Bulletproof Vest

by Maria Venegas

  The next day, while I was gathering my things at work and getting ready to go home, he came through the glass doors of the showroom and walked right up to my desk.

  “Don’t do this,” he said before I had a chance to say anything. But it was already done. Two years was not such a long time, though it was long enough.

  That same summer I received a phone call from one of Abigail’s friends. After spending a year in New York, Abigail had returned to Maine to find that the gallery owner still hadn’t finalized his divorce. He was having second thoughts, had started pushing her away. The last time I had talked to Abigail, she had been sitting on the edge of her bed, and though she could see the sun was shining, she could not muster the energy to go outside.

  “I feel numb, I feel numb, I just feel so numb,” she kept saying, aware of how wrong it was: that her sister had just had a baby, that she was now an aunt, and that she didn’t care—she didn’t feel anything at all.

  I had suggested she consider going off the meds. That perhaps they were impeding her ability to feel. Besides, she wasn’t so much depressed as she was heartbroken, and if that coward was having second thoughts, so be it. Eventually, she’d find someone who would truly appreciate her. But she didn’t want anyone else, she only wanted the man she had been building her life around for the past two years. She called me a few days later and was in better spirits, said she had gone to see a psychiatrist who had lowered her dosage. Then, about two weeks after that, I got the call.

  “Oh, Maria, I don’t know how to say this,” her friend said. “But Abigail is dead.”

  Dead. There was that awful word from which there was no return—dead. It was her mother who had found her. Abigail was facedown on her living room floor, her arms folded above her head as if she had become overwhelmed with fatigue and had decided to lie down for a nap, right there on the cool floorboards. Her face and body were bruised, and a single thread of blood had escaped from her nose. An autopsy revealed that she had been seizing for hours before suffering a brain aneurysm.

  Years later, her mother would tell me that there was a history of seizures in her family, from her husband’s side. And the meds Abigail was on were known to cause seizures, especially during that critical window of increasing or decreasing doses, though perhaps Abigail had been unaware of this family history, given her fractured relationship with her father. He had left with his lover when Abigail was still in high school, and though she would often call and make plans with him—to go see a movie or go out for dinner—time and time again he had blown her off, had left her waiting. Her fractured relationship with her father was something I’d been unaware of, as neither of us ever talked about our fathers.

  Losing Abigail not only forced me to question what I was doing with my life, it also made me rethink my relationship with my own father. For years, he had been my best-kept secret, and though I never talked about him or the past, my writing had started gravitating toward him. Though I was working full-time, I had continued taking acting and writing classes in the evenings. Acting may have been the craft through which I had accessed my emotions, but writing was the tool through which I had begun to reckon with the source of those emotions.

  After writing a short story about how my father had shot the neighbor, the instructor suggested I apply to an MFA program. I applied to Iowa, Hunter, and Columbia. By then I was working as an account executive at Juicy Couture and had a high salary, a clothing allowance, a 401K, health insurance, an assistant, and my own office on the sixteenth floor of the Empire State Building. I was accepted to all three programs, resigned from my post, and practically hightailed it back to Mexico.

  It’s early May when we arrive in Valparaíso, and after Roselia leaves, I spend two weeks in town with my mother and Tito. On the day before I leave for La Peña, we go visit a small museum in town. A room in the back of the museum has the remains of a prehistoric mammal. They sit inside a glass case, along with a card that explains how an elderly man from a nearby ranch had uncovered the bones while digging near the river and donated them to the museum.

  Tito and I stroll through the main room, where there is an array of antiques—a phonograph, a typewriter, men’s shaving gadgets, and reading glasses. A cobalt-blue wooden trunk sits near the doorway, and on top of it are several irons, ranging from three to eight pounds. On the far wall are several framed photographs with a sign written above them that reads HACIENDAS DE VALPARAÍSO.

