I was proud of the girls for not cussing, but I was even more proud of them for hitting the nail right on the head this time. “She’s right,” I said. “You have no heart.”
Papá froze for a moment, and then he hung his head and shook it from side to side, as if to show his disappointment. But the twins were beyond caring. They were disgusted, and it showed in the way they looked at Papá, as if they wanted to shoot him.
“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Papá said, looking only half in control of his own emotions. He clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. “I am the man of this house. I say who goes and who stays, and I say your mother has to go. You’re my daughters, and as your father, it is my duty to do what’s best for you. Her mothering has not served you well. Look at you all. You look like vagrants. Even street urchins are cleaner than you are. What have you been doing, Rosalinda? Sending them out to beg for limosnas? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
We looked fine to me. We’d had a little dunk in the river this morning, but other than that, we were radiant. “You’re the one who should be ashamed of yourself, coming here and acting like you have any right to us or to our home,” I said, my voice trembling with pent-up emotion. “Tell me, did you ever have any intention of coming back here? If we hadn’t gone missing, would you have returned to us? Were you ever going to tell us what was really going on?”
Papá stood perfectly still, his eyes cold, distant even as he held hands with his new woman.
“How long have you had two families? Is this your Sirena? La mujer from your riddles? The one who wanted to take you away? I thought you said you wouldn’t let her,” I taunted.
“That’s quite enough!” Papá said, putting his hand out as if to stop me from going on. “What’s done is done. The important thing is that I’m home now, and things are going to change around here.”
“Change?” I walked over to him, blocking him from Mamá and the rest of my hermanitas, getting into his face. “We’re not tortas you can take out of the oven and set aside to cool off while you dillydally with a whole other life. Families are supposed to be important, and that’s one thing you never did: Make us important. And now you want to take away the only real parent we’ve ever had? Well, it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to let you get rid of Mamá.”
I moved away from Papá and went to stand between Mamá and the twins. I took her hand in mine and held it tight. My hermanitas gathered around us, clinging to Mamá. “This is our house. You don’t live here anymore. You never did. Everyone knows it. The whole neighborhood talks about it. You’re a desaparecido, a vagabond, a lost cause. So why don’t you do what you do best — why don’t you just get lost!”
“Yeah, leave!” Velia said.
Delia crossed her arms. “We don’t need you anymore.”
“I thought you said they were nice?” Papá’s woman said, turning her nose up at us as she reached for her two sniveling daughters and pulled them close.
“Oh, you haven’t even begun to see just how ‘nice’ we are, lady,” Juanita broke in, her Amazonian frame blocking Papá as she stood in front of my sisters protectively. “But you’re about to find out.”
“Rosalinda!” Papa’s voice was clipped, enraged. “Say something. I can’t believe you let these girls act like this, como demonias. You’re a disgrace as a mother.”
“I might be a disgrace as a mother, but you’re not winning any Father of the Year contests, either — traidor!” Mamá said, confidence creeping into her voice. “The girls have a right to be mad at you. You’ve done nothing but put them aside all their lives. And now you have the gall to bring this usurper into our home, to parade your new family in front of us like we were less worthy of your affection. How dare you!”
Mamá’s eyes flashed, her nostrils flared, and her mouth was set into a straight thin line, like a she-wolf snarling fiercely as she protected her cubs. She was beautiful to me, everything we’d wanted her to be since Papá left.
“And what am I supposed to do, Rosalinda?” Papá asked, lifting his hands palms up, helpless. “Stay with you? I don’t love you anymore.”
Papá’s words punched me in the gut. Instinctively, I turned to Mamá, half expecting her to cry. But to her credit, she didn’t budge. She stared coldly at Papá like he was a stranger to her. Shaking her head, she smiled and spoke to him again in that strange, even tone she takes when she’s dead serious.
“You heard them,” she said. “Leave.”
“Yeah,” Delia and Velia said. “Leave!”
My sisters kept repeating each other’s words, over and over again, as if once or twice just wasn’t enough. “Leave! Leave! Get lost!”
“Fine. I’ll leave,” Papá said, turning to his woman and her children huddled behind him. “But don’t come crying to me when you don’t have money to buy groceries, and there’s no food on the table.”
“Ernesto!” Papá’s woman balked at his retreat. “We can’t go. You said we’d live here. That this house would be ours.”
“But this isn’t his house,” I said. “And he has no claims to us. We are five little sisters, cinco hermanitas, together forever. No matter what!”
“And who’s going to take care of you?” Papa’s voice was deep now, regretful, almost. “Who’s going to provide?”
What a question for him to ask, when he hadn’t sent us anything for almost a year. I had a feeling that a court would make him pay child support. But even if the law didn’t make him do the job he wouldn’t do on his own, I knew something he didn’t. “The Virgen will provide,” I said, pointing at the flowers sitting in their vase on the coffee table beside us. “La Virgen de la Cueva, our Mother in Heaven, the protector of women and children, will take care of us. She has been with us all along, guiding us, protecting us. All we have to do is have faith and believe.”
