by Ava Zavora
Chapter 4
After all these years away, Sera had begun to think she had only dreamt it.
Rosethorn still stood, mostly as Sera remembered, an oddly put together, eccentric Victorian mansion with spires and a turret, many gables, a delicate confection of gingerbread detailing and colorful stained glass windows. It was all there, even down to the whimsical winged lion weather vane sitting on top of the turret facing the sun.
To her surprise, she found that she had been holding her breath as she had driven toward it. Now that she saw Rosethorn still existed, that she had not dreamt it after all, a great breath expelled itself from her and the knot in her heart loosened.
She opened the unlocked gate, which she noted had been fixed, and started walking down the brick walkway. Again, she felt the sensation of each step taking her back to years ago and could almost hear fragments of forgotten conversations hovering in the air as if they had been captured and suspended in an invisible web.
Someone had recently trimmed back the rose briars that used to cover the brick path and stray stems littered the ground. There were green leaves sprouting all over the tall briar hedges and buds of green and red. In a few weeks the house will be surrounded by walls of crimson roses.
Standing on tiptoe, she reached for a blossom with deep red petals that had opened early and snapped it off. She inhaled the scent of her stolen rose, and just like that she was back---the young girl all those years ago, an illicit trespasser wandering in the rooms and nooks of the house before her, plotting out a life that had been so real to her that all that she had done and seen since then seemed insubstantial, as if the intervening years were a long dream and this, what had happened in this house, was the life she had truly lived.
Here she had been a queen, mistress of all she surveyed, and finder and keeper of its many secrets. The world had never seemed so large and full of possibility as it was when she had been here.
From a great distance, Sera heard construction, removing her from the past.
With some difficulty, she forced herself to come back to the present and approached the front door. She placed her hands on the roses carved on its surface, mimicking the white climbing roses that used to cover the front porch, but had now been severely pruned. Peering through the stained glass window, she saw that the inside was empty, although clean.
No one answered her knocking.
Following what sounded like loud stapling, she walked on the path adjacent to the carriage house, observing that some work had already been done to the wood siding and the foundation of the porch, which had always seemed rickety to her. An old white pickup was parked by the carriage house.
She went to the back. A tall steel ladder was propped up against the eaves next to the turret. The roof on that whole side of the house had been ripped up and thrown into a large garbage bin next to where she was standing. Stacks of new black roof shingles were piled here and there on the skeleton frame. Almost half of that side of the roof was done.
A shirtless worker, padded knees bent on the roof frame, had his back to her and was steadily stapling shingles in place. The midday sun was baking here.
“Hello?” she called out.
He kept on stapling.
“Hello!” she yelled louder, cupping her hands around her mouth. The roofer stopped and turned around, shielding his eyes to look down at her.
“Hi. Can I help you?”
Sera opened her mouth to speak, but found that she had lost her voice.
He looked at her, waiting. Even when seen from a distance she was astounded at how blue his eyes were.
She swallowed instead and lowered her head, thankful that she was wearing large sunglasses. She knew that he couldn’t see half her face, but she turned her head anyway.
“Sorry,” she mumbled to the ground. “Sorry." Her voice sounded shrill. “I was lost. Sorry to bother you." She started retreating fast, almost running back to the other side of the house.
A few more steps and she would be around the corner where she could do a full, if inelegant, sprint to her rental car. Her face burned.
“Sera?”
Chapter 5
That night, Sera lay in the darkness of her room, restless and unable to sleep. Her skin felt charged with wild energy, as if every dormant nerve had sprung to life. She did not know what to do with herself. She looked in the mirror and saw a stranger there with bright, feverish eyes and a hungry mouth.
“What are you doing?” she asked the girl in the mirror, hands on her still-hot face.
The next day, after mass, she walked to the library. She browsed up and down the stacks, unable to find anything that interested her. She left the library without a book, not knowing exactly why she was so dissatisfied.
Instead, she sat by the bank of the creek running next to the library and finding shade beneath the wooden bridge, she took out a new notebook bought from the drug store and began to write.
“Psst.”
Sera looked up and saw Andrew standing on the top of the opposite bank, looking down at her as he sat on his dirt bike. He was smiling at her and she realized that she was smiling widely back at him.
He stood just so for a moment not saying anything, his head tilted as if he were posing a question, which must have been answered without a word from her for he then rode his bike over the bridge to her side and down the bank, stopping right at the edge of her boot.
When he glanced at her notebook then looked away in an exaggerated swivel of his head, she laughed.
Encouraged, he suggested, “Let’s go creek-wading."
As if they had arranged to meet at that spot under the bridge and she had been waiting for him to appear, Sera nodded and put away her notebook. She took off her boots, which she stuffed with her socks, and tied them to the straps of her backpack.
Andrew on his bike and Sera on bare feet, they followed the creek away from downtown, in between houses, past backyards, and below bridges. Once in awhile, they would clamber up the bank, looking through fences at some of the grander houses in envy.
The air was fragrant with the smell of eucalyptus leaves and green grass turning golden in the sun. Sera could feel spring budding open to a full and glorious summer.
