The Lucky Ones

by Julianne Pachico

  No, you say, folding the cardigan so that it won’t get wrinkled, the arms neatly aligned, then draping it smoothly over your arm. That won’t be necessary. Thank you, though.

  It wouldn’t be a bother. I can ask Roberto to stop by the pharmacy.

  That would be a waste of time. But thank you.

  She falls silent, smoothing the bottom edge of her shirt as if to get rid of wrinkles, and you immediately find yourself tensing up: Did you forget to do the ironing last week? Was that even possible? Could you honestly have taken the clothes off the laundry line, folded them up in the wicker basket, then retreated to the bedroom to rehang them in the closets, put them away in drawers, all without remembering to head to the ironing board first? If you actually did that, what on earth are you capable of doing next?

  …next weekend, she’s saying, and you have to blink and point at your ear, smiling apologetically, saying, I didn’t catch that, sorry.

  Your time off, she repeats. Would you like to do it sooner?

  You look past her shoulders to the door. The driveway outside can only be seen through the crisscrossing bars, tiny diamond-shaped slices of the hedge and sky.

  Yes, you say. Next weekend would be fine.

  She smiles but her eyes still look slightly wide, as if startled. But then it’s okay, she’s reaching into her purse, she’s handing you money in case the water man comes early, she’s reminding you to make sure the daughter doesn’t have any treats until she finishes her homework, and is there any chance you might have seen her blue-green scarf? It’s in here, you say, turning to the hallway closet.

  —

  It’s time to make the beds. The sheets and pillowcases are stripped on Saturdays; for now it’s enough to tuck the blankets into the corners, pulling them into a taut embrace with the mattress. You dust the fan with a single wet rag, punch the pillows and stuffed animals as hard as possible in order to fluff them up. Toy ponies are put in the blue plastic container, rubber dinosaurs are lined up on the bedside table, books are returned to the shelves where they lean wearily against one another. Everything is put back into its proper place, everything has an order. You place a book that might be the missing library one on top of the daughter’s pillow, where she is sure to see it.

  Lunch is simple: dried beef left over from dinner, chewy white rice, arepa, a fried egg. You eat at the white plastic table at the back of the house, among the orange barrels where the bags of lentils and pinto beans are stored, next to the peeling green cabinets filled with mosquito repellent and garden fertilizer. You listen to your favorite soap opera on the radio and use your fingers to push a little bit of everything onto your fork at once. You like it when the plate has plenty of options, lots of different bites you can choose from. The afternoon is for watering the plants in the garden with the long green hose, for taking a cup of coffee out to the bodyguard. You bring a cigarette with you and share it with him, passing it back and forth, and when he brazenly asks what you’re doing this weekend, if you have any plans, you tilt your head to the side so that your hair falls across your face and say, Going to church, of course, smiling broadly as you flick away the ash. Then it’s time for Clorox bleach in the bathtub, for swiping cobwebs away from the crucifixes. The toilet bowls need a generous squirt of bleach and a hearty scrubbing to get rid of the shit smears. The cockroaches in the shower are killed with a broom, the horseflies on the windowsill with a quick slap.

  The afternoon is not, however, for finding half-eaten earthworms or cracked black beetle shells scattered across the floor in the husband’s study. It is not for finding long white scratches on the table left behind by dry talons or crooked claws. It is not for finding a single black feather resting on the middle of the carpet, as light and silky as dandelion seeds. The afternoon is for none of these things.

