guest edited by Ivelisse Rodriguez
Violet
“Mi’ja! Marlene!” Mama Marta screams from inside the house as I turn off the motorcycle. Marlene sweeps her right leg off the back seat and runs up the driveway. I follow her, opening up my water bottle and taking a few gulps. Tío Marte, Marlene’s godfather, is standing over la vieja and Marlon, Marlene’s uncle, is sitting on a rocking chair looking pissed.
Fuck.
It’s always some type of telenovela drama going on in Marlene’s family. Can’t even take my girl to a nice lunch without coming back to a burning house. I planned this outing perfectly–paid Charo, a trusted neighbor we often bring clothes to whenever we return to the island, to take care of la vieja for a couple hours.
The vieja’s bony finger points at Marlon. “He was trying to force me.”
“Force her to do what?!” Marlene quickly turns her gaze to Marlon.
“Ya, Marlene, let it go,” Tío Marte says.
“You were trying to get her to do what?” Marlene yells again. She takes her eyes off of Marlon and looks at Charo.
“Ay Marlene,” Charo whines. “I had to go to the bathroom. Yo salí volando because I heard la vieja screaming. When I came out, Marlon was holding her hand, there was a pen, he was trying to get her to sign something.”
Marlene stands up, snatches the water bottle out of my hand, positions her stance like a quarterback, and flings. The stainless steel water bottle hits her target’s face, and the water spills all over Marlon. As the tíos gasp, sucking in all the air around them in surprise, they tell on themselves—they haven’t internalized that the women in the Vargas family don’t sleep. They ain’t sheep. And they definitely ain’t like they are in my familia: all mouth and no hands.
“Mira, coño, maldita loca!” Marlon growls. He immediately crowns the coffee mug in his right hand with his grip. I flinch knowing for a fact that his only goal is to shatter it on my girl’s face. I want to react, but I am glued to the ground beneath me. Tío Marte holds his brother’s arm and urges him to relax. “The police chief will be all over this,” Marlon whispers as he pulls the wet cotton off of his chest.
“Go ahead, call him, you fucking thief, maldito abusador,” Marlene snarls. She moves a chair closer to her grandmother and sits, crossing her legs and placing her hand over the vieja’s bony fingers as they share the arm rest. From where I stand, the resemblance is obvious—Marlene is Mama Marta, born again with three times the fire Marta is said to have had in her youth. If my own grandmother had been open about all she endured in Nicaragua, would I be able to react in moments like this? The first time Marlene fought with a family member in front of me, I froze, like I used to freeze when Papi used to beat my mother like it was nothing. Instead of doing something, like crying, I'd stay in place, pretend nothing was happening. Sometimes after I could move, I would head to the kitchen. That night when we were alone, after Marlene fought with her family in front of me for the first time, I asked her if she needed anything out of me in those moments. She looked at me and laughed a little before saying, “I was raised to fight. You were raised to hold the ground below our feet. All I need is for you to keep doing that for me.”
There are heavy droplets of sweat falling down Marlene’s forehead. “We can finally put you in prison for falsifying your dead father’s name on the deeds to the land,” she begins. “You know the real reason you’re not rotting in there yet is because of your sisters, cause I have no problem seeing you in there.”
“Don’t say that, Marlene,” Tío Marte responds. He is the only man with some kindness in his heart in this family. The only one who hasn’t stolen land from his own kin since the women all migrated to the states.
Marlon laughs hysterically, leans back into his plastic chair, opens his thick legs wider. “That land is rightfully mine. Who works it? You talk—”
“The Haitians, the campesinos in Arroyo Torro. Please don’t try me.”
Last time we came to the Dominican Republic, Mama Marta had us go check in on the land. She said she was having dreams of roosters falling onto it from the sky and fighting until only one was left. When we arrived, the farmer in charge complained about not being able to pay those tending the land, because Marlon wasn’t keeping his word on when he’d pay.
Marlene fixes the waistband of her pants. She glances at me and raises an eyebrow, sorry but not embarrassed that I’m a witness to this. I smirk. I am amused and frankly turned on by the armor she takes off only when it’s time for me to cradle her in the dark.
The Jeep Wrangler pulls into the driveway and the hermanas step out. For a hot minute, the universe twirls around them. Being in this family is really like being in a telenovela, and goddamn, I stay entertained. The dark dogs loose in the backyard, run to the driveway. Marandrissa steps out of the front seat in flip flops with her heels dangling off her fingers. Marpilar, Marlene’s mother, takes off her dark Chanel sunglasses as she walks towards the house. Her trousers are high on her waist, and her steps, in six-inch heels, are hardly calculated. After Marandrea turns off the car, she drops the gun she keeps in the safety compartment into her Coach bag and slams the door to the Jeep. My own tías and mother are also in their fifties and sixties, but they haven’t reclaimed aging like the Vargas women have.
“Mi’ja, who are those women?” Mama Marta whispers loudly to Marlene.
