by E. C. Frey
The phone rings. I knock the receiver to the floor as I climb from my dream.
“Hello.”
“Did I wake you?” Daniel’s voice is lighthearted.
“No. Sorry. I was reviewing my notes for my trip tomorrow and I must have dozed. You sound better than the last time I spoke to you.”
“I think things have settled down.”
“How were they unsettled before? What had you on edge?”
“Oh, nothing. I thought someone was following me. The things I’ve uncovered are nasty. I guess that’s what made me feel nervous.”
“Are you sure everything’s okay now?”
“Yeah. Everything’s been fine. I even got in some sightseeing.”
“Good for you. What is this about a flash drive?”
“I sent it. It has all my notes. Listen. AAC is involved in some serious shit. They’re dumping toxic chemicals directly into the sewer in Mexico and they know what they’ve done to the aquifer. My informant just got back from there and he showed me the test results. The TCA levels are out the roof. They’ve buried the findings. The aquifer goes directly under Del Sierra in Texas and affects the city’s water and thousands of wells. The containment evaporation ponds and wetlands are a sham. They are there for show. The real dumping is being done inside. On top of it, they have claimed that they’re being diligent by processing certain extremely toxic chemicals in their municipal sewage treatment plant, which has industrial wastewater treatment capabilities. Not so. Unacceptable impurity concentrations are finding their way into the water system. They have sort of bypassed the biochemical and chemical oxidation stages. They provide no disinfection and they’ve foregone the polishing process. All in all, they’re making a lot of money from dumping the by-products of their manufacturing processes straight into the local water source and they’re saving buckets of money on forgoing most of the processes required to deliver safe municipal water.”
“I thought this might be a short trip.”
“Yeah, me too. And Mariah?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s been raining. A lot.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“Half the people who work in the factory get their water from surface water. Their water was turned off when AAC took over and they couldn’t pay the new, inflated prices. There’s some rumor that a member of the staff just returned from an aid junket in Haiti and brought cholera home. Perfect conditions. Could be a hell of a trip for you.”
“Shit. What do you want me to do with the flash drive? Who knows when we’ll see each other?”
“It’d be safer if you dropped it off at work. My plane leaves—” The sound of glass breaking, muffled voices, and chaos leaves me straining to hear.
“Daniel? Daniel?”
Quiet.
A voice gurgles. The sound of oxygen mixing with liquid respires through the phone lines.
“Daniel? Are you there? Talk to me!”
The breathing is strong and heavy. The gurgling becomes background noise and turns raspy before it stops.
“Daniel? Are you there? Please!”
Click.
11 Jorge Nunez
He needed to get home. His family needed him now more than ever, but he had to bring home the paycheck—now more than ever. His worry coiled like a knot in his stomach.
He watched the chemicals swirl down the drain. It occurred to him he had no idea where they ended up. It didn’t matter, really. Management knew, and they paid his check. He had left Mixteca many years ago, sending his pay home to his wife and children in San Juan Pinas. But he had missed the green hills of the mists and, several years ago, had returned to his pueblo.
He only stayed a year. The land could not sustain his growing family and he found himself once again moving. Like ancient times, his people were always moving. And now he was on the border, working for an American company, cleaning up harsh chemicals under harsh conditions in a harsh land.
He was worried. His wife had given birth to a very sick baby two months ago, and she was weak from the physical effort and grief. He had planted a tiny garden. Their house, a mixture of reclaimed aluminum and boarding he had been able to piece together from abandoned and clearance materials, stood in a neighborhood of equally fragile houses hastily built by other desperate people on the outskirts of the factory town. His wife had smiled at the little garden that claimed a tiny strip of marginal land at the front of the house. Every day she gathered water from the trickling stream. She tended to her crops and prayed that they would survive to feed her malnourished family, but they continued to wilt in the damning sun of the arid land. Thus withered, they were now drowned in the onslaught of heavy rain. They were too much of a reminder of their dead baby.
Their dead baby. He wiped a tear from his cheek with the sleeve of his shirt.
“She has anencephaly,” the doctor had said.
“Por qué?”
“Perhaps it runs in your family.”
But there was no story of such a birth in their village.
“Will she live?”
“No.”
“Will she suffer?”
“No. She has no brain and no way to feel herself dying.”
She lived two more days. They watched her fade and then she was no more.
And now his wife and one of his sons were throwing up and had been complaining of cramps since last night.
Jorge wiped the sweat from his upper lip and stretched his back. It was a brief break from his troubles, but the monotony of his job made his mind return to his problems. He picked up another bucket of wastewater and carried it to the drain, but it sloshed as he doubled over with a pain that had been gnawing at him much of the day. The liquid burned and he quickly set the vessel down. He watched it as it formed blisters. He could not go to the factory doctor. Conditions were abnormally hot outside the clean room and he was not wearing his protective gear. He would be in trouble. It was bad enough he had already been spoken to about it earlier in the day. The heavy garments made him hot and uncomfortable and he needed to think clearly, to not allow the walls of his worries smother him.