  —

  Everybody knew about the river, but nobody wanted to know. The time your mother took you to the cemetery, hundreds of tombs stacked on top of each other like empty cupboards waiting to be filled. She took you to the section of the anonymous and unnamed, half-peeled bananas and orange segments resting on the tomb entrances. She made the sign of the cross on your forehead and told you to always make time in your prayers for the people suffering and in need. Not everybody has what we have. We’re very fortunate. All things considered, things were much safer now: Crucifixions and hangings were rare, the bayoneting of infants too. The time she slapped you on the mouth when you asked her about the group of young men on motorcycles, huddled together in the plaza: Why did they have such short haircuts, why did they have red bandannas covering half their faces, who were they and what did they want? She slapped you in a way that cut open your lip with her nail. You wanted to ask her about the oil company executives, the mining company investors, with their blond hair and European cars. Even the way they whistled at you was different, their gazes at your legs long and slow, but instead of telling your mother about them you bit your lip and didn’t say a word. The time your father took you down to the river when there was no one in it and you helped him catch turtles. You put a stick in the turtle’s mouth so that it wouldn’t bite your fingers and your father cut the feet off first, pulling off all the meat while it was still alive, saving the head for last. Without its shell the turtle reminded you of a newborn baby bird, wrinkled and sad. Turtle was always best in your mother’s stew when it was all mixed up with everything else, an indistinguishable mush, impossible to tell which body part was which.

  —

  The daughter arrives home with one of her school friends, who raises her arms when she sees you for a hug. Penelope, you say, so lovely to see you, and you turn your cheek to receive her kiss. The daughter gives you a drawing she made in class today: two people sitting at a table together. One wears an apron, hair black and frizzy, while the smaller figure’s hair is brown, a faint scribbling of yellow crayon on top. A tray full of food is set up before them: a steaming fried egg, a tall glass of orange juice, a brown scribble that you guess must be toast.

  That’s you, she says, and that’s me. I wrote you a note too.

  She taps the bottom of the page but you don’t bother trying to sound your way through the squat row of handwriting. Instead you look at the two figures, sitting down together, food to share before them.

  Thank you, you say as she presses it into your hands. It’s beautiful. You’ll put it in your room later, in the pile with the others.

  The daughter hasn’t had friends over that often since the wife’s pregnancy. (Just a phase, the wife said that one time you mentioned it to her. She’ll get over it. Remember her long sulk about Easter?) It feels like a good decision to bring them both treats, despite the wife’s instructions. You take Coca-Cola bottles out of the crate in the garage and pull Tocíneta chips out of the plastic bag kept under your bed, where all the rest of the junk food is hidden. After a moment’s consideration you take out a few packets of Festival cookies too—vanilla sandwich ones, her favorite. You use the Winnie the Pooh plate for the cookies, the one you bought her as a present for her fifth birthday three years ago.

  You carry the tray out to the swimming pool, where the daughter is splashing and playing Little Mermaid: Look, see how deep I can dive, I’m being chased by a shark, come save me! Penelope is doing—you are not sure what. Some sort of float, her knees pulled into her chest, the bones in her spine sticking out. She bobs in the water facedown. Hair drifting, not moving.

  Very nice, you say. What wonderful swimming. The scent of rotten eggs—thick, sulfurous—is flooding your nostrils, a wave so powerful you can’t keep yourself from gagging, covering your mouth with your hands. The daughter screams. You turn toward her quickly, your mouth already starting to form the words, but before you can get them out something hard smacks against your foot. You look down; there are ice cubes scattered across the gritty patio tiles, pieces of dirt stuck all over them. The Winnie the Pooh plate is cracked neatly across the bear’s face; the cookies are rolling like wheels until they hit the
flowerpots and tumble over.

  Penelope pulls her face out of the water with a deep gasp, water streaming down her face, blinking furiously. She and the daughter float there, staring at you, but you keep looking down at the plate as though searching for something important.

  —

  They said that without a body, the memories of the dead stay alive. They’re countless, nameless—hovering around the living like horseflies on cattle, flitting at people’s hair like birds. They said the bodies in the river were put there so they wouldn’t be recognized and that some had been cut open so that they wouldn’t float. They said that they were workers from the mines. They said it was the boy who sold lottery tickets and the woman who sold empanadas. A young man was found dead in the middle of town with pieces of his fingers and tongue cut off, like your father used to do with the turtles. They put his body in the truck, throwing it in toward the very back.