“Your daughters, Marpilar, Marandrea, and Marandrissa,” Marlene says. She repeats their names every day, countless times. Mama Marta only remembers her third grandchild and her late husband when the dementia is at its heaviest. “On that other side, you have your sons. Marte and Marlon; Marandres must be elsewhere selling some other solar.”
Mama Marta grunts at the men. “Men are no go—”, la vieja coughs. Coughs. Coughs. I run into the kitchen, grab a tissue, and bring it back quickly. Marlene takes it and wipes her grandmother’s mouth.
“Marlene, leave the vieja out of esa mierda,” Marpilar says, leaning down to greet her brothers. Her tank top shows off the cuts on her arms gained from mopping for wealthy folks in New York and hitting the gym four times a week before work.
“And you?” Marpilar says looking down at Marlon, “What hurricane hit you?” The yellow button up shirt sticks to his shoulder and resembles melted bizcocho ice cream from Helados Bon. The fourth tía, Marilar, returns from her usual afternoon visit to el colmadon, with a white, foam cup in her hand. I dab eucalyptus oil on the back of my ears and suck in the scent.
“Hurricane Marlene,” Marlene declares. “And that’s nothing. I got waves and high wind coming in, que no se apure.” Marilar laughs as she walks in, her bag hanging from her right shoulder. She gives her niece a high five and walks past her brothers without greeting them.
“Mala?” Mama Marta whispers to Marlene. It’s a nickname her brothers had given Marilar after she threw a rock at Marlon’s face when she was just three; the scar still shines like a jagged crystal on the bottom left corner of his cheek. “That’s her,” Marlene confirms.
“That’s who you got it from—the fight. We all have a sprinkle of it, the women. I made sure mi Santa gave us that. But that one,” la vieja says, rubbing the side of her chin with a shaking finger. “Le dio agua de beber a estos hombres.” Mama Marta looks around, “but coño, she was mean, but she got distracted easily, so she couldn’t do it either.”
“Do what, Mama?” Marlene asks.
“Focus enough to drown the poison out of them,” la vieja whispers, unaware of the fact everyone can hear her.
I laugh as I bring a plastic chair next to Marlene.
“These men, they’re not alright, Marlene,” Mama Marta rubs her wrist and shoots a bullet into Marlon with her eyes. “I couldn’t take them on by myself, but God,” the vieja points to the sky, “knows I tried.”
“I’ll finish the job, Mama.”
“You promise?
“I promise. I will drive the greed out of them, or I’ll drown them,” Marlene whispers back. La vieja squeezes Marlene’s hand, turns her shrinking, smiling face up to kiss her granddaughter. It is these moments, when Mama Marta’s memory comes back, that Marlene uses as evidence to prove la vieja is still in her rightful mind.
“It’s time for a bath, Mama,” Marlene says, pretending to be disgusted by her grandmother’s body odor.
I finger the ring in my pocket. Yes God, bring in the joy. Please don’t let Marlon fuck up my engagement.
Mama Marta laughs like a child. Then the cough comes again, a dry cough that threatens to break her breath.
***
I met Marlene on the Island. She was sitting alone with a book at an Instagram-worthy cafe in Jarabacoa I was visiting with my cousins. It was only my second time in the Dominican Republic, and only the third time in my life spending time with my father’s family. After Mami finally left him when I was nine, he disappeared from all of our lives.
I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Marlene when I saw her, maybe it was the way she came in with a fresh Caesar and a loud red lip, maybe it was the way the bronzed brown of her shoulder glowed. Maybe I knew one day I’d want to marry her. My primo, Yayson, went over to kick it to her, and she told him straight up: “I don’t like men. Y menos los hombres relambío.” She was like that from the get-go, always a strong surge of winds. When he came back like someone who had narrowly avoided drowning, I laughed. On our way out, she stopped me and slipped her number into my back pocket.
That night we went for dinner, and then I drove her back to her Airbnb. When she invited me in, she told me her family was from Bonao, but she had taken four days to come to Jarabacoa and clear her head. Her family was driving her up the wall, and she just needed a moment to catch herself.
We watched episodes of the new season of Dear White People. Then, she filled up the bathtub in her room with hot water and bubbles. “I’m such a fake activist using heated water to fill up a tub in a third world country, right?” She whispered. With the tips of her fingers, she whirled the water into small cyclones.
I shook my head, leaned my face on the white, porcelain edge of the tub, and looked up at her. “We all deserve nice things.”
***
“Violet,” Marpilar calls. I turn to see my soon-to-be mother-in-law. My hands are elbow deep in dishes. I told the lady who helps out Mama Marta to let me do them, it’s how I self-care sometimes. It’s how I learned to self-soothe after the violence, how I escaped the dullness of my mother’s family for a long time after we moved in with my grandmother and my mother’s siblings—instead of sitting and watching Telemundo for hours to avoid one another, I turned to the dishes. “You can’t control Marlene?”
