We were together, sitting at his fold-out card table in the corner of the living room, when Daddy started the prayer. I gazed at the creases around his dark eyes, wondering if I would get those someday. I loved being near him when I could—loved it when he cupped his hand on the back of my neck and I could feel his calluses coarse against my skin. He reminded me of work, of cars, that special orange soap he used to wash away grease.
“Millie,” he said. “You forgot the butter, honey.”
Mama glanced at me and asked if I would be nice enough to get Daddy some butter. I hopped out of my chair and headed for the tiny kitchen. I walked by the overflowing garbage, where a sparkling green Christmas card was shoved beneath empty green bean cans and cracked eggshells. I don’t know why I did it, but I stuck my hand inside the trash, pulling out the mushy card. When I opened it, a picture fell out of a little boy with dark eyes and light brown hair swinging a baseball bat. I stared into his face for a long time.
“Clarisa,” Mama yelled from the table. “Did you find it?”
I shoved the Christmas card as far as I could back into the garbage. I grabbed the butter for the table and told my parents that I would be right back—that I needed to wash my hands before dinner.
* * *
—
In Social Studies, I scratched and scratched until a louse slid down the back of my neck and onto Chantel Sanchez’s desk. She screamed so loud that the principal heard it from his office, or that’s what the other kids claimed. It was the fourth time in a year that I had gotten lice from Harrison. I was sent home from school, indefinitely, until the issue was resolved. “Expelled due to health hazards” is what the official pink slip read. Mama was more upset than usual about the lice. She tried mayonnaise, then olive oil, then rubbing alcohol, then over-the-counter shampoos. By the time she had finished, I thought I would never go back to school.
The next Saturday, Mama took Harrison and me to a hair salon in a part of town called Wash Park. The salon was painted blue and white with mirrors in every direction. Techno music came out of the ceiling speakers and the floor was lightly scented with ammonia. The hairdressers were vibrant with colorful hair and face piercings. They had names like Celeste, Luna, and Sky. I flipped through a booklet with different hairstyles, showing Mama cuts I thought she might like.
“Look at her bangs,” I said, folding the page over for Mama to see.
“Those are nice, jita. You guys are also getting haircuts.”
“Here?” Harrison looked up from his seat, a surprised expression on his face.
“Yup. Don’t need to worry about picking out anything new. I told the ladies what to do.”
My hair had recently grown extra-long with the help of Grandma Estrella’s tea. Mama normally took me to Cost Cutters for a trim, but last time, we were refused service. No one gave a reason why, but I knew it must have been lice.
When a woman called my name, I jumped out of my seat and I stuck out my tongue to Harrison. He ignored me, scratching his head. Then another lady called his name. They brought us to a row of black spinning chairs, seating us side by side. My hairdresser snapped peppermint gum in her mouth. She had glitter across her eyelids and her teeth were the whitest and biggest I had ever seen, like those white ladies in Grandma Estrella’s stories. After she parted my hair with a black comb, she pointed beside me to Harrison, draped in a purple cape.
“Are you guys twins?” she asked. “What do they call that, paternal?”
“No,” said the lady cutting Harrison’s hair. “It’s fraternal.”
“That’s it,” my hairdresser said. “You sure do look about the same age.”
Harrison giggled. “I wish we were twins. That’d be cool.”
“He’s just my half brother,” I said.
The hairdressers shared a knowing look and I glanced away, toward the front windows.
Outside, seagulls dived between streetlamps. The sun was going down and the whole neighborhood was a shadowy pink. A family carrying pizza boxes walked together through the parking lot. It was a mom, a dad, and three little boys. The mom was laughing, pointing at her husband, who had grabbed a shopping cart and was riding the back like a scooter. His sons tried copying him. They wobbled everywhere, and the mom seemed worried. For just a second, I felt jealous of that family, their happiness and togetherness. Maybe if I had always known Harrison, we could have been friends. But instead, he reminded me of Daddy, the only person who had ever left me. The family then walked out of sight and I looked back at the mirror.
