The Fall of Innocence

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  Don’t try to talk. Your tongue needs to heal. You need to heal.

  She could hear her daughter’s breathing coming faster, heavier.

  Calm down. It’s okay, Nina said, pulling Emilia’s arm away, placing it back down on her chest, and then keeping her own hand there, feeling the violent thumping of her daughter’s heart, trying to keep it from exploding. We found you. You’re okay now, Emilia.

  Nina carefully got in bed with her, tucked herself next to her daughter’s small, broken body, so carefully, wondering just how broken she was inside.

  You’re okay now, she whispered again. I love you. She repeated this over and over, like a poem, until Emilia got sleepy. Until they both got sleepy and the only sound was the crackling voice of someone on the television, counting down.

  Ten.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  Nina felt her daughter’s body becoming less tense next to her. The sound of the man’s voice droned on. Until moments later, she opened her eyes and looked at the screen.

  Fire. And smoke. And blue sky.

  Nina sat up and watched the Challenger explode, saw the families staring up at the disaster, not knowing what had happened, the tragedy not settling into their understanding yet, not yet, even as they saw it with their own eyes.

  Oh god, Nina thought. She looked down at her daughter. Then got up, turned off the television, and went to the bathroom to weep. She thought of those poor astronauts, their parents in the crowd as they watched their children explode, her own daughter, asleep in the next room. And Nina wept harder, with her whole body, but quietly. She couldn’t let Emilia hear her. Or Sam. He was home, but she hoped he was downstairs in his office. Nina knew he couldn’t deal with Emilia’s broken body. He would not be able to deal with Nina’s own brokenness on top of that. But how she wished he were right there, next to her.

  * * *

  *

  Nina snapped back to the garden. Back to carefully brushing rose-colored blush onto this stranger’s cheekbones. She took a tissue from the makeup table and quickly dabbed her own eyes before her client could see her tears. She reeled herself away from the past, busied herself with choosing a shade of lipstick and applying it carefully.

  When she was done, she stepped back and examined her work. The woman looked beautiful. Nina held up a mirror and the woman looked at herself.

  Usually she could see exactly how her clients studied the application of their eyeliner, or the placement of the blush on their cheeks. But this woman didn’t. She looked at herself in the mirror head-on, as if she were looking inside herself. When she still hadn’t said anything after a long while, Nina wondered if she was dissatisfied. But no, “Lovely,” she said finally, and offered Nina a genuine smile before putting down the mirror and removing the smock.

  The woman got up and looked pensive. Nina got an irrational urge to ask her about her life, to ask her the reason for the garden she had built here; Nina knew instinctively that it was this woman’s project, her design, her conservatory. She felt that if she waited long enough, the woman would reveal some kind of secret.

  But the woman didn’t speak. She simply walked over to the nearest flowers and touched the petals. Nina cleaned her brushes and put them away.

  “Could you . . . let yourself out? The check is right there,” the woman said without turning back.

  “Yes, of course. Thank you,” Nina answered as she looked at the check on the makeup table. She folded it, put it in her purse, glad she would be able to cover the water bill this month.

  The woman continued down the path, until she was no longer visible. Nina finished packing up, took a last look at the flowers before walking out of the magnificent garden, through the large rooms, and back out into the gray day.

  She was driving past the gates when she started wondering how it was possible that she had just been in the midst of a beautiful garden. Had it been real?

  How is it possible that those flowers could exist in the middle of this cold world?

  For a moment, Nina imagined that nothing she thought was real actually was. Maybe even the past was just a terrible imagining.

  Did it really happen?

  Someone beeped. Nina proceeded past a stop sign. She glanced at her watch and knew she would be too early if she went to her next appointment now. Up ahead, a Kmart came into view and Nina made her way to it.

  She walked in and went down the aisles, looking for anything they might need at home, but knowing already she’d buy nothing.

  The neatly lined orange and green jugs of laundry detergent depressed her more than usual today. The stacked boxes of toothpaste brought tears to her eyes.

  Keep it together, she told herself.

  But the woman and the garden and now the rows of everything so neat, so orderly, and the memory of Emilia in bed, and the past, the past, had invaded her mind. Her whole body. She felt the urge to run her hand along the shelves, sending the soap, the bottles of shampoo and conditioner, falling to the floor.

  Stop, she told herself.

  But she remembered more. So much more. She remembered walking the aisles of the grocery store with Emilia. The heavy gazes of their neighbors as Nina walked dazed, hypnotized, and confused by the order of the shelves, her little bird at her side. And that day, oh that day, when Emilia spread her arms and screeched and cawed and ran throughout the store. She looked like she would bite anyone who might come near her—not that anyone did.

  They just watched.

  They watched as Nina ran and ran after her strange bird, swift and fast and impossible to catch.

  But eventually she did catch Emilia. And she’d had to wrestle Emilia into her arms. And Emilia had scratched at Nina’s face and neck as she was carried outside, screeching and kicking and cawing. From the grocery store windows, they watched.

  All those people, who shook their heads as if I were terrible, as if we were terrible.

