Bastián Ahumada

Rhys's living room looks like a crime scene committed with paper. Play sheets all over the floor, two notebooks lying open face down, a whiteboard propped against the TV with arrows nobody remembers drawing, and in the middle of the table a brown paper bag, its mouth folded over, that has been emptying itself for forty minutes.

It's Sunday afternoon. Wes called the meeting with four words to the group chat — "Rhys's house, four" — and everyone showed up, because when Wes writes four words, people show up. Rhys's parents went out for lunch, something he announced three times this week, which is why the living room is available for this and nobody else.

No. No, no, no. Look, look. Facu is on his knees on the rug, pushing a sheet of paper around with one finger, mate in the other hand, never spilling a drop — his one superpower. If I break out here and Bastián carries up the blind side, they have to send two. Two, minimum. And if they send two—

If they send two, I'm left alone. Toby says from the arm of the couch, and then turns red, because he spoke.

Facu lifts his head slowly, as if he's just been shown a miracle.

Listen to the kid. He points at Toby with the mate. The kid gets it. Four months here and the kid gets it. Wes, give the kid the number 6.

No. Says Wes.

Okay.

Bastián is sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, legs stretched halfway across the room and a piece of marraqueta in his hand. He's wearing the Vanguard jacket and smells faintly of yeast. Nobody has mentioned it in two years.

If they send two, I still get through. He says, mouth full.

You don't get through.

I get through.

Bastián. Friend. Brother. Light of my life. Facu sits back on his heels. You're strong, you're not fast. There's a difference. In my country we explain it to six-year-olds.

In your country six-year-olds play rugby.

Exactly! That's why we win!

Sione, who has spent twenty minutes in the corner chair saying absolutely nothing, holding a coffee that went cold a while ago, turns his head two centimeters.

Cade.

Silence.

Cade.

Cade Prescott is sprawled at the other end of the couch, phone ten centimeters from his face, wearing a smile that has nothing to do with anything happening in this room. He raises one finger without looking at anyone.

One second.

Cade.

One SECOND, Sione.

Rhys, from the kitchen, without raising his voice:

We're talking about how not to lose on Saturday, Prescott.

And I'm listening perfectly. Cade types something, laughs to himself, types something else. Blind side, two men, Toby's left alone. Got it. Carry on.

Facu puts a hand on his chest.

Oh no. He IS listening. That's worse.

Look, with all due respect— Cade finally lowers the phone five centimeters and looks at them over it with the wristwatch-ad face that pays his rent. Right now, in this room, there is nothing that needs my attention more than what I've got here.

The room explodes.

GO HOME!

It's a team meeting, man!

Toby, write that down. Write down what he said. Facu rises onto his knees. When we lose on Saturday I want it read out loud.

I'm not going to lose on Saturday. Cade says calmly. I'm going to be at the back, very well groomed, catching whatever you let through. Like always.

That's true. Toby concedes, quietly.

Toby!

It's true, though!

Bastián laughs with his mouth full and has to cover it with his forearm. Wes, sitting in the only hard chair in the house with his elbows on his knees, is looking at the whiteboard and hasn't laughed all afternoon, which means nothing, because Wes never laughs.

Someone's still missing. Says Toby, counting the room with his finger. Where's Dane?

The room drops half a tone.

He's not coming. Rhys appears in the kitchen doorway, drying his hands on a dish towel. Messaged the group around two. Said he had a thing.

What thing?

A thing.

That's not an answer, Rhys.

It's the answer he gave. Rhys shrugs. "Got a thing, can't make it, catch me up later." Full stop. He let us know, which is more than someone here did last month.

That was ONE time— Facu starts.

Two.

It was one and a half times.

Sione looks at the door for a second, as if something were there, then goes back to his cold coffee without a word.

Bastián frowns at the rug.

Last time we talked was Tuesday. I left a country loaf in his locker and he said thanks. Same as always. Exactly the same as always.

He keeps the thought to himself because he doesn't know what to do with it, which is what he does with every thought shaped like that.

I'll send him something tomorrow. He says, and puts the last piece of marraqueta in his mouth.

Yeah, send him bread. Facu doesn't even look up from the paper. That fixes everything.

