by Paul Pen
“Good night, Melissa,” he said, holding on to the banister.
He heard his daughter shake a pillow, plumping it. She put a rock down on the table, or on the floor. She didn’t respond.
“I said good night.”
Her slippers dragged along the floor.
“Honey, good night.”
“Good night,” Melissa said in the end, “. . . Dad.”
“Sleep well.”
As he entered his bedroom, Elmer recognized a large wooden box on the bed, with hinges. He hadn’t seen it for six years, since the twins arrived. Rose was standing in front of the mirror. She was looking at her reflection from the side, giving shape to a bump that had appeared under her nightgown, at stomach height. He positioned himself behind her. They interlocked their hands over the round belly, massaging it as if something was really growing in there.
“I’ve been so happy making this family,” she said.
Elmer rested his chin on her shoulder. “It’s the best thing we’ve done.”
Rose twisted her neck to escape his tickling breath. They both stroked the fake pregnancy, smiling at the image from the past that the mirror offered them.
Just then a loud bang in the living room reverberated through the house. Rose flinched in his arms. She turned to face him, wedging the false belly between them with maternal gentleness.
“What was that?” Her eyes took up half of her face.
Elmer let go of Rose and went to poke his head out the door.
“Melissa?”
“I dropped my stone,” she shouted from downstairs. “Nothing’s broken.”
Rose undid a clasp under her nightgown. She did it without looking, with the deftness of someone who has repeated an action many times. Her stomach was left empty. The pregnancy vanished, reduced to an uncomfortable jumble of silicone, orthopedic straps, and aluminum buckles. Lifeless items that in their lives had been substitutes for blood, the placenta, amniotic fluid. The unpleasant reminder made Elmer shudder. She put the prosthesis back in the box, then closed the lid as if it were a jewel case, fastening a golden clasp. She stroked the grooves in the wood, an engraving of a stork. On tiptoes, she put it away at the top of her wardrobe, hiding the box behind a bag of old clothes.
“I’ll go see how she is,” said Rose.
“Speak to Iris, too. She slammed her door in my face.”
Melissa retrieved Marlon from the floor. He’d slipped from her hand because she’d wanted to pick him up without letting go of her sketchbook. Though she’d just told Dad that nothing was broken, she discovered a deep notch in the wood flooring.
“That chin of yours . . .” she said to Marlon.
She left him on the table, reminding him that she’d have to return him to the shelf later, that it wasn’t his night to sleep with her, it was Clark’s. Sitting on the sofa, she opened the sketchbook on her lap, to the page where she’d hidden the documents she’d taken from Rick’s folder. The ceiling creaked over her head. She pricked her ears to identify who was responsible, to hear which direction the feet were traveling. It was Mom, and she was coming down the stairs.
Melissa slammed the sketchbook shut. She looked around. The footsteps drew closer. She tried to hide it under the pillow, but the corners jutted out from one side. Mom was now at the bottom step. Melissa dropped the sketchbook behind the back of the sofa. A corner of the spine hit the floor.
“Now what’ve you dropped?” her mother asked as she walked into the living room.
“I banged myself on the wall”—she rubbed an elbow—“making this bed that isn’t a bed.”
“You don’t do it right, that’s the problem. Up you get.”
“What for?”
“If we pull the sofa out we can tuck the sheet in behind the backrest. That way you won’t have it twisted up like you do now.”
“It doesn’t matter, Mom.”
Mom approached the sofa. She spanned it with her arms, one hand on the back, the other on Melissa’s seat.
“Lift your feet up and I’ll move it.”
“I said no, Mom. There’s no need.”
But she pulled it anyway. When she separated it from the wall, another corner of the sketchbook struck the floor.
“I said don’t move it.” Melissa kicked her heels, disguising the sound with the blows. “I like it as it is.”
“So you admit you like sleeping down here?” Mom looked up with a half smile, without letting go of the sofa.
