by Unknown
Since then, Marissa has had the same job at the State Farm office, and there’s never been a real danger that she might be fired, not really. Her boss loves her. But still the fear has lingered, because where would they go, now that Marissa’s mother is near comatose with dementia and Marissa’s father has fallen into baffled, resentful depression?
Whatever, Angel reassures herself, her mother isn’t her problem now. But even thinking about that time, thinking about Marissa’s stubborn, unhappy face when she was back in her parents’ home, makes her soften toward her mother.
“What are you doing here?” Angel cups Connor’s head protectively, but he peers with solemn interest at his grandmother.
“Hey, Angel.” Marissa comes in for a hug, but they’re as self-conscious as strangers. She presses her palms together. Angel has the anxious sense that her mother is about to deliver bad news.
She jiggles Connor, though he isn’t fussing. “What? What’s going on?”
“You want to get a milkshake or something? Or whatever. I could take you out.”
Angel shrugs, noncommittal. “I should get home. I promised my dad I’d help him today.”
Marissa shifts her weight uncertainly, wipes her palms on her pants. She nudges her chin at Connor. “How’s he doing? Can I hold him?”
“Not sure if he’ll go to you. He’s been weird about strangers lately.”
Marissa looks so hurt that Angel relents. “Sure, here.” She passes him over, and Marissa clutches him to her. Connor, the little turncoat, beams radiantly. Marissa’s face lights up, her mouth rounding to mirror his.
“How’s your grandmother? She doing okay?”
“My grandmother?” What about me? Angel wants to ask. What about how I’m doing? “She’s fine.”
“I just thought she seemed strange at the Open House. Tired. I don’t know. Just, remember when Gramma Lola—”
“Of course she’s tired. We’re all tired. There’s a little baby waking us up every five minutes.”
“Listen.” Marissa’s voice cracks a little. “What I came to say. I’m sorry I told you I smoked when I was pregnant with you. At your Open House. I didn’t actually.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I was jealous of you.
“Jealous? Of what?” Angel is surprised by the bitterness of her tone.
“I don’t know. You belong.” Marissa waves a hand at the Family Foundations building. “You belong at this school. You belong with Yolanda and your dad. They love you. It’s obvious. I mean, you belong at home, too, obviously.”
Amazing that her mother might be envious of her. More amazing that Angel should appear to belong anywhere in the world. How can her mother not see how alone she truly is? How her teacher rejected her and her baby? Nevertheless, Angel’s heart goes out to her mother, who hadn’t had Smart Starts!, who’d had to navigate young motherhood and a GED on her own.
“I’ve always been amazed by you. When you were three you said, ‘Mama, can you tell me all the things I don’t know?’ You were so impatient to learn and make your own way.”
Angel smiles. “I don’t remember that.”
“Just—I’m sorry, Angel. It’s all been tough on me. I’m an idiot, but I really thought Mike was the one. Finally. But now that’s over, and I’m a grandmother. I’m too young to be a grandmother!” Marissa’s chin ripples and she wipes at her eyes with both palms. “But I am one.” She laughs. If this were a movie, they’d laugh together, but Angel sees nothing funny. Does she expect Angel to feel sorry for her?
Marissa clears her throat. “Would you come home, Angel? I’ve been wanting to ask you to come back home. I miss you.”
This is what Angel wants, isn’t it? Isn’t this what she’s been waiting for? For her mother to admit she was wrong, to admit she misses her, to beg her to come home? Yet she’s unmoved by her mother’s hopeful eyes. Angel wants so much to soften, to mend the rift between them, but something in her won’t allow it. Why?
“It’s a little late, isn’t it?” Angel takes back Connor, pulling more roughly than she intends. She winces at the naked hurt on her mother’s face.
Marissa stands with her empty hands out. The hurt closes over, those wires under her mother’s skin taut and vibrating. “You can be such a hard little bitch.”
Angel reels as though from a slap. As heated as their fights have been in the past, her mother has never called her a bitch. “Oh, that’s great. A sign of a real great mom.”