They had no particular destination, lingering in caverns hidden by twisted, ropy tree roots, which the creek had exposed over the years or trying to see if they could fit in the hollow of an oak tree which had grown on the creek bed. The creek wove through the middle of town but it felt like they were the only two people in it. The afternoon was expectant with murmurings of the creek flowing over rocks and a slight wind swaying branches against a light blue sky.
As they walked further north, away from the center of town, the houses disappeared and they could no longer hear the faraway hum of cars driving down Venetia Boulevard.
Everything feels new, Sera thought to herself, as she glanced sideways at the strange boy beside her, who seemed at home in her secret places.
He talked about his family, his brothers, his friends, basketball, as if it was important to him that she know all these things, and she listened, surprising herself again and again that she liked the sound of his voice.
Who was he and where in the world did he come from? She had known him her whole life and yet all of a sudden he appeared to her as if she had never met him before. She knew she should feel suspicious. He had done nothing but mock her for years now. Yet, she could not reconcile that person with the one who walked and talked with her now.
He described his dream car, a mustang for sale that was parked by Roger Wilco, and gave her a long look then, which spoke of far-flung places, miles of road and the wind in her hair as she sat next to him, driving her anywhere she wished to go.
"Oh, here," he said casually as he fiddled with his pockets then brought out a CD, which he thrusted at her with his eyes cast down. "Since you let me listen to Stevie."
Startled, Sera took it from him, turning it over in her hand. On its face in big block letters
was "METALLICA."
"You like them?” he asked, peering at her from behind a curtain of blond hair, his head hanging a little.
"I like that song, 'Enter Sandman.'"
"Listen to the first song on this side."
They waded through murky water to get to a clearing across the other side. There was a pebbly embankment in front of a grassy area, where she sat and opened her backpack. Andrew rested his bike on the dirt and sat next to her. She took out her disc player, inserted the CD, and put on her headphones.
A haunting chord by a single guitar joined by another and then James Hetfield's voice, its rough edges tamed into something almost soft, at first quiet then roaring in a metal ballad.
Andrew sat across from her, watching her reaction as she had watched him the night before. As if he was listening with her, his mouth formed the words in silent accompaniment.
The intensity of the hunger leaping out of his eyes didn’t frighten her or make her want to turn away from him, and she did not question her own yearning rising to meet his.
"I've never heard that before," she said shyly, afterwards, feeling that she had shared something intimate with him. "Look," she held up her arm. "Goosebumps."
He nodded, pleased. "Nothing Else Matters. It calms me down when I'm pissed off." He tapped her disc player with one long finger. "It has Enter Sandman, One, Wherever I May Roam, Master of Puppets, The Memory Remains, Sad But True. All the good ones."
"Your favorite band?"
He nodded. "It's the only music that gets me, you know?"
"Yeah," she agreed, "that's the way Stevie is for me. Like whatever I'm feeling, she has a song that has the perfect melody or words that capture exactly what's inside me." She looked sideways at him.
"Surprising," she remarked quietly, not sure if she meant it for the song or for him or the afternoon. She held up her disc player. "I owe you." Troubled that he had her at a disadvantage, she asked, “Are you hungry?"
"What?"
"'Cause I thought I heard your stomach rumbling."
“I’m starving. But there’s nothing around here." Andrew craned his head, trying to look through the trees above them. “I think we’re past all the houses, too. We must be near the golf course. I can’t smell the horses anymore.”
“I’ve got something to tide us over until we go back to civilization," she said as she scouring through her backpack. “Ever had lumpia?”
“Loompeeyaa?" Andrew emphasized each syllable. He shook his head.
“Say it really fast-lumpia." Sera took out her tin foil package and unwrapped six, puckered lumpia and offered them to Andrew.
“Oh, egg rolls? I’ve had them before." Andrew reached to take one eagerly.
“They’re better than egg rolls. Much tastier." Sera watched Andrew’s face as he bit it and chewed.
“Thssss gowddd!” Andrew said in between mouthfuls.
Sera laughed. “They’re better right out of the fryer and with some sauce. My grandma and I made them last night."
Andrew devoured three in rapid succession, barely chewing before swallowing. Rummaging in her bag some more, Sera found her still-cold can of juice.
“Something to wash it down with."
“What’s that?”
“Calamansi juice." Sera showed him the can, which had a picture of the round green calamansi fruit on the outside.
“It looks like a lime.”
“It tastes more like lemonade, but sweet." They laughed.
Andrew took a long sip. “Ahhh, that hit the spot." He reached for a fourth roll, but snatched his hand back. “Sorry. You haven’t eaten any.”
“That’s okay. All I need is two. Take that one." They munched in silence, watching purple dragonflies dance above a patch of wildflowers further up the creek.
Andrew took another sip of the juice and looked at the can. Pointing to the brand name, “Philippines,” he said, “Is that where your grandma’s from?”
“Um-hm. She and my grandfather moved here in the seventies.
Andrew opened his mouth to ask her a question, but thought better of it and closed his mouth.