Marlene is a thing too sure of her existence to be tamed. It isn’t like she walks around at full strength, but there’s something about her family that escalates her—makes a level four natural disaster from the jump.
“She won’t listen even if I tried, and anyway, she has a right to feel every way she does. I try to stay out of it, but what that man did to Mama Marta is not ok.” Marlene is the way she is with her family because she loves them, she wants to destroy them so that they are pushed to change. But I can’t tell Marpilar that shit.
“Are you feeling nervous?” Marpilar whispers, changing the subject. She came with me to pick out the engagement ring weeks before the trip. I wanted to invite Mami, as well, but she isn’t here for it. She truly did pray for the fact I love women to be a phase.
“A little. She’s not in a good mood,” I respond. I pray by tomorrow Marlene isn’t this angry, so she feels like she wants everyone there when I drop to my knees.
“Yeah, well you know my daughter,” she laughs. “You better hold on because it’s all high winds from here.” She pops a bit of batata someone roasted into her mouth and laughs her way back out into the balcony. I shake my head at this woman acting like she wasn’t the one who raised Marlene to be a storm.
I am drying the dishes when Marlon comes by and takes a cup of boiling milk to eat with the batata. As he brings the spoon from the caldero to the top of the mug, I try to search for the softness Marlene said she once saw in him. Other than the scar, his face is clear, not a blemish or sunspot in sight like the other brothers, not a wrinkle despite the fact he is one of the oldest.
“You clean,” he says. Maybe a joke, maybe something to fill the air with.
“You’re dry,” I note.
“Marlene es una loca. It makes sense she had to stop dating men,” he says.
“That’s funny. I find no sense in why you have to keep stealing from your own family to make sure your wife doesn’t leave,” I respond, surprising myself. He looks at me like I just killed his first born.
I wasn’t always this quick. I learned to stay safe by keeping quiet, by pretending not to see, not to feel. But Marlene trained me to say the things I have to say when I have to say them even when I have to say them to her.
Marlon scoops the top layer off of the milk and pours it into his cup.
Marlene once told me, “What they don’t tell you about taking back your power is that it always comes with a direct loss.” It was after the first fight I saw her have with Marlon. She described the loss being a sacrifice similar to the one they say folks have to make when joining the Illuminati: you’ve got to give up a powerful human relationship. Because connections—that’s the shit that counts. Marlene’s childhood albums have Marlon all over it. Her small legs spread over his motorcycle, he held onto her with a smile so wide anyone would’ve thought she was his own. During the summers the sisters sent the kids back to the Island, Marlon hit his other nieces and nephews when they stepped out of line, but never Marlene. Never la niña. Nothing was ever her fault. Until she told on him. He took her with him to la gallera one time, and when Marpilar asked him where the money was that she had given him to pay the accumulated debt en el colmado, Marlene said he had spent it betting on roosters and buying rum for the other betters. She was eight. He scolded her in private. “You can’t be trusted,” he said to her. For a long time, she believed it. Believed her voice was a tool that leads to ruin. She never forgot. Neither did he.
“Babe, you don’t have to dry all this shit. They don’t do that here,” Marlene says. She’s been putting the vieja down for the last hour.
“Self-soothing,” I say.
“Sorry there are so many moving parts,” she says. She apologizes knowing damn well I find my grounding easiest when there is chaos.
“I’m going to go pick up the cousins with Padrino. You coming?”
I take a deep breath, put down the rag. “I’m coming.”
***
Marlene
My family strolls out of Las Americas airport in slides and socks. They laugh, almost cackling in union, as the humidity smacks their faces. Walking dollar signs even when they don’t try. We speak in the same Dominican lingo and accent and yet it doesn’t mask that the majority of our years are spent on soil that comes with another type of freedom, one it would take generations for the average person here to find. We had each paid for the American Dream twenty times over with nothing to show for it yet. Pero that does not matter to those that stare at us. And how could it? We have access. Un flow diferente. Like they say in el barrio, eso se huele. You can smell the scent of privilege even when it comes with sweat.
My uncle throws me the keys to his pickup and a group of us jump in. We drove into the airport together and now have to split up to drive back. The other two groups crowd into rented SUVs. As soon as we’re all in, we get on the road. The bachata is loud and the windows are low until the scent of burning garbage forces me to put them up.
“Marlene, hay hambre!” one of my cousin’s yells from the backseat.
“Say less,” I respond. All airlines be giving nowadays is a bag of chips on the plane. I direct the lineup of vehicles behind me into the driveway of a comedor on the carretera I've heard is decent.
“Mami, what can I serve you?” The woman behind the counter asks. She taps her short French nails on the counter.
“Give me,” I turn to count the heads. There are eleven of us, including Marnelis’ and Marerick’s kids. All cousins. “Six Presidente Jumbo’s, cinco jugo de chinola, three orders of pica pollo con frito, and three orders of pica pollo with fries.”