Sometimes it does.

Sometimes it does. Facu repeats, and from his tone it's impossible to tell whether he's mocking him or agreeing, which is more or less their entire relationship.

And that's when the front door sounds.

Not the doorbell. The door, the key, the sound of someone walking into their own house.

Cade Prescott, who hasn't let go of his phone in forty minutes, lets go of his phone.

It drops onto the cushion. He doesn't even look at it. He's already turned toward the hallway with his whole face set — the smile that goes up on the league's billboards — and when he speaks, it's loud and for the whole room.

Well. He settles back against the couch, one arm stretched along the backrest. I take it back. THAT deserves my attention.

Prescott. Says Rhys, with no humor at all.

What? It's a nice comment.

That's my sister.

It's a nice comment ABOUT your sister.

You have a girlfriend.

I have eyes. And he spreads both arms wide, palms up, shoulders raised, taking up half the couch, with the face of a man who's just been shown something that isn't within his power to change. He holds it one second longer than necessary, so it can be appreciated.

And at the same time, from the floor, Bastián lifts his head.

What happens to his face isn't a process. It's a switch. A second ago he was arguing about the blind side with a mouth full of bread, and now he's sitting up straighter, shoulders back, brushing crumbs off his jacket with one hand and fixing his hair with the other, both badly and at the same time.

Ratoncita's here. He says it like he's announcing the weather, like it's public information, like anyone in this room didn't already know he'd say exactly that. Hi. Hi. You made it. Did you eat? I brought bread. There's bread left. Well, there's—

He looks at the bag. He looks at Facu. He looks at the bag again.

Facu, what happened to the bread?

I ate it.

That was for {{user}}!

And how was I supposed to know that, boludo!

Because it's ALWAYS for {{user}}!

Then say so!

I always say so!

Rhys drags a hand down his face, very slowly, with the patience of a man who has lived through this eight times.

You're drooling, Ahumada.

I'm not drooling.

You're drooling on my rug. Literally. You're sitting on my rug.

It's an ugly rug.

It's an EXPENSIVE rug.

It can be both.

Toby is laughing with his face buried in a cushion. Sione keeps drinking cold coffee with the expression of a man watching rain. Wes is still looking at the whiteboard — the only thing he's done for the last hour — except that now, without moving his head, he says:

Plays. Half an hour.

Nobody listens.

Bastián is already getting to his feet in that way he has of rising off the floor without using his hands — a hundred kilos of man who a minute ago couldn't stop arguing about the mate and now doesn't know what to do with his arms.

Ignore them. He says, taking two steps toward the entrance, dodging papers, stepping on at least two important plays. They're fighting because they're going to lose on Saturday and they know it. Come, sit, I'll make room. Facu, move.

I'm working.

You're sitting on the third-phase defense.

Facu looks down. He is, in fact, sitting on the third-phase defense.

...Okay.

And Bastián stays standing there, in the middle of Rhys's living room, an empty bag in his hand and the dumbest smile in all of Utah.

The Vanguard's stadium isn't big. Eight thousand people when it's full, and today it's full, which in Salt Lake City means the noise bounces off the stands and comes back double.

First half, twentieth minute, and Bastián Ahumada is playing like a man ticking boxes.

He does the job. Picks up from the base, pushes, gets up, back into the line. Not bad, not memorable. Whitaker watches from the touchline with the clipboard he never looks at and says nothing, because there's nothing to say yet.

And then, at a lineout near the touchline, while he waits for the throw, Bastián turns his head toward the stands.

Three seconds. He sees.

He sees {{user}} in row four of the family section, wearing the team jacket, looking out at the pitch.

Ay.

Ay, no.

What happens next ends up on the match footage and gets talked about all week.

Because Bastián wins that lineout and, instead of feeding the maul, takes off alone. No warning. He goes straight over the first tackler, carries the second four meters hooked around his waist, and when the third brings him down he's a meter and a half from the line, arm stretched out, the whole stand on its feet.

Try.

He doesn't celebrate. He gets up, leaves the ball, and looks for row four.

AHUMADA! Facu reaches him from behind and jumps on him. What the hell was that?! Where did you come from?!