“You’re as crazy as your mother!” Papá’s woman said, pushing Juanita out of her way as she tried to get past us to get to the front door.
“Don’t you ever lay a finger on my daughters again!” Mamá howled, her anger propelling her into action. Papá’s woman didn’t know what hit her — before she knew what had happened, she was flat on her butt on the floor in front of Mamá.
“Ernesto!” Mamá screamed. “Get this piece of trash out of here, before I drag her out de las greñas!”
“This isn’t the way I wanted things to go,” Papá warned as he helped his woman up. “But it’s not the end of it either. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
“Good,” Mamá said. She went to the front door and opened it in a swift, determined pull. “I hope you have a good lawyer, because you’ve definitely got a fight on your hands. I’ve already filed for custody of the girls and the right to keep my house — the house that my father built for us, for me and my daughters, before he died. Rights? You have no rights here! Go on then! Go! Have a nice life!”
It took Papá less than a minute to move, to make his decision. But I could tell by the way he walked out, without looking back, that he wouldn’t return.
LA ROSA: “Es muy bella y deslumbrante,
Rosa, mi linda esposa.”
THE ROSE: “She is beautiful and dazzling,
Rosa, my lovely wife.”
It didn’t take the media long to find out we were home and make a three-ring circus out of it. By Saturday afternoon, just two days after our return, Mamá had to call Special Agent Gonzales to come deal with the media crews. They had been spinning themselves into a frothing, famished frenzy, like bloodthirsty piranhas, in front of our house all morning.
It wasn’t easy getting rid of them though. We actually had to give an official interview to get rid of the lot. One local news crew was allowed to set up their camera equipment in our living room. Special Agent Gonzales guided the discussion. Looking like he belonged in o
ur house, he sat right next to Mamá on the couch, their hands almost touching as they answered questions about our disappearance and return.
Seeing Mamá acting so coy and proper on the sofa next to Special Agent Gonzales had been enlightening to say the least. We’d never seen Mamá act so feminine with anyone else other than Papá. He probably wouldn’t have liked seeing her act so demure. But what was even more surprising was finding Special Agent Gonzales waiting for us outside of the Sacred Heart Church the next morning.
I saw him before he saw us. Standing at the church door in his white pinstriped shirt, with his hands in the pockets of his gray slacks, he looked like a male model straight out of a Sears catalogue, sexy in an older man kind of way. Nothing any of us would have found exciting, but definitely someone nice and suitable for Mamá.
We were cutting across Williams Street at San Luis Elementary when he turned around and saw us. He waved, and Pita absolutely lit up as she waved back at him. He left the doorway to come meet us halfway up the sidewalk, and Mamá, looking beautiful in her blue Sunday dress with the ruffled neckline, seemed surprised to see him there. She took the hand he offered and shook it modestly saying, “Buenos días, God be with you.”
Velia nudged me as we followed the crowd inside close behind them. “What’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to keep my voice to a soft murmur.
Velia ribbed me again. “I guess he goes to church here now.”
“I think he likes Mamá,” Delia whispered.
I tried not to read too much into perhaps the most promising thing to happen to us in a very long time. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
“A coincidence?” Juanita asked from behind us. “Maybe, but quite fortuitous. Don’t you think?”
“Speak English. I didn’t bring my dictionary,” Delia warned, turning to Juanita.
“Shush,” I said, as we entered the church doors and took in the sights and the sounds of our local parish. We hadn’t been to church as a family in a very long time, so it made sense that we didn’t know Special Agent Gonzales was part of our neighborhood’s congregation. Given our recent journey, and Mamá’s assurance that we were indeed under the protection of the Virgen, we had a newfound appreciation for the religious relics that surrounded us, making the experience doubly profound for us.
Juanita, the twins, and I were especially drawn to the statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe displayed in a nook to our left. We left Mamá standing just inside the door, holding Pita’s hand, chitchatting with Special Agent Gonzales. Together, we paid homage to the Virgencita, our Mother in Heaven, and our very own protector, by lighting five small candles, one for each of us.
Remembering the warmth and love she had bestowed upon us on the hill, I reached up and caressed the Virgen’s glorious blue garb, tracing the embroidered stars delicately with the tips of my fingers. She had done so much for us, but I suspected there was still unfinished business between us.
I knelt beside the twins at the cushioned pew before the Virgen and said a special prayer just for Mamá. It was then that I noticed them: the white blushing roses sitting in a clear crystal vase among an array of their colorful counterparts.
Red, yellow, pink, and orange roses, all in their own simple vases, were kept fresh by the older ladies of the neighborhood who spent their days at misa dusting the many altars and freshening up the flowers. But even with the knowledge of the special care those ladies took with the flowers, I could tell these white roses where not grown in one of their own gardens.
No, these roses were special. They were too crisp, too fresh, too pure and white to be anything but from the same rosebush as the ones I’d given Mamá. But they weren’t hers. I’d touched the petals of Mamá’s bouquet as we’d left the house that morning and marveled at how fresh and perfect they still looked even after three days of sitting in a vase at the kitchen table. No, someone else in this congregation had been blessed with these roses, and as a tribute, they had brought them here and presented them to the Virgen.
