by Lucia Ashta
“You never had a husband.”
“No. I never did.” Esperanza looks away from those eyes that could hold her. She looks to the fields and the sheep that dot the horizon. “I didn’t need one. I have you.” The same view they’ve seen every day of their lives. “I would have wanted a father for you. But I’ve been enough, haven’t I? I’ve tried to give you everything. I’ve tried to raise you as I should. Haven’t I done a good job?”
“You’ve done the best job, mami. But you haven’t done it alone. I have a father. I’ve always had a father.”
Esperanza sits up straight. She wipes at the lingering trails of tears that are drying white across her cheeks. “Have you seen him? Has he come to you as he came to me?” She wouldn’t have admitted it if the girl asked, but she’s wanted to see him again, every day since the first and only time she saw him. Not a single day had passed that an image of his face or his body hadn’t danced across her memories.
“Is he handsome as he used to be? He probably hasn’t aged as I have. I used to be beautiful too, you know.”
“Mamá, you’re still beautiful. But he didn’t come to me as he did to you. I’ve never touched him, even though he’s touched me.”
Esperanza looks at her daughter and waits, knowing whatever comes next will be magical. She wonders why she’d ever let Rosa del Carmen convince her that she shouldn’t let Mariela be who she so obviously wants to be. Her daughter is extraordinary, open to truths that others deny.
“I’ve always sensed his presence. In every breeze, every gust. In every still moment that precedes them. I feel him with me every time I draw breath and every time I release it. Just as I feel you. Even if I don’t always register what you’re saying with your mouth, I know what you feel inside.”
“But how? I’m not as powerful as the Wind. I can’t be a man one moment and air the next.”
“You don’t have to be like the Wind for me to feel you. You’re my mami. You love me. I can feel that love wherever I am, even if I’m not right next to you.”
Mariela puts a hand over her mother’s and stares into her eyes. “I’ll feel you even once I’m gone.”
Esperanza draws in a sharp breath and tries to pull her hand away, but Mariela holds it. “I’ll always love you, and I’ll always feel you, I promise. Even when I have to go.”
It seems impossible that Esperanza could have any more tears to shed. Still, they well, making her daughter blurry when she least wants it, when she wants to remember every single thing about her, when she wants—needs—to memorize every one of her features all over again, every stray hair, every smile, especially every smile.
Esperanza would have asked if her daughter really had to go, but she already knows the answer. Instead, she speaks what stands on the precipice of her heart, ready to dive toward its death. A fear of another broken promise. “Promises can be broken.” Her voice trembles.
Mariela shakes her head. “Not my promise, mami. My promise will hold true. I’m sure of it. I’ll always be with you, and I’ll always love you. No matter what I become, my heart will be the same.” Daughter squeezes mother’s hand, weak and limp as it hasn’t been for the thirteen previous years.
“He’s coming to get me now, mami.”
Esperanza thinks she will scream at having her most terrible fear realized. She imagines a cry, that can rattle even the cold heart of the Wind, will rip through her if this moment ever arrived. Instead, a defeated whimper quivers out of her, too soft to defend her daughter from her fate.
Mariela offers a smile that Esperanza clings to as if it were a lifeboat in a raging ocean. “It’s all right, mami. I’ve known he would come. I’m ready.”
Esperanza’s shoulders slump even lower. She whispers, “How can you be ready for an undetermined future? You don’t know what will happen if you go with your father.”
“No more than any of us can predict what the next moment holds. I must go.”
“Why must you go, hija? Why? You’re my daughter.”
“And I always will be. But I must go, because there’s a part of me that can never belong to this world.”
Esperanza nods, forcing herself to accept the inevitable, but she can’t. She grabs for her daughter’s arms with renewed vigor—desperation. “You do belong in this world! You do! You belong with me, always with me.” She clings. “You’re my baby girl. You belong with me.”
Mariela looks wise and calm. “I’m your daughter. But I’m also daughter to the Wind. If I stay, a part of me will die, the part of me that must fly free. You can’t cage the Wind. And you can’t cage me.”
Big heavy tears plop in Esperanza’s soggy lap. She has so much to say, but none of it would change what her daughter has just expressed. She’d rather die inside than trap her daughter in a life that would limit her.
Long moments pass filled only with Esperanza’s quiet tears. Mariela has mourned the life she’s about to leave behind all that she would.
Finally, Esperanza says, “There’s nothing I can say or do to change your mind, is there?”
