“Abuela, Qu mintió a mí, a hacerme ir a la iglesia!” Tierra whined, in her loudest two year old voice she could muster up, behind the safety of the closed doors of her office. “I got out the cab, and was like; I’m going to kill him! I mean how could he do that to me?”
“So, Aquarian lied to you, to get you to go to church? If you didn’t want to go, why did you in?” Nana Rodriquez questioned her granddaughter.
“Well…., I Hmm… I mean… He dared me to, that’s why!” she stuttered, realizing how childish she sounded, though her reasons were the truth.
“Peaches,” that was the special name she called Tierra ever since she was one years old.
‘That’s all you would eat, peaches,’ her Abuela told her one day when she asked why she always called her that
“Besides,” she continued, “how do you know God did no tell Qu to dare you? Dios know you child. Maybe he knew that would get you inside.”
“Are you saying that God tricked me? It would figure. In fact, that’s what the lady at the church said.”
“Señora, Que señora, peaches?” Tierra couldn’t help but to smile. She knew this was coming. Whenever she talked to her Abuela, she’d start off in English, but end up speaking Spanglish, throwing in a Spanish word in here and there in the middle of a sentence. Before long though, she’d be speaking fluent Spanish.
After Tierra’s father passed, she used to feel sorry for her mother. Tierra’s father was Cuban and Black, her mother was Black, Puerto Rican and American Indian, Sequoia tribe. Her mother only knew the few words she remembered that her father taught her, and the few words her husband spoke to her. But when Nana Rodriquez would go off on a tangent… she’d lay into her… like Ricky would on I Luv Lucy when Lucy did something crazy. Except Tierra could tell she did it, just because she knew her daughter-in law knew not one word of what she was saying.
“Some lady, she was standing in the hallway at the church. She asked me if I wanted to go in, but I wasn’t going all the way in. I waited for Qu in the hall.”
“Tierra Rodriquez!” her Abuela snapped, beginning that Spanish rant, “Oh Dios mío Tierra, no en la casa de los dioses! You stood in the hallway of your Father? I know your mother, and I raised you with more respect for God’s house than that!”
“Yes you did, and that’s exactly why I didn’t go in. You don’t get it Abuela. I was being way more respectful in the hallway, than if I went inside the sanctuary.”
“What happen to you? This isn’t the Tierra I know. The little girl that couldn’t wait till Youth Sunday so she could sing her heart para tu Dios. The child that would leave su casa before tu madre y Abuela, so she could be first in her Sunday school class. Tu dado la espalda a Dios, ¿por qué ?”
“Abuela, just leave it alone, Ok? I have my reasons for turning away from church and God. It’s for me to deal with. I’m a grown woman now. You and mom can’t make me go to church anymore,” she replied in defense mode. She knew her Abuela meant well, but she was not ready to tell her about why she had an issue with God. Besides trying to keep up with Nana’s Spanglish was making her head spin.
“Young Lady, I am not too old to get on a plane. Don’t think I won’t have you buy me a ticket and come there, and put you over my knee, then turn around and come back home. You answer me now!”
Tierra could see Abuela standing in the kitchen, her small hands on her wide hip, tapping her foot up and down, waving her finger. She smiled. The good ole days she thought, if only it was that easy. She had kept her secrets for years, for a reason. Abuela had to let this go.
“Abuela, por favor deje solo.! Leave this alone,” she repeated in English to stress her point, “I don’t want to get into it. I’m over it, I don’t want to bring it back up,” she began, feeling emotions begin to swell up in her.
“Sobre ella? If you are over it, then why you still mad at God for it? God didn’t hurt you, maybe someone hurt you, but God protects you, he loves you, he…”
“…Protects me?” she yelled, and laughed, fighting back tears. “Did you just say your God protects me? Really, well if he’s so protective, so loving, why did he let them do that to me, huh? Por Que, Abuela? Why didn’t he stop them? Why did he allow them to hurt me, and no one said anything, no one helped me? Come on Abuela? Dime, por qué?”