The men bring together three plastic square tables, and Violet and I shuffle around relocating extra chairs. As soon as we’re sitting, the conversation swells the place. The summer has been nothing but work in New York, the jobs taking priority despite the heat. There have been break ups; reconciliations; and the realities of parenthood, slapping a few of my cousins in the face the minute the grandparents went away.
“Well, fuck it, here’s to a lit Patio summer,” I say. Our plastic cups, filled with cold Presidente, come together into a celebratory cheer midair.
Marbely brings her dark curls into a high ponytail. She creates a fan out of the menu.
“How are the uncles?” she asks.
“How you think?” I begin. “Being thieves. Killing Mama. Just today I had to fight Tío Marlon cause he held Mama’s hand to sign a deed to a land he was trying to sell behind everyone’s back. When I confronted him, he tried to act like I’m crazy!”
“What an asshole.”
“Yeah, I hope some of ya can help out cause I’m tired of always being the one,” I say, taking a swig of my beer. My cousins relate to Mama Marta’s suffering in a way I can’t always understand. Don’t they feel it? Aren’t they pushed to violence because of it?
“Have you seen Rodrigo and them?” Martin asks, sitting back into his chair.
I nod. Tell them how Violet and I have gone to Papaya’s with them a few times only to end up paying to get Rodrigo out of drunken fights. Twice.
“Shit is probably set up,” Violet says, her hands in her pocket. Everyone nods, not doubting that Rodrigo would do all that to get a cut of a few dollars.
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Marelias says.
“How's what’s his face, the dude we used to go watch in el play? Coño, I’m blanking. It’s the mom brain,” Marnelis says. Because she’s been busy making kids for the last three years, we haven’t really filled her in. She holds her newborn baby girl in the crook of her right arm and swoops her swollen breast into the baby’s mouth.
“Junjun?” Mariposa says.
The congregation goes silent. Most of us had all pretended to forget his existence. Junjun had not come through the family house in años. Even though we had all come up like nail and finger, he didn’t have the balls to come through and face everyone. Unlike my cousin, who I had to tolerate, he wasn’t blood. There was no space for him in The Forgiveness.
Violet raises an eyebrow at me and then brings down her gaze. Her way to tell me to reflect before I respond. I’ve told her everything. She knows what it is. I don’t have no feelings for the dude, but my cousin’s betrayal still stings. I don’t know why but ever since I found out about what she was capable of six years ago, when I was younger and too trustful, I just want to burn shit down, and Violet—she helps me direct my energy in a way I need.
“Junjun!” Marnelis exclaims. The baby’s eyes flutter as sleep comes for her.
Mariposa leans her torso onto the table. She takes a swig from her cup. Our eyes connect only when her pinky finger extends. She is the eldest, pushing forty and the epitome of silent confidence. Her twenty-four inch bundles fall in waves down her soft back fat. Tall and wide. Our parents fat shamed her into her late twenties, and after a failed bypass surgery, they finally quit their shit and let her show up as her full self. The truth is: Mariposa loves food and drinking. She’s low-key addicted, and I don’t blame her. All her life she’s had to cover it up. When Tía Marandrea went in for seven years, it was Mariposa who had to raise her younger sister, Marbely, and baby brother, Martin. It was Mariposa who had to show up at her father’s Otra’s house to ask for money. She was the one that had to sit through court cases with the witnesses describing all the shit her parents were caught up in. It was her mother taking the hit to avoid her father being deported that got Mariposa to guilt trip him into at the very least sleeping at their house so that child services wouldn’t take her siblings away. Mariposa skipped the cocoon, went straight to adult bug. It wasn’t easy. And it shows, it’s always shown.
Tío Marlon likes to say that even as adults, we tend to follow her around and do as she says; the chicken and her baby chicks, he nicknamed us. That’s because she raised all of us under a code: loyalty for the family above all else. It’s how we all lived. For a big part of my life I believed she held herself to the code too.
Junjun was the first boy I consented to fucking me. In other words, Junjun was the first person I loved. I was twelve, so maybe it didn’t mean anything then, but we fucked deep into my senior year in high school. And if I wouldn’t have gotten so caught up in college, I would’ve kept my childhood half-ass promise of marrying him and bringing him over. I never told him I would, but I told myself. That meant something.
Every summer our mothers sent us off to El Patio. And every summer, for three straight months, Junjun and I were a thing. He’d stroll up my family driveway in the heat of the afternoon smelling like sweat, his baseball cap always tinted by dirt. And then, he’d come back after dinner cleaned up, smelling up the air around him in cheap cologne, and we played dominos, musa-musa tatara musa, talked shit, and sneaked in sips of beer until Papa told us it was time for bed. Watching Junjun take swings at the air around us with an invisible bat as he walked away always made me wet. It was Mariposa who helped me sneak out after everyone was asleep, in the same ways she had sneaked out to fuck his brother. Mariposa used to lend me the flashlight to light the way as I went through the side of the house to the back of the mango tree. Mariposa was the one who would tell me where her condoms were when I ran out of my own. It was Mariposa who I came to with el chisme when I heard Junjun had a girlfriend en el callejón donde él vivía. When the girl, Lorena, marched down her barrio with a colín to try and cut me on my way to the colmado, it was Mariposa who threw a rock at the back of her head before she could get me. Mariposa was the one who told me to enjoy him while I had him and forget the rest.