And now Marissa is crying, her face screwed up, mascara running. “I’m sorry. I don’t think that! I don’t think that at all. I came here wanting to make things better!”
Angel is so, so tired. Gently, without rancor, she says, “Thanks for trying, Mom.”
“Why can’t I make things better, Angel?”
They stand looking at each other for a long moment, Marissa’s eyes full and imploring. Angel almost relents and steps forward to hug her, but then her mother turns away, gripping the top of her purse as if it’s a life preserver.
THINGS WERE TENSE after Mike found out about her pregnancy, but as Angel’s stomach grew, mostly he just ignored her. One afternoon, however, she let herself into the house to find that Mike was working from home. He was at his drafting table, which took up a wall of the living room, absorbed in his silver laptop. He was spooning blueberry Greek yogurt into his mouth, mawing it distractedly. He’d just showered, probably after a run; his hair had grown out and was wet, curly at the nape. He was in his faded jeans, the heels of his cowboy boots hooked on the rung of the stool. When he finished the yogurt, he stacked the container inside another empty one beside him, then ripped the foil off a third and started in.
“Hey,” Angel said. “That’s my yogurt.”
Mike didn’t look at her. Spoon still in hand, he typed a few words.
“Mike. That’s my yogurt.”
“I’m working, Angel.” He scooped another bite, spoon rasping the plastic.
“Okay, I’m just saying you’re eating all my yogurt.”
Very slowly he set the container down and turned to her on his swivel stool. He swallowed with exaggeration and then asked, “Do you do the grocery shopping?”
“Yes. I went with Mom. I picked that yogurt, because I need protein and calcium.” She indicated her stomach.
Very slowly, as if she were a foreigner, Mike said, “Do you, with your hard-earned income, purchase the groceries for this house?”
“No,” said Angel.
“Then don’t fucking interrupt me when I’m working to tell me I can’t eat food I bought.”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying please don’t eat my yogurt that my mom bought me.”
His face went rigid. “You think your mother’s salary covers all the expenses in this house? You think it paid for your computer? You think it’ll cover your little teenage pregnancy? It sure didn’t cover a box of condoms, did it?”
“Why you gotta be such a dick?” Angel was electrified by her daring. She’d never sworn at an adult, never challenged anyone so directly. “You shit on everyone. Sorry your boss doesn’t think you’re as smart as you think you are. Sorry you’re not some big-shot architect, but ever think it’s maybe ’cause you’re just not that good?”
And then he was up and moving swiftly toward her. Angel backed up, but there was nowhere to back into, because the couch was behind her. Mike kept advancing. He put his hands around her neck. He didn’t squeeze; the gesture might have been a performance for someone else’s benefit. Her hands flew up to meet his.
“You piss me off so fucking much,” he said softly, and shook her, like a cartoon throttling.
Angel was more surprised than anything. Strangely, she wasn’t scared, not yet, though that would come in the moments after. Some part of her was exhilarated, because despite the fact that he was looming over her, his hands almost gentle around her throat, despite the fact that he was bigger and stronger than her, she understood that she was the powerful one in this scenario.
She’d enraged him.
Her hands were on his, clutching at them, and even now she remembers the odd intimacy of the pose: his shampoo smell, the dryness of the stretch of skin between his thumbs and forefingers, his trimmed nails smooth as river stones, the rough spots on the knuckles of his thumbs. His face was almost touching hers, his mouth contorted, his even, yellowing teeth bared, each whisker rooted black in its pale pore.
Angel’s mouth was open, but before she even thought to try for a breath or to scream, he released her. She fell back into the couch.
“Just kidding,” Mike said flatly. And this is when the fear flooded in. As Angel lay on the couch trembling, he kicked the bare bottom of her foot with the pointed toe of his cowboy boot. “You’re lucky you’re pregnant,” he said, his voice low. “Just kidding.” His eyes slid from her.
He wanted her. This understanding arrived whole and obvious. He controlled it, yes, he was disturbed by it, but that didn’t change his desire, and the fact of it now lay bare. And as they held each other’s gaze—his thick brown lashes, his brown-green irises, a red vein stretched across the white of his right eye—she saw this understanding pass between them. She saw that he was terrified.