  You can run from them, your mother said, but you can’t hide. Your fingers stung from the orange you had just peeled; the tall grass of the cemetery scratched your legs as you walked beside her. You’ll think that you’ve gotten away, she said, but they’ll always come back. The memories you think you’ve forgotten: If you’re not careful, they’ll track you down, swarm over you until you don’t know who you are anymore, where you end and they begin. That’s what a memory you try not to have can do to you—swallow you up until there’s nothing left, until it’s like you’ve vanished into thin air, gone, disappeared. You’ll be lucky, your mother said, to even keep your shoes.

  Years later, she said, if you’re not careful, they’ll come for you. Knocking on your door, ringing at the bell. “I’m here for you,” they’ll say. “Are you ready to run?”

  —

  The daughter and her friend want to help you put the cookies into the trash bag but you tell them to stand back, watch out for the glass shards. You set fractured pieces of Winnie the Pooh aside—you’ll piece it back together later, pay for repair glue with your own money the next time you go grocery shopping. You bring out fresh packets of cookies and chips, and the daughter and her friend eat them while sitting at the pool’s edge, swirling their feet around in the water.

  Wait at least fifteen minutes before you swim again, you say as you head to the door, the garbage bag slung over your shoulder. Or else you’ll get cramps.

  The daughter smiles at you with a mouthful of mushed-up cookies.

  You follow the rotten egg scent through the house. You scan the living room, the dining area. The chairs are still upright, no candles have been knocked over. There’s no trail of dirt on the rug or stray bits of leaves on the bookshelves.

  You leave the garbage bag in the kitchen for now, take a cigarette out to the lime tree. Inhaling and exhaling, hand trembling as your raise it toward your mouth. The daughter could see you at any second, wandering over in her towel. (Could we have some more chips, please? Come play Penguin with us!) The husband could arrive home early with the tennis rackets in the back of the car, stare at you in brow-furrowed confusion. But you keep smoking anyway, keep your eyes focused on the small light hovering before your face as though the rest of world around you is pitch-black and that’s the only thing you can see. You lean against the lime tree, the bark scratchy through your dress fabric. The piece of orange is gone; the banana is still untouched. You crane your head back, staring up at the branches, but as usual there’s nothing to be seen.

  It’s when you shove the cigarette stub under the rock that it hits you. Staring at the neat row of cigarettes, tucked away in their secret hiding place—it occurs to you that there are many ways that something can come to be buried.

  You now know exactly where to look.

  Through the kitchen. Past your bedroom door. To the very back of the pantry. There are stacks of red brick from the men who redid the roof, the lamp that no longer works, the gardener’s tools (lawnmower, rake, hoe). By the back wall is the big trash barrel.

  You walk right up to it. You pull the lid off and push back the top layer of molding newspapers, wrinkled plastic bags, and dried-up orange peels. Spiders drop to the cement floor and scamper over your toes and up your legs; you kill them with a few brusque slaps.

  The bird thing is hiding at the very bottom. It’s trembling. It smells absolutely terrible. It’s surrounded by leftovers from its meals. Pieces it didn’t have any use for. Bits it discarded.

  You lean over the barrel edge. And just for a second, you can see everything.

  You use the gardener’s rake to push it down. It makes a crackly sound like the dried cicada shells clinging to tree trunks, the ones the daughter likes to crush in her bare hands, toss into the air like confetti. Like the snake skins you used to find discarded by the trees at the riverbank, crumbling under your bare feet. Brittle remains, discarded remains, vomited up and spat out and now bundled at the bottom of the trash. You push down its undigested leftovers. Grains of mushy rice get stuck to the rake and your mother’s turtle stew stains the side of the barrel, where it will gradually harden. You poke down the white dress with pink blossoms that you rented for your first communion, the copper smell of blood so similar to money. The words you used to know—sapos, snitches; vacuna, extortion tax. The motorcycles without registration plates, the red bandannas. The lined-up rows of the massacred, nameless dead: their shapeless brown robes and hairless thin legs; the jagged machete cut running from eye to lip. The way the plastic gearshift of the European car pressed stickily against your knee, the executive’s wet fingers on your legs trembling: I’m sorry, so sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.