“But what about loyalty?” I asked once. “Shouldn’t he be loyal to me?”
“Loyalty is reserved for blood. Los hombres no son de nadie.”
I didn’t go back to the Island for a good six years. College had me busy, then grad school, and frankly I wanted to see other places. Plus, Mama and Papa had gotten their residency and they was coming two or three times a year. When the cousins would come on their own, they would bring back bits of information. Junjun inherited some money. Junjun got married to Lorena. Junjun had a baby girl. Junjun estaba eplotao because Lorena overfed him to keep him locked to his house. He hit me up on WhatsApp this one time confessing his love, and I told him straight up, “Eso es cosa del pasado. But you are always going to be someone I grew up with.” After he called me desgraciada a few times and sent voice notes playing Luis Vargas’ lyrics, I stopped replying.
Papa Pilar’s funeral was what got us all back to the Island together. I, having been the only one who hadn’t visited, was surprised by the way the Island had shrunk.
Without Papa around, the jokes around the house were non-existent. Grief hits my family right on the partying bone, so there wasn’t much to be said when the whole gang of cousins appeared in Papaya’s the night after the burial. I only recognized Junjun because he still had the same pelotero walk even though he was pushing weight and because he whispered, “Finally my mujer is here,” into my ear. ¡Qué asco! Not only was he not attractive anymore, but he had a whole family and had the nerve to be trying to claim someone he hadn’t seen in ages—wack.
“I can’t believe I was into him,” I whispered to my cousins on our way home. Mariposa laughed. “You were in love with him though,” she said. I pretended to puke in my own mouth.
Every night, Junjun would come with us to the club. I danced with him a few times, but then he started gripping my ass. So I stopped dancing with him all together. “Comparona. You really think you hot shit?” he hissed into my ear the first time I denied him. Mariposa is a great Salsa dancer, so I wasn’t surprised when “La Rebelion'' came on, and he pulled her out onto the dance floor.
Three days later, I went to Picota, the neighborhood barber. After an hour's wait, I sat on his worn-out chair.
“A one and a half,” I said. He nodded. All the men stared as my short curls hit the floor. A few of them extended their condolences. Stories of my grandfather, the only farmer known in El Cibao to cure cattle like nobody’s business.
“They don’t make men like el doctor no more,” one of them said.
Wass, another childhood friend, entered the barbershop. He greeted everyone and then pretended to faint when he saw me.
“You are a grown ass woman now!” he smiled. I nodded. He caught me up on his job delivering milk from my grandfather’s finca to the rest of the town. Told me he had his eyes on a plot of land that belonged to his family decades ago.
“Ven aca, Marlene, wasn’t Junjun your mans?” Wass asked. Picota pulled back the machine from my head as if he was giving me space to recall. I glanced in the mirror quick enough to watch him signal for Wass to stop.
“He was—years ago,” I laughed.
“Ah! I saw him yesterday with Mariposa coming out of la cabaña.”
Essentially, Mariposa spent a whole year, after I found out about them, traveling back to the Island on every single one of her vacations to parade around El Cibao with Junjun, who she clothed from head to toe, and then the bitch almost married him. Turned family gatherings that I attended into war zones over her decision and everything. Her choosing essentially destroyed us. She’s never apologized for it. And how can I blame her for being so cold? I would’ve probably supported her had I not had to hear about it from someone else. Anyway, she was deadass going to bring him over, I heard, until one night, while he was drunk as fuck next to her, she used his thumb to get into his phone.
***
Violet
The morning after we met, we went to a waterfall together. Caoba and West Indian cedar trees surrounded the entire place. Marlene wore a bikini and let me borrow a black one-piece she had bought. When we walked into the river, she started speaking to the water. I stood back, and decided to give her some space. I watched as she dove in and out of the river, floated, and fluttered her legs.
“You don’t like the water?” she asked, standing out of the depths of the water looking like a Ciguapa.
“It’s too cold,” I answered.
“It has to be. It holds the dead.”
“What?” I said. Confused as hell, but frankly a little drunk from the beauty of the place and her. She held out her hand. When we stood side-by-side, the water slowly danced around our hips, she repeated again, “It holds the dead. We have a lot to say about the ocean being a graveyard, but so many Natives died in these rivers,” she said. “Look.”
The rocks morphed into the faces of elders, adolescents, and children at the bottom of the river. I pulled myself from her fingers. That was when I first started to learn when it was safe to hold her hand.
“Don’t be scared,” she laughed. “It’s a gift, or at least that’s what my grandmother says.”
***
It took a while for Marlene and I to connect again. You see, being on the Island isn't the same thing as being in the US. It’s like the Caribbean water has a heartbeat for dreams and the Atlantic swallows it.