Melissa crossed her arms. She slumped into the backrest with such force that the sofa was pushed back toward the wall. Mom sat down next to her.
“Honey”—she rested a hand on Melissa’s knee—“I just want you to be OK.”
For a second, Melissa wanted to break into tears. To tell Mom what she’d read and ask her why all those newspapers lied. Why the stranger who slept in her bed had come to this house searching for a sister who couldn’t be his, however much his eyes resembled Edelweiss’s. But she said nothing. She just removed Mom’s hand from her knee and sat up to stretch for Marlon. She placed him beside her pillow.
“We’re going to sleep.”
“You can talk to me.” Mom continued to look at her. “Tell me you know that.”
Melissa nodded.
“But tell me.”
“I know I can talk to you,” she repeated without enthusiasm.
“Like you can with Socorro. Better than with Socorro. I’m your mother. There’s nobody in the world who loves you more than I do.”
Melissa gathered her legs in and lay down in the same space in which she had sat.
“Do you want me to change the rock? Two nights is a long time to skip your order. And that Gregory has sad eyes. I don’t think he’s the best company for you.”
“No need.” She covered Marlon to hide him, though it was clear that to her mother all the stones looked the same. “I’m happy with Gregory. I’ll apologize to the rest when I can speak to them.”
When Mom stood, Melissa stretched her legs along the sofa. She didn’t sit up to receive the good-night kiss her mother offered but, without moving, let her plant it on her cheek.
“I just want you to be OK,” Rose said again.
Melissa stretched out her arm, feeling the wall until she found the switch.
“I’m turning it off,” she warned, before doing so.
In the dark, Mom gave her another kiss. Then she crossed the living room and climbed the stairs. Melissa moved her mouth close to Marlon’s ear.
“Don’t let me fall asleep,” she whispered. “We have to stay awake.”
The rock said something.
“Good idea.”
Melissa got up from the sofa. Through the window onto the porch, the moon caught her attention with its orange glow. In the kitchen she drank three glasses of water, one after the other. She went back and lay beside Marlon.
“Done.”
Lying on her back in bed with Rick’s T-shirt over her face, Iris took deep breaths. She imagined Rick lying there, next to her, the two of them covered by the sheet, whispering to each other the many things they still had to say. She could feel the warm breath of his secrets on her ear, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
Knocks on the door made her jump.
“Can I come in?” Mom whispered from the other side.
Iris sat up as if waking from a trance, dazed by the intensity of her fantasies. The door handle shook.
“Iris”—knuckles struck the wood—“I want to speak to you.”
She got up and hid the T-shirt under the mattress, pushing it as far as her hand reached. She scanned the rest of the room. She smelled her hands, the shoulders of her nightgown. Although Rick’s aroma intoxicated her, Mom wouldn’t detect it. She opened the door just enough for her face to fit in the gap.
“What do you want?”
“Let me in, honey.” Mom stuck an arm in, then a leg, pushing her way through. Inside, she shook out her hair, clicking her tongue. “You girls sure
are making it hard for me to talk to you today.”
She rearranged Iris’s nightgown. Iris wiggled her shoulders to reject the adjustment.
“And that needs sewing.” She gestured at the tear down the side.
“You did it.”
Mom sat down on the bed, right above where Iris had just hidden the T-shirt. When she pushed it under, she must also have dragged part of the sheet in with it, because the fabric disappeared in a suspicious way under the mattress. Iris looked away from that spot and combed her hair with her fingers to draw attention from it. Mom rubbed the bed, the space beside her. She waited for Iris to sit down.
“Why’re you mad at your father?” She tried to tidy her daughter’s neckline again. “With us?”
Iris stopped her mother’s hand in the air.
“Rick needs an ambulance. Or a doctor.” She held the hand between hers. “Please, Mom, he needs urgent medical attention.”
“He’s a lot better.” Mom scratched the back of her neck. “You haven’t seen him.”
“I saw what Dad did to him with the truck.”