  And then there’s the nurse who took care of you in the hospital. She offered to buy your baby for a couple in France who wanted one. A baby like yours, with hair like that? Who wouldn’t want it? You had to say no at the last minute when your mother said that she wouldn’t let you—couldn’t let you. Leave the baby with her instead. She’d take care of him while you moved to Cali and got a job, washing clothes and selling arepas in the street, maybe even working for a family if you were lucky. You could save up money that way, send it home to her, give him a good life. It’s a wonder, your mother said, you couldn’t get the father to help—with a baby so blond like this one (a dirty blond, true, but still blond), the father would have to be someone important. Someone high up, a foreigner, even. God knows how or where you were even meeting somebody like that.

  You just pressed your lips together and turned away, not answering.

  There are some things that not even the bird thing gets to have. Some things don’t ever deserve to be told.

  —

  You make the lasagna with eggplant after all. You bring the husband’s and wife’s plates out first, then the daughter’s, setting them down as the phone rings. You hurry to answer it as fast as you can, sandals slapping against tiles. Hello, you hiss through the tiny holes in the receiver. Yes, fine. Very busy. Did you get the money?

  He’s doing well, your mother is saying. He got to raise the flag up the pole at school last Tuesday. He misses you, of course. Wants to know when your next visit is. It’s been so long. Only holiday weekends; that’s barely enough, and you end up spending all your time in church anyway. Never a phone call, not even a photograph in the mail.

  You twist the phone cord around your finger until the skin turns dark red, almost purple.

  He should come join you in Cali when he’s old enough. Live with his aunt, his cousins. It’ll be so much easier for you to see him that way—

  No, you say, cutting her off with an abruptness that startles even you. That’s not a good idea.

  But he’s so clever, your mother says. You should see him. He could get a scholarship when he’s old enough—

  Back in the dining room, the tiny silver bell is ringing.

  I can’t talk anymore, you say. I’m with the family.

  You rush back as fast as you can. When you push open the swinging green door you’re greeted by the daughter pulling at your apron, wrapping her sticky arms a
round your neck, shouting, Happy birthday! There’s a cake on the table covered in candles; there’s a package beside it wrapped up in shiny red wrapping paper. It takes you a second to realize what’s going on—to remember. The wife is smiling and the husband has his elbows on the table, his hands folded in front of his mouth. Your heart is pounding the way it does when you’ve finished smoking an entire cigarette. Thank you, you say, picking up the daughter’s empty plate, only a scrap of eggplant remaining. Leave it, the wife says, reaching out and touching your arm.

  Photo, photo, the daughter says in a singsongy voice. I want to be in the photo! You stand behind the cake, not smiling while the daughter wraps her arms around your waist, as the wife presses the button on the camera. You open the packet (not tearing the paper, folding it carefully so that you can reuse it later), hold the black cardigan against your chest. If it doesn’t fit, the wife says, I can exchange it. You cut the cake evenly, your hand not trembling: The knife forms lines so straight it’d be as easy as anything to put the pieces back together again, making it whole. You pass them each a slice. You take your own back to the kitchen, the door swinging behind you.

  When they’ve finished eating, the wife comes in to help you with the dishes. It’s your birthday; go sit down! You shake your head—you wash, she dries. As soon as she leaves, you take all the dishes she put away and return them to their correct places in the proper cabinets. You set the table for breakfast: bowls, spoons, juice glasses. You sweep the floor. You tuck the daughter into bed, recite the prayers with her, including the one you taught her about guardian angels, making sure to mention the people suffering and in need. You make the sign of the cross on her forehead and she says, Butterfly kiss. You lean in close so that you can blink rapidly against her cheek, eyelashes fluttering on her skin.

  As you pass the suede armchair, where the wife is sitting and watching the news, you stop and tell her that you made a mistake. Actually, you don’t need next weekend off after all.