  “That is the entrance to La Peña,” Tito says, leaning in for a closer look at one of the frames. It’s a black-and-white photo of the pillars that stand at the entrance to La Peña. “La Paña. That’s what you used to call it because you couldn’t pronounce it,” she says, adjusting her headscarf. “You probably don’t remember, but after your parents left, not a day went by without you asking about them. Every single day you asked me to take you back to La Peña, and every day I explained to you that your parents were no longer there, but I don’t know, I guess you were just too young to understand. The others were older, they understood what was happening, but not you, and it got to the point where you would ask anyone who came by the house if they had seen your mami, papi, and Jorgito. If we went to the mercado, la plaza, la panadería—you were asking people if they had seen them. They gave you a dulce de leche, a chicle, anything to get your mind off them, because everyone knew that your parents had gone to the other side.

  “The day came when they had been gone for three months and still, first thing in the morning, you were asking me to take you to La Peña, and, well, what was I to do? I took you back there, to that house where you were born, so you could see for yourself, and once you saw that they weren’t there, never again did you ask about them—nunca. After that day, you stopped talking altogether. You were so smart, you already knew how to say everything, but for about two weeks you didn’t utter a single word. Not to me, or anyone,” she says, still examining the photo, and I’m aware of a vague pain in my arm where my nails are digging so hard that they might be drawing blood. “Those pillars probably aren’t even there anymore, huh? They’ve probably crumbled by now,” she says, glancing back at me.

  “No,” I say, staring at the photo, which wants to blur behind the glass, but I refuse to let it. “They’re still there.”

  She looks back at the photo and carries on, as if she were speaking to it instead of me.

  “When your parents finally sent for you, you didn’t want to go. It had been two years, and by then you were so attached to me that you didn’t want to leave. But imagine if I had kept you here? One day, you would have grown up and resented me for it. On the day that you left, we took you kids to your grandparents’ house. You know, the one that used to sit in the plaza, the one your grandparents sold after everything happened with Manuel? You probably don’t remember, but that’s where you left from, and Manuel went with you. He hadn’t planned on staying on the other side, but your father talked him into it. He stayed and worked for a bit, and when he came back here, never again did he return to the other side, nor did he want to.

  “Manuel believed that the best thing for a man was to work his own land, and he was right. I think the reason why this country is so behind is because all of its men have abandoned their fields to go work on the other side—and for what? Because, really, it’s a miserable wage what they are paid, and you tell me if that isn’t true, but what is one to do? In the past it used to be easier to earn a living. When you were kids, we had cornfields and peach orchards, but ever since they passed that free-trade agreement with the north, they’ve made it more difficult for us. It used to be that if you went to the mercado, anything local was always more affordable, but now the produce they bring from the other side is cheaper, and how are we supposed to compete with that? Everyone has abandoned their fields, and no one bothers with saving their seeds anymore. Only God knows where we will end up.

  “I remember the day that bus pulled out of town, I turned to Lupe and said, ‘When will we ever see those kids again?’ B
ut here we are, right?” She smiles at me. “That’s good that you’ve come back to see us, that you’re going back to La Peña to spend time with your father, because whether we like it or not, in this life we only have the one. Your father went and did what he did with Manuel, and for that I can’t say I wish him any harm, but I can’t say I wish him any good either. Each one of us will have to settle our debts with God. Only He knows why your father is still here.”

  “What are you guys looking at?” my mother asks, coming from the room where the animal’s remains are kept.

  “It’s the entrance to La Peña,” Tito says. “I was just telling Chuyita how she used to call it La Paña.” She walks away, goes strolling along the wall, looking at the other photos. My mother comes over and has a look.