He swiped a palm over his curly hair, touched the collar of his shirt, as if to make sure he was still there.
He turned away as if he couldn’t stand to look at her—on her back like a bug, her legs now curled up protectively, her own hands around her throat—then slammed out the door. From his computer on the drafting table, an email arrived with a cheerful chime.
EVEN NOW, watching her mother cross the Family Foundations parking lot to her car, Angel can feel Mike’s fingers around her neck, the pressure of his thumbs above her windpipe like meat lodged in her throat. She trembles, the panic coursing through her, even though she is fine. Fine! He didn’t even squeeze. She didn’t even have a bruise after.
Marissa’s gait is stiff and truncated, and Angel knows her mother is still crying. She wants to call her mother back, but at the same time, Angel is glad her mother feels bad. She should! But instead of bustling in with energetic competence to make everything right, Marissa seems defeated, and this scares Angel, because she doesn’t want to see her mother powerless in the face of what Mike did. Her mother’s manner conveys that she is sorry, but that she has been crumpled by what happened. And if her mother is crumpled, doesn’t that mean, by extension, that what Mike did was awful and permanent, and that Angel might be forever damaged? Doesn’t it mean that her relationship with her mother might never go back to normal?
Angel tightens her hold on the baby and turns her back on her mother. As she makes her way to her dad’s truck, Connor pats her cheek, his brow cinched with worry.
Tío Tíve has given Amadeo another ride to his DWI class. After, they stop at the drugstore. As they wait in the checkout line, Tíve peers into Amadeo’s packed cart.
“You didn’t get no diapers,” he says critically. His own handbasket contains a single canister of Tums.
“Right, hang on.” Amadeo takes off, running down aisles to grab a package.
“That your mom’s?” Tío Tíve asks as Amadeo, winded, swipes his credit card.
“We share one,” Amadeo says lamely. He expects his uncle’s characteristic grunt of disapproval, but the old man just looks at him with pity.
“I appreciate the ride,” Amadeo says on the way home.
His uncle doesn’t respond, but then he says, “Good to see you providing. Trying to, anyway. Call next time you need a ride.”
Was that praise? Amadeo grins out the window. The afternoon light is golden on the fields. The green leaves shimmer and dance, and in the acequias, the blue sky flashes.
He’s been in an excellent mood since his date with Brianna. Amadeo is surprised that he enjoyed himself as much as he did; this skinny Brianna girl, nervous and clean-living and with an untended patch of pubic hair, is not his type at all. Despite the fact that she is so thin, there’s something a little piggy in her appearance: the button nose, the pale firmness of her skin. A skinny pig in hiking sandals. She’s kind of adorable.
Angel’s admiration is contagious. He wants Brianna to like him, wants her to understand that he’s a good guy, and he’s allowing himself to believe that he’s trying to win her over for Angel’s sake. When you think about it, it can only benefit Angel, having her dad and teacher sweet on each other—maybe, if Amadeo plays things right, Brianna will give his daughter extra help getting into college.
Amadeo is feeling optimistic. It’s been a while since he’s slept with a new woman whom he wants to see again; usually he cycles through a few predictable old connections, or meets strangers in Española or, at least before his friends started settling down, at liquor-fueled parties at Abiquiu Lake. (His mother pretends to assume he came home after she went to sleep, and if they cross paths in the morning as he lets himself in, she’ll merely comment, “You’re up early.”) He feels both more and less hopeful about the prospects with Brianna, because she is different from these other women: earnest, self-contained, less likely to be interested in him.
When Brianna drove him home, afterward, the night was dense around the car, the dashboard lights cozy. The road rose and fell, curved in all the familiar ways, but still Amadeo had the wild sense that he could be going anywhere, he and this girl, that they could drive all the way to Denver or even farther—Seattle, Canada. Escape, adventure: Why hasn’t he done more of that in his life? Why has he stuck so close to home like a decrepit house pet that no longer brings anyone any joy? There’s nothing holding him back. He was suddenly so itchy for adventure he wanted to yell. He pressed an imaginary gas pedal in the floor mat as if to urge the car on into the thrilling night, and, as if they were piloting the car together, they crested a hill and sank with exhilarating speed.