“Here’s the thing…,” Marlene started over text. I stared at the ellipsis like the world I had let myself get comfortable with was about to give me clues how to fix it. “I like you. Pero my grandfather just died. My family is a hot mess. I lost my whole damn job. I don’t want to start something from this place right now.”
I agreed.
And then three months later, on a day when the snow was falling like hair clumps, we saw each other on the train.
A vibe since.
***
Marlene
We arrive to the family home mid-afternoon. There are hugs and kisses and passing of the children. Bendiciones rain all over the place. Our grandfather built this house from the ground up himself. Had all of his kids living in a shack out back until it was ready. Designed it knowing he wanted a long line of descendants. Seven bedrooms and four bathrooms. And we make it small in a matter of seconds.
The dembow gets loud. Four women from el callejón come through and they hold a bunch of us between their legs, braiding our hair. The empty emerald bottles of Presidentes are transferred to the backyard as quickly as the ones vestidas de novias are delivered from el colmado.
When Toño Rosario comes on, Mami pulls Violet out to dance. And I laugh at the growth we’ve made. Violet’s hips weren’t always this loose. Mami’s mind wasn’t always this free. Mami whispers into Violet’s ear, and they look at me and smile playfully.
“What is it, you weirdos?” I laugh.
“Marlene!” Mariposa calls from Mama’s bedroom. She hasn’t said my name in years, and I roll my eyes as I move towards the space she takes up. All the joy I was experiencing vanishes. I feel myself whirl into anger as I get up from the chair. Violet touches my back with a free hand as I pass by her—bring it in. Don’t give away your power.
Mama’s head is hanging off the bed, while the rest of her body clenches to it.
“She won’t let me take her to the bathroom. Keeps asking for you,” she says.
Annoyance crawls up my throat like a scorpion. “She don’t know you.” I put Mama’s arm around my neck.
“She was trying to force me,” Mama whispers. She cups her other hand on my shoulder. It would be easier to carry her, but she doesn’t like that.
“It’s Mariposa. Marandrea’s first born,” I say. Mama glares at me like I’ve dropped a bomb. I continue moving her towards the bathroom.
“I didn’t see the ocean until I was almost thirty, but I always felt it’s waves. El Mar is even in my name. That’s why I made sure it was part of my children’s names. I wanted them to feel it too, to expand forever like it. But I didn’t want that name, dique Marandrea.” Mama says. “Tu abuelo became infatuated with a woman of poder en La Capital. Her name was Andrea,” she begins. I bite my tongue. Mama has taken to telling the truth lately. The dementia becomes a twisted gift because now she can finally tell the narratives that have rusted inside of her for so long.
“Mama, you don’t have to say anything,” Mariposa says from the door. Mariposa has inherited the family tendency to cover up secrets and keep everything on the hush for a false cloak of peace. And betrayal is still a hot topic.
I sit Mama down on the toilet. Only when she’s comfortably sitting, do I turn to Mariposa “You don’t get to tell her when to be quiet. You can go now,” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“That mujer.” Mama interrupted. “She had her family. Her politico husband. She could’ve left us alone. Before I knew about them, I thought I was lucky. To be the only one of my sisters and comadres without a cheating husband. But he was just like every man I knew. A good wife wasn’t enough. He wanted me to stop teaching when we married, I did. I wanted three kids, but he wanted more. I gave him seven. He didn’t want to see me bored as a housewife at home. I made a name for myself, organized for the sick and needy, forced the thieves we call politicians to pave the roads in this pueblo. He didn’t want me to spend too much money, so I never touched it without his say so even when my children needed it, mi’ja. I was elegant, a woman of God, a woman of my word. I always showed up for him. Marlene, I gave him so many chances. So many. As leona as I was, that man turned me into another one of his cattle. Cured me just to poison me again, time after time. And I stayed. Just because I loved him. Just because I loved him too much.”
“Mama—,” Mariposa starts. “It’s in the past.”
“But it’s not,” I whisper through my teeth at Mariposa. I want to say: I am tired, exhausted of having to make excuses just to help those of y’all who betray avoid accountability.
“I’m happy you love women, Marlene,” Mama says, tapping the top of my hand. “Only we know how to love each other in full. Sin relajo.”
I shake my head playfully at her. And we stay like that for a while, smiling at each other, her brown eyes gray at the edges, but still shining.
“What if I love a man?” Mariposa asks, out of nowhere cause no one was talking to her really.
“Then you pray,” Mama takes a bit of paper and cleans herself. “You pray he loves you more than you love him.” She flushes the toilet and stands on her own two feet.
Strong. Firm. A woman of her word, expansive like the ocean.
***
Since I was a small girl, I’ve slept beside my grandmother even on the days when my grandfather returned from el campo. She always saved me a crook underneath her arm. And since he passed, I’ve slept beside her whenever I visit. All that to say: I know how my grandmother never sweats in her sleep, and how she snores heavily. What wakes me up is the absence of both the heat and the noise. My eyes flutter open in the dark, but my body won’t move. I become dense metal with moving eyeballs. I’ve had this happen before—watching the spirit world do what it do and being unable to move.