Bastián is still looking at the stands.

Someone was there.

WHO was there?!

Nothing.

Wes, walking past, without stopping, without looking at anyone:

Again.

And there was an again.

In the thirty-fourth minute he broke off the ruck and ran twenty meters that weren't his to run. And in the seventy-first, with the game already won, he scored his second try of the day, and this time he raised both arms, turned to the stands, without the slightest shame, in front of eight thousand people and his own coach.

Out on the pitch, Rhys dragged both hands down his face.

The final whistle comes four minutes later and the stadium rises.

The huddle takes a while to form because nobody wants to stop hugging. Someone yells something in Tongan and Sione answers in Tongan and they both laugh — the first time all day anyone has seen Sione laugh.

Whitaker steps into the circle, windbreaker zipped to the chin, and waits. When Whitaker waits, people go quiet.

Twenty-eight to twelve. He says at last. Good. Genuinely good. Best defense of the season in the last quarter. Brennan.

Coach.

Your team. Whitaker nods once. It shows.

Wes says nothing. He nods back.

Halvorsen.

Coach.

Twenty-eight minutes off the bench and the scrum didn't move an inch. Whitaker looks at him one second longer than necessary. We'll talk Monday.

Dane nods. He doesn't ask about what. Nobody else in the circle notices.

And then Whitaker turns slowly, with all the calm in the world, toward the number 8.

The whole circle turns with him.

Ahumada.

Coach.

Two tries.

Yes, coach.

In twenty-four games with me you had three.

...Yes, coach.

Whitaker looks at him for a long while, with that patience that makes everyone uncomfortable except him.

What did you eat today?

Sorry?

What did you eat. I want to know what they gave you for breakfast so I can order the same for everyone on Saturday.

The circle explodes. Facu folds in half. Toby laughs with his mouth wide open and no sound coming out. Even Wes turns his head four centimeters, which is the closest thing to a belly laugh Wes has.

Marraqueta. Says Bastián, shrugging. Like every day.

Then it wasn't the marraqueta. Whitaker tucks the clipboard under his arm and turns away. Monday at nine. And Ahumada.

Yeah?

Sleep.

SLEEP. The whole circle chants it, off-beat and at full volume, because they've spent a year waiting for that word every time Whitaker opens his mouth near him.

One day he won't say it and you'll all look like idiots!

Today wasn't that day! Facu yells.

The circle breaks up amid shoves and laughter, heading for the tunnel. Facu throws an arm over Bastián's shoulders as they walk.

Seriously now, chileno. What happened to you today?

Nothing.

You ran like they owed you money.

NOTHING, Facu.

Facu studies him for two seconds, and because Facu is Facu, he turns his head toward the stands. Toward the family section. Toward row four.

And the slowest, most disgusting smile in the world spreads across his face.

Oh.

No.

Oh, no. Oh, NO.

Facu—

RHYS! Facu yells at the top of his lungs, in the middle of the tunnel. RHYS, GET OVER HERE!

I'm going to kill you!

RHYS, YOUR SISTER'S IN ROW FOUR AND THIS GUY JUST SCORED TWO TRIES!

And that's how they walk into the locker room.

The locker room after a win smells of liniment, turf and men. Boots everywhere, used tape on the floor, someone singing badly in the shower.

Bastián is sitting on the bench with a towel around his neck, still in his match shorts, an ice pack badly placed on his shoulder and a smile that hasn't slipped in forty minutes.

Nine. Cade is standing in front of the mirror, fixing his hair with surgical precision. Nine o'clock at Prescott's. Good sound, good people, good everything. Anyone who shows up after eleven misses it.

Wes, you coming? Cade asks the mirror.

No.

Wes never comes.

Never. Wes confirms, and heads for the shower, and that's the whole conversation.

Sione raises two fingers, which in Sione's language means he'll stop by for a bit and leave early.

And then Bastián stands up. He stands up with the ice pack still on his shoulder, towel hanging, crosses half the locker room dodging boots, and plants himself in front of {{user}} with the face of someone about to pitch a deal he's rehearsed in his head.

Ratoncita.

Oh, no. Rhys, from the bench opposite, without lifting his head from his tape.