Now his uncle turns slowly into the drive and rolls to a stop in front of the house. “Thanks, Tío.” Amadeo slams the door, gathers his shopping bags from the bed, and the truck backs out, rumbles away.
At first Amadeo thinks what he’s hearing is an animal howling, except it is coming from inside the house: his daughter, sobbing. Oh god. A mountain lion attack. Or Angel has been beaten up. Raped at gunpoint. He envisions the endless parade of twisted perps whose glowering mug shots crowd the evening news. Or, worse: the baby has fallen, his little teacup head cracked on the linoleum.
He bangs into the house, plunges down the hall past grinning school portraits toward the cries, which are coming from the open bathroom. An image comes to Amadeo of himself bent over the coffin of his infant grandson, a grown man laid waste by grief.
“Angel!” he shouts as he turns into the bathroom.
There she is, on the edge of the tub, her shirt gathered to expose her belly. At her feet, in his bouncer, Connor. Asleep, his head canted, heavy on his weak neck.
He can’t be sleeping, not through these sobs. “What happened? What’s wrong?” Amadeo drops to his knees, runs his hands over the baby’s face, pinching little arms and legs. The baby twitches and erupts into cries of his own.
“What are you doing?” Angel yells. Her face is red and rubbery, slick with tears and snot. “I just got him to sleep. Why would you wake him up?” She pushes Amadeo and, still sobbing, leans down, unhooks the fussing baby from the bouncer, lifts him carelessly. The little head falls back on the neck and Amadeo draws a sharp breath.
“Let me.” Angel’s in no shape for anything. He takes the infant in both hands, holds him against his chest. It’s the first time, he realizes, he’s questioned Angel’s competence. Until now she’s seemed like an expert.
It dawns on him that Angel is terrified. It’s obvious. How was he so utterly snowed?
He remembers what Brianna said about Angel being at risk for hurting her own child. “What happened?”
“Look at me.” Abruptly, Amadeo is afraid, because what if she has divined what transpired between him and her teacher?
But she’s pointing at the stretch marks
on her abdomen, red and rippling, like an aerial photograph of a delta.
“What? I don’t see what you mean.”
Angel throws a roll of toilet paper at his head. “Liar.”
“Hey,” he says sternly, turning himself and the baby away. “Careful.”
“You do so see. I’ll never wear a bikini again!”
Amadeo can get past his prudish discomfort at the thought of his daughter in a bikini. The real problem is that the stretch marks are ugly: deep tender-looking tracks streaking her belly, as if the skin might split.
He thinks of a story his grandmother told him long ago, about how, as a child in this village, she used to walk around barefoot all the time, and when they put her in shoes for school she got a blister. She thought nothing of it until her own mother saw the red streaks running up her legs. The whole story was a cautionary tale about why Amadeo should pray. “We didn’t have no antibiotics back then. Back then all we could do was soak in salt water and pray to God. God protected me, mi hijito, but not everyone. There was lots of kids in those days who died of blood poisoning.” He tamps down the thoughts, as if they might endanger the infant he holds.
He bounces Connor and starts to formulate his prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, please clean up Angel’s stretch marks. At least the ones that show from a bikini. It’s a stupid prayer; there’s no way God wouldn’t find it frivolous. Amadeo surges with anger at this God who can’t understand a sixteen-year-old girl’s anguish about her body.
“They all say they don’t regret it. I do regret him. I don’t want a baby.”
She looks at Connor in Amadeo’s arms, and her face fills with startling malevolence. “I hate you, Connor Padilla,” she hisses, leaning in close to the little face. “Connor Justin Padilla, I hate you.”
“Stop it. Stop it right now.” He grabs a mostly dry towel off the rack and drapes it over the whimpering baby.
