The Fall of Innocence

by Jenny Torres Sanchez

  Will you grow a beak?

  Will you sprout feathers?

  Will you be a bird with me?

  She didn’t say those words, but that’s what Ian heard. That’s what he understood. So he took his hands out of his pockets and stretched out his arms.

  Caw, he whispered back.

  She smiled.

  Caw! she yelled.

  Caw! He cried louder so she would smile again. And she did. And he thought he loved Emilia DeJesus.

  His mother called to him then, from the front door of their house. He waved goodbye to Emilia and turned to run home. His heart was still racing with excitement over seeing Emilia, over her seeing him, over their small exchange.

  When he went inside, his mother closed the door behind them quickly. And he’d never forget how he felt when she looked down at him and said, Ian . . . please . . . stay away from Emilia DeJesus.

  But he couldn’t.

  * * *

  *

  Ian looked out his window, the terrible feeling he’d been carrying with him since he’d left Emilia’s room earlier that day growing bigger. He stared at her bedroom window, the one he’d shut just a few hours ago; it remained closed. The room was dark. He wondered if she was still there under the blankets. Crying? Hating him? Thinking what a jerk he was? He wished she would come outside now, so he could go to her the way he had the day he saw her out on the lawn.

  She was found.

  This was something he often told himself. Sometimes he couldn’t help but think of how it could’ve gone the other way. She could have been lost forever. He could have not ever known her—how she loved strawberry ice cream and Tomás, or how she followed the flight of birds, any kind of bird, in the sky, until it was out of eyesight. Or how her face always seemed turned up to the sky so that he knew the slant of Emilia’s neck almost as well as he knew her face. He might never have known what her kiss or whisper felt like. Or her body so close to his. He could never have lain in her bed, taking in the scent of her hair, her skin, trying to match her breathing.

  How had he read things so wrong this afternoon?

  I’m sorry, he thought as he stared at the dark window. He was sorry he’d been such an idiot. He was sorry she thought he was perfect and he wasn’t. He was sorry he hadn’t been on the playground that day to follow her into the woods. That she’d gone through what she went through, what left her shivering, and shaking, and trembling. Even years later.

  Suddenly the window lit up, glowing and beautiful. A second later, she was there, standing at her window. Ian felt a flutter in his heart and, cautiously, he waved.

  I’m here. I’m sorry.

  She waved back.

  She flickered the light on and off. He rushed over to his lamp and did the same.

  She forgave him.

  Relief rushed through his body.

  * * *

  * * *

  Emilia saw the light flicker in Ian’s window. He forgave her.

  She hadn’t meant to react that way, to get so emotional.

  It’s in the past. You’ve gotten through it. Why do you keep going back to it? And why does it all get so mixed up in your head?

  Any time he slipped his hand under her shirt, or just below her waistband, no matter how in the moment she was, she always felt a part of herself slip away. She’d decided today she wasn’t going to stop. She just had to get past that slipping-away feeling that reminded her of the past and stay here, with Ian. But then she had to stop. She felt a chill graze her legs and the hard earth suddenly beneath her. And even with Ian’s voice in her ear, and telling herself, This is Ian, Ian, she’d pictured the trees looming above and that breathing, that panting . . .

  She cried not only because it scared her how she couldn’t separate the past from the present, how her mind played tricks on her. But because she loved Ian and he loved her and she wanted to be with him. And she couldn’t.

  How long would he understand when she couldn’t say aloud that those moments with him reminded her of it all in a way she couldn’t explain or disentangle? She knew he would never say anything, but he had to sense it. Still, he wouldn’t understand that somehow he became a part of that terrible day. Somehow, he got mixed up in her head with the past.

  Maybe he’d think she was crazy.

  Or maybe he would understand, but then he’d be afraid to ever touch her again. Instead, he’d look at her with that pitying look he thought she didn’t notice deepening each day.

  Emilia looked at her bed, where she and Ian had been only hours ago. She wished she could go back to that moment. She picked up the blanket that had touched his skin and wrapped it around herself.

  How would he have looked at me afterward? How would I have looked at him? What would we have said?

  She smiled, imagining Ian’s face. She wanted that moment. She wanted that freedom. She wanted that choice.

  But more than anything, she wanted the past to never have happened.

  After Emilia Left

  After Emilia left for school and Tomás for work, Nina stood one morning in front of the telephone. She knew she had to make the call. She’d tried several times already, but each time her mind kept going back to that incredible day when Emilia stopped being a bird. Emilia had just gotten new rubber boots and they sat together in the car in the Kmart parking lot.

  Remember, she asked for those boots, Nina told herself. She came out of it. We got through it.

  Nina closed her eyes, and for a moment, she felt like she was back in the car that day, willing Emilia to say Yes, to use her words and stop cawing.

  You’re not a bird anymore, Emilia. I heard you use your words. Use them again. Yes or no. Would you like some ice cream?

  Emilia stayed silent in the back seat.

  Caw, she crowed.

  Yes or no? Nina insisted.

  She waited, heard a strange moan from her daughter as Emilia struggled with the word. Nina kept her eyes closed and gave her some time.

