The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters

by Lorraine López

  My sister Bette and I wondered about this. Babies are not that small, we reasoned, but even if you did misplace one, soon enough it would start bawling, and then you’d find it straightaway. How could you lose a baby? How could our mother have lost a boy? When we asked Fermina, she said our mother should tell us what happened to Anthony Gerard. “It is her story,” she said. “When it is time, she will tell you.” Then she told us that she, too, had lost her brother when he was a baby.

  “Really?” Bette’s eyes grew round. “Where did he go?”

  “Los riscos.”

  “The cliffs?”

  She nodded. “He flew from them like a bird. Espérense. Your mother will tell you about your brother. Wait and you will know.” Fermina would say nothing more about her lost brother or ours.

  But Bette and I didn’t like to wait, so we tried on our own to solve the puzzle of our brother’s disappearance. We shut ourselves in our parents’ closet, and Bette pulled a sheath of dry cleaner’s plastic from my father’s gray pin-striped suit. Maybe Anthony Gerard had gotten tangled in something like this, the plastic molding over his melon-sized head like a membrane, sucking into his nostrils and mouth as he gasped for air. Bette supposed he might have gotten lost this way.

  “I’m going to visit Anthony Gerard,” she said as we huddled in the leather-musky shadows between shoe trees. She pulled the plastic over her black curls and her face. “You coming?” She gathered the loose ends, knotting them under her chin.

  I shook my head. “Nah, you go first.”

  The plastic puckered and dimpled before clouding with her breath. After a few minutes, she swayed and then slumped into my lap. I wanted to shout for help, but it was as though the plastic shrouded my head, stuffing my mouth and jamming my throat. I stripped away the clammy sheathing and slapped her face. She cried out, raised her hand to strike me, but I caught her wrist.

  She said, “I saw him! I saw him!”

  “Who?” I’d forgotten the purpose of our experiment.

  “Anthony, Anthony Gerard! I saw him. He was wearing a sailor suit.”

  “Sailor suit?” I imagined the strutting Cracker Jack boy. “Where was he?”

  “Long Beach.” Bette nodded. “Pacific Ocean Park. I saw him holding an orange balloon on a string.”

  “P.O.P.? Nah-uh.” I flashed on the chaos of hawkers in peppermint-striped jackets and straw boaters barking attractions, the tattooed and unshaven operators mutely churning rides —the Ferris wheel, the roller coasters, the small boats circling a moat of brackish water, and the bumper cars that sizzled overhead, showering sparks when they collided. I envisioned Anthony Gerard cracking open salted peanuts from a red-and-white sack and lining up to ride the roller coaster. The unfairness of it soured my stomach. “How come he gets to go there?”

  “Stupid, that’s where he was lost. I saw the Ferris wheel, the big one, near the water. That’s where Mama lost him.”

  Being lost at P.O.P. hardly seemed a bad deal to me. “Is he still there?”

  She shrugged. “That’s where I saw him.”

  “What if he wandered out to the beach? What if he went too far out?” Even wading seemed treacherous. I would squeeze my aunt Nilda’s freckled hand as I stood quaking, ankle-deep in foam, the wet sand worming between my toes after each slapping wave. If a slimy lock of seaweed brushed my ankle, I’d shimmy up my aunt’s hip like a monkey. “Maybe he drowned!”

  “Or maybe he flew off the Ferris wheel.” Bette hooked her thumbs together, waving her fingers like wings.

  I thought of my lost brother now, imagining him here at my party, strutting among the guests in his sailor suit, as I crammed the last wedge of bun into my mouth and watched Bette and her friends hoist Gloria Quon atop an upturned trash can. They strung a shiny gold ribbon from one of the gifts diagonally across Gloria’s chest, crowned her with a tiara fashioned from tin foil, and sang, “There, she is, Miss A-mer-i-ca . . .”

  Gloria was the type of child that adults make excuses to pet and fondle. She was chosen to play Snow White and Sleeping Beauty in fairy-tale plays, and she was the Virgin Mary for the Christmas pageant. Stage lights cast a bluish halo over her shingle-cut hair, bejeweling her dark eyes and glistening on her plump coral lips. When I met her, I was so moved by the creamy stalk of her neck that I wrapped my hands around it, sinking fingers into the warm skin. She’d cried for me to stop, and I pulled away, my face hot with shame. My cheeks still flamed with that memory.