  “Ah, cierto,” she says, leaning in. I stare at her profile and feel as though I’m seeing her for the first time. Why are you like this? Why are you so distant? Why can’t you just talk to me? Why, why, why— She must have known why all along. Only once had she tried talking to me about when they had left us in Mexico. I had already graduated from college, was living in Chicago, and she and Jorge had driven into the city to run errands. Then, on their way home, a blizzard had paralyzed traffic on the expressway. When they called from my mother’s cell, they happened to be near the exit that led straight to my apartment. They came over and ended up spending the night. Jorge stayed on the sofa and my mother and I shared my bed.

  “Where did you get that portrait in your living room from?” she asked when we were lying in the dark.

  “At the secondhand store,” I said. The portrait was an oil painting of a small girl, four or five years old. She wore a green scarf around her chestnut hair, and a single tear had escaped from her large brown eyes and was running down her rosy cheek. I had purchased the portrait at the Salvation Army. It was on display in the window, and when I had spotted it from across the street, it had stopped me in my tracks. The next thing I knew, I was at the counter, forking over forty dollars for the painting.

  “Does it remind you of anything?” she asked.

  “No,” I said, thinking it an odd question. What was it supposed to remind me of?

  “It doesn’t remind you of when we left you in Mexico?” she asked. “You don’t remember if after we left you felt scared, or sad?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t remember.”

  The wind outside roared and the plastic on my window ballooned with air. We lay in the faint white glow of the moon and snow, and then I heard her sniffling. I reached over to my nightstand, pulled a few tissues from the box, and handed them to her.

  “I should have never left you,” she said, and it was then that I realized she was crying. “I wish someone had told me, ‘Don’t leave this little girl. Take her with you. She’s too young. If you leave her, you will never find each other again.’ But I had no one to turn to for advice, and your father was of no help. He could have carried you. I was carrying Jorge, and he could have carried you.”

  “Amá, it’s okay,” I said. “You did what you had to do.”

  “I should have never left you,” she said, turning to face me. “Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Amá, it’s okay, really.” I tried to explain that it was something that happened all the time, had been happening for centuries to immigrants and refugees around the world—parents and kids were separated for a year, or two, or ten—it was no big deal. So I thought, because back then I was unaware of what we had lost when we crossed the border.

  “Look,” my mother says, turning and making her way to the blue wooden trunk near the entrance. “They call these antiques. These aren’t antiques.” She picks up one of the irons. “When we lived in La Peña, I used to iron your clothes with these. I had about six or seven of them. When you go see your father, ask him to let you into that house where we used to live.” She places the iron back down on the trunk. “I bet those irons are still there.”

  18

  DUST DEVILS

  ALL ALONG THE ABANDONED FIELDS, they are already forming. It’s as if men who fell on that very spot years ago now inhale the wind, rise up under its spell, and go spinning, kicking up dust, grass blades, and twigs—dust devils. One comes twirling over the field, crashes into the stacked-stone corral that surrounds the house where I was born, and sends the tin roof rattling above.

  Across the dirt road, the green hammock I strung up when I first arrived three months ago is blowing around in the wind and getting entangled in the branches of the mesquite. I had come prepared to stay awhile, had brought a hammock, my laptop, my stovetop espresso maker, a stack of books, a guitar, and my running shoes. Every morning, I wake before the sun has cleared the distant mountain range, and while my father and Rosario milk the cows in the corral, I grab my iPod and go on a long jog along the dirt roads, my father’s dogs panting and running by my side. Another gust comes flying over the wall, and I turn away from it.

  I reach into my cargo pants and pull out the peyote button that I’ve kept stored in the refrigerator since the day I arrived. I wrapped it in a paper towel, stashed it in a brown paper bag, and then slid it under a pile of hard tortillas inside the vegetable drawer, hoping that neither my father, Rosario, or Alma would find it. When we stopped in Real de Catorce on the way down, Roselia had gone off into the desert the following day and picked two buttons, one for her and one for me. She had eaten hers right away, but I had held on to mine. Though I’d had several opportunities to try peyote while traveling around Europe, especially in Amsterdam, I had always known that if I was ever going to try it, I wanted it to be here, in Mexico, the place of its origin. Since I’ll be leaving in a few days, it’s now or never. I put the first wedge in my mouth and chew the thick, slightly bitter pulp. My sister had sort of coached me on what to expect, explaining that it was stronger than weed, but not quite as strong as mushrooms, and that I should take it on an empty stomach. She also told me that I must take it with a purpose—put an intention out in the universe—like making a wish.