“That’s why Dad called the ambulance this morning. And they said there was no need for them to come—”
“That he’s too far away, you mean.”
“—that they couldn’t come, whatever.” Mom raised her voice, then paused. She continued in a whisper. “We’re doing all we can for him.”
“You’re not doing anything.”
“Honey”—Mom moved even closer to her—“do you really think we’d let a boy die in our house without helping him? Why would we want to do that?” She hunched her shoulders, as if it was an absurd question to even ask.
Iris couldn’t imagine an answer. She observed the wrinkles that emerged from her mother’s eyes in the direction of her temples, three on one side and two on the other. She once heard Mom say to Socorro that she had one for each of her daughters, actual marks on her skin from the effort and sacrifice she’d made for each of them.
“I’m taking care of him,” Mom said.
“Shouldn’t we call his family? Someone?”
“That’s what we want. For him to speak and give us a name, a telephone number. But he still hasn’t woken up since . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.
“Since he was hit by a truck.”
“Since your father acted in self-defense.”
Mom tried to hold a hand to Iris’s cheek. Though Iris’s first instinct was to move away, she ended up resting her face against the warmth of that palm. She nuzzled against it, remembering times when just contact with her mother’s skin had been enough to make her feel better.
“Can I see him? I want to see him, Mom.”
Her mother took away her hand, leaving a cold patch on Iris’s face.
“Honey, I’m taking good care of him. Because we weren’t going to let him die in the sun. But that boy fired a gun at me. He shot at me and ran off. I’m not going to let my daughters near him.”
“What did he want? To rob us?”
“How do I know?” Mom exhaled. “He spent the night in the truck, maybe he liked what he saw and thought he’d help himself. Or maybe he thought there was more money in that jar than there is.”
Iris found it difficult to believe.
“Or maybe”—she smiled with half of her mouth—“maybe your sisters are right and he wanted to make off with their pictures.”
Iris didn’t respond to the joke.
“He seemed so nice . . .”
“Honey”—Mom lifted her chin with a finger, until their eyes met—“people are almost never what they seem.”
The five wrinkles at her eyes now seemed deeper.
“Will he be OK?”
“We’re doing what we can.”
“And Dad?”
“All your dad wants is for him to get back on his feet, pick up his backpack, and leave the way he came. To get as far as possible from this family.”
Iris toyed with a thread that hung from the side of her nightgown.
“He really did seem like a nice boy . . .”
She rolled the thread around her finger and unrolled it.
“Don’t give it another thought.” Mom kissed her on the forehead. “Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“I just want you all to be OK.”
Iris plucked the thread with a tug. “I know.”
Mom left the room. Iris turned the key and waited to hear her parents’ door close as well before inserting her arm under the mattress. She sat on the floor, using the bed as a backrest, and pressed Rick’s crumpled T-shirt against her face.
Rose appeared in the bedroom. She slumped onto the floor, her back against the closed door. Elmer leapt up from the bed.
“What happened?”
“I can’t lie to my daughters like this.” Rose buried her face in her hands and shook her head. “I can’t.”
Elmer pulled her elbows apart, revealing her face. Her chin began to tremble. Her eyes were filled with tears.
“What’re we going to do, Elmer? Wait? Keep the boy until . . .” Her voice broke down.
“We don’t have to decide anything now,” Elmer whispered in her ear.
“And what about tomorrow? Or the next day?”
Rose blinked, waiting for an answer that he was unable to give.
Iris sat at her dressing table. Last night’s pimple had improved, and it was barely visible now. She stretched the material at her neckline, smoothing out the creases. She opened her book to the page where she’d gotten stuck that afternoon. She weighted down the corners with her perfume and powder compact.
She read thirty pages.
She completed a hundred strokes with the hairbrush.
When she finished, the house was in complete silence. She’d heard murmurs in her parents’ bedroom until late, but a good while ago they’d stopped. She pressed on the atomizer to release a cloud of perfume that rained on her chest. She patted her face with the powder compact.
