Authoring Amelia

by Lia Conklin

  “Miscalculation, then,” Amelia apologized. “Here, let me get you something more ‘Swedish,’” she had offered and went up to the counter to order something different before he could protest.

  “These aren’t Swedish meatballs,” he had surmised, as she handed him the tortilla soup.

  “Appears that the chiles didn’t wipe out your power of deduction,” she had quipped. “But this is mild. I promise.”

  He had looked at her and then back at the soup.

  “Fool me twice, shame on me,” he had announced, scooping up a spoonful and emptying it into his mouth.

  “Mmmmm,” he had admitted. “This I can eat.”

  All too soon it had ended. But she knew that like so many other things, good and bad, this, too, wasn’t really over. They would relive it in their shared conversations and memories, with fondness, or, she had to concede, regret. There was no way to know which direction it would lead.

  What she did know at this moment, as she held the phone in her hand, was that she felt no fondness for the memories that she now faced, nor for the task that lay before her. But like so many times before, she just took the step.

  A female voice answered on the other end, “Buenos tardes, Radio Libertad Centroamericano.” Good afternoon, Central American Liberty Radio.

  “Buenos tardes, señora. My name is Amelia Kingston, and I would like to contact my father Robert Kingston. Do you know where I can find him?”

  Amelia listened to the woman on the other line, each moment her face growing paler, until she could barely hear the words over the pounding in her eardrums.

  “Gracias, señora,” Amelia said as she finally set the phone down. She gazed out the window, its darkness reflecting a haphazard collection of trinkets, crafts, and pictures framing her in a picture of her own, a ghostly face peering into the blackness beyond.

  Chapter 52

  The Minnesota landscape was gradually falling from view, the auburn and golden hues of fall muting into blotches of color bordering bisque squares of harvested fields. As the vaporous clouds outside her airplane window slowly engulfed the panorama below, Amelia felt her lungs constrict with each inch obscured by clouds, until the blanket of white stopped her breathing all together.

  She was leaving behind her true home once again, and though this time her feet could reach the airplane floor, she felt as if she were eight again. The same fear and despair that gripped her then, gripped her now. But this time, her father was not beside her. Rather, a middle-aged hefty man who was already asleep with a soft, lazy snore. This time, she was not being taken against her will. She had made the choice—sure the only real choice she had—but a choice all the same. And this time, she would come back. She gripped the return ticket in her hand more tightly than ever to ensure that it was real. Finally assured that it was, she took a breath.

  She’d be in Honduras in six hours. Her body was already leaden with dread. How heavy would she feel by the time she touched down in that godforsaken place? She imagined being unable to lift her feet as if the mafia had cemented them beneath her. She found the image reassuring. She’d be stuck on the plane and would have to use her return ticket without ever touching Honduran soil. If only the Godfather were alive and well.

  The first time she had flown to Honduras, her father had filled her head with lush visions of banana and pineapple plantations, palm trees, and ferns taller than trees. A tropical paradise. He spoke to her of white sandy beaches and of the ocean expanding in either direction as far as the eye could see—than even further than the imagination could go. The tropical birds with their trilled melodies stopped you in your tracks, overcoming you with their beauty, and their plumage made you blush, sure that anything so breathtaking must be indecent.

  It had taken some of the fear away then, but this time Amelia knew better. She knew that when the plane landed, she’d be stepping onto a rutted tarmac, the dust from nearby gravel streets combining with the intense heat and humidity to violently assail your eyes, nose, and lungs. She knew that as soon as she stepped out of the airport’s glass doors, she’d be greeted by the outstretched hands of decrepit old women holding bloated babies with snot-filled faces and by the raised arms of old men’s torsos that scooted along legless on makeshift, four-wheeled dollies.