When he left for the day, his hand throbbing and his bowels grumbling, he hurried away from the factory complex. Astride Amalgamated Corporation, AAC, straddled Mexican Federal Highway 2 in the remote thorn scrub west of Ciudad Frontera, a sprawling city of 200,000 that had sprouted from the arid lands of the Tamaulipan mezquital. On one side, a giant complex devoted to the manufacture of microchips destined to Kuala Lumpur for packaging before the final transit to meet up with the motherboard, and the other side, the vast network of water treatment basins and tanks full of sparkling water. The side devoted to microchips consumed gallons of water, and the other was devoted to supplying water to the town and the other industries assembling imported components into products for export. But Jorge did not have his normal energy to marvel at these wonders tonight. Tonight, he needed to get home.
He traveled through the makeshift streets along arroyos now filled with stagnating water from the recent rains. He shook his head as the smell of raw sewage assaulted him and threatened to empty his bowels. If only he could stop breathing until he made it home.
He was one of the lucky ones. His family still had running water. He slipped and skidded through the mud-thick neighborhoods and wondered how many of his neighbors had had their water stopped for failure of payment.
Water rates had risen quickly when AAC took over the water business, and many people could not afford water and food for their families. The unexpectedly heavy seasonal rains should have helped people who used old ways of capturing rain, but it had only seemed to make everything worse. Water spilled everywhere. Jorge rounded the corner and felt comfort at the sight of his house, but that relief was short-lived.
The house was dark.
At that moment, he vomited and his bowels let loose in a torrent of watery diarrhea. He collapsed into his own vomit and the swirling foulness of his neighborhood. No one came to pull him o
ut of the excrement.
12 Fiona
The soiree should’ve been uneventful. It should’ve been no different from any other of Gavin’s little social events. Except that this event occurred on a Saturday on the exact date as all the other wicked Saturdays of my fucking life. How else could it have turned out?
Gavin could never stand the idea of a secret that didn’t include him. Something that was only mine. For the entirety of our lives, I have given him six days of every week, but he begrudges me the one. One out of seven. A whole 14 percent of my week that I keep for myself. Whooptidoo. No amount of dissembling can prevent that seam from pulling apart. Besides, how could I ever explain my role in either tragedy? They’re mine. Not his. And telling him I’m responsible for two deaths might be too much for his patrician ass.
When I was ten, Mom and Dad left me to watch my siblings. I only took my eyes off them for five minutes. Peeing was my great sin. Thinking back on it, I should’ve just peed in the pool. Everyone does. Better yet. God could’ve made an exception and exempted me from a bladder and a vagina altogether. If I didn’t have a bladder, Rory would still be alive. And the whole vagina thing might’ve made a lot of things easier.
I pour myself another stiff vodka. It flows and warms me. God it feels so damn good. There’s just one little pesky problem. It always ends up in the bladder. Fuck my life.
Five years later, it was my fault again. It was all because of me, because I wanted to see Damon, be with Damon, feel all the feelings I felt every time I saw him. He made me feel alive. Made me feel desired. Made me feel forgiven. It was that damned pesky problem of the vagina that time.
I throw myself into my chaise lounge and giggle. My robe slips open and I slide my fingers into myself. After all, I am a woman of sin. Isn’t that what they call it in nice little places where nice little people go to feel good about themselves?
But he wasn’t worth it. Everyone else knew it. How could I have been so stupid? I risked everything for nothing—my sin, that of singular purpose, my purpose, without regard for consequence. Trouble was, he was a really good tease and a really good fuck. Which is probably why Jazmin would never let go.
And then there was the problem of Brandon. One too many vodkas and a shitload of guilt and . . . well . . . I kissed the asshole. Broke the code. I never could get the consequence and guilt thing down.
But that was in the past. I keep those days a secret. Growing up, my kids learned not to ask for or expect too much. Saturday was my day and I took every damn thing to forget it. So my children learned to make excuses. They helped keep the façade of a glamorous family intact. They wore the mask for the world, mindful of the secret to which not even they were privy. Sunday morning always came early, and when it did they helped Abella clean up the remains of Saturday night. Sunday was never much better than Saturday, but I was at least there. The children would quickly disperse to the far corners lest they disturb the quiet that cloaked the house and sealed it in muteness. The custom had only lately been challenged.
Why? I don’t know. This state of affairs had suited Gavin fine. His parents had been enthusiastic champions of the philosophy that all children should be seen and not heard. His upbringing in the better neighborhoods of Boston and requisite sojourn at Harvard solidified his New England reserve. The openness and friendliness of Southern California did little to melt his restraint.
Lately, he’s different. His job seems to be an increasing source of dissatisfaction. His problem isn’t so different from mine. He’s aging, but everyone around him seeks a cure to that process. He’s aging amongst those who refuse to do so. In the early days, he had every-thing—a beautiful wife, an enviable job, a showcase home, healthy and bright children—and Beverly Hills validated his brilliance. But something has changed. The terrain has shifted. It has shifted into something monstrous.
And now I seem to be the shining example of everything he hates about his life. I played by the rules—which, by the way, were also his rules. It was the one code he and my parents agreed upon. If I just stayed beautiful enough then I would be worthy. How the fuck was I supposed to know there were some wrinkles that could not be smoothed away?
