Cristina

by Jake Parent

  She said to Anise, “Chica, you should show Tío and Aba your room. I think you’re going to be pretty happy with how it looks.”

  Anise’s little feet ran in place like a cartoon character, then quickly zoomed up the stairs. A few seconds later, there came a joyous shriek. Then more footsteps, back to the top of the stairs.

  “I have my own room! Aba, come see! Come see!”

  Cristina’s grandmother took one doubtful look at the steps and said back, “Maybe later, mija. Aba needs to rest a bit from the car ride before she walks up them stairs.”

  Anise said next, “Tío! Tío!”

  Without question, Tío Alberto hoisted Anise’s bags and hurried his way up to see the room.

  After taking the groceries to the kitchen and receiving a silent blessing from Aba in the form of a waved hand, Cristina followed her uncle up the stairs.

  She found Anise already jumping on the bed. Part of Cristina wanted to tell her to stop, but she couldn’t bring herself to do anything that would dim the brightness on her daughter’s face.

  Except when she saw that Anise had thrown the entire collection of stuffed animals off of the dresser and onto the floor.

  In her best patient-mom-voice, Cristina asked, “Chica, didn’t you like your pets up there?”

  Bounce. Bounce.

  “Up where, mamma?”

  “On the dresser. You threw them on the floor.”

  Bounce.

  “No I didn’t.”

  Cristina rarely got mad at her daughter. But when Anise lied – blatantly lied – it was hard not to. Even in those instances though, she always tried to give Anise at least a couple of chances to do the right thing.

  “Anise, tell mommy the truth. Why did you throw the animals on the ground?”

  Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Anise, get down and come over here. Right now.”

  Hearing the unusual seriousness in her mother’s tone, Anise immediately stopped jumping. She meekly stepped down onto the floor and walked across the room, looking like a scolded puppy.

  “Young lady, I’m going to give you one more chance. I don’t want to put you on timeout, since Tío and Aba are here. But I will if you don’t act like a big girl.”

  First, Anise’s lips started to quiver. Then she burst into tears.

  Like most kids, she was pretty good at turning on the waterworks when it suited her purposes. But Cristina had developed a strong sense for when her daughter was faking it. This bout seemed genuine.

  “Who’s crying up there?” Aba yelled from downstairs.

  “Everything’s OK,” Cristina returned. Then said to Anise, “You’re sure you didn’t throw the animals on the ground? Mommy spent a long time putting them up there and getting your room just right.”

  “I didn’t m-m-mamma, I p-promise.”

  “Tío, did you see anything?”

  Tío Alberto came alert for the first time since the argument had started, as if he’d been minding his own business in another world. He said, “By the time I got in here, sweetie, the animals were already on the floor.”

  More frustrated and confused than ever, Cristina raised an eyebrow at Anise.

  The girl squinted with a tentative hope for reprieve.

  “OK, I believe you,” Cristina finally said, although she hardly did. There really was no other plausible explanation for how the toys would have moved. They sure as hell didn’t jump off on their own.

  Then Cristina remembered her earlier feeling of being watched.

  She turned toward the dresser. Propped against the center of the mirror was the same photocopied picture of the little girl – Annie – that Cristina had thrown in the garbage.

  Her heart jumped into her throat.

  No . . . she told herself. Anise had to have snuck it out of the trash. Stop it, Cristina. That’s enough.

  Cristina put her full effort into pushing the fear and doubt from her mind, to the point she was mad at herself for getting lost in fantasy.

  The fact was, her daughter lied sometimes. Just like every other child who had ever been born. Cristina needed to deal with it, make her point, and move on.

  Anise was already picking up the stuffed animals off the floor, a serious look on her face as she carefully set them back on the dresser. Tío Alberto helped, and together the three of them quickly had the job done.

  A little shaken, but still feeling excited to spend the evening with family, Cristina picked up Anise and set her on her hip.

  They walked downstairs and sat on the couch next to Aba.

  “Shall we order a pizza?” Cristina asked.

  “PIZZA!” Anise shrieked.

  “I guess that’s a yes,” Tío Alberto said. “And I’m buying.”

  26

  Cristina tried to pay the kid who delivered the pizza. But her uncle insisted, casually moving around his niece so he could slip a neatly folded stack of bills into the young man’s front pocket, including a more-than-generous tip.

  As they stuffed themselves with slices of Hawaiian pizza, Cristina watched her uncle’s face, again admiring him for being such a wonderful example of how to be a good human. His combination of humility and strength was something she’d discovered to be sadly rare in the world.

  Growing up, she always knew she could depend on him to make her feel safe. If anything ever scared her – be it a monster in the closet, or mean, ugly Stacy Sanchez on the playground – she always knew she could go to her Tío. His calm eyes and slow, sympathetic way of speaking could magically make the frightening parts of life seem almost silly.

  Unfortunately, things changed as soon as she hit her teenage years, and fast. Tío Alberto was still his same, kind self, but Cristina morphed into a terror almost overnight.

  She began actively blocking him and Aba out of her life.

