Ana Maria Reyes Does Not Live in a Castle

by Hilda Eunice Burgos

  “It’s just a shirt, Ana María,” Papi had said that morning when he took the jersey out of his closet and handed it to me. “Besides, I trust you completely. You’ve been an adult since the day you were born.”

  Rosie was doing cartwheels all over the living room. She got to wear one of her tutus from dance class to school and came home with a bagful of candy from her class party. Now she kept bumping into the couch or the coffee table. She knocked over a clay figurine of a lady in a long blue dress holding a bouquet of white and yellow flowers. Mami had bought that in the Dominican Republic, and she was not happy to see the lady’s black braid crack off when it hit the edge of the table. Mami picked up the pieces and stared at them, turning them over and over. “I’m sorry,” Rosie said when she was upright and realized what she had done.

  “That’s enough cartwheels,” Mami said. “Sit down now like a civilized person.”

  “Anamay can fix it,” Rosie said. “Right, Anamay?”

  “Why me? I didn’t break it.”

  “Because you’re good at these things.”

  “Oh, could you, mi amor?” Mami put the pieces in my hand. “You can work on it later tonight.”

  “Okay, but I don’t see what’s so hard about gluing. Anybody could do it.” I headed down the hall to put the pieces in my room.

  I had only taken two steps when Connie jumped into me. Connie was a bunny rabbit for Halloween. Her costume — made by Mami about ten years ago — looked like fuzzy white footy pajamas with a pale pink oval belly and a headband with white-and-pink bunny ears. Connie kept hopping around the house with her arms held up in front of her, her elbows at her waist and her hands close together and bent down at the wrists. I remembered doing the same thing when I wore that costume.

  When I got back to the living room, Mami clapped her hands to get our attention. “Okay, girls. Let’s take a picture so Papi can see. I’m sure some of you will be covered in melted chocolate by the time he gets home from work.” She held us by the shoulders and lined us up in front of the piano. When she stepped back to snap the photo, the armchair was in the way. “Move over a little.” She motioned for us to squeeze in together, so we would be in front of the half of the piano that was not blocked by the chair.

  “Will you please hurry up and take the picture?” I was tired of smiling.

  “Okay, okay.” Snap. “Now another one, just in case.”

  Too late. Rosie was already tumbling into the piano, and Connie was back to hopping. Mami gave up. Thank goodness for the brats.

  Mami plopped down on the sofa. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “You girls should go now before it gets dark. And remember, Chichi’s and Lydia’s, the library, then back here. You can go to all the apartments on this floor and on Abuelita’s floor.”

  “What? You’re not coming with us?” I didn’t want to be responsible for Rosie and Connie while they were being so crazy.

  “Oh, it’s okay, we can handle it. You rest, Mami.” Gracie slipped a bright orange shopping bag into the crook of her arm, and handed Rosie and Connie their plastic jack-o’-lanterns.

  “Oh, yeah, you say that now, but you’ll ditch us when you see your friends,” I said.

  “Well, if you really need me to go with you — ” Mami started to stand up.

  “No, no, no! We’re fine.” Gracie grabbed Rosie and Connie by the hands and walked out the door. I took my orange shopping bag and followed them into the hallway. “What is wrong with you?” Gracie hissed at me. “Don’t you see that Mami’s tired?”

  “Well, that’s not my fault! If she wants all these kids, she should take care of them. Why should I do it for her?”

  Gracie pushed the elevator down button about fifty times.

  “That won’t make it come any faster,” I said.

  She didn’t look at me and kept pushing the button until the elevator finally came. It was empty. Rosie pressed the ground level button, then stood close to Gracie, leaning on her a little. “Are you mad at me?” She looked up at Gracie.

  “No, not at you.” Gracie looked at me, then turned her head away. Like I cared.

  “Stop fighting! Stop fighting!” Connie scolded us as she hopped around the elevator. She stumbled when it came to a stop, and I leaned forward to grab her arm and steady her. Gracie didn’t even move.