That’s when I burst into tears.
My long hair was gone, gathered across the floor like piles of dust. The hairdresser kept asking what was wrong, but all I could do was clutch my short hair, wetter in the front from all my tears.
“Don’t cry, Clarisa,” I heard Harrison say. He was whimpering quietly. His head had been shaved completely bald.
I stood up then and looked for Mama. She was behind us at another station, her expression downturned and sorrowful. Her long black hair had been trimmed into a spiky undercut with short bangs. When her eyes met mine, she mouthed something, maybe sorry.
On our way out, Mama handed the receptionist a check and one of the women tried selling her an antidandruff shampoo.
“You know, the kids both have it pretty bad,” the woman insisted. “This will help for sure.”
Mama shook her head, her short hair stationary against her scalp. “Thanks, but we’ll try some home remedies first.”
* * *
—
Mama was crying. Harrison and I heard her when we were fighting over whose turn it was for the only working Nintendo controller. At first it sounded like the neighbor’s dog yipping, but it grew louder and steadier. I threw down the controller and Harrison followed me. Sitting on the toilet with the lid closed, her head in her hands, Mama was itching and pulling at her short hair, red bumps all over her scalp and neck. Snot and tears dripped down her face, over her lips, and onto the front of her white shirt. I stood in the doorframe, afraid to go near her. I had only seen her like this one other time—when Daddy left for good.
“They won’t go away.” She sobbed into her hands, gargling a bit.
“What, Mama?”
“They just won’t go away.”
Harrison stood behind me, his dark eyes filling with tears that lingered above his bottom lashes. I could see the bathroom reflected in his eyes—Mama, alone, on the toilet with hair in her lap and across the floor. I wanted to scream at him to leave, to walk home, take a bus, find some way to get out of our lives, but instead I just told him to watch Mama while I ran to the kitchen and did what I was never supposed to do—I called Grandma Estrella.
I told her what happened, and had been happening for months. She screamed so loud that when she finished, I heard true silence in our townhouse kitchen. Dust sifted through shoots of sunlight. Water dripped from the chrome faucet. The phone’s cord slowly rolled. Everything was calm until Mama’s sobs bumped throughout the hallway, interrupting the dead air. She didn’t hit me or scream at me when I told her Grandma Estrella was expecting us. Mama got up from the toilet lid, silent and red-faced, and walked to the car, as if she had been expecting this day from the beginning.
When we arrived, Grandma Estrella stood on her porch, one hand over her eyes, scanning the yard with a watchful, hawk-like gaze. She wore a wavering purple skirt, the brick house like a castle behind her. Mama parked and got out of her car, flicking a cigarette into the road as she walked us to the porch.
“Look at your hair,” Grandma Estrella said. “Every one of you.”
“It’ll grow back,” Mama said, quickly wiping tears from her face.
Grandma Estrella grunted some. She stepped aside and motioned with both hands for us to follow her. Before she opened the front door, she reached out to Harrison’s small hand and introduced herself
as Mrs. Lopez. Harrison’s dark eyes grew wide and seemed to fill with wonder. It was like he didn’t have grandparents of his own, and I realized he probably didn’t.
“All of you, upstairs.”
We climbed the cherry-oak staircase to the upstairs bathroom. The long white porcelain basin of the claw-foot tub rested in the otherwise dark room. It was cold, though the windows were cloaked in fog from a steaming metal pot on the floor, the pot Grandma Estrella normally used for menudo. She told all of us to get on our knees and drape our heads, facedown, over the bathtub. The porcelain was chilly against my neck and arms. Grandma Estrella used to bathe me there when I was younger, working my knees and elbows with a washcloth and Ivory soap. Once, I asked her why she needed to scrub so hard it hurt. “Because we are not dirty people,” she had said. Later, when I asked Mama about it, she told me when Grandma Estrella was a little girl, her own teachers called her a dirty Mexican and it never left her, the shame of dirt.