  If only I could go back in time and rescue myself from the silence that gripped me on the day my grandmother brought me back to this place. If I hadn’t uttered a word to anyone for two weeks, then where had I gone? I must have been regrouping, because if it was possible for your parents to vanish, then anything in this world was possible. During those two weeks, I imagine I was assembling a shield, something that would protect me from ever being hurt again—my own bulletproof vest. And what was the point of going through life constantly guarded against love? Martin was right. I had gone to New York and never returned. If I could ask the universe for one thing, I’d want to be released. Surrender my shield—leave it here on the very stoop where it first gripped me. Before leaving Tito’s house, I had asked my mother what it was like when we were reunited in Chicago.

  “Don’t you remember?” she said. “I wasn’t there when you arrived. I was at work, at the hotel where I cleaned rooms, and when I got home, Maria Elena had already given you all a bath and changed your clothes. Everyone ran to hug me, but not you,” she said. “You stood off to the side, looking around, and you seemed so lost. It was like you had no idea where you were standing anymore.”

  I put another wedge in my mouth, and a gust comes over the wall and sends the weeds in the front yard swaying. Hard to believe that my umbilical cord is buried somewhere beneath them. I feel that if I were to drop to my knees and start digging, uprooting weeds and clawing through the dirt, I would unearth my umbilical cord—guided to it by some deep intuition.

  “What are you doing out here?” my father calls from the other side of the gate.

  “Nothing,” I say, wrapping my hands around what’s left of the button and sitting up straight.

  “I’m going to bring the cattle down to the river for water,” he says. “Do you want to come with me?”

  “Sure,” I say, though I had planned on spending most of the day on the hammock, closer to home in case the peyote made me feel si
ck, or worse.

  He tells me to go get a satchel ready, while he saddles the donkey. I finish the rest of the button and make my way back to the house, walk past the mesquite where El Relámpago is tied. El Relámpago is the horse my father is breaking, and he’s kicking at the ground with his front hoof, seems frustrated to be saddled up yet going nowhere. El Relámpago was born at the ranch, and ever since he was a colt he had roamed free around the four hundred acres with his mother, until recently when my father had brought him down to the corral to break him.

  In the mornings, before saddling him up, he runs El Relámpago in circles, a few laps to the left, and then a few to the right. El Relámpago goes bucking and kicking up a dust cloud around my father, sometimes rising onto his hind legs, trying to break free of the harness and rope around his head before crashing back down like a lightning bolt—a relámpago. After he tires the horse, he saddles him up and ties him to the mesquite in front of the house for a few hours so that he will get used to having a saddle on his back.

  I grab a leather satchel from the storage room, go into the kitchen, and shove an orange, a water bottle, and two ice-cold cans of Modelo into it. I rationalize that if the peyote gets to be too intense, an ice-cold beer or two might help blunt its effects. In the bedroom, which I’m now sharing with Rosario and Alma, I rub sunblock on my arms and face, throw on a long-sleeved white cotton tee, grab my straw hat, and head back outside.

  My father takes the satchel and slings it over the neck of the wooden donkey saddle, which is identical to the one he gave me on my first visit. He holds the donkey still, as he always does, while I step into the stirrup and kick my leg over the saddle. He hands me the reins, and once he’s on El Colorado, his other horse, we make our way around the back of the house and up the dirt trail that leads to La Mesa, the dogs trailing close behind. La Mesa is where he keeps the bulk of his herd during the dry season, and though the property no longer belongs to him legally, as long as he’s alive, it will continue to be his land all the same.