“My mother died a long time ago," Sera started, as if all along she meant to tell him, "I think right after I was born. I don’t really know."
The most current picture she had of her mother showed her to be little older than Sera, holding her as a tiny infant. There were no pictures of her and her mother past that stage. In that photo, which her grandmother had placed in the altar next to her grandfather’s, her mother had looked tired yet happy, smiling down on her sleeping newborn daughter.
“My grandma doesn’t like to talk about it. I remember her crying when I was little, whenever I asked where my mother was."
Her grandmother would just bury her head and say brokenly, “She’s gone, Serafina,” and Sera would be afraid to probe any further.
What was she like? What happened to her? were questions that shadowed Sera’s childhood, ever present but unspoken. Sera remembered the few times she and her grandmother had knelt in an empty church praying for her mother’s salvation. Sera’s childish fingers could not hang onto the rosary beads she had been given, but she prayed anyway, frightened by the urgency in her grandmother’s voice.
Her mother had done something so terrible that she needed hours of rosaries and entreaties on her soul’s behalf.
Sometimes when she was almost falling asleep, half-dreaming, half-awake, a memory would come to her of a woman with long hair smelling of warm milk cradling her, her face full of light. But it couldn’t have been a memory for her mother had died when she was a baby. Perhaps the smell was something she did remember, even from so many years ago, but she may have just transposed the face she knew from the tattered pictures she hoarded in her room, along with some of her mother’s things, a lace shawl, some books, records and tapes, and her clothes. This was, in addition to years of secrecy, all that was left of her mother.
“And your dad? Is he dead too?”
“I don’t know. He could be. I don’t know his name or what he even looks like. I have no pictures of him. I think he's white."
Over the years, she had come to realize on her own without her grandmother telling her that he was not dead, just not around.
She had no memories of her father so she had played pretend games of searching older men’s faces, almost subconsciously done now like a reflex she had learned, and seeing if any of them sparked something in her or if they had a nose or face shape similar to hers, the only features she did not inherit from her mother. If they did, she would stare at them until they turned her way and then she would look into their eyes, seeking recognition.
When she started taking Mr. Leach’s English class last fall, she began to picture her father with his bearded and bespectacled face, along with his deliberate way of talking and kind manner. She created a history in which she inherited her love of books and writing from an intellectual man like Mr. Leach, just as she inherited her face from her mother.
When she was little and the envy of other children’s parents grew to be too much, Sera would retreat into her fantasies whose superficial details varied wildly, but at their core was the same secret wish: that her parents were really alive and would someday come for her. Her mother was not dead, but lost in a fog of amnesia. Her father was rich and powerful and was searching the world for his missing wife and daughter.
“Kevin Wilson used to call me a mutt," she told Andrew in a mocking voice that did not hide the residue of childhood pain. She didn’t look quite white, with her mixture of pale skin and dark, slanted eyes. Looking a bit exotic in their high school, where the jocks chewed tobacco and the popular girls wore cute cowboy hats on their blonde heads, had always made her feel set apart. "Like I was a stray dog."
Andrew snorted. "Kevin Wilson's an inbred slimeball - his parents are first cousins."
Sera laughed. "Like the Hapsburgs?"
"Who's that?"
"A royal family that married each other bec
ause they wanted their blood pure. The children ended up crazy, ugly, and slobbering idiots."
"That's him. He told me about his parents when we were in detention together. He doesn't have a fucking clue."
"But still, at least he knows who he is. It’s like being lost, in a way, not knowing that much about where you’re from. There’s a part of me that will always be a mystery, no matter how long I live. I want to ask my grandma so many things, but I don’t want to hurt her. All we have is each other."
Sera shook her head, incredulous of all that she had just told him. The quiet anxiety in his face touched her. Never in her strangest imaginings would she have thought that she would someday spend an afternoon with Andrew LaSalle sitting by the banks of the creek as she gave up the truth of herself to him.
Shaking off the melancholy that had suddenly visited her, she turned away to rummage through her backpack once more. Hunching over to hide her bag, she looked over her shoulder at Andrew.
“I’ve got dessert. Don’t look!” She scolded as he tried to see what she was doing. “It’s a surprise!” Taking a minute to prepare it, she looked at him once more, “Now close your eyes."
Looking at her suspiciously, he asked, “You’re not gonna feed me something gross are you?”
Sera pursed her lips. “Do you wanna taste it or not?”
Andrew closed his eyes, a doubtful look on his face.
“Trust me. You’ve never had anything like this. Now open your mouth."
Andrew opened his mouth a little and Sera smiled as she put a soft, dripping sliver of cold mango on his tongue. With a wet finger, she wiped away yellow juice running from the side of his mouth as he chewed.
“It’s cold." Andrew’s eyes were still closed as he swallowed. Sera watched his Adam’s apple bob. “And really sweet. What is it?" He opened his eyes.
“Mango.”
“But I’ve had mango. It doesn’t taste like that.”
“I know,” Sera said with a satisfied smile, “These were grown in the Philippines. They don’t taste like the mangoes you get at the store. I could eat these every day and never get tired of ‘em.”