“¿De qué estás hablando Tierra? Who are they? Who hurt you?” she slid her aging body into a chair at the kitchen table and began to run her fingers across her bible.
At that moment Tierra realized she had said too much. There was no way her Abuela was going to let this go without answers. She was already crying, and the words were building up inside. She had to pump the breaks, she had to stop and desist, this was going too far. She couldn’t let them out; everyone would be upset with her. She had to find a way to…
“Those drunks in the woods, over by the park, behind my school! I know I wasn’t supposed to go home that way, but I was trying to get home early,” she cried. “I had a present for Mom. I wanted to get home from school early, so I cut through the park. Abuela, por favor, lo siento! I know it was my fault. I was some place I wasn’t supposed to be.”
Her speech became incoherent, as her crying increased. Nana Rodriquez could no longer understand what her precious peaches was saying, but she definitely was able to get the jest of what had happened to her so many years ago.
“I cried for Mom, to come and help me. I screamed, I even called out daddy’s name, and they didn’t stop. No one came. No one helped me. I yelled for God to stop them, and you know what, they laughed. ‘ Canto Dios te ayuda ahora! ’ one of them said, and then he took his turn on me. They said I wanted it. They said I was their gift from God and when they were done, they licked their lips and looked at me. They had the audacity to thank me ‘buela. They said when I was ready for some more; I knew where to find them. Then they were gone! I laid there. I couldn’t move. It hurt so badly. But I knew I had to get home before you or Momma got there and get cleaned up, so I just… I went home and…”
“Hush Child,” Nana Rodriquez began and instantly began to pray out loud.
“Lord, watch over this child of yours. Lord, heal her from her hurt from her past. Forgive her for her misplaced anger. Reveal yourself to her, Lord. Show yourself to her Father; let her see your power, your love for her. She needs you, Lord. Deep in her soul she knows she needs you. Father, meet her in your house. Wrap your arms around her. Help her to let go of the pain and let you into her inner soul. Amen .”
Tierra’s chest rose and fell to a steady rapid rhythm. The front of her pink tank top was now stuck to her bra-less chest, drenched in her tears. To say her head hurt was an understatement. She was in no position to argue or object with her Abuela’s impromptu prayer.
“Peaches, you get off your butt. Let go of that hurt and anger before it consumes you. Get yourself tu’ padre casa! You go back to that place you said Qu tricked you into going. God led you there once he’ll meet you there again.”
“Abuela?” she began, protesting.
“Tierra, don’t you make me repeat myself,” she spoke sharply.
“Yes Ma’am.”
“Te amo mucho, peaches ,” she lowered her tone, wishing she wasn’t so afraid of planes. She’d be on the next one to give her granddaughter that big hug she could tell she desperately needed. She could feel the hurt in her voice. Imagining how terrified she must have been and how all these years she carried this secret inside of her, tears began to fall steadily from her eyes.
Things began to make sense, now. Why Tierra’s life changed so drastically from one day to the next. Everyone thought it was because of her father’s passing. But the light just seemed to go out overnight. She understood why she ran out of town so quickly, after high school.
They talked for about a half an hour before Tierra said she had to go.
“Te amo, Abuela.”
“Te amo, mucho Peaches. You mind what your ‘Buela told you, me escuchastes?”
“Yes, Ma’am, I hear you.
I promise.”
Nana Rodriquez hung up and said another quiet prayer for what she was going to have to do next: tell her daughter in-law. As she finished the prayer, there stood Nicole in the kitchen doorway.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
She motioned for her daughter to come and sit next to her.
“Nicole, baby I have something to tell you, and it is going to hurt your heart very much. But I think it will also reveal a lot of things to you as well.”
“Mom, you’re scaring me, is Tierra Ok?”
“No Nicole, no she’s not. She is in a life and death struggle between her past, and her present, and she’s losing.”
She put her arm around her daughter in-law’s shoulder, and told her what she had just found out.
She held her daughter in a loving embrace as they cried, and prayed together for the strength and healing of their little girl.
What else?
Beautiful Page 16