Then she straightened her back and squared her shoulders.
She smiled at her reflection.
Before climbing out onto the roof, she made sure Melissa wasn’t talking to her cactuses. The moon glowed yellow, the same color as the sparkles coming from Thorns’s shirt buttons. As far as she could make out, there was no silhouette in front of him that could belong to her sister. Walking barefoot over the tiles, she passed the twins’ window in one stride. She entered Melissa’s room with a foot on the desk, taking care to avoid the teeth of broken glass as she went through the frame. Her lungs filled when she recognized Rick’s form under the sheet. Her breathing was as labored as the night before.
“It’s Iris,” she said in his ear. “You cried out for me this morning. You were yearning to see me.”
In the dark, the skin on his face seemed bluish. She inspected it with her fingers, hoping for some kind of reaction. There was none. His eyelids were motionless, his breathing constant. His facial muscles remained flaccid.
“Do you want water?”
His closed lips appeared less dry than the previous night, but she filled a glass and held it near his mouth.
“You have to drink.”
She rubbed the edge of the glass against his lips. She wanted to relive the pleasure of quenching Rick’s thirst, of alleviating his physical needs. The glass clinked against his teeth without him responding to the stimulus.
Iris had an idea.
She drank the water but didn’t swallow it. She left the glass on the bedside table. Resting her lips on Rick’s, she searched for the opening with her tongue and let the liquid escape, little by little, into his mouth. The feeling was even more intense than what she’d experienced the day before. It was a kiss more romantic than the ones in her books that had made her sigh as she read. In the end, the water spilled from the corners of Rick’s mouth onto the pillow. Iris sat up. She could feel her heart beating in an unfamiliar rhythm. Her head rocked, a pleasant swaying. All of a
sudden, she grasped why flowers displayed such pretty colors, why there were stars in the sky, why Edelweiss’s guitar produced such a beautiful sound. She understood why Dad kissed Mom at every opportunity. The words spilled from her lips like the water that had just spilled between Rick’s.
“I love you,” she whispered.
She leaned over him, holding him through the sheet. She slotted her face into the space between his jaw and his shoulder. It felt like the most welcoming place she had ever known.
“You’re going to be OK. Mom’s taking care of you. They’re going to kick you out as soon as you’re better, but maybe I can go with you. We can walk together as far as our feet can carry us. My soul sees the purity of yours. I know you never meant to do anything bad to us.”
She lay one side of her face on his chest. She smiled when she heard his heart. With her eyes closed, she could feel her heartbeats synchronizing with his. When she pressed her ear down to listen more, Rick groaned.
“You feel it, too?” She looked at his bluish face. “Our hearts are dancing to the same rhythm.”
Wrinkles formed on Rick’s forehead, but he didn’t respond. Iris used his chest as a pillow again. She ignored the groan.
“I feel like Juliet waiting for Romeo to awake.” She bit the insides of her lips.
She stroked Rick’s hair, her other hand resting on his belly. She touched the hard, undulating surface of his abdomen with her fingers, and felt the temperature of her body rise. Her fingertips ran over the muscles’ parallel grooves, letting themselves be guided by the deep valley that traversed them through the middle. That valley led her fingers downward. Iris’s breathing accelerated, her heart now beating at a much faster rate than Rick’s.
She granted her hand total freedom.
It headed down until it came to rest on the soft part between the muscles.
Its fingers investigated that area, discovering shapes and textures unknown to her.
Her labored breathing moistened the sheet with its heat. She felt another dampness in her underwear. Her whole body trembled. She pressed herself harder against Rick and had an urge to bite the sheet. To scream. She closed her hand. The shudders culminated in an intense contraction of every muscle. Her toes scratched the floor as they curled. The unfamiliar pleasure repeated in successive spasms that blinded her. When they subsided, Iris removed her hand from where she had it. She hid it behind her back. Straightening up, she wiped her cheek. She tidied her hair and adjusted her nightgown as if she were getting dressed.