  The elevator door opened and a woman pushed in a giant baby carriage that took up practically the whole elevator. A little boy in a cape and vampire teeth held on to the handle of the carriage. My sisters and I squeezed to one side of the elevator and listened to the baby scream the whole rest of the way down.

  Outside it mostly seemed like any other day, except for a few kids in costumes here and there. Cars snaked their way around double- and triple-parked vehicles, their horns honking and music blaring out of their open windows. Chichi’s and Lydia’s stores were two blocks away. When we reached the first corner, I held Connie’s hand and Gracie took hold of Rosie. Just as we got to the other side, two of Gracie’s friends from middle school stepped out of their apartment building. “Gracie!” they shrieked.

  Gracie shrieked back, “Vicky! Rebecca!” They hugged and hugged. Vicky was dressed as a “sexy cat,” and Rebecca was a “sexy nurse.” They had on so much makeup they looked like clowns.

  “Are you going trick-or-treating?” Vicky the clown-cat looked at Gracie’s orange bag like it had cooties.

  Gracie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I have to take my little sisters.”

  “Oh, you’re so cute!” Rebecca the clown-nurse ruffled Connie’s curls.

  “Don’t mess up my ears!” Connie backed away and reached up to straighten out her rabbit-ears headband.

  “Connie, don’t be rude,” Gracie said. “She gave you a compliment. You need to say thank you.”

  Connie looked down and mumbled into her jack-o’-­lantern bucket, “Thank you.”

  Gracie turned back to her friends. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. Listen, we’re going to a party at Johnny’s house. You should come.”

  “That sounds like fun!” Gracie noticed me glaring at her. “But I can’t. I promised my mom I would keep an eye on my little sisters.”

  “Can’t Anamay watch them?”

  “No,” I said to Vicky, “Anamay can’t watch them. Not alone. And besides, Gracie can’t go to some boy’s house without our parents’ permission.” I turned to Gracie. “Can we go now?”

  Gracie looked up at the sky as though I were the trouble­some one. “Okay, fine, we’ll go in a minute.” She started talking to Vicky and Rebecca about high school.

  When I looked around, I didn’t see Rosie and Connie anywhere. Finally I spotted them halfway down the block, watching a game of dominoes in front of the bodega. I ran over to them. “What are you doing? You have to stay with us!”

  “You took too long,” Connie said. “And I don’t have candy yet!”

  “Okay, well, let’s wait for Gracie and then we can cross the street.” I looked back at the corner. Gracie was just gabbing away with her friends. This was so typical. “Fine, we’ll just go without her.” I took Connie by the hand and reached for Rosie with my other hand.

  “I don’t want to go without Gracie,” Rosie said. She folded her arms in front of her.

  “Rosie, just take my hand. We’ll wait for Gracie at Chichi’s.”

  Rosie hugged herself tighter. “No. You’re not in charge. Gracie’s the oldest, so I don’t have to listen to you.”

  When Rosie needed someone to walk her to a birthday party or help her with a school project, she bugged me, not Gracie, but now all of a sudden it was about who was older. I could not believe my parents were having one more annoying kid. Why didn’t one or two of my sisters just disappear? That would make life so much better.

  “Fine, you stay here and wait for Gracie,” I said. Rosie would wait all
afternoon, and she wouldn’t get any candy, but that was her problem. The light turned green. I held on to Connie and crossed the street.

  A car with duct tape all over the bumper rattled toward us. “Is that Tío Lalo?” Connie said.

  Suddenly, the car swerved toward the sidewalk on the other side, which was crowded with people walking back and forth. But I saw only one: Rosie, still standing by the curb.

  The car slammed into Rosie and sent her flying up into the air.

  “Rosie!” Gracie screamed.

  The car rammed into the streetlight, which tumbled to the ground with a vibrating clash. I barely heard it. I felt like I was trapped inside a stone statue, trying to move. Please, Rosie, get up. Please, please, jump up and cartwheel your way over here. But Rosie was lying completely still in her ripped tutu on the edge of the sidewalk.