  Use your words, Emilia, she silently willed her daughter. Please, please, please.

  It was a prayer Nina made, over and over in her head. Use your words, Emilia. Please, please, please.

  And then she heard it, her daughter’s voice. Yes, Emilia said.

  Nina laughed and cried. She clapped her hands together and yelled Yes! herself as she turned to look at Emilia.

  Yes, Emilia, just like that!

  Her chest swelled with pride and relief as she started the car and drove out of the parking lot and asked again.

  Do you want ice cream, Emilia? They turned onto the main road.

  Yes! Emilia said.

  Yes! Nina yelled as they went through a green light.

  Yes! Emilia said again.

  Yes! Nina yelled. Then together they yelled, Yes! Yes! Yes! over and over again as they drove all the way to Carvel, where Nina got a small sundae with pineapple topping and Emilia got one with strawberry. Between spoonfuls of melting ice cream, Nina tossed out words and Emilia repeated them like a little parrot. And Nina would say, Yes! and Emilia would repeat that beautiful word, too, making Nina feel as though she might burst with happiness.

  How much Nina had believed everything would be all right after that day. How much it felt like the worst was behind them. It made her cry silently as she stood in front of the phone, preparing to make a call that, eight years ago, on that joyful day, she could not have imagined she’d ever have to make.

  Nina ran through what she was going to say in her head, but each time she did, she got lost in the past again, in that memory. And she had to open her eyes and remind herself what she needed to do.

  She’d gotten the phone call from Detective Manzetti over a week ago and she’d put this off too long already. I’m trying to keep it under wraps as much as possible, but news stations might get ahold of it anyway, he’d said.


  She can’t find out that way! Nina thought. She had to tell Emilia. But first, this. She placed her hand on the phone, willed herself to pick it up. Finally, finally, she did. And quickly Nina dialed the number that, despite never using, she had long ago memorized.

  Her hands were shaking.

  Why are they shaking?

  She had to be steady. She could be steady. She couldn’t be scared. She’d always been steady.

  Emilia got through it then, Nina thought as she listened to the ringing. She’ll get through it now. She’s strong.

  Yes!

  PART TWO

  Mid-December 1994

  It Was Early Morning

  It was early morning when the phone rang in Sam DeJesus’s small Seattle apartment. He was sitting in the living room, looking out the window, taking note of the exact tone and slant of the sunlight as he watched a small child outside in a puffy jacket riding a small Mickey Mouse car. If he still wrote, he would be trying to describe this observation perfectly in his old leather journal. Mickey’s ears were the handlebars to the car, but one of them was missing so that the car constantly steered to the left and the child had to correct it repeatedly as he continued to ride. This was the same boy who, last summer, ran out in the middle of the street, chasing a ball, and Sam had slammed on his brakes, barely missing him. Nobody ever knew. No screeching. No neighbors witnessed it. The mom came out a few minutes later, calm and unaffected. Just a secret between the boy and Sam. And a day that had haunted Sam ever since. If he’d looked away for even a moment . . . if he’d been driving even a tiny bit faster . . .

  The boy’s mother walked alongside her son now, a woman Sam remembered walking the neighborhood during her pregnancy. He’d watched her stomach grow larger each month and he remembered the irrational desire to warn her, to ask, Why? Why are you bringing a child into this world?

  “Sam . . . ,” came the voice over the line when he picked up the phone. He’d answered it thoughtlessly, expecting the unfamiliar voice of some telemarketer. Those were the only calls he ever got. So the blood drained from his face when he heard his wife’s voice, a voice he hadn’t heard in years but knew so well.

  For a moment he couldn’t speak. But then he asked, “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  Every frightful image of his family that his mind had ever conjured up suddenly flashed through his head all at once. Car accidents, fires, freak accidents, strangers . . .

  “Nothing. Everyone is fine . . .”

  Sam’s heart pounded faster, louder, because he knew she wouldn’t call if everyone and everything was fine. He knew something must be wrong. He waited for Nina to go on.

  “Sam, the detective called me. Detective Manzetti . . .”

  The name was both strange and familiar. Nina’s words were strange and familiar, too. The dread in his gut grew, even before he was able to completely recall the man.

  A vague image of a balding head and graying beard flashed in his mind. “Manzetti?”

  “The detective who worked Emilia’s case. He called and . . .” Sam heard her exhale, draw another breath. “He said . . . they got the wrong guy.”

  “What?”

  “He . . . someone called, said he was the one who . . . attacked her.” Nina was speaking like she couldn’t quite get the words out. “He confessed. Because he’s afraid of going to hell . . . because he wants to go be with God.” Nina’s voice rose to a strained pitch before she fell silent.

  “I don’t understand,” Sam stuttered. “I don’t . . .”

  “They got the wrong guy, goddammit. And he’s some sort of sociopath!” she yelled.

  “Nina.” Sam felt all strength leave his body.

  “He said he did it, and then he said he didn’t . . . My god, Sam . . .” Nina’s voice cracked.