  My sister shot sidelong glances at me, and Randy Suela filled Gloria’s lap with poinsettia blooms, their scarlet veins milk spotting his brown hands. Bette said, “Look, Loretta, look. We’re making Gloria the queen!”

  “Okay.” I dropped my paper plate in a grocery sack my father had designated for trash. “I’ll be right back.”

  Randy’s tennis shoes scraped the cement as he rushed to catch up with me. The sound roused Flip, who whimpered, clawing the cement, straining at the end of his tether. Randy caught up with me when I leaned to scratch Flip’s spotted ears. “Poor pup, you have to wait here.”

  “Can I go with you?” Randy said.

  “I guess.” I massaged Flip’s ears until he sank to his belly, eyelids drooping. I gave him a final pat, and Randy and I trotted down the driveway.

  “Where we going?” he asked.

  “I got to get Sugar Foot for the party.”

  “Is that like a dessert or something?”

  “No, he’s a golden retriever with one white paw.”

  “Another dog? You sure like dogs, don’t you?”

  “I love dogs. And cats. And mice. And even bugs, but not worms.”

  “Do you like any people? Do you like any kids, say, in our class?”

  I paused, thinking this over. “I like Gloria. She’s pretty and she plays the violin.”

  “Do you like any of us guys? I mean, would you like someone like me, if that someone liked you?”

  “Not if he didn’t have a dog.”

  “I have a dog. So, do you like me?” He went silent, waiting for my answer.

  I hesitated at the Lucases’ ivy-covered gate. While I didn’t mind Mrs. Lucas, whose thinning red hair flipped up, making her look like she could be Bozo the Clown’s sister, I couldn’t stand Ginger and Vicki, her teenaged daughters. Standing before their gate, I remembered the pigeon chick in the bushes near our house. Mama wouldn’t let me bring the bird indoors, so I kept it in a towel-lined shoebox in the cuartito. I fed it rice cereal with an eyedropper. After several days, the tiny bird’s stiff down grew plush, its breast round and sleek. The chick would trail after me in the cuartito when I came to feed him, and nest in my lap after eating, cooing with contentment.

  “Don’t show the Lucas girls that bird,” my mother had warned me once as the sisters strolled past our house. “They’ll take it away from you.”

  But I was so proud of the pigeon that I couldn’t resist calling out to them the next time they appeared. “Hey, want to see something?”

  I don’t know how my mother knew it, but those lipstick smeared girls, with their tight skirts and fat, smudgy knees, took the chick away with them. First they jabbered —one and then the other —their flat voices drumming like raindrops on a tin roof.

  “What do you need a pigeon for, huh?”

  “We can take better care of it. We’re older.”

  “We even got a birdcage with a swing.”

  “That pigeon’s going to die here.”

  “What are you going to do when it gets sick?”

  “We got a friend who’s a bird doctor. Take care of it for free.”

  Then they hefted the box between them, taking the eyedropper, the cereal, and the little bird away from me.

  I didn’t see them until weeks later, one Sunday after mass.

  “How’s the pigeon?” I asked Ginger.

  “Huh?”

  “How’s that bird you got from me?”

  She turned to Vicki. “You tell her.”

  “No-o-o-o, n
ot me. You tell her.”

  “We had it in the yard next door,” began Ginger, “and the neighbor was raking.”

  “Not raking,” Vicki corrected her sister.

  “That’s right, not raking.”

  “Mowing.”

  “Okay, mowing,” Ginger said.

  My fingernails bit small white moons into my palms. “What happened?”

  “Well, that’s what we’re trying to tell you,” Vicki said.

  “Blood everywhere.” Ginger shook her head. “A real mess.”

  “Did you take him to the doctor?”

  “What doctor?” Vicki asked.

  “The head had already come off,” explained Ginger.

  “That’s right,” Vicki said. “The head was off.”

  “You can’t put that back on. Not even with stitches.”

  “Why did you even let him out of the cage?”

  “What cage?” Vicki had asked.