  Chapter 36

  I couldn’t move. People ran and shouted all around me, but I just stood there staring at Rosie. Gracie ran over and cradled Rosie’s head in her arms, tears in her eyes. Tío Lalo knelt beside Gracie and cried too. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” he said over and over again. A sudden pain in my arm made me look down.

  “Let’s go to Rosie!” Connie screamed as she yanked again.

  I blinked a few times, then looked twice for traffic. No cars were coming since the street was littered with the twisted streetlight and pieces of my uncle’s car. I forced my feet to move, and Connie and I crossed the street to be with our sisters. Rosie looked like a rag doll in Gracie’s arms, with her eyes closed and her left leg all twisted into a weird shape. “Is she breathing?” I said in a whisper to Gracie. Gracie nodded, and I felt a sob creep up my throat and out of my mouth.

  Chichi and Lydia came over to join us. “I called your mother,” Lydia said.

  “Don’t worry, mamita. Everything will be okay,” Chichi said as she held Connie and wiped her tears.

  By the time Mami and Abuelita arrived, three police cars and an ambulance had arrived. One police officer grabbed Tío Lalo and made him breathe into a tube attached to a little box. Two other officers wrote in their notebooks while they spoke with Chichi, Lydia, and other adults who had seen the accident. The ambulance people put Rosie on a stretcher and told Mami and Abuelita to stand back. Still, the two of them hovered over her while they cried and cried.

  The police officer cuffed Tío Lalo’s hands behind his back.

  “My baby!” Abuelita screamed. “My baby can’t go to jail! Mecho, do something! Help your brother!”

  Mami glared at Abuelita as she climbed into the ambulance with Rosie.

  “Mamá, come with me!” Tío Lalo shouted.

  Abuelita looked back and forth between my uncle and my sisters and me. “I — I can’t,” she stammered to Tío Lalo. “I promised Mecho I would watch over the girls and take them home.”

  “I’m not going home,” I said. “I’m going to the hospital.”

  “Me too.” Gracie stood beside me.

  “But I promised your mother . . .”

  “We have to go to Rosie!” I was screaming now. “We can’t leave her!” I lowered my voice and looked at Connie, who was still crying. “Not again,” I whispered.

  “Rosie! Rosie! Rosie! I want Rosie!” Connie grabbed Abuelita’s hand and pulled hard with each “Rosie!”

  “Mamá! Mamá!” Tío Lalo called. The officer pushed my uncle’s head down and put him into the back of the police car.

  Abuelita ran up to the police officer. “Habla español?” she asked. He nodded, and she began to plead in Spanish. “It was just an accident. He’s never been in trouble with the law before. He’s a good boy. Do you know that was his niece he hit? He loves her, he would never do anything to hurt her, he feels terrible about this. Can’t you just let him go with a warning?”

  “Driving drunk is a crime, doña,” the officer said. “He can call you after he’s booked.” Abuelita watched the police car pull away. She kept staring even after it had turned a corner and couldn’t be seen anymore.

  “Abuelita,” Gracie said. She touched Abuelita’s shoulder. My grandmother turned around and reached for Gracie with both arms. The two of them held each other tightly and cried.

  What were they doing? I knew Abuelita loved Rosie and was upset about this. And I knew Tío Lalo was sad too. But the two of them always acted like my uncle’s drinking wasn’t a problem, and now look what happened. Abuelita was as much to blame for Rosie’s accident as Tío Lalo was. And we really didn’t have time for this. “Can we take a cab?” I asked.

  Abuelita pulled away from Gracie and nodded. She wiped her face with a tissue and looked around. Chichi and Lydia were still talking to the police officers. The bodega guy came up to us. “Do you need something, doña?” he said to Abuelita.

  “Yes, a taxi.”

  “My cousin drives a taxi.” The bodega guy pointed to one of the domino players, who jumped up and pulled a jangle of keys out of his pocket.

  “Come, doñita,” the cousin said. “I’ll take you.”