  She knew this because it was so, and it had become more and more so during the thirteen years she had lived there. Torn apart by a military coup d’état, the Honduran poor and unemployed had grown in leaps and bounds. So too had the crime, rising to become the “murder capital” of the world. Many of these murders were politically motivated, but an equal number were the handiwork of youth gangs and drug cartels that had sprouted up all over Honduras as the economy was ravaged by nature and foreign interests. She had lived there long enough to see the country rot from the inside out and from the “outside” in.

  Landing in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, thirteen years ago, she had been struck first by the heat and dirt and then by the abject poverty as they walked from the airport to the taxi. She remembered the dirty children in raggedy clothing swarming them begging for lempiras, Honduran currency. She had seen a pack of mangy dogs trot down the street, skin against bones, hairless patches from snouts to tails. She had looked past all of that, yearning for a bearable first impression.

  “Daddy, where are the birds?” she had asked looking up at her father hopefully. “I want to hear them sing.”

  Her father had answered, “Out there, Amelia. Outside the city. We’ll see them soon.”

  It wasn’t to be, however, at least not for the first three years, for they never left the city limits of San Pedro Sula. Amelia clung to images of the ocean, the vegetation, and the birds her father had painted for her, but even when they moved to the mountains, only the image of the vegetation became a reality.

  They had lived in a filthy hotel for the first three months as her father looked for a job. He finally found one teaching English at a high school. It wasn’t enough money to live a life void of poverty, but it did allow them to move into a cleaner home.

  Amelia was enrolled in the local elementary school. She knew no Spanish, yet gradually, over the course of that first year, she became fluent enough to keep up in school and make a number of friends. She had suffered, but wrapped in a cocoon of numbness since the tragedy, her life those first few years were but a series of pinpricks, fate’s Voodoo doll.

  “Something to drink?” The flight attendant and her beverage cart slowly came into focus as Amelia zoomed out from her past and into her present. The hefty man stopped his soft wheeze of sleep just long enough to order a Coke.

  “Sprite,” Amelia answered. The crunch of the metal scoop on ice was familiar. Don Ronaldo vended icies up and down the street near their home. Hunkered over his cart, he’d push it from dusk to dawn crying, “¡Hielo! ¡Hielo!” Icies! Icies! Kids would rush up to him and drop lempiras into his gnarled, arthritic hand, salivating as he scooped the ice and pumped the cherry syrup over the top. Her father had never once bought her one. Instead every once in a while, a friend would. She remembered how the ice melted on her hot tongue, leaving the cherry sweetness behind to be savored before the next bite.

  “Huh?” Amelia found herself saying.

  “Your Sprite, dear,” the flight attendant answered with some annoyance.

  Yes, there is a thin line between the past and the present. How I long to dig a ravine! thought Amelia.

  Chapter 53

  Amelia knew that digging a ravine would be impossible when she spent so much time crossing back and forth. She comforted herself by promising that this would be the last trip she would ever take to Honduras. She would wrap up this chapter and never open it again. She sighed. She remembered promising herself that before, yet here she was just two hours away from touchdown.

  She had considered not going. But when it came right down to it, she felt more than just obligation. It wasn’t love, probably not even caring, but perhaps pity? Yes, that’s what it was. Pity.

&nb
sp; And retribution. That she couldn’t deny. From the moment she met her stepmother, Amelia had been her mark, from mocking her Spanish to scoffing her tortilla making. Amelia fought back in her own subtle way, purposely speaking Spanish at home with a deep American accent and forming tortillas that were so lumpy and uneven that finally her stepmother had removed her from that duty. These were victories to be savored, especially seeing the mixture of indignation and resignation on her stepmother’s face. But these victories were few and far between, and the victories on the other side were brutal with devastating consequences.

  After Rigoberto, Amelia’s life had become unbearable. Not only was she dealing with the shame of her naïveté in knowing what Rigoberto had been doing and being too shocked to try to stop it, but also, she had to deal with her stepmother’s brutal reprisals—from standing naked while her stepmother scrubbed her down from head to toe with scalding water to spending a mandatory hour each day after school kneeling on the stone floor of the Catholic church praying for forgiveness. It only took Amelia a couple of days to realize there was something more urgent to pray for: escape. One hour each day, her knees against the damp stone suddenly served a purpose. Her purpose.

