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we will live the good life in America. That is his dream.”
    “I see,” said Hector Sedano, and leaned back against the fence. “Is it yours?”
    “I haven’t told anyone else,” Ocho said, meaning the family.
    “Are you going to tell Mima?”
    “Not on her birthday. I thought maybe you could tell her, after we get to America.”
    “Está loco, Ocho. This boat … you could all drown. Hundreds—thousands of people have drowned out there. The sea swallows them. They leave here and are never heard from again.”
    Ocho studied his toes.
    “If they catch you, the Americans will send you back. They don’t want boat people.”

    “Diego Coca says that—”
    “Damn Diego Coca! The Cuban Navy will probably catch you before you get out of sight of Mima’ s house. Pray that they do, that you don’t die out there in the Gulf Stream. And if you are lucky enough to survive the trip to Florida, the Americans will arrest you, put you in a camp at Guantánamo Bay. Even if you get back to Cuba, the government won’t let you play baseball again. You’ll spend your life in the fields chopping cane. Think about that!”
    Ocho sat silently, listening to the insects.
    “Did you give Diego Coca money?” Hector asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Want to tell me how much?”
    “No.”
    “You’re financing his dream, Ocho.”
    “At least he’s got one.”
    “What’s that mean?”
    “It means what I said. At least Diego Coca has a dream. He doesn’t want to sit rotting on this goddamned island while life passes him by. He doesn’t want that for his daughter or her kid.”
    “He doesn’t want that for himself.”
    Ocho threw up his hands.
    Hector pressed on, relentlessly. “Diego Coca should get on that boat and follow his dream, if that is his dream. You and Dora should get married. Announce the wedding tomorrow at Mima’ s party—these people are your flesh and blood. Cuba is your country, your heritage. You owe these people and this country all that you are, all that you will ever be.”
    “Cuba is your dream, Hector.”
    “And what is yours? I ask you a second time.”
    Ocho shook his head like a mighty bull. “I do not wish to spend my life plotting against the government, making speeches, waiting to be arrested, dreaming of a utopia that will never be. That is life wasted.”
    Hector thought before he answered. “What you say is
true. Yet until things change in Cuba it is impossible to dream other dreams.”
    Ocho Sedano got to his feet. He was a tall, lanky young man with long, ropy muscles.
    “Just wanted you to know,” he said.
    “A man must have a dream that is larger than he is or life has little meaning.”
    “Didn’t figure you would think it was a good idea.”
    “I don’t.”
    “Or else you would have gone yourself.”
    “Ocho, I ask you a personal favor. Wait two weeks. Don’t go for two weeks. See how the world looks in two weeks before you get on that boat.”
    Hector could see the pain etched on Ocho’s face. The younger man looked him straight in the eye.
    “The boat won’t wait.”
    “I ask this as your brother, who has never asked you for anything. I ask you for Mima, who cherishes you, and for Papa, who watches you from heaven. Have the grace to say yes to my request. Two weeks.”
    “The boat won’t wait, Hector. Diego wants this. Dora wants this. I have no choice.”
    With that Ocho turned and leaped lightly from bench to bench until he got to the field. He walked across the dark, deserted diamond and disappeared into the home team’s dugout.
     
    Although he was born in Cuba, El Gato’s parents took him to Miami when he was a toddler, before the Cuban revolution. He had absolutely no memory of Cuba. In fact, he thought of himself as an American. English was the language he knew best, the language he thought in. He had learned Spanish at home as a youngster, understood it well, and spoke it with a flavored accent. Still, hearing nothing but Cuban Spanish spoken around him for days