  His only fault had been trying to inspire her to be a good person. But she lived in a world that left her with no parents. Sleeping on the couch in her grandmother’s one-bedroom apartment. Wearing hand-me-down clothes from her cousins that were way too big. Hearing kids make fun of her for it every single day.

  “Tee-nee Cristee-nee” they called her.

  All she wanted to do was act out. Control something.

  To this day, she knew Tío Alberto partially (and perhaps fully) blamed himself for the fact Cristina had started hanging out with the cholo-kids on the block at the ripe young age of 13. He once told her, just after she got sober, that he was sorry he hadn’t loved her enough, a comment that made her want to crawl under the nearest rock and die.

  The truth was, no one in her life had ever loved her so deeply and consistently. Certainly not her own father, wherever he’d decided to go. And not her mother, Tío Alberto’s sister, who, despite her best efforts, was cut from a cloth that made her more suited for robbing liquor stores than taking care of a child.

  Not even Aba. It had only taken two instances of finding Cristina getting hickies from a boy on the couch for her grandmother to boot her out into the street.

  “It’s for your own good,” Aba had said, without so much as a tear.

  No, it was Tío Alberto who drove his white Nissan truck around the neighborhood looking for Cristina when she stormed off. He was the one who took her in when Aba wouldn’t speak to her. The one who made sure she got up in the morning and went to school.

  At least until . . . it still pained her to think about it . . . at least until she stole the money he’d stashed in an envelope under his mattress. His entire meager life-savings. She could still remember the look on his face when he asked her about it. It wasn’t anger, or even disappointment. Just a deep sadness.

  Cristina hadn’t stuck around long enough for him to kick her out. Although, looking back, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have.

  Regardless, that’s when she started hooking up with just about any guy who would give her even the least bit of attention. Cristina had matured early and quickly, so there was never any
shortage of willing, mostly older, suitors. As long as she was willing, too. Willing to do whatever they wanted. Willing to let them treat her like some kind of object. A toy that existed for their pleasure.

  It was an identity she started to believe herself. One she eventually embraced as her true self. Learned to use to her advantage, realizing she could get a lot more than just a place to stay out of the deal. Guys gave her money, jewelry, clothes, drugs. Anything she wanted.

  Except respect.

  And, all the while, she would hear from people in her neighborhood that Tío Alberto was asking about her here or there, wondering if she was OK. Telling so-and-so to deliver a message from him that it was alright for Cristina to come home.

  Unable to face her own guilt, she never even called.

  There were certainly moments she considered it. Nights when whatever guy she was with at the time would take the games too far. Choke her a little too hard maybe. Or, when one of her boyfriends had been up smoking meth for so long that he locked her in the closet for two whole days without food or water, claiming she was some kind of snitch, threatening the entire time to set the tiny space on fire so he could laugh as he watched her burn alive.

  She spent those 48 hours in the closet crying and screaming and thinking about the sad, sad look on her uncle’s face as he stood there with the empty envelope in his hands, surely hoping beyond hope that it somehow hadn’t been his favorite niece who took the money, but knowing in his heart that it had been.

  Even a year sober, the fact that he still loved her as if she’d never done anything wrong made Cristina feel simultaneously blessed with love, and also completely inadequate as a human being.

  He definitely made her want to be a better person every day.

  As the two of them cleaned up the kitchen from dinner, they could hear Aba snoring in the living room. Cristina peeked in and saw that Anise had curled up next to her, eyes closed, the slightest hint of a smile on her little lips.

  The sun was finishing its work for the day when Cristina led her uncle out into the backyard.

  “Ah, mija,” he said as she lit a cigarette. “You’re still smoking those cancer sticks? You’re going to end up looking like an old squash, like your Aunt Carla.” He puckered his lips and sucked in his face in a comical impression of his older sister, a two-pack-a-day smoker for as long as Cristina could remember.

  “I know. I know. I honestly only smoke a few a day now though.”

  He smiled without judgment, then went about examining the overgrown plants in the twilight.

  “Looks like you’ve got some nice stuff here. Rosemary. Thyme. Lemongrass. You just need to clear out some of these here weeds.” He bent down and smelled the rosemary bush. “Boy, would I love to have a little piece of dirt like this to play in.”

  Cristina responded, “I’m too afraid of spiders I think.”

  “Ah, they never hurt no one,” he said, waving his hand. “Not on purpose anyway. Like a lot of dangers in life, I guess you’ve just got to learn to stay out of the way.” He sat on the concrete step and kissed the cross around his neck before tucking it into his shirt. “How is everything else in life going, sweetheart?”

  He let the words hang in the air while he stared into the weeds.

  “Pretty good,” she answered after a while. “Getting settled in, but I’m having a bit of a hard time.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yah. I know it’s kind of silly, but I feel like there’s something about this place that’s a little weird.”

  He spread his arms.

  “It sure seems lovely to me. Like a piece of paradise.”

  “That’s why I said it’s probably silly, bu—”

  “—No concern of yours is silly,” he said, pointing a finger at her.

  “I know, Tío. It’s just, well . . .”

  She proceeded to tell him the story of Annie and her family. What she knew, at least. When she began, she really only planned to describe what was in the newspaper. But that part by itself felt empty. So she ended up recounting her dreams, the image she may or may not have seen in her hallway, and what she’d found out about the cult.

