Colombia. She has an MA in creative writing from the University of Manchester and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and scruffy dog, Gus.
She was the 2020 SmokeLong Flash Fiction Fellow, and her stories have been published in Shenandoah Literary, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, El Malpensante, Fractured Lit, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Offing, and more. Her work has been supported by organizations such as Vermont Studio Center, Caldera Arts, and the New Orleans Writers’ Residency. Learn more about María Alejandra Barrios Vélez at https://mariaalejandrabarriosvelez.com/.