Slowly, from behind me, I felt Grandma Estrella pour bitter water over my head, a liquid made from something called neem that had a thick rootlike stench. Grandma then combed my short hair, harsh and fast, pressing into my scalp. When she finished, she told me to stand up.
“Mija, take this. Make sure to get the backside of their necks to the front side above their foreheads.”
She placed the heavy pot in my hands. “But I don’t think I can lift it.”
“Don’t be such a malcriada.”
I braced myself, steadied my knees, and lifted the pot. My arms trembled as I poured the liquid over Harrison’s small neck, seeing for the first time how incredibly scabbed and bitten he was.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“No, Clarisa,” he said, muffled and soft. “I’m sorry they don’t go away.”
“Don’t worry. This time it’ll work.”
As I finished pouring the water over Harrison’s head, Grandma Estrella got on her knees and began rubbing his scalp with a white towel.
“Don’t get it down my back,” Mama said. She was tense against the tub, gripping the rim with white-knuckled hands. She kept looking back at me, squinting. That’s when I noticed she was shaking, her legs and wrists trembling. Grandma Estrella had put down her white towel and was leaned over Mama. She reached out, letting her hands lightly rest on Mama’s head, as if she was protecting her from the cold.
Grandma Estrella whispered, “That man and his choices are behind you now.”
Mama said, “I just wanted him to know he has a sister.”
“And now he does, my baby, but none of this is your place.” She then danced her fingers over Mama’s neck, motioning for me to begin pouring, wetting her skin along with Mama’s.
The next day, Mama put on a full face of makeup, ran mousse through her lice-free hair, and dropped Harrison off at his apartment on Grant Street. I waited outside in the car, looking up at the window I knew was his. I wanted to catch a glimpse of him, my only brother in the world. I watched until he finally appeared. With his skinny arms, he reached up, and closed the blinds. It was the last time we dropped him off anywhere.
* * *
—
Before Grandma Estrella died, she gave me a booklet of all her remedies. Inside, with an unsteady hand she had drawn pictures of plants and, beneath them, their Spanish names, their scientific names, and just for me, their English names. I can cure head lice, stomach cramps, and bad breath with the right herbs. For the most part, I stick to over-the-counter remedies. They are cleaner and work faster and come in packages with childproof lids. But every once in a while, when I get a real bad headache and the aspirin isn’t cutting it, I take slices of potatoes and hold them to my temples, hoping the bad will seep out of me.
I see Harrison every now and then in the city at parties or shows. He’s a bass player in a punk band called the Roaches. He’s tall now with a serious yet hopeful face. Sometimes I wonder if my dad looked like him as a young man when both our mothers fell for his shit. Other times, I wonder if he’s still giving everyone lice. But I doubt it.
A couple months back, I was outside Lancer Lounge and through the windows I saw Harrison inside on the platform stage, bent over a microphone, a black cord rolled around his arm. When he stood up, we shared a look for a long time before I smiled, pointing to his blue Mohawk.
“Nice hair,” I mouthed, and Harrison smiled back, as if he could hear me through the glass.
JULIAN PLAZA
The lobby’s hanging chalkboard announced all news—grandchild births, bingo nights, funeral services. As part of our recent after-school routine, Cora and I regularly checked the chalkboard, which was updated by our father, Ramón, the maintenance man of over a decade at Julian Plaza Senior Home. On a Monday afternoon in early spring, Cora tilted forward in her velvet romper and matching red scrunchie. She squinted as she read.
“Mrs. Flores! I knew it.” Cora pretended to choke herself with both hands, her eyes flickering white globes. She claimed all old people died in order of who was poorest, sickest, and loneliest. “I liked that one. She didn’t have crappy candy.”
“Me, too,” I said. “She always had Skittles.”