I watch her body struggle in the dark through my peripherals. Witness my grandmother trying to catch a breath, her stomach flailing like a dying fish. I watch, behind a curtain of tears, as she attempts to get a final whiff of life, but it isn’t granted, and she lets go.
I try to shimmy my way into action, but I remain steel. And so I watch as her spirit detaches from her eight-eight year old vessel, and floats up to explore what comes next, straight up into the sky. She touches the moon, gleams at the sun, looks behind the stars for a sign of her God. But then, Mama wills herself to fall back down through the darkness, through the roof, into the house and onto the middle of the dining room table.
She flows through the crevices of all the bodies inside the home she has sustained for the better part of her life. Every second until dawn, she watches the air mattresses in the living room go flatter and flatter with the weight of kin.
The tears flow out of me and drown the cotton of the pillow below me. Still I cannot move, I cannot wake, I cannot scream. The gravity of the universe presses my bones down to the mattress. I keep my eyes open—see her see us.
As the sun rises, the darkness of the room is illuminated. Her spirit flows and stands over me, she places her hand on my chest.
You are a dangerous storm, but you’re my storm. She presses down, the density of her life plummets into me, and I am pushed back into sleep.
***
When I am allowed to wake up and move, I rush to touch her face. She’s cold. Her brown skin is already going purple. I press my ear to her cold lips, there is no breath. I scream. I shake. I scream. I wail. The door opens. I gather my grandmother’s shriveled body into my arms.
What do I do with this, Mama? What do I do?
***
Violet
I thought Marlene was prepared for the inevitable, but she lost it. Lost it, lost it. She turned into a tropical beast. She buried herself in funeral preparations, and any second she wasn’t busy, she was rocking her body on Marta’s rocking chair like a zombie. I tried to understand it. When I found out Papi died, it was a year after his actual death, four years since I last had seen him, and it still took me a week to get out of bed. It was Mami who coaxed me out by giving me a sobada that nearly erased the pain. I tried to touch Marlene when she cried, at night I would simply attempt to hold her hand but she would push me away. Marlene wouldn’t let anyone in, wouldn’t let anyone help. I spent most of my days beside her, my hand in my pocket, fingering the ring, and convincing myself she’d say yes—eventually she would say yes.
Today, four days after the funeral, after what seems to be the whole country coming together to put her away, the children of la señora Marta and el señor Pilar call the lawyer for the will. The will was put together by the lawyer la vieja hired four years before the dementia came in swinging, two years after her husband died.
When every family member has found a spot on the galería, the lawyer settles into a rocking chair and takes out a folder from his briefcase. “The totality of all her money, three million pesos, will be split between el lugar de ancianos and three orphanages across El Cibao. The land properties here in el pueblo will be split among her five living children who never sold land behind the family’s back.” The lawyer looks up, “Those were her exact words.”
I can tell by the look on his face he’s expecting a fight but surprisingly he is met with a collective stillness.
“This family home will go to her grandchildren. Her wish is for it not to be sold, for it to stay in the family, if you care about her wishes—again her words,” he looks around. Mariposa nods at him. “All of the land in Arroyo Torro will go to one person,” the lawyer says simply. He looks around at the faces looking back at him as he shuffles through some papers.
“Marlene Vargas.”
“A quién?” Marlon yells. The comments and questions start pouring in, and the lawyer offers that Mama Marta was adamant about her decision.
Marlene cackles as she rubs hers palms together.
“And what do you know about land?” Marlon yells at Marlene.
“I know not to try to fucking steal it from my dying mother,” Marlene stands up on the tips of her feet. “I know how to actually love and care for someone without expecting anything in return!”
When the yelling fails to cease, the lawyer makes his way down the driveway unseen. The dark dogs stand up from Marlene’s feet and tiptoe around the men—ready.
As the anger subsides, after Marlon tries punching a hole into a wall and instead cuts himself, the silence creeps through the bones of the Vargas family. I hold Marlene’s hand, and she lets me. I feel the blood pumping through her, slow like honey, like a thing waiting. Marlon almost falls over as he gets up and walks towards his pasola. The sisters hold the silence the longest. Marandrissa bites the inside of her cheek and looks at her kids with sorrow. I imagine she’s thinking what didn’t make them worthy of more of an inheritance.
Marilar crosses her arms and looks at Marlene. “I don’t think it’s fair. You and Mama had a special relationship. I know that, but still it isn’t fair, and I’m going to tell you right here in front of everyone so that you won’t have to hear it from anybody else,” she says.
Marlene shrugs.
The majority of the grandchildren seem to forget that they had claimed the land was worthless more than once in their grandmother’s presence. That it was Marlene La Loca who said it was their right to inherit and protect the land their ancestors had gathered up even when they stated they had no desire of living in DR, so why would they want to own anything there?