  Emilia flapped her arms and tried to climb her mother like a tree, reaching for the sky. Only when they were in the car with the doors locked did Nina look over and see the cans of green beans she’d been holding and had absentmindedly thrown into her purse while she’d tried to get control of Emilia. She looked at Emilia in the rearview mirror, flapping around in the back seat, exhausting herself. Exhausting them both. Nina flipped down the visor and looked at herself in the driver’s-side mirror there—the red welts on her face from Emilia’s sharp fingernails that looked as bad as they felt, the line of little red dashes where she’d drawn blood.

  As Nina waited for Emilia to calm down so she could get a seat belt on her, she worried for a moment about the green beans, until she realized the ridiculousness of worrying about the fucking green beans. About what those people—those people who had been watching them—thought. About worrying about anything other than Emilia. And she thought, Fuck you! I’m taking them. I earned the damn green beans. They’re mine.

  So when Emilia, finally drained of all energy, whimpered softly and looked at the sky, Nina gently buckled her in and drove away. And as she looked at the store in the rearview mirror, where those people had the nerve to judge her and her daughter, Nina took pleasure in knowing the green beans were there in her purse.

  * * *

  *

  Nina blinked back tears and kept walking down the Kmart aisles.

  What are you searching for?

  The question floated into her mind and startled her.

  She looked at the shelves and racks and endcaps, trying to find an answer on those neat rows. Trying to find something in all those things, so many things.

  She moved from cleaning supplies to home decor, looking at bedsheets and throw pillows. She saw a pair of brightly colored salt and pepper shakers. She picked them up, studied the stripes, and put them in the shopping cart before slowly heading to the clothing department. There she found a soft brownish-pin
k shawl, the same shade as the eye shadow she had put on the woman’s eyelids just a short while ago. Nina took the shawl off the hanger. There was a delicate, glimmering gold thread running through the material. She ran her finger across it and tried it on.

  Somewhere, a child cried.

  Nina tried to focus on the shawl. On the glimmering thread.

  But the child cried louder, higher. A girl. It was a girl. Her cries filled the store, filled Nina’s ears. Nina closed her eyes and tried not to wonder how Emilia must have cried. She tried not to imagine the sounds that must have erupted from her daughter that cold afternoon.

  Like that? Had she cried like that? Screamed like that?

  No, it must have been worse. So much worse.

  Nina wrapped the shawl around herself, tighter and tighter, as if it would help restrain her from going to the small girl, grabbing her, tucking her under her arm, and running.

  She opened her eyes and checked the time. She should get going.

  Nina looked down at the shopping cart, empty except for the salt and pepper shakers. She searched her purse for her keys, and quickly dropped the shakers in before abandoning the cart.

  Then Nina adjusted the shawl on her shoulders and walked out of the store.

  He’s Hiding

  He’s hiding something, Emilia thought. It’d been a few days since their date with Anthony and Jane. Ian and Emilia were in his car driving to school once again. But Ian seemed nervous and fidgety. When he turned the wrong direction, his car screeched and Emilia looked over at him.

  “I’ve got a surprise,” Ian said.

  “Oh yeah? Another date with a stripper?” Anthony had gone back to Virginia, where he was stationed, and there was no chance of another date with him and Jane. But the snide remark came out anyway.

  He gave her a funny look. “You said you weren’t mad about that.”

  “I’m not. I’m just kidding,” she said, shaking her head and smiling. “What is it? What’s your surprise?”

  Ian looked relieved and continued. “I found out they have a new exhibit at that museum and . . . I thought we could go . . . if you want.”

  “Now?”

  “If you want to. I mean, I know it’s kind of . . .”

  “No, no!” Emilia said. “I mean, yes, let’s go! It sounds perfect.” She looked over at him, at her Ian, and felt so lucky. This really was perfect. And he was perfect. And this was exactly what she needed.

  They drove on and she reached for his hand, held it, wanting to apologize for her silly remark about dates with strippers. She stared at him, willing him to look over at her, and when their eyes locked, she reached over and brushed his cheek with her fingertips before he glanced back at the road.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah . . . ,” she said. She wanted to talk to him, but she couldn’t exactly explain that she wondered where Ma had really gotten the salt and pepper shakers. And she couldn’t tell him that she felt like something was wrong, that she felt strange somehow, and that she was worried it might have to do with her father. Not because Ian wouldn’t understand, but because Emilia was afraid to talk about these things. Like if she talked about them, said them aloud, they would be true.

  “I’m just tired,” she said, which was true. She’d had trouble sleeping lately. She would wake up in the middle of the night suddenly, cold, paralyzed, afraid to even look out her window because she felt like she might see him out there—Jeremy Lance, trying to get her attention, pounding on the window over and over again. Breaking it. Climbing in. Dragging her off the bed by her ankles.

  “It’s nothing,” she reassured Ian, and smiled.

  When they arrived at the museum, Ian turned off the car. He looked at Emilia for a moment, and then he started kissing her. His kisses became more urgent, his body harder against hers, and even though she loved him, even though she wanted this to be just like last time, it wasn’t.

  She pulled away.

  “Can we . . . Do you mind if we just go inside?” she asked.