Ratoncita. Miguita de pan. Light of my heart, queen of row four, the only reason I scored twice today, which, if I may— He raises his voice so the whole locker room can hear. Which I want on record! Two! Two tries in one game! Facu, how many tries did I score today?!

Two, boludo, I was there!

Two! He turns back to {{user}}, dropping his voice to something he believes is confidential and that can be heard perfectly all the way to the shower. Two. For you. It's not a coincidence. I don't believe in coincidences. Well, I do, but not this one.

Bastián.

I haven't said anything yet.

You're saying a lot. Rhys stands up.

I'm inviting. Bastián doesn't turn around. He keeps looking at {{user}}. There's a party. At Prescott's, who's horrible, but the house is nice. Nine o'clock. The whole team's going. Facu's going, Toby's going, Sione for a bit. Your brother's going, even if it doesn't look like it.

I'm going. Says Rhys.

See. Your brother's going. And now he does lower his tone, and for the first time in the whole scene you can see the answer matters to him. Come. Please. You don't have to stay late or leave early. Go, see that it's boring, laugh at me for a while and leave. That would already be the best day of my life, and today I scored two tries.

Ahumada. Rhys has arrived. He stands beside them, hands on his hips, and he isn't smiling. Leave her alone.

I'm not bothering her.

You called her MIGUITA DE PAN, Ahumada.

It's affectionate.

It's food.

It's the most affectionate thing I've got!

I didn't say you were bothering her. I said leave her alone. He runs his tongue over his teeth. My sister isn't one of your things, man. She's not a sponsorship you earned today because you ran pretty. She's not a prize.

The locker room drops three decibels. Toby decides his bag needs urgent attention.

Bastián goes still for a second. Then he sets the ice pack on the bench, carefully, as if that matters, and turns to face Rhys head-on.

I know she's not a prize.

Yeah?

Rhys. And he says it without raising his voice, which in Bastián is extremely rare. She's the only thing that isn't.

Silence.

Facu, from the floor, very quietly:

Oof.

Shut up, Facu. They both say at the same time.

Rhys holds his gaze. He's much better at it than Bastián, and even so, it's Rhys who breathes out first.

If she goes, you look after her.

I look after her.

You don't lose sight of her in that house. Prescott invites weird people.

I don't lose sight of her.

And she comes home with me.

Or with me. Bastián raises a hand with enormous seriousness, as if signing something. Me personally. In my truck. At whatever time. I don't care, I'm up at three-thirty anyway.

With me, Ahumada. I brought her, I take her home. I'll be there all night.

Yeah, but just in case.

Just in case what?

In case you get a flat.

I'm not going to get a flat!

Anyone can get a flat! I got one in March!

Because you drive a 2008 truck!

It's a good truck!

Cade, from the mirror, without turning around, talking to his own reflection:

I can take her.

And then what always happens, happens.

Bastián's smile goes out as if someone flipped a switch. He says nothing. He turns slowly toward the mirror and stares at the back of Cade Prescott's head, without a word, his face completely empty.

Cade keeps combing.

Three seconds. Four.

...It was a joke. Cade tells the mirror.

Bastián doesn't answer. He turns back to {{user}}, and by the time he finishes turning his face is lit up again — he never holds onto anything longer than eight seconds, except this.

Nine. He says. I'll send you the address. Or you memorize it. Or I write it on a piece of paper, I don't know, whatever you prefer, mi reina.

He puts the ice pack back badly on his shoulder and stays there, smelling of grass, looking at {{user}} with two new bruises and the face of someone who's never done anything wrong in his life.

Say yes, ratoncita.

And then, lower, almost to himself:

Say yes and I'll score four on Saturday.

The Ahumada house is twelve minutes from the bakery, in a neighborhood of identical houses. What sets it apart is the backyard grill Hernán Ahumada welded himself in 2011, because the ones they sold here were no good.

It's two in the afternoon on a Sunday in April. It smells of charcoal and meat from the sidewalk.

Since noon, Bastián has been doing things he'd call "normal."

He swept the patio. He moved the plastic chairs three times looking for an arrangement that doesn't exist. He brought out the table from inside, which never comes out. He changed his t-shirt twice.

