I won't.
My mouth devoured his and he was moaning, walking us to our room. When he reached the bed, he pulled back. His beautiful eyes that matched the sea on a sunny day, looked into me like x-ray vision.
I felt sweat start to bead on my forehead.
God, please. I don't want a panic attack. I hadn't had one in two years. After Chris had died, I'd had them nearly every day. They’d been common for me as a child, too.
Iza suffered from them, also. It was one of the many things we had in common, and we had literally exchanged coping methods with each other.
They, unfortunately, were the result of a difficult upbringing for both us.
“Are you ready to make love?”
I couldn't speak so I nodded, swallowing loudly.
Carlos studied me for long agonizing moments. I tried to keep my breaths even but I couldn't.
Fuck.
“Put…me…down…”
I could barely speak. Carlos gently set me down and I looked up into alarmed eyes.
“I'm…fine.”
I bent my knees a little and bent low.
“I'm ok…I'm ok…it'll be ok…”
I kept chanting, breathing deeply, and closed my eyes to recall a happy time in my life- one of the few I'd had.
Chris had made me a birthday cake for my fifteenth birthday.
“It's not perfect, but I promise it's delicious. The box said so.”
I looked into his bright eyes, a smile accompanying his excitement.
“German chocolate?”
“But of course. That's my sprite’s favorite.”
I had laughed at one of his nicknames for me. He’d said I was so small and almost fae-like.
As a child anyway.
As a woman, I'd filled out.
We’d pigged out on the cake so much so, our stomachs hurt that night.
But it had been worth it.
“Chris…”
His name had escaped my lips.
“Breathe…”
Slowly, my heart rate calmed.
When I felt like I wouldn't go into a full blown attack, I straightened. My eyes hesitantly met Carlos’.
“I'm sorry.”
He studied me for endless minutes. It was uncomfortable. This man, he saw too much of me.
“Can I get you anything to drink, Caridad?”
I shook my head, feeling like a teenager again. My panic attacks had begun before then, but had worsened as an adolescent.
“No.”
It was my turn to study him. Something felt off. He felt off.
“I feel like you're angry or something.”
“Angry? Why would I be? You nearly had a panic attack. I should be supportive, caring. I'm freaking worried, caramelo. I find that I'm also curious as to why you would utter the name of another man, however.”
My eyebrows crinkled. “Who? What name?”
Who had I mentioned? As a habit, I tried to forget the assholes I'd been exposed to as a child and teenager.
“Chris.”
I exhaled but still, I felt a pang of pain in my chest.
“Is he the man in the pictures you have at home?”
Carlos and I had been dating for a while now. Several months, in fact. I felt embarrassed that he didn't even know who Chris was.
“I owe you a big apology, Carlos.”
He continued to stand there, looking at me, but he raised his eyebrows.
“Why?”
“Let's get a few drinks and sit outside. I could use the burn of the alcohol and the sun.”
19
Cari
Unsteady,
Imagine Dragons
We sat in the sun on loungers, drinks in hand, facing each other. Carlos only had on his swim trunks, his tan chest glistening in the hot sun. I still had on a carefully chosen white blouson tankini top with contrasting teal bottom. Thank God for Iza, otherwise, I wouldn't have had anything I felt comfortable in to wear into the water or outside to tan.
I took a sip of my deliciously cool and sweet Mai Tai, as Carlos enjoyed his Cuba Libre.
“Iza and I are best friends for many reasons. We have a lot in common. One of them is- “
“A shitty past.”
My eyes focused on his.
“Come on, Cari. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, baby.”
I took another sip of the sweet blend of juices and rum for courage. It wasn't that I was afraid of his reaction. I just didn't want to visit that time, and I didn't want to expose myself to someone and be vulnerable to hurt again.
“You know that whatever you tell me, it would never change how I feel about you.”
It was like he read my thoughts.
“I'm not concerned about that. I don't want to go back there. I have very few good memories during that time.”
I paused and Carlos moved his lounger next to mine and held my hand. Our fingers intertwined.
“Chris was my brother. My foster brother.”
My lips felt numb. I gripped his hand tightly and my breath left. It was a few seconds before I could take another.
“Cari, if you can't, I understand.”
I shook my head.
“It's hard to talk about him. The pain I feel is too much still.”
I squeezed his hand and continued.
“I'll start at the beginning.”
Deep breaths.
Deep breaths.
“I lost my mom when I was thirteen. I never knew my father. He died before I was born. My mother kept no pictures of him. I'm not sure why. It had always just been me and my mom. She struggled with two jobs, but I never felt like we went without.”
He brought my hand to his lips. “She was a good mother, then.”
I nodded, gifting him with a small appreciative smile for the kind words about my mother.
“When I was ten, she dated a man, Manny. She'd told me he was my father’s best friend. He always made me uncomfortable, though.”
He brought my hand to his mouth. “How so?”
I sighed. “He'd always be watchful of me. His eyes followed me whenever I passed him.”
His grip tightened. “Did he touch you, Caridad?”
