Work Text:
—Everyone wants to pretend that they get it, but no one ever really understands,— his mother says, sipping on bittersweet chocolate in the morning, her lips pulled taut across her thinning face. —No one knows what we are going through. They pray that the same won’t happen to them, and they turn their backs on us, now, they look away.—
It’s been two weeks, the boy thinks, it’s only been two weeks . And yet everything was so different.
The boy struggles to accept that the person before him is his mother. She doesn’t move, breathe, or look as his mother did before. She looked better then, he knows that much. The more he looks at her, the less familiar she becomes. It’s been hard to pull out the pieces of her that are familiar. Every day has been a drain on her ever since they buried his father. But if he grabs at her fingers… if he holds onto her and closes his eyes and squeezes her hand in his, he can remember how things used to be.
In the morning, papá would kiss mamá on her cheek. Smooth and brown like a chestnut, her skin glowed with health, and her eyes were brilliant, albeit trained on his back (typical worrywart mother). She was always making sure the boy wasn’t up to anything because the last time she wasn’t looking, he broke his arm climbing an olive tree, and he didn’t even shake any olives out of the branches as he fell.
Damn it. At least it had gotten him out of school (but today was Easter, anyhow, so school was going to be out for the next week regardless).
She ate while she cooked. Her face was round, and warm, and sweet. She smiled before pinching him for stealing slivered almonds off of the cake… and when he cried, even though she knew it was fake, she held his face between her palms and squished it.
He was her baby, their only son, and it was just the three of them, always. When father was working, mamá stayed at home.
Why do you stay home ? Hah! Because “that was how things were.” She would poke him in between the eyes with whatever she had in her hands every time he asked a silly question like that.
That morning it was a spoon, dripping with lemon syrup, and while he worked on getting it off of his forehead and onto his tongue, she began to talk and talk and talk…
When he became a man, she said, more or less, he would know the importance of working for his family. Not for money, not for fame, not for anyone else. For himself. A man who works for himself and for his family is happy. Happiness and family and work…they all depend on each other. Good, clean, honest work, even if it doesn’t make you rich, even if you have to survive on garbanzos and rice, even if your shirts and socks and pants all have holes in them, is enrichening .
“Money goes. It’s just fabric.”
At that, both father and son laughed. When she turned to glare, her gaze softened at the way he was squeezing the boy’s shoulders, and any ire she had died down.
“Time for me to go get the fabric, then?”
( It’s only been two weeks. )
With fingers that seemed to be more callous than skin, papá caressed mamá’s cheek before he left for the day. The last time that he walked out of those doors, his stubbly face grinned as he put his hat on, grinning so widely that his dimples showed. The boy wanted to go back in time and dig his fingers into those dimples before he left, like he usually did. Whatever his new favorite song was, they would sing a bit from the chorus for him to carry along until he came back.
Amanece
La lluvia moja lentamente mi despertar
La gente camina cerca de mi soledad sin parar
But he didn’t go to the door to say goodbye. Jaime Morey was playing at the neighbor’s apartment, and they didn’t have a television or a record player anymore, not since the break-in. Broken arm and all, he ran out to the yard to see if he could cop a listen.
Amanece
Although he was straining to hear the music, he felt the rhythm at his fingertips, tapping along the whitewashed walls - humming - then at his feet, shuffling on the hot tile, trying to keep pace without burning the soles of his feet. His father’s goodbye barely reached his ears, but he jutted his arm up, hoping he could see it wriggling little fingers in his direction before he left.
Parece que el cielo se nubló para nosotros
Desde el momento triste en que escuché tu adiós
It wasn’t necessary anymore. He was older, too mature for silly rituals like that.
He knew now that there were no such things as good luck charms.
—Antonio. Toño, look at me.
Big, wet, green eyes look up at her. Antonio, as the boy is called, is only eleven.
It’s a terrible age at which to experience a loss of this magnitude.
—Don’t cry.
His face is still round with baby fat, but she sees his father’s face when she looks at him, in the curvature of his eyebrow, the beginnings of a strong jaw, his proud nose. But he isn’t his father, who was so good at hiding when he was feeling sad, angry, or frightened— and God above knows that they were afraid constantly, especially towards the end.
Antonio doesn’t know the weight that they carried all of these years, trying to carve out a future for him in an unstable, dangerous world, living on counted time. He lacks their control, tears streaming freely down those chubby cheeks, all because he has been addressed by name, he’s scared , and he doesn’t know how to deal with it yet, trying to process the impossible.
The more he cries the more it becomes clear to her that she is making the right decision. She can’t console him as she used to, because he needs to harden his heart if he’s going to make it through this. He cannot be soft. Her face is like stone as she watches him over the edge of her mug, fingers slipping out of his as he begins to bawl into his hands. Antonio sticks his fist into his mouth to quiet himself, pulling at his hair out of grief, and she knows, she knows that it hurts, but he needs to stop .
He needs to grow up. He needs to . She wants to scream, and shake him by the shoulders, get it together!
—Your father wouldn’t want you to cry,— she lies. She reminds herself that he’s only eleven. He just turned eleven in December, and between now and then, he didn’t suddenly become a man; he’s still just a little boy. Antonio sniffles, chest heaving a few more times, but he manages to sop up his tears long enough for her to grab his attention. —Antonio, listen.—
Why is her body betraying her like this? Her throat wants to close up on itself, like there are two hands wrapping around it, strangling her…
—We are the only ones who understand what we are going through. We are the only ones who know.
There is fear in her eyes, genuine fear, as she looks into his eyes.
—So you can’t tell anyone what happened . Alright? You need to promise that you won’t tell your tia , or anyone else, when you see them.
He swallows thickly, wiping at his face with wet fingers, and- and his head cocks to the side as he begins to question what she means.
—¿Tia viene pa’ ca?
—No, no. You’re going.
—We’re going?— He asks, eyes widening. She falls silent, knuckles white from how tightly she is gripping the mug. She sips and repeats, —You are going.—
Those words send a shock through his system. Antonio lets out a slow, wavering cry in protest, holding himself, trying to keep his chest from being torn apart.
No, no, no , that can’t be right. He is not going. He is not leaving her side, he needs his mother, she should need him as much as he needs her, his father would never agree to this, he will scream, he will shout, he will cry ! He will cry until his father comes back! His father would never —
—Your father isn’t here right now!
He didn’t realize that he had been screaming at her, the words spilling out of his mouth as he thought them, and he wheezed as he inhaled, shuddering, his fingers back in his mouth, gripping his bottom lip. Mamá stood there, holding him by his shoulders, squeezing . She was crying, too.
— And you are going to Milan.
She pushes him back into the chair, and they’re both left trembling as she storms off, wiping at her face. He becomes smaller and smaller with every wail, quieter and quieter, folding himself up into a million little pieces until he falls asleep, the yellow tablecloth still bunched into his fists when she comes back. One by one she peels his fingers apart from it, tucks his arms into his chest, and sets him down on his bed.
As she covers him in his favorite manta, with worry in her heart and in her eyes, she passes her hands over him, praying.
She prays that someday, he understands why she’s doing this. She prays that one day he’ll thank her for this sacrifice, and that she can forgive herself. She prays that he forget what he saw, that his heart be absolved of hatred, that he stays safe, that they can be together again soon, and most importantly,
she prays that the Vargas family rot in hell for everything they’ve done to them.