  Now, if I saw either of the Lucas girls in the yard or even glimpsed one through the window, then I’d spin around, head for home, and forget all about bringing Sugar Foot to my party. But I wasn’t likely to see them, as they’d taken to smoking cigarettes and riding around in cars driven by older boys with slicked-back hair.

  “Well?” asked Randy as we stood before the Lucas gate.

  “Well, what?”

  “I have a dog. Does that mean you like me?”

  “I guess so. Flip’s a great dog.”

  “Would you want to go with me?”

  “Go where?”

  “Not go anywhere. I mean, like, be my girlfriend.”

  My stomach lurched. “No!”

  “I thought you liked me.”

  “I like Flip,” I said.

  “Would you go with me if I gave you Flip?”

  “You’d completely give him to me? He’d live at my house?”

  “If I did,” Randy repeated, nodding.

  “Maybe I would.” I tugged open the gate. Sugar Foot lifted himself out of his basket bed on the porch, shook all over, and loped toward us. Mrs. Lucas appeared at the screen door, bearing a jump rope. “Keep him tied up, Loretta, or he’ll run off. There’s a dog in heat on the corner, and you can barely control old Sugar, even with a rope.”

  I threaded the rope through his collar, and Randy and I started back for the party. As we walked in silence, I gave Sugar Foot plenty of lead to visit trees, but held firm.

  Finally Randy said, “Look, Loretta, I can’t do it. I’ve had Flip since he was a pup. I just can’t give him away like that.”

  “I know.” I liked Randy more than ever right then. “Let’s race to the house, okay? On your mark, get set, go!” We bounded back to the party. Sugar Foot, though an old dog with a limp, won by the taut length of his rope.

  My father had us gather up wilted balloon skins, crepe streamers, paper cups, plates, and tattered bits of piñata after the party ended. As we finished, I asked him if we could visit my mother before supper. He blew at the thin flap of hair that kept spilling over his forehead like a loose chapel veil. “¡Cómo molestas!”

  “I want to see her. That was my only wish when I blew out all the candles.”

  “Never enough,” he said. “The party, the balloons, the cake, and those dogs fighting —it’s never enough for you, is it?” He gestured toward the patio with his bandaged hand, the one Sugar Foot had bitten, loose gauze trailing like kite string from his wrist.

  I cast my eyes on my shoes. They were water-splotched now, and they pinched my swollen feet. Sugar Foot hadn’t gotten along with Flip. My father and Mr. Huerta tried yanking them apart, but the dogs ignored them. Sugar Foot snarled, thrusting with such force that the rope burned my hands. Dad hollered for Cary to get the hose. When it was over, Mr. Huerta, his guayabera shirt sopping, shook a finger at me. “No more dog parties on this property, and I mean it!”

  The disaster of the party opened a place in me so deep and dark and lonely that not even the coffee table piled with gifts —most of them for Bette —could fill it. “I never had a birthday without Mama.”

  “¡Cállate la boca!”

  “Juan Carlos!” Fermina called from the porch. Her friend Irina was visiting. They swayed together on the glider, talking quietly. “Ven aca.”

  My father threw down the rope he’d pulled from the avocado tree. “Cómo molestan” —these were his favorite words; everyone bothered him.

  But I bothered him the most. To tell the truth, I did it on purpose. The others acted like he was some friendly giant in a fairy tale. Bette and Rita would run to tackle his legs when he returned from work, as he was swinging his lunch box and humming, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” though he really worked for the city, fixing water mains and opening hydrants when there were fires. He’d toss my shrieking sisters into the air, one at a time. Then he’d slam in the screen door and tickle the baby and give Cary a few friendly punches in the arm or muss his hair. All the while, I’d hide in my room or up in the avocado tree, staring down at the naked spot on his scalp and wondering why it had to be Mama. Why not him? “Where’s la Loretta?” he’d ask. Bette would guess where I might be, and I’d hear him let out a sigh that whistled with relief.

  Fermina’s voice creaked like a rusted hinge as she spoke to my father, and Bette squinted at me, as though trying to figure out just how I’d become such an ass.

  “We haven’t visited Mama in a real long time,” I said.

  “Why don’t you go to hell?” Rita balled her fists and scowled at me.

  “Why should I?” I put my hands on my hips and swung my head from side to side as I’d seen the Lucas girls do when they argued. “To visit you?”