“This is something I must do.”
“Will you come visit me?” The second the words are out, the breath hitches in Esperanza’s chest. She’s about to shatter, and she doesn’t know how to stop it from happening.
“I won’t have to. I’ll never leave you. I’ll be at your side always. You’ll feel me. You’ll know I’m here.” Mariela smiles in such a way that hope lightens the heaviness in Esperanza’s heart. It seems wrong to consider sadness when there are things such as this smile.
Mariela leans in and kisses both cheeks and her forehead. She squeezes her hands. “I love you, mami. You’ll always know that because you’ll always feel me. You’ll have your daughter with you, no matter where you go.”
Esperanza nods but can’t speak. The tears keep coming.
“He’s here now.” Mariela holds her mother’s eyes before standing, never looking behind her to see the man climbing the gradual hill.
“He’s— How— Where is he?” Esperanza sputters. She’s longed to see the man for all these years. She’s never thought it would happen.
Mariela turns to look behind her toward the horizon that marks Esperanza’s world. She points at a stick figure. “He’s there. Do you see him?”
Esperanza nods, sniffling, wiping at her face and hair. Smoothing the wet folds of her dress.
They say nothing more while they wait. Esperanza loses a minute before she moves to hold her daughter, realizing that she’s wasting the final moments of experiencing her in the flesh. She hugs her close, all the while following the Wind’s approach.
When he’s close enough that she can see the outlines of his body, she smoothens her face, hair, and clothing again. But she doesn’t let go of Mariela.
He speaks before reaching them. His voice carries from farther away than it would have for a normal person.
“Esperanza,” he says, and her heart flutters despite the pain. That one word carries across the distance still between them to envelope her in a soft, breezy caress. In an instant, she remembers how easy it was for him to seduce her. She didn’t need his promises. She would have given herself to him without them.
When he stands before them, looking like any other man except for an allure beyond that of ordinary men, he locks eyes only with Esperanza. Mariela moves to step away from her. At first, she automatically reaches for her daughter, but then she lets her hand fall to her side.
The Wind catches and holds it. He looks at her, and she realizes that she’s staring into eyes just like Mariela’s. “You look as beautiful as ever.”
Esperanza is about to brush off his comment as ludicrous, but she stops herself before doing it. Mariela’s appreciation of each moment that every day gifts them has suggested a world beyond what she can perceive with her eyes. Why should she deny her beauty? Perhaps she is beautiful... past what the eyes can see.
He leans next to her ear and whispers in those hot, silky tones she remembers. “I’
ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” she says, not caring anymore about lots of things she thought she cared about.
“I’ve visited you every day since I last saw you.” His words dance toward her ear. “Did you feel me?”
“No. I thought you’d abandoned me... and our daughter.”
He pulls back then and looks at her. “I never did.” She’s certain then that the trickster is telling the truth.
“You’ve come to take her from me.” It isn’t a question.
“Yes.”
“You promised me you wouldn’t.” She’d intended to accuse him, but what she really longs for is to be with him again now that he’s here. She wants Mariela and him both to stay with her, in their little house that could once more be a home.
“I promised you I wouldn’t take anything that came from our love.”
“But you have! You are.”
“No, Esperanza. I’m not taking anything from you. Our daughter is coming with me because she wants to. Because she understands that she has to.”
“That’s no different. She’s leaving me to be with you.”
“She’s leaving you because she doesn’t belong in this world.” He takes a step closer, so that his breath is hot on her neck. “You know this. You’ve always known this about her.”
Esperanza sinks into the Wind in defeat. She gives herself to his ready embrace.
“She’s not like any other person.”
“I know,” she cries. “I know. She’s exceptional. There’s no one like her. She experiences things beyond my understanding.” Already the Wind’s shirt is damp from her tears. “I can’t live without her, my special girl. She’s my life.”
The Wind kisses her on wet, salty lips. “You won’t have to live without her. You’ll see. You’ll feel her.”
“But I didn’t feel you! And you say you visited me.”
“You will feel her because Mariela is a part of you. She’s made of you as much as she is of me. She has a piece of your heart inside her. She won’t lose that. She never can.”
The Wind’s strong arms squeeze her. “You’ll soon discover this.” He begins to pull back.
Panic sets in. “How soon?” The Wind tries to move away, but she reaches for him, tries to cling to him. He eludes her grasp easily.
Pain wrenches through her. Rejection. Loss. It all wells up in unbearable proportions.
“Now.”