I stroked the petals of the white roses and wondered if this was what I was meant to do with mine. But it didn’t make sense. Tonantzin had given me specific instructions to give my rosas to Mamá. It was important that I do it, because they were meant to transform her.
“I’m confused,” I mumbled to myself. “Please, tell me what to do. Was there something more? Something I forgot?”
The twins stirred beside me, but they kept their heads bowed and their eyes closed in prayer. I lifted my head, and the Virgencita’s eyes met mine. Shocked, I turned to the twins, but they were too engrossed in prayer to see what I was seeing. When I looked up again, the Virgencita’s gaze was fixed again, so I bowed my head and prayed for inspiration. I needed wisdom to honor the Virgencita’s request.
Juanita shook me a bit as she stood up. “Let’s go.”
“Go ahead,” I whispered, “I’m not done yet.”
I must have knelt there for at least fifteen more minutes before mass started and I had to join Mamá and my sisters at their seats. I listened to the sermon and ran through all the procedures of mass, only half involved because I kept going back to the sight of those roses at the altar of the Virgen de Guadalupe, wondering what went wrong.
Outside the parish, we spoke to neighbors and friends, but only momentarily because Special Agent Gonzales came over to offer us a ride. When Mamá reminded him we only lived two blocks away, they both laughed about it a little too long. It was weird, almost awkward, watching Special Agent Gonzales and Mamá acting like teenagers around each other, but it was also kind of cute.
After we walked home, we spent the afternoon in the backyard. The girls helped weed out Mamá’s vegetable garden and picked fat zucchini, ripened tomatoes, and spicy serrano peppers, which they bundled together in delicate netting to give away as gifts to Mamá’s comadres. I spent my time planting the seeds Abuelita Remedios had given me in large ceramic pots. When I was done, I lined them up in a row along the edge of the back porch, where Mamá said they’d get the most sunlight in the mornings.
In the evening, we worked in the kitchen, a group of almost grown young women talking and laughing with their Mamá, cheerful and deliriously happy. We made pollo con calabacita for dinner. The chicken and zucchini casserole was so comforting and so delicious that we stuffed ourselves until we couldn’t move.
Afterward, the girls entertained themselves by playing Lotería and watching telenovelas on the Spanish channel while Mamá and I cleaned the kitchen. We finally sat down with the girls to watch a rerun of the 1967 rendition of Corazón Salvaje. By the time the final credits rolled on the old movie, we were more than ready for bed.
“Buenas noches,” Velia and Delia said, pushing themselves off the couch and hugging Mamá.
Mamá embraced first the twins, then Pita, and finally Juanita. “Buenas noches, muñecas.”
The girls all filed out of the living room and made their way to their bedrooms. I sat on my knees on the floor in front of the coffee table as I gathered the Lotería boards and playing cards to put them back in their basket.
“One more game,” Mamá said. “Just you and me.”
“Okay,” I said, rifling through the basket to find my favorite board, the one with La Luna, the moon, in the right corner block. “Which one do you want, Mamá?”
“You know which one,” she said, her eyes twinkling, daring me to figure it out. I sorted through the thin stack of boards, trying to remember if I ever knew which one was her favorite, but I couldn’t think of it.
I stopped to show her the board with La Rosa on the corner block. “Is it this one?”
The Virgencita’s roses were still on my mind. Only the solitary rose on the board was pink, not white, and there was no magic manifesting itself in this house, or in Mamá, and I worried that I had misused the great gift Tonantzi
n had given us.
“Come on,” she said, with a soft, patient gleam in her eyes. “You know which one.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and offered her the Lotería boards. “No, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me, because I can’t figure it out.”
I realized I sounded curt, but I couldn’t help it. The whole situation with the roses was really bothering me. I didn’t want to disappoint the Virgencita. She’d given me the roses to give to Mamá and I had failed to deliver them in time, because somewhere along the line they had lost their magic.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying not to lose it in front of Mamá.
“What’s wrong, cariño?” Mamá asked, leaning over to stroke my hair and lift my chin up. “¿Qué pasa? What’s going on with you tonight?”
I rubbed a telling tear off the corner of my left eye with the heel of my hand and looked away. “I just can’t figure it out that’s all,” I said. Before I could stop them, a shower of fat, ugly tears started rolling down my face.
“Can’t figure out what?” she asked. “Because I know this isn’t about the Lotería.”
I clutched the wrong board card in my hands. “La Rosa,” I said. “I thought that was yours. I thought roses were your favorite flowers. I thought roses always made things right.”
Mamá pulled out the board with El Corazón, the human heart, in the corner block out of the basket and showed it to me. “Oh, honey. This is my favorite one,” she whispered. Then she sat on the floor beside me to hug me close to her. “Roses are beautiful things. They are. But that’s not what moves me. The most important things in life are not items people can give us. No. The most important thing in life is what’s in your heart.”
“So you didn’t like the roses?” I asked, trying to figure out why they had failed to transform her.
Summer of the Mariposas Page 25