by Yamaya Cruz
“This is your sister, Luisa, and she is gonna to be staying with us for a while”
The little boys hovered in the trunk, tinkering from their prank and then monkey crawled into the back seat.
“Luisa, this is Roberto, and the twins Jose and Juan.”
“Hey kids, help your sister with her shit.”
They just sat and stared.
“Ay bendito. Don’t let me have to tell you again. Get up off your ass and help her with her shit!”
They didn’t budge. I could feel the tension rising, so I decided to keep the peace by stuffing my luggage in a small compartment in the corner of the trunk. I closed the hatch and ran over to the passenger door. When I opened it, I saw that little Julio was nestled in the seat, asleep.
“Julio, Julio” Maria yelled at the top of her lungs. “Get your ass in the back seat”
Little Julio’s eyes fluttered open and he lazily crawled into the back seat. I got into the car. Cotton stuffing was growing out of the torn leather seats. The radio was missing and sharpened wires hung from its gutted interior like hissing snakes. There was a silver gadget beneath the dashboard that was intended for lose coins. Instead, it was overflowing with cigarette ash and butts with blots of lipstick. Maria reached over into the back seat and pulled out a plastic sixring that held two full cans of beer. She pulled one of them off and offered it to me. I shook my head.
I watched her pop open the tab and chug it down in one long gulp. She crushed the can and then threw it in the back seat.
“Maria, what are you doing? You can’t drive like that”
She turned and looked at me like I was the one who was crazy. “The hell if I can’t. Shit. It was just one beer!”
I just sat there, aghast and in total and complete disbelief. I really did not know what do to. I closed my eyes and mumbled a prayer. Maria seemed to have forgotten to strap in. She turned the ignition, put the car in drive and sped off.
Nelly, my heart was pounding out of my chest. I was beginning to regret my decision. I tried to make small talk with Maria, but her children were out of control. They shuffled from seat to seat. They cut me off when I spoke and continuously used foul language. Maria seemed to have reached her breaking point when little Julio stood up, pulled his pants down and urinated on the seat. I couldn’t believe it! Maria, with one hand on the steering wheel reached into the back seat and began to beat Julio with her purse. The car swerved sharply to the left. Maria turned around and viciously swung the steering wheel back to the right, the car realigned, avoiding a head-on collision with a Magnum truck.
“Puñeta!” Maria yelled as she flipped off the driver.
She continued to curse to herself, mumbling under her breath about people needing to learn how to drive and how they thought they ruled the road. Maria looked over at me. My back was sucked to the seat; my feet were searching the floor, looking for an imaginary brake pedal. My hand rested on the passenger door handle. I was terrified and more than ready to throw myself out of a moving vehicle. Maria laughed.
“Hay Chica, you’re such a country pumpkin, people in this town are A lo loco; you’re going to have to get used to it mommy.”
I swallowed back my fear and sat up in the seat. The children seemed to have settled down and there was a brief moment of silence. My stomach felt queasy. I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. When I opened them, I saw that Maria had taken an exit off the highway.
“We’re almost home.” She chimed.
She bared right, rushed through a yellow traffic light and pulled up to an old twostory ranch house. I got out of the car and began to walk to the back of the trunk when I was nearly tumbled over by one of the twins.
“Juan, slow down before I light a real fire under your ass.” Maria said while climbing out the car.
Juan ignored her as he ran full force into the house. I took another deep breath and continued to walk to the trunk. I opened the hatch and pulled out my two pieces of luggage. I sluggishly dragged them behind me, and no one, not even Maria offered to help. I was wearing a strapless summer dress with a paper thin sweeter. I had lived all of my eighteen years on a tropical island that never fell below sixty-degrees. Night had fallen and the winter’s chill was beginning to settle in. Little pins and needles began to prick my skin and the edges of my ears burned. Maria stole a look back at me. I thought that she was going to run over and help me with my luggage but instead she placed her hand on her hip.
“Ah Mi Dios! Luisa? You didn’t bring a winter coat?”
I looked back at her dumbfounded. How could I explain to her that I had run way from the home, against the will of Sister Abigail? I didn’t think to buy anything. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay, or swallow my pride and beg Sister Abigail to let me come back home.
Instead, I answered her timidly.
“No, Maria, I don’t own a winter coat”
“Oh,” Maria said as she causally shook her head and went into the house while closing the door behind her.
It took me a full ten minutes to get my luggage and myself up the stairs and into the house. My muscle throbbed from fatigue, and I was sweating despite the fact that it was thirty degrees out. Maria looked at me. Her living room was sparsely furnished. She was sitting on an old sofa that was covered with plastic. She had chosen a mix and match décor, with an aged loved seat and broken down recliner.
“Pase, toma asiento,” Maria said as she patted the empty space besides her.
She reached over and pulled out another six-pack of beer. She offered me one, and this time I took it. After the day that I had, I needed it. I sat down next to her and took a sip of my beer. It tasted funny and it burned my throat. Maria looked at me and laughed.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it”
There was a very uncomfortable silence. We had so much to talk about. I really did not know where to begin. Maria broke the silence by putting her head down and bursting into tears.