The elevator doors chimed open behind us, and our father marched out, carrying an orange bucket filled with tools. His shoulders were broad in his gray flannel, the sleeves rolled, baring a faded eagle tattoo across his left forearm. With my light eyes and chestnut hair, I took after my father, whom my mother used to joke had the face of a conquistador—clover eyes, a long prominent nose, and a pointed Spanish chin from some long-lost Atencio ancestor. My father wore his auburn hair coiffed, and throughout the day it rocked nicely in a calm wave. He only used fine-tooth black combs and breezy Finesse shampoo. Rinse and repeat, my babies, he’d say. That’s how you get the smell to stick.
“Oh, Papa,” Cora said. “Mrs. Flores kicked it?”
“Don’t say that. Polite thing to say is passed away, or—”
“Bites the dust? Keeled over?”
I giggled, but stopped when my father shot me a look.
“Don’t encourage her, Alejandra. I need at least one civilized daughter.” He edged back on his sand-colored work boots, directing his gaze toward the large clock in the front office. “Got a few more rounds.” He disappeared into the main hallway, the green carpet and pink walls swallowing his frame.
Cora and I spent the afternoon in the basement rec room. No one was ever there and it always had a smell like rocks. There were several dated exercise machines, boxes of Chinese checkers, a cable TV, and aspen tree wallpaper. Cora challenged me to race on the stationary bikes, and despite the pointlessness, I said okay. She settled into a slinking cat–like stance, her long braided hair hanging over her left shoulder. Her sneakers were bright from thorough cleanings, but I could see the beginnings of a hole where an orange sock blinked.
After several minutes of screeching gears and exaggerated breathing, she said, “Do you think Papa loves one of us more than the other?”
She often asked questions like this, questions she’d answer herself. I kept pedaling.
Cora slid off her bike. She walked to the recliner by the television and took a seat. “It’s pretty obvious he likes you better—for now—but I don’t know about loves you better. That’s much more complicated.” She clicked on the TV, searching for Nickelodeon. “But you know what? He doesn’t love either of us more than he loves Mama.”
“You’re supposed to love someone the most if they’re sick,” I said.
* * *
—
The previous December, my mother walked into the living room of our tiny 1920s home on Denver’s Eastside. Cora and I were seated on the warped hardwood floor, drawing mermaids with colored pencils. Outside, on Twenty-sixth Street, it was sleeting. Through the dusty front windows, grayish light came into the living room and illuminated my mother in a lime-colored towe
l. She walked toward us, her wet black hair dripping down her shoulders and neck. It looked as if she was melting, a woman made of wax. She kneeled onto the floor and asked Cora to feel her left breast, but my sister refused with a sour face. My mother then turned to me. Without asking, she guided my hand beneath the towel, over her satiny skin, her invisible body hairs prickly against my fingers. “What does that feel like to you, Alejandra?”
“Where?” I asked.
“Here,” she said, kneading my hand above her heart.
Her substantial breast was warm and firm, and nested inside was a jagged pit.
“Baby girl.” My mother pinched her lips, hardening her features. “Please tell me what you feel.”
“A rock, Mama. Beneath your skin.”
Weeks later, my mother and father were at the kitchen table. Above them a moth flew inside a frosted light fixture, casting its caged shadow over their faces. Cora and I had wiggled across the hallway rugs, positioning ourselves belly-down above the staircase. We clung to the banister and peered through its splintered bars. My mother wore a blue nightdress, her plum-colored nipples visible through chiffon. The house felt musky and damp, and from somewhere in my gut I knew this was the air of fear.
My father kissed my mother’s collarbones, held her slight wrists. “We’ll be fine, Nayeli,” he said. “We can find a way to afford better treatments.” He stooped at my mother’s side and appeared miraculously small laying his head in her lap. “Don’t worry, mi querida.”
My mother lifted her face into the light, her eyes focused somewhere near Cora and me. Cora ducked to the side, pulling me with her. As we stared at the rug, we heard our mother say, “They’ll let you go if you start missing days.”
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