Chapter 2 #2
She was right. It took a lifetime for someone to hear my screams. I’d died a thousand times waiting to be found.
If the alarm hadn’t gone off, the neighbors might have come sooner, instead of waiting for the police.
Or maybe they came faster because of it.
When they finally found me, I had twisted my neck into a weird angle because I had thought holding on to Papá’s lifeless eyes might have kept him alive even if he was long dead.
When I’d finally realized he was gone, I couldn’t move anymore, having been stuffed in that cramped cupboard, and I couldn’t stop screaming.
The doctor they had called had to sedate me, but I still fought him hard before he could get the needle in.
By that time, I’d caused permanent damage to my vocal cords.
The constant pain and my gravelly voice had kept me company for weeks after.
She was right. When the fucking Don came for you, no one heard your screams.
Mamá was seated outside on the bench. Ten feet away from her, an older gentleman played petanca with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter.
The smell of citrus hung in the air. A few gardeners were busy pruning the bushes.
It almost looked normal. Like Mamá was in her own garden, not in a long-term psychiatric residence.
“Anna.” Sonia, one of Mamá’s nurses, appeared beside me. “You came straight from work?”
“Sì.”
“You work too hard,” she reprimanded me. She always paid special attention to me. In the year that Mamá had been there, she looked after her as well as me.
I gave her a weak smile. “How is she doing?”
Her gaze shifted to Mamá. My heart weighed as heavy as bricks.
She folded little triangles of the napkin in her hand until it was scrunched in her palm.
Then, she unfolded and restarted. Her actions were more familiar to me than her helping Mara or me with homework.
I had only known her as loving, but her mental health was always so fragile.
“She’s improving.” There was a slight hesitation in her voice.
Mamá’s schizophrenia had turned into a complete psychotic breakdown when Papá died.
At eighteen, I had to be the one to get her hospitalized.
I made decisions to medicate my mother in those cold, white, sterile hallways while my sister, Mara played with her Barbie dolls on the steel bench a few feet away.
Those days still gave me nightmares. The type you had even when your eyes were open.
“Maybe I should take her home.” I’d done that once before, after a year had passed of her being in the hospital, when the weight of guilt had become too heavy to carry. Not to our home, because that house with all the beautiful and tragic memories had to be sold in the weeks after Papá’s death.
Sonia touched my shoulder gently. “I say this with the best intentions, Anna. You can’t take care of her by yourself.
” Anymore. I bit the inside of my cheek to control my emotions.
I had tried so hard. For two years, I kept her home in the tiny tinbox apartment we lived in.
She took the medication, and she was almost our mamá again.
Then she had a relapse. Started forgetting her meds, and I couldn’t be home twenty-four-seven to look after her.
“You made the right decision,” she urged.
I nodded, but didn’t agree. All the decisions I had made were wrong.
“We’re here to make sure she’s taking her medication consistently. You have to trust in that.”
“I do.” I just wish I didn’t have to keep her away from home.
I had to choose. Sacrifice Mara’s education and keep her at home to look after Mamá, or send Mamá away. Neither was right. Neither was an easy choice to make.
“I’ll let you visit.”
“Thank you.”
With a squeeze on my shoulder, she walked away. I made my way to Mamá.
“Hola, Mamá.”
She mumbled to an invisible person as she watched me approach her. I sat down next to her. “How’re you doing?”
A frown creased her forehead. “You’re upset.”
I shook my head. “I’m not.” Liar.
“Your voice breaks when you’re upset,” she said softly.
I swallowed thickly, holding back from clearing my throat.
“Did you go back?”
“Where?”
“To the house.”
I couldn’t even if I wanted to. “No, it’s not ours anymore, Mamá.”
“Good.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. The sound of outside traffic hummed between us.
“Why’re you asking about the house?”
She bent down and picked up paper-like bracts. A magenta-colored bougainvillea. The wind must have carried it from the pergola. “We had a lot of them, there.” She touched it as if the leaves were made of velvet. An ache built in my chest.
“We did. We had them all around our balconies.” They had wrapped around the house, looking towards the front garden and the beach at the back like a bright pink wreath. I’d wondered far too many times if the new owners had kept them. Still, I couldn’t make myself go and see.
“Your papá built it for me when we got married.”
“I know.” They loved each other so deeply. My Italian mother came to Spain to study but married my father instead and never went back. “I know you miss him.” She was too young to carry this burden. Some women married at forty-two. Mamá became a widow.
“Don’t go there,” she insisted.
I crept closer to her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. She didn’t shift her focus from the leaf.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“They’ll know.” Her voice trembled.
“Who, Mamá?”
She didn’t answer me, looking away toward the gate at the end of the driveway, like she expected an army to stride through any minute.
“Be quiet,” she snapped, waving her hand and shushing someone I couldn’t see.
She was lost to me again. She muttered to herself.
I sat quietly next to her. Understanding nothing and everything.
Her tone rose in annoyance and volume. “He says you know who they are.”
“Who?”
“Men in black suits.” It suddenly made sense.
She fell silent. I struggled with my thoughts. She had spoken of them before. Maybe it wasn’t all in her mind?
We’d never known why Papá was killed or by whom.
I couldn’t remember much to describe to the police.
Even if I had, they wouldn’t have taken us seriously.
Mamá talking to a non-existent person didn’t help.
Neither did my refusal to look beyond that day.
Every time I tried, I sank deeper into the darkness, and after some time, I stopped trying.
But suddenly ideas formed in my head, as tangible as stone. The man in that hotel room was there on that disastrous day. Perturbation gathered in the pit of my stomach. He had called my papá a thief.
Mamá threw the gentleman playing petanca a suspicious look before she leaned closer and whispered, “I always told Juan. That man wasn’t to be trusted.” I glanced at the man who was focused on measuring the shortest distance. “A man wearing jewelry should never be trusted.”
Jewelry. She wasn’t talking about him. The questions bubbled on the tip of my tongue.
I had to ask her. Was Papá a thief? The idea itself made bile climb up my throat.
I couldn’t ask her that and taint her memory of him.
Was he connected to the Mafia? I stewed with that thought.
There was no one else I could ask. “Mamá, do you remember what kind of men Papá worked with?”
“They took him,” she burst out as she clutched my hand. Her eyes filled with tears. “They took him away from us. The way he was. All that blood…” She was remembering again. Her breathing heaved, and underneath the pressure of her hand, my bones ached.
I wanted her to remember something more. Even if I couldn’t bring myself to remember. But her mind had already shifted.
“Where’s Mara?” Worry filled her face as she looked behind me and then asked in the same breath, “Is she with Juan?” Just like that, she blocked out the past when it tried to swallow her into dark memories.
Who was I to tell her otherwise when I did the same?
Over and over again. Sometimes it scared me how similar we were.
“She’s at home, Mamá.”
“Good.” She nodded. “You need to trim those bougainvilleas.”