Apology by Jon Pineda (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

School for three years. I am now finishing the ninth grade. I am the nephew of Exequiel Guzman DOC#331VA-77XX. I promised my uncle I would do well in school. I am keeping my promise.

My uncle is not up for parole, but I thought I would write to you anyway. If there was some way to consider him for parole, my family would be grateful. Especially me. I know he has been working to complete his GED. He has also told me that he plans to take college courses, maybe. I think that’s great. Don’t you think that’s great?

I hope he will be up for parole soon. I don’t think he is guilty for the crime they say he did, but you shouldn’t ask just me. He will tell you he is sorry. My father Paul Guzman told us the other night the company he works for is hiring new people. My uncle could be one of those new people.

I know you can’t just let him go. I’m not stupid. But I hope you will think about it. He really, really is a good man. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter to you.

Sincerely,

Mario Guzman

Tom came home from the soccer game. It had been his last for the high school team. All that was left was to prepare for graduation and he could be gone. He found his father in his usual khaki polyester uniform, lying on the couch, having come home early from work. There was an unfinished glass of red wine less than a foot away from his father’s draped arm.

Tom paused. His mother had an excuse, at least—she was with Teagan; he could forgive her—but an earlier version of himself would have gone over and kicked the glass, left it for his father to clean up. Or had he ever had the chance to be that kind of kid?

Then the nagging, boyish voice in his head: How hard would it have been to swing by the school on your way home and catch the last minutes, see your own flesh and blood on the field?

His father stirred and turned onto his side. His hand brushed the glass. Tom held his breath. The wine nearly spilled, tilting, sloshing slightly, but then didn’t.

Tom wished, at the very least, it could have fallen; and now there was the irascible thought blazing up like a phoenix. He couldn’t remember his father ever once threatening Exequiel Guzman.

Years ago, when Tom had been in the courtroom, watching the trial move slowly from question to question, exhibit to exhibit, never once did his father stand up, as Tom had wanted him to, and hurl a chair at the man sitting silently and staring at his hands. Never once did his father scream at Exequiel Guzman.

There was none of that.

There was just one man doing nothing to the one man who had already done everything.

.  .  .  .

Around the living room were small piles of things, especially magazines and newspapers. His father had been declaring that almost everything was necessary. His mother disagreed. There had been fights over the gathering presence, but mostly, his mother conceded. Items were beginning to pile and lean against one another, like the motionless barges along the Elizabeth, the still river cleaving the city.

His father turned onto his other side, facing Tom.

His eyes opened.

“What are you doing here?”

“The game’s over,” Tom said.

“What game?”

“My soccer game, Dad. My last game.”

“Oh.”

Tom had not changed out of his own uniform. The gold jersey was covered in grass stains. Tom had not peeled away the shin guards that were streaked with mud, small proof that he at one point had actually fought for something. Even if that ball, wrapped in all of its ephemeral beauty, felt wholly insignificant now.

He could check items off his mental list, counting down the remaining responsibilities he had as a graduating senior. It was not for him to be the kind of son his father would dote on. He wasn’t going to play at the University of Virginia, he wasn’t that good.

“So who won, Tommy?” his father said, closing his eyes.

“I guess we did.”

Tom didn’t explain how he was already beginning to remove himself, how he was no longer thinking of his high school team with any sense of loyalty. And he wasn’t going to mention to his father how he had been the last to take a penalty shot, how the net had pulled taut from the momentum, catching the ball, and he had stood there stoic, frozen like a statue, while a wave of strangers came rushing toward him.

Manny Serafino dreamt of Fely, the one girl in his school who knew more English than even the teachers. Her grandfather was an American soldier from Tennessee who had come to the Philippine Islands at the turn of the century to fight Filipinos. But after the war, he had stayed behind. Fely used to smile and say it was because of love.

“He had only glimpsed my lola,” she said to Manny. “And he was smitten with her.”

“Smitten?” Manny said. He didn’t know this word.

“It means to be taken with someone.”

This didn’t help.

“Enamored,” Fely tried again.

“Oh, right,” Manny said. Then he said the word love in Tagalog. She laughed at his pronunciation, so American-sounding now.

Even though he was dreaming, he licked his hand and wiped the back of his hair. The part his own lola used to call stubborn.

“I wonder if you will remember me,” Fely said.

“Why do you say it that way?” he said. “I’m remembering you now.”

“When you get older, you will leave for the States and marry someone else and never come back.”

“That’s not true,” Manny said, but then he realized it was. He loved Elinor, but his younger self remained with Fely. He could see her as she would be now, older. Slender. Her black hair all one length, tied back and resting between her shoulder blades. The hair not cropped and fashionable.

There was also the