“My life is one big fucking mess,” she said. “Que fue?” I asked with genuine concern.
“He left me, Luisa; he left me for another woman. And I’m going crazy without him,” she said.
How could she be so self-absorbed? Did she know that I went to bed every night feeling empty and lonely? Did she understand that there was something missing from my life? I couldn’t love. I couldn’t feel anything. Instead, I lived my life like a blind man trapped in darkness, not having the light needed to truly see the colors of love. I couldn’t understand the emotions that I did have. So, I kept them buried deep inside of me, locked away in a box that someone else had created.
For years I walked around with the Bible in my hand, holding it to my heart, praying, and memorizing versus. Sister Abigail would often stop me during passing and ask me to recite a verse or interpret a parable. My words would stumble as I clumsily leafed through the book, trying to find the page that I had studied all night.
She would twirl her rosary beads in her hands as she looked at me. I was so scared. I felt that one day she would be so disappointed with me that she would wrap the damn thing around my neck and strangle me with it. She would then order me to go into my room and not come out until I respected the Lord’s word and his gift to the world, which was the Bible. I remember being in my room all day, wrapped in a blanket, shivering and praying to God that I would become the person that she wanted me to be.
Girls would come and go and in a few short months they would win over Sister Abigail. They would look at me and wonder what was wrong? Why couldn’t I catch on? It was then that I understood that they were pretending. Their every move was calculated and every action that they performed was to please Sister Abigail. Inside, we were all suffering, but we had to bury our true feelings. We did this to survive, but in the end, we lost certain parts of ourselves that we could never get back.
So, I grew up frail and fragile. I went through life feeling very much like a twig that would break with the slightest wind. I needed something to mak
e me strong. I struggled with myself for years to understand what was missing in my life. Then I realized that I needed to be part of a family. I needed to feel love. So when I saw Maria’s letter. I couldn’t resist. Can you blame me? I think that you would have done the same thing in my situation. Only you’re a lot smarter and tougher than I was. But your life doesn’t have to be like mine or like Maria’s. I haven’t given you much, but I want you to have the guidance and knowledge that I never had. And maybe, just maybe, your life will be different.
“Luisa, are you listening to me?” Maria said. “Yes. Yes of course.”
“I can’t believe he did this to me. I gave him everything.” Maria said while shaking her head.
“I used to be so strong and beautiful.” Her eyes squinted as fresh tears spurted out.
Her words gained some momentum. She began to wave her hands in the air like she was conducting an invisible orchestra. “Now look at me, I am a fat pig with four badass kids.” She put her head down and began to whine like a child.
“I don’t know what I am gonna do without Nico. He has been my life for so long. Luisa, I don’t think that I can live without him,” she said clutching my hand. I just sat there, looking at Maria like she was an actor in a play. She was incredibly dramatic and had my full attention. However, I didn’t feel a great deal of empathy for her because a part of me felt that it was just a performance, that it wasn’t real. I sighed. I knew this feeling very well. It was emptiness, something that I had felt my entire life.
“Luisa, you’re the only thing that I have. You’re my favorite child,” she said grabbing my arm like she was a toddler who was desperate for attention.
“We need each other,” she said.
“Yes, Maria. I needed you too,” I said dryly.
“What did I say Chica. Call me momma,” she said with her voice taking on a hint of authority. I looked at her perplexed.
How could she be so selfish? Did she realize that the pain that she was feeling now was how I felt every day of my life? Nico left her with nothing, just like she left me with nothing. Only I had the good graces to come back and help her. I felt like fate had played a terrible trick on me. I came here to feel loved, and yet, Maria wasn’t willing to love me.
“I sent for you because I need you to help me find Nico,” she continued.
What? That’s not what she said in the letter. She wrote to me saying that she wanted me here so we could be a family again, without Nico. And what did she mean by she sent for me? I brought my own plane ticket, defied Sister Abigail and left everything that I knew behind for her. I looked down and began to fumble nervously with my fingers with my thoughts tumbling in my head. I blinked a couple of times. I needed to tell her what I wanted. I needed to tell her that I didn’t come here to help her find Nico. But I couldn’t get the words out. I felt like all my emotions were rotting inside of me. My chest tightened. I took a couple of breaths and tried to remember a verse from the Bible. I needed something, I needed someone to make me feel worthy, to make me feel whole.
“I got the perfect plan.” Maria said.
I didn’t listen to her. I just couldn’t hear anymore. I felt like I had just run a marathon and tripped just before the finish line. I was just in a state of shock. I didn’t know what to do. I had no one. I had no money and Sister Abigail told me to never come back. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t speak good English, and I had no skills aside from a high school diploma. I felt trapped, like a wild animal pacing an eight-foot cage. “Maria. I have to leave?” I whispered. “What?”
“I never had any intentions of staying. I just came here to help you settle in.” I lied. “Bullshit!” Maria snuffed, she saw right through me.
“Luisa, you’ve been living in a bubble. You need some quick lessons about life,” she said with a cigarette dangling from her mouth.
And you’re just the person to teach me, I thought.