  “Shithead,” Rita said.

  “Shut up, both of you,” Bette hissed. “I can’t hear what Fermina’s saying.”

  “I miss Mama. I just want to visit her. What’s so bad about that?”

  “Dummy, you can’t visit her. She’s dead,” said Bette. “All you can do is see the grave —dirt and grass. Her spirit’s floated up to heaven. She’s not even there.” Bette often acted like she knew what she had no way of knowing, and, mostly, we ignored her, but this time she angered Cary.

  “Liar! She is so there. I want to see her, too.” Cary stepped beside me, twining his hot, chubby arm with mine. Sometimes I liked my brother almost as much as a dog.

  My father fished in his pocket for the keys, yelling at us to get in the car, goddamn it. Bette hefted Sophie on one hip and lugged her to the car. Rita, tagging after them, turned to thrust her tongue out at me.

  At the cemetery, we met the man who’d sold my mother’s burial plot to my father. He claimed to be from the same part of New Mexico that my father came from, but he kept calling my father “paisano,” and everyone knows that —where my dad’s from —a paisano is a roadrunner. Even we, English-speaking children, called roadrunners paisanos. Until we saw the beeping bird in cartoons, we didn’t have another word for them. To call our father paisano seemed silly, even insulting to him. Someone from his hometown should know better than this.

  “Hey, paisano,” the cemetery man said that afternoon as he strolled with us to my mother’s grave.

  “Why do you insist on calling me a ‘roadrunner’?” my father asked.

  “Ha-ha. You’re a funny guy, paisano. But serious, that plot near your lady is still available, but not for long. You don’t want no stranger sleeping near your wife.”

  My father stopped to light an unfiltered Camel. His sports shirt billowed as he sucked in a lungful of smoke. “I ain’t planning to die.”

  “Serious, paisano, we all die. A small down payment will hold that piece of real estate for you until the time comes.”

  “Let me tell you something, paisano.” My father flicked the ashes from his cigarette. “One, I am not a roadrunner, and two, I don’t care who sleeps near my wife. She’s dead. You got that?” He pivoted away, picking up the pace, and we trailed after him, trudging over the uneven tufts of grass as we searc
hed for our mother’s headstone.

  When Cary and my sisters settled on their knees at the foot of the grave and my father stepped away to light another cigarette, I raced back the way we came. I found the cemetery man where we’d left him, kicking twigs from the walk.

  “Hey, paisanita, you lost?”

  I gasped, trying to catch my breath. “Look! I got five dollars.” I reached into one of my shoes, where I’d stuffed my aunt Nilda’s gift. “Here. Save that space near my mama.” I pressed the folded bill into his hand.

  He tucked it into his pocket. “What a good girl to save the plot for your papa.”

  I spun around to race back to my mother’s grave. “Not for him!” I shouted over my shoulder. “For me-e-e-e!”

  Not long after my birthday, Fermina developed what my aunt Nilda called a “wet cough,” a hoarse whoop that rattled deep in her chest. To me, she sounded like a seal, all alone on a floe, barking in the fog, icy waves carrying her farther and farther out. As spring became summer, and summer, fall, Fermina grew worse. She developed bronchitis and then pneumonia. I spent hours lying beside her in her narrow bed, reading aloud from Stories for Young Catholics. The battered red book, a reader for older children, was filled with cautionary tales about characters like Jim D., a construction worker who neglected to have a full confession before falling to his death from a skyscraper, and Alice T., who skipped Easter duty before having a fatal encounter with a city bus. The book also had deliciously graphic stories about the martyred saints. I enjoyed best those that featured lions in coliseums. Fermina’s favorite story was that of Saint Agnes, the girl martyr, who was tortured and killed while trying to protect her purity and refusing to renounce her faith.

  One Saturday, after reading to her about Saint Agnes for the fifth or sixth time, I told Fermina, “I’d have given up the purity —whatever it is —and renounced anything they asked me to renounce, wouldn’t you?”

  She thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “No somos santas.”

  She asked me to read a story called “The Basement” next. This was about a man and his young son in a house under construction. The son, Johnny B., somehow got separated from his father in the unfinished house as darkness fell.