I need my energy to get through my days. The party he forced on me was a clear example of the irks-and-twains in my life, the bifurcation of the before and the after. I’m still spinning from his demands. Even when I pled my case, he remained unmoved. It should’ve been a warning, but I attributed it to his job. It wasn’t the first time I’ve missed a vital cue. But then, living with guilt as my constant companion cloaks the social cues necessary to survive the shifting landscape.
I verified my elegance in my Oscar de la Renta dress and collection of diamonds. Diamonds he has given me throughout the course of our marriage, I might add. My hair, coiffed into a chignon, was swept up tastefully. The expanse of mirror along the wall of our two-story grand foyer and staircase didn’t lie. Even I knew I was stunning. I made my way around the large formal living room, spending just enough time with each person to make him or her feel special without insulting the next person. I’m a master at charm. I always have been. The night sparkled with all the who’s who of our glittering little world.
I close my eyes.
I found Gavin, but he was detached from the entire affair. Why in God’s name was he putting me through this if it meant nothing to him? Surely, he could at least pretend he was interested. Or was this some game? I headed toward the young hired bartender.
“A cosmopolitan, please.”
“Yes, Mrs. McDermott. Can I get you anything else?” His eyes shimmered with appreciation. I caressed his hand as I took the drink—to hell with Gavin. I was sinking. He was just a kid.
The moment of conquest was short-lived. Sam stood in the high arch separating the living room from the dining room. She motioned to me. I had given her instructions to stay upstairs with her younger sister and brother. I went over to her.
“What is it?”
“Mary Jean and Katie want me to go out.”
“No. You know you’re supposed to watch Molly and Sean. Besides, how would you get there anyway?”
“I can get there. I don’t see why I have to watch the babies. Besides, they’re old enough to be upstairs on their own. You and Dad are here.”
“They’re not babies, but they still need someone with them, especially Sean. Please be helpful. I don’t ask much of you, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fight me on this. Your Dad and I are busy entertaining.”
“What d’you think they’re gonna do, Mom, set the house on fire or ingest too many of Dad’s Viagras? Besides, Abella’s here.”
“Abella’s busy. And what do you mean by Viagra?”
“You’re clueless Mom. Everyone in the world knows what Viagra is.”
“Of course I know what Viagra is, but your dad doesn’t take them. I don’t know what trouble you’re trying to stir up, but it’s not going to work.” My cheeks burned underneath my makeup.
“I’m not stirring up trouble. You’re the one who’s troubled.”
“How dare you speak to me like that! Go to your room! You’re not allowed out. You better get upstairs before I lose my temper. My parents would’ve smacked me if I’d spoken to them like that.” I pointed to the stairs.
“First, Mom, Granddad and Grandma would’ve never touched their precious princess, so you can drop that fable. Second, Dad does too take Viagra. Third, the babies can look after themselves and, fourth, maybe you should throw a better temper tantrum than that, because you act like you’re some constipated zombie freak. Look at me, look at me, my life is so bad and poor me.”
“Who died and made you the great know-it-all?”
“You did, Mom. You’ve been acting like you’re dead since I can remember.”
“Go to your room, Sam. You’re grounded. That was hurtful.” I practically choked on the words and tears streamed down my face, along with a thick trail of black mascara.
Sam didn’t budge and I moved
through the door into the kitchen. Sam followed.
“Dad will unground me. He’ll even agree with me.”
“No he won’t, Sam. Go upstairs.”
“I’m going out, Mom. Do I need to go into the party and ask Dad right now? I know how much you hate public spectacles. I would hate to have that perfect reputation ruined.”
Who was this child? The changeling was back. “Are you threatening me? Get upstairs. NOW! Or you won’t like the consequences.”
“Ooooh, Mom, I’m so scared. Dad already told me I could go out tonight if I wanted.”
“When did he tell you that, Sam?”
“This morning. I just didn’t have plans at that point, but now I do.”
“I don’t care. Go upstairs before you’re grounded for the next week.”
“You can’t do that. I’m telling Dad.”
“Yes I can and I am. Upstairs, Sam. Now!”
Abella swung through the kitchen doors and stopped herself short. She turned the same way from which she had come, but Sam caught her.
“Abella, didn’t Dad say I could go out tonight? Mom won’t let me.”
“Yes, your dad did but your mom had already asked you to stay in.” Abella headed for the bowels of the kitchen.
Sam followed her. “That’s not fair, Abella. Dad said I could.”
“Sam, my darling, I figured you knew you couldn’t because your mother had already said so.”
Sam turned to me. Betrayal evident in her eyes. Abella had never abandoned her before. Ever!
Now Sam knew how it felt.
She wiped at her angry tears. “I hate you. I hate your secret and I hate your lies. You’re ruining my life. You’ve been ruining my life. We have to tiptoe around here every weekend while you drink your little cocktails and cry like some pathetic rag mop. Dude, you’re like a bad disease. I can’t wait until I get out of here.” She ran through the kitchen crying. I couldn’t believe the tirade, but even worse was the look on Abella’s face as she stared in horror behind me. I turned and came face to face with five of my dinner guests.