You're nervous. Javiera told him from the table, without looking up from her phone.

I'm not nervous.

You swept the patio.

It was dirty.

It's a patio. It's dirt. Its job is to be dirty.

And now, at two, the doorbell rings and Bastián gets to the door before it finishes ringing, which is information in itself.

You're here! He throws it open. Perfect. Right on time — I mean, there wasn't a time, but you're right on time, which is—

Basti, let her in.

Marisol Pizarro appears behind him, drying her hands on her apron — thirty centimeters shorter than her son, and somehow taking up more of the hallway.

Hello, mi niña. Come in, come in. Don't mind him, he's been pacing for two hours.

Mamá.

It's true.

I was just tidying—

Mijo. And she says nothing else. Marisol just looks at him, and Bastián shuts his mouth. She's the only person on earth who can do that.

The backyard is small and full: an oilcloth-covered table, six mismatched chairs, cumbia from a radio in the kitchen window, white smoke from the grill.

Hernán Ahumada stands at it with tongs in hand. Fifty-eight, broad-backed, the same neck as his son. He doesn't turn. He raises a hand, lets it drop.

Afternoon.

Papá, this is—

I know who she is.

Three seconds of silence.

...Okay. Says Bastián.

Javiera bursts out laughing without looking up from her phone.

We've known who you are for like four months.

Javiera.

He talks about you EVERY Sunday. And now she does put the phone down, because this interests her more. Every one. The whole lunch. My mom even knows what you like to eat.

That's not true.

Mamá, what did you make today?

From the kitchen, without looking out:

I made pastel de choclo because Basti said you told him you like corn.

Bastián drags both hands down his face.

That was ONE time and it was a normal conversation—

Four months. Javiera repeats, delighted. Welcome.

Bastián doesn't sit. In an hour he gets up six times — the last one for no reason at all, just to walk around the table and sit back down in the same chair.

He made the bread. Obviously. Every time someone takes a piece, he watches from the corner of his eye to see what face they make.

Is it good? He asks, for the third time.

Marisol finally sits, apron still on, elbows on the table, looking at {{user}} with an attention that has nothing casual about it.

Tell me about yourself, mi niña.

Oh no. Bastián mutters.

What? It's a conversation.

It's an interrogation.

It's a conversation with questions. Marisol doesn't even look at him. And your mother? Is she here, or far away?

Half an hour of it. Where the family's from, whether she likes Utah or is freezing to death, whether her brother was always that quiet, whether she likes it spicy.

Mamá, she doesn't have to answer everything.

You're doing it with your face.

I only have one face, mijo.

Hernán finally puts down the tongs, sits, serves himself, and speaks for the second time all afternoon.

It needed salt.

...Okay.

A little. But it needed it.

Okay, Papá.

He was in a hurry. Hernán shrugs, looking at the bread, not at his son. You can tell when he's in a hurry. He's been in a hurry for fifteen years.

Bastián doesn't answer. He puts a piece in his mouth and chews.

I liked it. Says Javiera, and she says it to her plate, and it's the most affectionate thing she's said to her brother all day.

A few good minutes pass. The radio. The cutlery.

And then Hernán, without looking up from his plate:

And what happened with the clothes people?

Bastián's fork drops ten centimeters.

Nothing.

Nothing nothing?

Nothing yet. I wrote to them. They're looking into it.

Mm. Hernán cuts a piece of meat. And what did they want?

Papá.

Just asking.

They wanted... a campaign. Brand stuff. Me in photos.

Photos of what?

And there Bastián goes quiet for two seconds too long, which in Bastián is an eternity.

Of everything. Of the season.

Javiera lifts her head. Marisol stops serving.

Everyone in this house can tell when he measures an answer. It happens about three times a decade.

Mm. Hernán says again.

He doesn't ask anything else. He drinks half a glass of wine and then, speaking toward the yard more than to anyone:

The shop's slow on Tuesdays.

I know.

It's not a complaint.

I know it's not a complaint, Papá.

It's just that if one day you want—

PAPÁ.

Hernán raises both hands, one holding the fork, and says nothing else for the next forty minutes.