His voice was deep and words staccato on his tongue.
I closed my eyes and exhaled. “Yes but not overtly sexual.”
I gripped Carlos’ hand tighter. I couldn't meet his eyes.
“Once, I was in my room looking at television, and he came in. I was lying on my stomach, head in hands. He passed his hand down my head and back, until he reached just above my butt. Then he would stop. Over and over. I didn't know what to think.”
He brought our hands up to his mouth and kissed mine.
“How old were you?”
“Eleven.”
He exhaled sharply. “Maldito hijo de puta. Did you tell your mom?”
I shook my head. “What would I say? He touched me weird? I didn't know what to think or what to say. I was unsure; I was a child. She was happy and his added income helped. Her shoulders didn't slump from exhaustion as much. Her skin wasn’t as rough. The circles under her eyes had almost disappeared. She smiled more. Even at eleven, I saw the difference in her stress level.”
“If you felt uncomfortable, that's enough, caramelo.”
“I know that now. But then? My mom was happy. At first, anyway. Then they’d started fighting. A lot. Manny would come home late. Drunk many times. She would be angry but he was machista, the bad kind, the kind bordering on misogyny. He’d told her he answered to no one, and to clean the house and make dinner. He’d told her she was lucky he let her work. He was an asshole. The fighting kept getting worse.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had a death-grip on Carlos’ hand.
“We can stop, caramelo.”
I shook my head.
“I began acting out, then. Twice, he'd called the police on me while my mom was working. He'd set it up to look like I was some violent child hating my step-father.”
“How serious, Cari?”
“Very. The first time, they’d warned that the state would intervene. He kept after me in the house insulting my mother, and saying rude and crude things about us. He’d hit me so I’d hit back. I left a mark and he didn't. No one else had been home so it was my word against his lie that he was protecting himself from my aggression. The second? He’d set it up to make it look as if I’d grabbed a knife and went after him. I was almost taken away from my mother and placed into juvenile detention. She’d begged Manny to let it go, and I don't know what it cost her, but he did.”
God, he felt so good. He made me feel safe.
“The night my mom died, they'd been arguing. She’d found out that he was selling drugs, and was having affairs. She wanted him out of our home. He'd called her a hypocrite and mentioned my father.”
My voice wavered, remembering my mom screaming at him.
“She’d been furious that he would bring that potential danger into her house with a young daughter. She had asked him how long he'd done it. She had been more worried about the drugs.”
“Because of you.”
I nodded.
I hadn't noticed I was crying until Carlos was wiping away my tears. My voice was whisper soft and shaky.
“My mom had told me to go into my room and not come out. I had kept the door ajar and peeked out. Manny was violent, especially when he was drunk and angry.”
My nose began running and Carlos wiped my face for me. I brought our joined hands to my lap and then up to my lips. I held on tight as if it, and he, were my anchors to the present as my thoughts drifted further into the horrors of my past.
“He had slapped and hit her several times, and I screamed out to her. She turned to me and told me to not come out. Manny turned to me with murderous eyes. I have never forgotten them. Never. That look...” My sigh was shaky. “I crept to my mom’s room where our home phone was, and called 9-1-1. When I came out to return to my bedroom, I had seen him backhand her again. She fell and hit her head, and didn't move. I ran screaming towards her.”
I was shaking. Physically shaking. I couldn't stop my body’s reaction to the memories. Carlos picked me up and settled me on his lap. Even though I was outside in the sun, I was cold.
“I knelt by her, screaming for her to wake up. She did, and told me she loved me. And she told me to run.”
I shook my head. “I couldn't leave her. She was my mom. She was all that I had. She was everything to me.”
I hid my face in his chest, weeping, as he made lazy circles on my back. He kissed my head.
“Manny was pouring something that smelled bad in the living room, and I saw him with a lighter. I screamed at him to stop, and my mother screamed at me to leave. I didn't know what to do! I was thirteen! I saw him light the substance and start a fire, and then I didn't see anything else. He knocked me out. When I next woke up, I was in the burn unit at the hospital- an orphan.”
I wanted to kill him.
How fucking unfair was life that that motherfucker lived, extorting me, while my beautiful mother had died at his hands.
The tears wouldn't stop at this point. These memories. I had rarely recounted them for anyone. I could count the people who knew on one hand.
They were too painful.
“The pain, physical and mental, was too much. I had to be strong, though. The police and firefighters had arrived and pulled me out but not before suffering third, almost fourth, degree burns on my right side. I had lost my mother in a horrific way. But I'd survived. And I wanted to see that bastard pay. I’d had skin grafts and surgeries. I'd missed my mother’s burial.”
My voice broke. I bit my lip as the pain of the memory manifested itself into a moan of sorrow.
Carlos softly caressed my back.
“But after I’d mostly recovered, I found myself being investigated and charged with my mother’s murder.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
My sigh was shaky.
“The second time he'd called the police on me had been a set up. My mother had arrived home and then I’d blown up.”