Her heart drops and shatters at her feet into a thousand fragments. Will she ever be able to piece it back together?
“No, no. Not now. You must stay with me, with us, at least one night. We can be a family for at least one night.”
“We already are a family. But Mariela is ready now. It’s no good for her to resist what she is for long. It hurts to go against who and what you are, to go against your heart.”
“My heart is breaking!” Esperanza doesn’t want to be selfish. She realizes what her daughter needs. But she can’t help herself. Why does she have to be the one to call on strength she doesn’t have? Who will soothe her broken heart once they both leave? Who’ll accompany a lone woman with no one to care for in a house meant for more than one?
“You’ll see soon enough. Don’t worry. You won’t be alone. Your heart will mend. Mariela will be with you already today. As soon as she transforms.”
“Transforms?”
“Into who she is. You knew this was coming, Esperanza. You must have known for some time.”
“No. No, I didn’t know,” she lies. Fears have burdened her heart for far too long.
The Wind steps in for another quick kiss on the lips. He squeezes her arms. Then that’s it. He turns to Mariela and nods at her, a silent understanding passing between them. It’s then that Esperanza realizes that he hasn’t spoken to their daughter since arriving. It must be true that Mariela and her father communicate in ways she can’t.
Mariela takes her father’s place, holding Esperanza’s hands. With her daughter, Esperanza tries to hide the forlorn look she fears will forevermore haunt her face. But Mariela sees right through her.
“You don’t need to hide your sadness from me, mami. You never need to hide anything from me. I’m sorry to cause you pain, but it’ll pass before long. You’ll see.”
Mariela offers her mother the only gift that can make any difference. She smiles, one final bright smile capable of banishing any sadness and any fears for good. It doesn’t accomplish all of that, but it tries.
Then a soft peck across a wet cheek that feels like a whisper, a specter of a kiss. Esperanza lets out one cry as she imagines that, in the best of situations, this is what any future kisses from her daughter will be like—if what she says is true, if she will be with her constantly, somehow.
“See you soon, mami.” And then Mariela moves on, walking toward the endless horizon next to her father, who’s planted a seed and left, only to return for a ripe harvest. In other situations, Esperanza would call a man who does this an opportunist, a pillager. Perhaps she should now too.
She slumps to the soggy ground to mourn the unfairness of life. Through tears, she watches the girl that means everything to her grow smaller with each step, taking all of her hopes with her.
Before Mariela reaches the horizon dotted with specks of sheep, the Wind disappears. Esperanza’s breath hitches in her chest. He’d just been there. Now he isn't.
Esperanza trains her eyes on her daughter, willing her to stay, to change her mind, even as she feels guilt for wishing it, for wanting to cage her unusual daughter and chain her to a world in which she doesn’t belong and that can’t hold her, anyway.
Mariela turns for the first time since she left her mother’s side. She stops walking, looking so alone out there in the middle of endless fields of grasses. She catches her mother’s gaze even across the distance.
Esperanza can’t breathe. She watches her daughter, her one true love, smile and turn away from her and then break into a run. Mariela’s stride is long and brisk, like a deer barely touching the earth as it bounds, suggesting itself a part of this world while also perhaps part of another.
Next, she disappears. Just like that. Like the Wind, Mariela is gone from this world, from the world that contains her mother.
She’s vanished.
Esperanza thought that watching her daughter disappear would leave her dead inside. But instead she breathes in the deepest breath of her life. She fills her lungs. Somewhere—she can’t determine where—she discovers hope. It swells in her chest, filling the void left by her tears.
She closes her eyes to the world her daughter left behind. A breeze, warm and balmy, like a pleasant hug, tingles across her skin. She experiences happiness in that moment just as she did when she reveled in one of Mariela’s smiles.
Her daughter is pure joy, and it envelopes her.
There will be no more tears that day or any other.
Esperanza hasn’t lost her daughter. She’s let her fly.
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Acknowledgments
I’d write no matter what, because telling stories is my passion, but the following people make creating worlds (and life) a joy. I’m eternally grateful for the support of my beloved,
James, my mother, Elsa, and my three daughters, Catia, Sonia, and Nadia. They’ve always believed in me, even before I published a single word. They help me see the magic in the world around me, and more importantly, within.
I’m grateful for every single one of you who’ve reached out to tell me that one of my stories touched you in one way or another, made you smile or cry, or kept you up long past your bedtime. You’ve given me reason to keep writing.
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