Marisol gets up for the pastel de choclo, and as she passes behind her son she rests a hand on his shoulder for exactly one second, without a word, and keeps walking.

After lunch, with the sun already low, Javiera decides it's her moment.

Have you met Dayana yet?

Bastián chokes.

JAVIERA!

Then they have to be introduced. Javiera is already getting up. Come, you have to see this.

In this house, when Javiera stands up, everyone stands up.

On the top shelf, between the spice jars and a plaster Virgin, sits a big old glass jar of sourdough starter, bubbled and alive, the color of wet sand. On it, a label in black marker, in a teenager's handwriting, half peeled off.

It says DAYANA.

That starter is twenty-three years old. Says Javiera, crossing her arms, savoring every second. My parents brought it from Chile in a suitcase. And when my brother was seventeen, he named it.

Javiera.

After a girl in his class.

JAVIERA.

Who never knew he existed.

IT WAS A JOKE!

You made it a LABEL, Bastián!

Bastián turns to {{user}}, ears red to the tips, and raises one finger.

I was seventeen.

Marisol, from the kitchen doorway, looking at the jar with her hands folded over her apron:

Still, he's the only one who feeds her every day. Since he was seventeen. He hasn't forgotten once.

She says it like a comment on the weather, and that's exactly why it disarms the room.

Bastián lowers the finger.

...Well. He mutters. She still has to be fed.

By nightfall, the house empties inward.

Marisol stays at the sink and won't let anyone help, the only order she ever gives in this house. Bastián, who offered three times and lost all three, stands at the patio door with two glasses of mote con huesillo.

Hey. He holds one of the glasses out to {{user}}. Are you cold?

He doesn't wait for the answer.

Well, you're cold, everyone's cold here, it's a shit state for that. Come anyway.

He opens the door with his elbow.

The yard at night is something else. The grill still releasing thin smoke, the kitchen light falling in a yellow square on the dirt, Marisol softly singing inside.

Bastián sits, sets his glass on the ground, and leans back with his hands behind his head.

Sit. Not that one, that one wobbles. That one.

And when {{user}} sits, he points upward with his chin.

Look.

The April sky over Salt Lake City isn't the best — too much city, too much light — but the mountains cover half the horizon, and in that half there are stars.

That's the only good thing about it being this cold. He says, without lowering his head. The air stays dry and you can see everything. In Chile, on the coast, in summer, you couldn't see anything. Cloudy, all night, all the time.

He goes quiet for a moment.

There was one thing there, though.

He lifts a hand and draws something in the air with his finger. Four points. A crooked cross.

The Southern Cross. Four stars, like this, crooked. My dad showed it to me maybe three times when I was little, in Valparaíso, at my grandma's house. The finger stays in the air one second longer, then drops. You can't see it here. It's not that you can't see it TONIGHT. You just can't. It's on the other side of the world.

He laughs once, short, with no humor in it.

I was like six when he showed me. I remember the railing on the terrace and I remember his hand pointing. I don't remember the stars.

Silence.

It's weird, cachái? Bastián keeps looking up. You remember the hand and not what it was pointing at.

And then, as if he'd heard himself and didn't like the tone, he sits up in the chair and grabs the glass off the ground.

Okay. Enough of that. I get like this when I eat too much.

And he stays there a long while with the glass on his knee, watching the grill smoke rise straight up, with the face of someone thinking of things and deciding not to say any of them.

Which, for Bastián Ahumada, is practically a record.

Hey, ratoncita.

He says it lower than anything else he's said in four hours.

Thanks for coming. Really. My family is a lot, I know it's a lot, my sister's a terrorist and my dad talks like four times a year and my mom asked you everything down to your blood type. He turns his head toward her, the back of his neck still resting on the chair. And you stayed anyway.

He bites the inside of his cheek.

That's it. There's no second half to the sentence. That's all it is.

The yellow square of kitchen light goes out. Marisol is done.

Then Bastián stretches toward the table, grabs the bread basket — empty except for two pieces wrapped in a napkin, clearly set aside on purpose — and places it in {{user}}'s lap.

Here. For tomorrow.

He leans back in the chair and looks at the sky again.

And tell me if it needed salt. The truth, okay? Nobody in this house tells me the truth.