My hands balled on his chest.
“I was so angry at her for not standing up to him more. For allowing him to get away with all that he did. It had all been pent up inside me. And I blew up. And that meant there were witnesses. So when I was found unconscious in the fire and rescued, they found a lighter in my hand, and fingerprints on the kerosene.”
“You've got to be kidding me, caramelo.”
I shook my head. “It took a while to clear up- finally someone listened to me. But I'd been in juvenile detention and I don’t have to tell you how horrible that place was. I met with prosecutors. By the time I neared fifteen, my testimony had helped convict Manny. He'd thought to start the fire to cover up the beatings he'd given to my mother and finish her and me off, but that hadn't happened. The memories and horrors of that night are still with me- mentally and physically. Always will be.”
Carlos held me while I stopped, needing a few minutes before continuing.
“Is this why you don't allow me to see your body? Why we never had the lights on during sex? You always had a top on. You don't let us bathe together. Burn scars?”
I nodded.
“I've never allowed anyone to see any of my scars. My emotional scars? Only one person knows about those. My body?” I shook my head. “Never.”
He tightened his hold on me and kissed my head again as we watched the sun begin to set.
“I went into foster care. I bounced around from home to home. Older children are not as adoptable. In the last home I was in, that's when I met Chris. I was almost fifteen and he was just a year older. I’d gone to live there after Manny was sentenced to only fifteen years, with some credit for time served. They hadn't convicted on first degree, only second degree, murder. Heat of passion versus premeditated. My foster parents were okay but again, I felt the gaze from my foster father. It wasn't in my head. Chris noticed, too. He would always be around me. He’d never leave me alone, but there were times when he couldn't be with me.”
My swallow was loud. I sipped the last bit of my Mai Tai.
“One day, I'd eaten something that was my foster father’s. He was going to hit me but Chris intervened and asked to take the punishment. My foster father had anger issues, violent issues. He'd locked me up many times in a closet. It was both a blessing and curse. I became afraid of closed spaces, but it kept me away from his anger. Manny had sometimes locked me up, too, when Mom was working.”
“Did you'd report your foster parent?”
I shook my head.
“No. I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to be separated from Chris. At that point in my life, he was all I had. Neither of us told anyone. He used to take beatings for me. We didn't do anything, but our foster father figured out our close relationship, and exploited it to his advantage.”
His arms tightened again around me. “Cari, did he-”
“He wanted to touch me but Chris was always there. And when the fury would take over that man, Chris stepped forward to shield me. This went on until Chris aged out, and then we finally reported our foster father. I was able to be emancipated and Chris and I lived together. We were as close as true blood siblings.”
“What happened to Chris?”
I rested my forehead on his chest, my breath hard to catch. The wind was louder in my ears. My voice was barely a whisper.
“Cancer. I couldn't save him no matter what I did.”
That was enough for one day.
It was all I could take.
My eyes were scratchy from the tears. My heart and soul felt heavy.
Carlos sat and held me, caressing me so tenderly and hypnotically, that I fell asleep in his arms, cheeks still dampened with tears.
20
Carlos
“You like the water, don't you?”
I breathed in the salty air and it filled the whole of my lungs. Turning my head towards her where she lay
next to me, I grabbed her hand and brought it to my mouth.
“Yes. What's there not to like?”
I laughed as she snorted.
“Not everyone has sea legs like you.”
“There's nothing like the ocean to let you know that you're in control of nothing but your response to situations. There is a force greater than you, caramelo.”
“What are you really saying?”
I kissed her hand.
“You're a control freak.”
She was quiet for a moment. I worried that I had insulted her.
“Caridad, I-”
“Maybe there's a grain of truth there.”
I sighed and sat up. I reached over and hauled her to me.
I was an insensitive prick.
“I'm fucking sorry.”
I tightened my hold on her and rested my head on hers. I heard the catch in her breath. She slowly pulled away.
“Why?”
The furrow of her eyebrows told me she was genuinely puzzled.
“You needed to be a perfectionist. In control.”
Her eyes studied me and she had a grim set to her lips. Her eyes were serious.
“Yes. I had to be. How else would you get adopted and have a family? Even when I practically gave up all hope of adoption, those habits stayed with me. I…”
Cari paused for a moment.
“I am a control freak.”
I kissed her hand again.
“You're perfect, Caridad. Perfect.”
“For who?”
My eyes caught hers. “Me.”
“Was there anyone perfect for you before me?”
I laughed.
“I wasn't subtle, was I?”
I kissed her temple. “I thought there had been. Fortunately, I didn't let emotion drive me to make foolish mistakes.”
She kissed my chin. “You can't leave me like that. What do you mean?”
I settled back on the lounge and she tucked next to me. We watched as the waves made small white caps and dissipate. The sky was blue and cloudless.
Beautiful.
Just like the woman next to me.
“Yessie was her name. Yesenia. We’d been together for years. Our relationship had been ok. We'd had fun and good times.”
Carlos: A Zambrano Family Novel Page 11