  He looked hurt but quickly said, “Yeah, of course.” Emilia breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t make a big deal about it. Maybe he felt it was different this time, too.

  They went inside and Ian paid their admission. Together, they walked through the open glass doors, where a man in a blue suit took their tickets and quietly told them to enjoy themselves.

  They walked to the gallery directly in front of them. Walls had been erected within the large room, and there was an entryway to the smaller room those walls created. A projector hung from the ceiling, flickering scenes onto the erected walls. Emilia watched the blue-toned images of an ocean surround them. She felt like a stranger, standing inside someone else’s house, looking out a window to the ocean just beyond. Blue and gray, but somehow still sparkling and gleaming.

  The ocean changed to mountains. And Emilia got the sense she was flying as the mountains rushed toward her. She could practically feel the cold wind as she flew above them, dipping down here and there. It took her breath away. She wanted to stay in those mountains, but then the walls filled with clouds. Fast-moving clouds, rolling and rushing and rolling.

  And then suddenly, the image of still trees and thin branches with small, fragile leaves dangling and swaying in the breeze like trinkets filled her vision.

  It was as if whoever made this movie was trying to capture what it felt like to be a bird in flight.

  It’s a sign, she thought.

  She’d felt this before, in her dreams, in her memory, a thousand times. Emilia extended her arms and she imagined the wind going through her as she soared over the trees, over the oceans. As she swooped past mountains and filled the sky with her large black wings.

  She looked at her shadow projected on those walls.

  “Emilia?” Ian said. The sparkling ocean cued up again. She stared at the outline of her body, her arms outstretched, and then she saw the strange look on Ian’s face.

  She lowered her arms and said, “This reminds me of when I used to go to Jones Beach with my parents and Tomás.”

  When my dad was still around, she thought.

  She looked back at the water curling, coming toward them, and retreating, and she felt like she was moving with it, like she was being hypnotized.

  “Let’s see the rest of it,” Ian said, reaching for her hand. She followed him then, because if she didn’t, she felt like she might stay there forever.

  “Look at this,” Ian said as they entered the next gallery. There was an elaborate statue in the middle of the room resembling a human figure. It was half mannequin, half art. It had legs, but from the torso up, it was an explosion of creation.

  Emilia moved closer. Thick, spongy moss covered the statue from the waist up, like it was a tree. And on the moss hung so many small, beautiful things. Tiny decorated padlocks, small gilded birdcages, various flowers and paper butterflies, and strings and strings of beads. Small, delicate, lifelike birds with beautiful feathers and tiny black eyes were perched here and there. And tiny lemons, random charms, and little porcelain statues of angels were embedded everywhere.

  Emilia sucked in her breath. “This is so cool!” she told Ian. It was one of the most beautiful things she’d ever seen. She walked around it several times, took in every trinket, feeling that it was made just for her. As if someone had looked inside her, peeled back her skin, and seen this. Emilia resisted the urge to reach out and touch it.

  “I wish I could take it home,” she told Ian. “Put it in my room.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’d steal it for you but . . .” He glanced over at one of the guards and shrugged. Emilia smiled and took his hand and they walked around some more, taking in everything, even the permanent exhibits they’d seen last time. All the while, Emilia couldn’t stop thinking of the statue.

  “Ready?” Ian said finally.

  Emilia
nodded, and when they walked back outside, she looked at the sky, the same shade as the flickering images on the walls she’d just seen inside.

  “What now?” she asked, because they still had so much of the day left.

  Ian smiled as if he’d been waiting for her to ask. “Wait here,” he said. He ran to the car and she watched him retrieve a flannel blanket and a brown paper bag from the trunk. She recognized the takeout bag from Carro’s deli.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to the picnic area on the side of the museum. When they reached it, he spread out the blanket on a patch of lawn and they sat. Ian pulled items out of the bag, set them down one by one.

  “When did you do all of this?” Emilia asked.

  “I woke up early.”

  She looked at him, sitting cross-legged in front of her, at the little items displayed on the blanket. With each one, he had been thinking of her, of them, of this moment. Her heart felt full and yet there was an ache in there, too, that Emilia knew was sadness. Ian opened the sandwich for her, then his own, and she thought of how perfect today was and how much she loved him.

  How can I be sad? she thought.

  She wished they could hold on to this moment, this very moment here, together, but she already felt it slipping away. And the impossibility of making time stand still hit her suddenly. With every passing second, they were getting farther and farther away from this moment, this very moment here, together, and this perfect day.

  Why is beauty so hard to hold on to? she wondered. And why did she feel that sadness always?

  “Is it too cold?” he asked when he noticed she wasn’t eating her sandwich. “I couldn’t keep it hot, but I was hoping it’d still be warm.”

  “It’s perfect,” she said, taking a bite of the cold sandwich. The plastic texture of the melted and then cooled cheese tasted amazing to her.

  She looked at Ian and wondered if he understood. If he knew, as she did, that someday they wouldn’t be together. That the day they would break up was, at this very moment, making its way toward them, already transforming this perfect day into a bittersweet memory. A sense of dread filled Emilia suddenly, and she felt sorry for herself, for Ian, as she looked around at the bare trees and the gray sky above.