“You need to learn how to keep a man, and to keep nasty bitches away from him,” she said while lighting her cigarette.
And you need to learn how to not abandon your children. I looked down sheepishly, afraid that she was able to read my thoughts. I didn’t know much about her. However, I had heard that she was quick witted, savvy and extremely conniving. In fact, many people called her iron tongue, because she could always lash back with a comment that burned.
“No, really, I am going to have to go,” I said while gingerly taken a sip of my beer.
“And do what; get drunk off of palm wine? Luisa, I know damn well that you don’t want to go back to Sister Shortail, Mimigail, or whatever the fuck her name is. You don’t want to spend your life on your knees being a fucking fate whore,” she said pointing two fingers at me with the cigarette sandwiched between them.
“That’s an interesting way to put it.”
“Listen, Chica, I am you momma, whether you like it or not. I left you, and yes that was a mistake. I wanted to come back, but that puta kept me away,” she said.
I couldn’t look at her.
“You mean, Sister Abigail kept you away.” I finally said.
“Yeah. You know how many times I called. How many letters I sent? How much money that bitch took from me?” she asked while waving her hands in the air.
“You sent money?”
Maria rolled her eyes in a full circle before she replied.
“That bitch! You mean to tell me that she never gave you a single dime of the money I sent?” She said.
I shook my head.
“Con las manos en la masa. That Puta got everybody fooled.” She leaned over and tapped some of the ashes from her cigarette into her empty beer can.
“Roberto!” Maria’s voice was piercing like a police siren. “Roberto!” She yelled again. My ears vibrated from pain.
She opened her mouth to yell his name again, but I stopped her by volunteering to go and get him myself. Only I didn’t need to, because Roberto came stomping down the stairs.
“What,” he said while holding the ball at the end of the banister.
“What do you mean what? Didn’t you hear me calling you?” she asked.
“Yeah! That’s why I came down,” he said snidely.
“Boy, don’t get no attitude with me, go upstairs and get my large brown envelope.”
“What envelope?”
“Roberto, don’t play stupid with me, you know what I am talking about.” He turned around and ran up the stairs. Maria put out her cigarette and reached for another beer. Two minutes later, a brown envelope came flying down the stairs with lose papers sliding out of it. The envelope was empty by the time it reached the bottom landing, leaving a corrugated trail of mish mash papers up the stairway.
“This little motherfucker. ROBERTO!”
“Maria, it’s okay, I can pick up the papers,” I said calmly.
I gathered them into one single pile and brought them back over to her.
“This shit is all jumbled and messed up; now it’s going to be hard to find what I am looking for,” she said while licking her forefinger and leafing through the papers.
“Se la chupo la bruja,” she said while holding up the paper in her hands. She handed it to me. I read it over briefly.
“This is the document that you signed forfeiting custody of me,” I said.
“Yeah! The only thing that bitch needs is an ugly nose and broom between her legs. She told me that I had to give you up because I left,” she said.
“But why would she say that?” I asked. It didn’t make much sense to me. Sister Abigail was never very loving or motherly. She was more cordial, like raising children was an occupation with a very limited job description. She never did anything more than what she needed to.
“Chavos!” Maria said while rubbing her thumb against her forefinger.
“Me and Nico sent her enough money to buy her own fucking church.”
“Think about it, Luisa, why else would she hide my letters? She didn’t want you to know,” she said, pointing her finger.
“I bet that she said a whole bunch of shit about me too?” she said leaning back on the sofa and crossing her arms over her chest.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because I know how bitches like that work, they want to brainwash you and make you think that they’re the good guys, but really, they’re just witches heating up the stove that they’re going to cook you in,” she said.
“She’s a bruja, her and Nico worship bad spirits,” she said mimicking Sister Abigail. I had to laugh. Her gestures and facial expressions were right on.
“You can never go to them, Luisa. You cannot allow yourself to be tainted with such sin and filth. You must accept the Lord, Jesus Christ and abstain from pagan practices that He wouldn’t approve of,” she said while folding her hands in her lap.
“After all, Jesus loves everybody, even you niggers.” she spat. We both threw our heads back and roared with laughter. This felt good; I was beginning to establish a real mother daughter connection with Maria.
“Jesus loves my ass, because I gave that puta a whole bunch of fucking money.”She said between giggles.
“Luisa, I am glad that you’re here. I want to make all of those years up to you, but I need to get my man back. Then everything will be right again.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Nothing, just go with me over this puta’s house.” “What about the kids?” I asked.
“I’ll send them next door to the neighbor.”
She wobbled up and roared like a mountain lion.
“Roberto.” He stomped midway down the stairs and peered through the banister bars. Get your brothers; you’re going over Shirley’s house.
“What? I don’t want to,” he said.
“I don’t give a damn what you want. Now go and get your brothers, your sister and me got some business to take care of,” she said.
The boys rushed out of the door, shoving their arms into overstuffed coats, which had missing zippers and sleeves that were stained with dried snot. They pushed and shoved their way out of the door, dishing out wrestling moves, like elbow smashes and forearm clubs.