  After two weeks of this ritual, she realized her prayers were being heard.

  “Amelia,” Sister Rebeca called as Amelia made her way to her usual pew. “Prayer is not the only way to redemption,” she counseled. “Good deeds are as well. I can’t help but feel your time would be better served by serving others. I imagine it’s pretty tiring all this praying day in and day out. Are you interested in an alternative?”

  Amelia was more than happy to hear of any option available that did not involve her boney knees on cold stone, so she eagerly nodded her head.

  “You speak English, correct?” the Sister asked. “How would you like to offer an English class every day to the people in the community? I will make sure you have students, a place to hold the class, as well as a blackboard and some paper and pencils. You come each day and teach them what you know. You can even put out a box for donations, if you want. If someone has an extra lempira or two, that can help pay for your time. What do you say?”

  Amelia had nothing to say. Instead a steady stream of tears began to roll down her face, increasing in volume with each nod of her head until Sister Rebeca gathered her up in a warm embrace.

  “Very well then. That’s settled. I’ll see you here tomorrow to get started.”

  True to her word, Sister Rebeca had a group of twenty students the next day, ranging in ages from five to Don Jesus, who at seventy-nine had taken time off from working in the coffee fields to recuperate from an injured leg.

  They met in a small room off to the side of the sanctuary. The room was stuffy, but between the stone walls that kept out most of the heat and the open window that let in a small breeze, it was tolerable for an hour-long class. There was also a small blackboard propped up on a chair against the wall. It was obvious to Amelia from the cobwebs affixed to its corners that it hadn’t been used in some time. Finally, there was a stack of paper and a box of pencils sitting on the table in the middle of the room.

  The table was small and considering there were only four chairs, it was soon pushed to the side of the room, the four chairs stacked on top. Twenty students sat cross-legged around the room, except for Don Jesus whose bad leg jutted out in front of him, dangerously close to the squirming five-year-old. Amelia stood in the remaining two-foot-square area by the blackboard, ready to start class.

  The class was fun, most of all for Amelia, who for the first time felt as if she were an important part of the community. In this tiny, stuffy room, she was given the respect she had never felt since her arrival. She wasn’t sure if her students were really learning English—sure, they now knew the alphabet, greetings, and how to introduce themselves—but she was unconvinced that any of them would ever be able to hold a true conversation. She did know, however, that they were making connections on a human level that had nothing to do with culture or hair and skin color. Most of all, she knew she was making them laugh and if their laughter was in English, then it was safe to say that the classroom was filled with English from start to finish.

  There was another unexpected benefit as well, for although her students were poor, even poorer than her own family, they had managed to put in a few lempiras here and there. Amelia had been uncomfortable with putting out a donations box, but after a week of class, a box appeared on the table under the stacked chairs labeled “Gracias Maestra Amelia!” She never saw them put money in, but by the end of each week, she would have 50 to 100 lempiras, the equivalent of five to ten U.S. dollars.

  By the end of her first month teaching, she had thirty dollars. That’s when she realized someone had been listening to her prayers. Afraid to go directly to a travel agent in case word would get out, she used the internet at the library in San Pedro Sula to price one-way tickets to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Just over $600 was the answer. Amelia had been hoping for half that amount, but she realized in two more years she would be graduating, so the timing would be perfect.

  She wasn’t overly creative with where she kept her savings, just in a small cloth coffee bag behind her makeshift nightstand. Whenever she was sure she was alone in the house, she would take it out and count how close she was to her goal. Two years was a long time, but between her teaching, her academic success at school, and her music, finally one day she held $600 worth of lempiras in her hands.

  Until that moment, she hadn’t thought about how to tell her family that she was leaving or even if she would tell them. Finally, as they were finishing up dinner one night, she decided that her father should know. After all, she was an adult and would be graduating from school at the end of the month.