  He sat for a moment, hands on his knees. Before speaking, he pulled the crucifix from under his shirt and once again kissed it. This time he left it dangling in the air.

  “It sounds to me like the souls of that woman and her child are stuck here.” His face was quite serious, but still warm. “Perhaps there’s something more to the story of what happened to them. Something that needs to be known before they can rest.” He nodded, more to himself than to her, then removed the crucifix from his neck, kissed it, and clasped the chain around Cristina’s neck. “I want you to wear this and to burn the candle of the Virgen each night while saying ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary’s.”

  Cristina’s face betrayed her apprehension.

  “I’m serious, mija.” He looked at her, again pointing. “Don’t underestimate the power of the devil. He’s a master of illusion, and he always does the most damage when disguised as those things which makes us put our guard down.”

  The backyard was now in complete darkness, lit only by the glow of the kitchen light from the other side of the sliding glass door.

  Cristina held the crucifix in her hand. She had, of course, seen the symbol many times before. But it was only there in the backyard with her uncle that she realized one did not have to be a Christian to see what tragedy and sadness there was in the way Jesus – a man who cast away everything he had in order to serve others – was given such a horrible fate.

  When she said nothing, Tío Alberto continued, “It may be that the spirits themselves won’t directly do anything to you. To my knowledge, they’re more often good than bad. That’s not how it is in the movies, of course. But in reality, the devil tends to work through real people. Often those we love and trust. He uses them to make us do things we otherwise wouldn’t, and to hurt us when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable.”

  He said he wanted to have the priest from his parish, Father Antonio, come to the house and do a cleansing ritual, which he hoped would allow any souls trapped there to leave in peace.

  “There’s a chance it might not work, though,” he added. “As I said before, if there’s some other piece of business these poor souls have here on Earth, they must finish it. Do you have any idea what something like that might be?”

  Cristina was not really a believer.

  “How many people have been killed in the name of god?” she’d always asked her uncle when he tried to take her to church as a teenager.

  But, on the other hand, Tío Alberto was not a man prone to fits of emotional indulgence. For that reason, if nothing else, she was willing to humor him.

  Cristina lit another cigarette and tried to put everything together.

  She said, “There does seem to be a lot of unanswered questions about the murder. The police seemed pretty sure it was the stepfather. But I never came across a reason why. And it seemed like the FBI had a lot of questions about the case, stuff they didn’t feel got answered.”

  He nodded and said, “There’s a man whose yard I’ve been doing every Tuesday for twelve years. He’s an FBI agent. We’re on pretty good terms. If I ask him nicely, maybe he can talk to you. Help fill in the gaps.”

  “Wow, thanks Tío. That would be great. I think a big part of what has me kind of cuckoo over all this is just not knowing.”

  He nodded again without looking convinced.

  “Maybe, mija,” he said. “Maybe. But I want you to promise one thing.”

  “Of course, anything. What?”

  “No matter what you do. No matter where you go. Don’t take that cross off your neck.” He stood, stretched, and kissed her on the forehead. “OK? You promise?”

  “Yes, Tío. I promise.”

  “Good then.” He slid open the glass door. “I think we better get Aba home so she can make it to her Friday night bingo with the rest of the old crows.”

  “Tío
!”

  “What? That’s what they sound like when they get together.” He turned his arms into wings. “Caw! Caw!”

  27

  After her uncle and grandmother had gone, Cristina tucked Anise into bed.

  She kissed her on the forehead and turned to go. Before flipping off the light switch, she stopped to examine the stuffed animals, all still on the dresser, right where they belonged. Leaning against the foot of Anise’s blue teddy bear was the picture of Annie. As much as Cristina wanted to, once again, crumple the piece of paper into a little ball and dump it into the trashcan, part of her felt afraid to even go near it.

  ***

  Sometime in the middle of the night, the Virgen de Guadalupe candle flickered a soft-yellow glow across the walls.

  Cristina was dreaming. Not a nightmare, though. Not this time.

  This dream was almost the exact opposite of those from earlier in the week. She and Casey and Anise were all sitting on the beach in front of The Wharf building a sandcastle. The sand was empty except for a group of sea lions barking near the water.

  The three of them laughed in the sunshine. They dug their hands into wet sand. Felt the cool wind caress their skin.

  In this world of endless happiness, Cristina experienced a deep contentment she’d been searching for her entire life.

  The sense of wholeness stuck with her when she opened her eyes back in her bedroom. Her cheeks buzzed with joy as she walked down the hallway toward the bathroom.

  The cheer vanished as soon as she peeked into her daughter’s room and saw the blankets pulled neatly aside.

  Anise was gone.

  Cristina called out her daughter’s name. Checked under the bed. The closet. The bathroom.

  Nothing.

  She ran downstairs and was both relieved and terrified at what she found.

  Anise stood in front of the hall closet door, head tilted to one side, staring straight ahead. Cristina watched as her daughter’s lips pulled back in a mischievous grin. Cristina’s stomach tied itself into a knot. For a moment, she was sure she would vomit.