  “But Emilia saw the guy.” Pause. “Right?”

  He heard Nina let out a sob.

  “Jesus Christ,” Sam said as the words registered, took on meaning, as the gaps filled in. The moment didn’t feel real. He wasn’t sure he was awake. He looked at the floor, at his black shoes, scuffed and old. “Are they sure?”

  Sam took a deep breath and looked up and out the window just as the child outside tipped over in the car and fell. He cried and his mother picked him up, carried him inside.

  “Nina, are they absolutely sure?”

  “Yes, of course. I mean . . . that’s what the detective said. That’s what he said, so I suppose they must be sure.” Her voice sounded thin, distant. He wondered if she was okay. If, instead of worrying about Emilia, it was Nina he should have been worrying about all this time.

  “What do you mean, you ‘suppose’?” Despite the cold, Sam could feel sweat breaking out across his hairline. “Did you ask them? Before you called me? Did you ask if they are absolutely sure?”

  “Fuck you!” Nina yelled over the phone. “Did you? Were you here to ask them if they are absolutely fucking sure?” She spat out the words.

  He could almost feel her breath in his ear and he was instantly ashamed. He took a deep breath, held the phone tighter.

  The silence was broken by a soft, muffled crying over the line.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “You’re sorry,” she repeated.

  Sam could almost picture her wiping away the tears, looking up at the ceiling in frustration. He’d seen her that way so many times. She let out a deep breath and said his name. He closed his eyes and it suddenly hit him that she had loved him once.

  Before.

  But then he’d left.

  After the attack, Sam couldn’t be fine anymore about anything.

  Help me, Nina kept saying to him. You have to help me.

  But he could hardly get out of bed. He could hardly think straight, or think about anything, except what had happened to Emilia and how he hadn’t helped her. How he hadn’t been there to protect her. How he couldn’t protect any of them. And they knew it; he could see it every time he looked into one of their beautiful faces.

  Thoughts he’d tried to run away from then came rushing into his mind now—his little daughter, her bruised and broken body, her swollen face. Nina, looking at him, help me. And Tomás’s growing disillusion with the man he once wanted to be just like.

  After the attack, Sam got weaker and Nina got stronger. She figured out how to pull herself out of bed, how to do those everyday things that didn’t make sense to him anymore. How to deal with the doctors, the lawyers, the trial, the psychologists. How to take care of Emilia, Tomás, Sam, herself. And he, he couldn’t do anything except hide in the basement, away from it all.

  “Are you there?” she asked. He could already hear the accusation in her voice, bringing him back to the moment.

  “I’m here,” he answered.

  He watched as the mother across the street came back out of her house, without the child, retrieved his Mickey Mouse car, and took it inside. He stared at the empty street, the gray-white day.

  “Sam, it’s not over,” Nina said through the phone, but it felt as if she were right next to him, looking out the window together. “I knew it wouldn’t be. I feel like I’ve always been waiting.”

  He understood. They’d both felt that it would never really be over. Isn’t that why he left? Because he couldn’t handle it? And hadn’t he always been waiting for this call confirming it? Hadn’t he always, in that split second before he heard the benign voice of a telemarketer, been expecting Nina’s voice?

  Sam pulled the phone away from his ear, hung up without another word. He sat down and closed his eyes, heard Nina’s voice from the past echoing in his head, about what they needed to do, what strategies she’d learned from the psychologist. And then that day when Nina told him what the psychologist had said.

  There might be triggers that might make her revert to that bird behavior, but, oh, Sam, she’s talking!
Dr. Lisa says Emilia shows every sign of being strong and capable of overcoming the trauma of the attack. Isn’t it great?

  That was when Emilia finally stopped cawing, stopped flying.

  A coping method, Nina told him. It stops when she feels she doesn’t need it anymore.

  But Sam always felt like Emilia was ready to take off again at any moment, to some unreachable, impossible height from which they’d never get her back. He’d felt that danger constantly, no matter how much distance he put between himself and his family. No matter how much time passed from that day.

  This, he knew, will send her flying.

  And still, he didn’t know if he could make himself go back home.

  In the Chilling Cold

  In the chilling cold, Emilia and Ian walked to his car on the last day of school before winter break.

  “Are you happy?” he asked.

  “I guess . . . ,” she said, and looked at him funny. He’d meant was she excited, now that they would have almost three weeks of no school. But it came out weird, and now he thought he sensed that strangeness between them again that seemed to creep up more frequently ever since the other day in her room.

  “I mean, about vacation.”

  “Oh yeah,” she answered, but it was all she said.

  Maybe she hasn’t completely forgiven me, he thought.

  She said she had. And most times it felt like she had, but there were other times like this. Are you sure we’re okay? he wanted to ask. But she’d repeatedly told him they were. And also to stop asking. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and thought, Maybe it really is just the weather, like she keeps saying.

  He thought back to last winter. Had she been like this then, too? He remembered her face, sullen, in the cold. She did sort of get quiet like this, more to herself. But this time felt different. He couldn’t forget the way she’d started crying out of the blue that day outside the museum and again in her bedroom.