  He was silent at first, a whole minute or two, but his silence appeared anything but ominous, rather a thorough evaluation of the information. Finally, he said, “I don’t see a problem with that,” and stood up to leave. Just as he was at the door, he turned around. “I’m assuming you’ll take care of the ticket yourself?” Amelia nodded her assent.

  The next day after her English class, she went to retrieve her money. She had an appointment with a travel agent that evening. Her hands were shaking as she inserted them behind her nightstand. She wiggled her fingers around, rooting for the cloth bag. There was nothing. Frantically, she pulled the nightstand away from the wall and looked behind. Nothing.

  “Money made in this household stays in this household,” came her stepmother’s cold yet triumphant voice behind her. “Even if it comes from whoring,” she added as she walked away.

  Yes, Amelia sighed, her mind returning to the present, retribution is sweet. But that alone wouldn’t have made her return. That also took pity. So here she was.

  Amelia hadn’t told her grandmother about her father—just that his family was in trouble. Her grandmother insisted on paying for the trip in spite of Amelia’s new wealth.

  “You’re going to need that for college,” she declared. “All of it, with the cost of education being what it is. And anyway, they’re my family too, even though I’ve never met them. Those of us who are blessed with good health and good fortune need to look out for those who are not.”

  Good health, yes. Good fortune? Well, that was up for debate, but Amelia let it slide, thanking her grandmother and promising her she would keep her updated on the situation.

  Chapter 54

  When Amelia stepped off the plane onto the Honduran tarmac, the airport, the runway, and the surrounding city looked the same as if she were still that eight-year-old girl. Dust and humidity consorted to engulf the entire view in a gray haze. Had her eyeballs had windshield wipers, she would have put them on full blast. Even the blades of grass reclaiming the tarmac appeared to be the same, stubbornly clinging to patches of earth to live out hardy, long lives.

  Yet, everything was different. Though the pack of dogs that jogged past and the beggars’ outstretched hands were replicas of those thirteen y
ears past, Amelia no longer saw them as that little girl. There was none of the shock or fear she had felt, nor was there the optimism, only a heavy shroud of oppression that fell upon her like the earth upon her mother’s and brother’s graves. It was the return ticket in her pocket that gave her the strength to put one foot in front of the other until she stood at the door of the taxi.

  “To Catarina Rivas Hospital,” she told the taxi driver, and soon they were rolling down the uneven streets she had once traversed. She felt no nostalgia as they passed the shops she had frequented, all touting painted promotions upon their facades: “¡Abarrotes!” “¡Pasteles!” “¡Helados!” Groceries! Cakes! Ice cream! in bright red, blue, and yellow. Such a deep contrast to the roused dust of the street and the dread in Amelia’s heart.

  She wondered what the scene would be like when she got to the hospital. So little had been said on the phone, yet the urgency could not be denied. What had happened? And how did it fit into the truth that she was trying to discover?

  Soon the four-story concrete structure came into view, its gray, water-stained exterior blending into the haze of the darkening sky. Only the red metal awnings beneath the windows and a few shrubs and palm trees brought color to the scene. The outside of the entrance had been painted white at one time, but most of the paint had peeled off, leaving it as gray as the main structure, yet pocked by flaking skin.

  As Amelia entered the hospital, fluorescent lighting revealed yellowed walls and water-stained ceiling tiles as well as a long line of weary people at the check-in counter. Amelia joined the line, watching the clock as it neared the end of visiting hours. She felt both anxious and hopeful that she would be too late. In the end, she was checked in and on her way to their room with ten minutes to spare.

  She knew her stepmother was in a coma, but she didn’t expect her to look so lifeless, lying on the hospital bed covered by clean but threadbare linens, hooked up to breathing tubes and IVs. Amelia hadn’t been sure what she would feel when she saw her. She was surprised that she felt nothing. Not sadness, not pity, not satisfaction—nothing. She was sure that she would have felt more looking at a stranger than at this woman she had lived with for ten of the past thirteen years.