  We followed the man around the corner to a brown car with one blue door and one white door. We squeezed inside and rode in silence. It took us forever to get to the hospital. First, the taxi driver said his tank was almost empty, so he drove in the opposite direction to a gas station with a long line of cars waiting at the pump. When we pulled out of there, we got caught in rush-hour traffic and then had to turn around — very slowly — when we reached a street that was closed for roadwork.

  The more time passed, the more I worried. I wondered what we would find when we got to the hospital. Would Rosie still be alive? Would she ever be fine again? I tried to just be mad at Tío Lalo for hitting her, at Abuelita for never discouraging his drunk driving, at Gracie for ditching us to hang out with her friends, and even at Connie for insisting that we move on without Gracie. But I kept going back to being mad at myself too. If only I had stayed to wait for Gracie. If I had insisted that Rosie come with Connie and me. If I had done something differently — anything. But I didn’t.

  When we got to the hospital, we didn’t know where to find Rosie and Mami. Gracie asked a bunch of people, but everyone was running around looking busy and telling us to wait. Finally, a smiley woman with gray hair and pink scrubs came to our rescue. “I’ll take you to find your parents,” she said, “but then you have to go to the waiting area, because you really shouldn’t be here, especially not the little one.” We thanked her and said goodbye as soon as we saw Mami and Papi slip into the hallway from a room behind a curtain.

  “Mamá, I thought you were taking them home,” Mami said.

  “They insisted on coming,” Abuelita said. “I’m sorry.” She started to cry.

  “That’s okay,” Papi said. He picked Connie up and she leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed. “Everything’s going to be okay.” He patted her back and swayed from side to side.

  Mami put her arms around Gracie and me. “The doctor says your sister has a concussion, a broken leg, and two fractured ribs,” she said. “They gave her a lot of painkillers, so she’s asleep now.”

  “Can we see her?” I asked.

  My parents looked at each other, then shook their heads. “Not yet,” Mami said.

  “You stay here with Rosalba,” Papi said to Mami. “I’ll go to the waiting area with the girls.”

  Mami went back behind the curtain, and Papi led us to the waiting area with Connie in his arms. Abuelita sat down. She was still crying. Gracie sat next to her and rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Abuelita,” Gracie said. “She’ll be okay.”

  “I know,” Abuelita said with a sniffle. “God will protect her. Here, Tavito, I’ll hold the baby.”

  Papi handed the sleeping Connie over to Abuelita. I sat next to Gracie and watched Papi pace in front of us.

  “This is all your fault,” Gracie muttered to me.

  “What
?!” I didn’t bother to lower my voice. “You’re kidding, right?” Even though I felt guilty about this, I figured Gracie would blame herself. I would if I were her.

  “No, I’m not kidding. Why did you leave her on the curb?”

  “Well, you left all of us! I knew you would do that. You always do that!” I was shouting now.

  “You probably did it on purpose,” Gracie said. “You don’t care about Rosie. You don’t care about any of us. That’s why you burned the envelope!”

  I stared at her. Why would she say that? The envelope had nothing to do with any of this. She was just trying to get me in trouble. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anybody,” I whispered.

  “Well, I guess I lied!” Gracie folded her arms over her chest and turned away from me.

  I looked at Papi. He was watching the two of us. Did he believe that I didn’t care about the family? Maybe. After all, I had been kind of bratty all week. But Gracie never took care of our little sisters. She always left that to me. And now she had the nerve to accuse me of not caring! I stood up and headed for the elevators.

  “Ana María, where do you think you’re going?”

  Papi was right behind me. An elevator door opened, and some people in white coats rushed out, almost bumping into me. I turned and faced Papi. “Gracie’s right,” I said. “This is all my fault. I should have stayed with Rosie.” My face was wet with tears, and my glasses slid down my nose.

  “This is not your fault. She was on the sidewalk, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, if you had stayed with her, all three of you would have been hit. The only person to blame here is Lalo.” He started to pace again.

  I looked at the floor and listened to the beeping sounds all around me. It was good to know that my parents didn’t blame me for Rosie’s accident. But I still blamed myself. Plus, there was this business about the envelope. “Gracie’s right about the envelope,” I said. “The one the doctor gave you about the baby.”