“I mean if that’s what Mama Marta wanted, what can we really do?” Marlenis says.
“Nothing! Ya really can’t do nothing. Aqui se va hacer lo que yo diga!” Marlene yells, her hands smacking up against each other. Everyone’s eyes shift towards the corner she is in. She inhales sharply, bringing her afro into a pineapple at the top of her head, and clearing her tears with the backs of her wrist. I wish I had Xanax or something to bring her down a little bit. They wait on her to speak, to direct the family or maybe to dismiss them, but her gaze becomes distant as if she hadn’t just claimed her power. I tighten my grip around her hand, but it is limp like a thing that is not here or there. I go into my pocket with my free hand and play with the ring. What is the right amount of time to wait? Would she say no if I still asked on this trip?
Marlene looks out at the orange skyline as if she is waiting for the answer to fall like a ripened fruit. She let’s go of my hand and scratches her head. Clearly her mind is foggy with grief.
I get up to get some water and come back to sit on the empty chair beside her again. This time, Marlene allows her head to fall heavy on my shoulder, she slips her hand into mine this time, and I squeeze.
The motor scooters and loud cars zoom by. The entire family remains frozen in time. Marlene straightens up again. She crosses her legs and sways in the rocking chair. Her gaze becomes lost again, and suddenly I don’t want her to go to whatever place she stepped into a few seconds ago in order to break internally.
“You good?” I whisper, touching her knee. Marlene takes a deep breath and brings herself back, sways in the rocking chair like a rag doll. I look into her eyes. Are you there? I see her, and I don’t.
“I am feeling the full weight. Right here,” she touches her chest and cries, “of becoming my grandmother’s second chance.”
“You aren’t alone, babe,” I say, kneeling in front of her. Cause what else can I say? I’ve only loved elders filled with a burning silence. I don’t know what it is like to love an elder who shows you the entirety of who they are. All I know is I don’t want Marlene to carry this alone. I don’t want to carry life without Marlene.
Prove it, Violet. I hear in my ear. I jolt and fall on my bottom. The cousins behind me laugh a little bit, and Marlene, tears still rolling down her eyes, bites her lower lip to keep from joining in.
I gather myself up and kneel. I reach into my pocket. I pull out the ring. I saved two years for this. An oval shaped diamond sapphire that resembles the waters on a white gold band. Those closest to us gasp.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! Where’s my phone? Record this!” someone screams. The red in Marlene’s eyes clear a little, and I don’t know why but I know she’s back from wherever she was. Inside the brown of her eyes, a glimpse of herself appears through the layers of grief.
“I had a speech, my love,” I begin. “I had a plan to do this in front of Mama Marta and your entire family. And then I was going to wait until this was all over. But I want to show you that I mean it when I say I’m here for still waters, I’m here for high winds, I’m here for the flooding. I want to always be here. With you, Hurricane Marlene. Will you marry me?” Marlene nods, the bags under her eyes stretching with her smile.
I reach out for her hand. Her palm is sweaty and my fingers are shaking. I begin to place the ring onto her finger. When I look up at her, I am stunned when I see the vieja’s face behind hers. And another one behind hers. I fall back onto my ass again. The ring dangles off of the middle of her finger. I quickly look around to make sure not to cause too much more of a scene, but nobody else is seeing this but me. I observe the eternal line of faces behind one another; folks, men, women, kids, people resembling one another and not resembling each other at all. I blink, take a deep breath, and stand up. Marlene stands up too, and I swallow as the faces remain behind her. Marpilar smiles from the corner, tears coming down her face. I focus on Marlene’s face, and everyone on this side and the other blur. I push the ring onto her finger. A perfect fit. I take her into my arms, bring her up into the air. And although she hasn’t changed at all, she is heavier than she has ever been.
Contributor Notes
Lorraine Avila (she/they) is a Bronxite with Caribbean roots in the Dominican Republic. Her mission is to break free from generational trauma by continuing to rupture traditions of silence. Avila is the author of Malcriada and Other Stories (DWA), Celestial Summer (out Spring 2022), and The Making of Yolanda La Bruja (forthcoming Spring 2023 from Levine Querido).
Avila has a BA from Fordham University in English and Middle East studies with a minor in Creative Writing and an MA in Teaching from New York University. She is an anti-racist educator; her expertise lies in middle school literacy and curriculum design. As of 2021, she teaches composition at the university level.
Avila is an MFA candidate at Pittsburgh University, a K. Leroy Irvis Fellow. In 2021, she received the Josephine and John McCloskey Memorial Nationality Room Scholarship and the Dietrich Diversity Research Grant. Avila is a VONA alumni and a Pushcart nominee. In 2020, she completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to self-publish Celestial Summer, a graphic novel that centers Black love, healing, and psychedelics (forthcoming Spring 2022.)
Her writing has been published in Teen Vogue, Bitch Media, Tasteful Rude, Our House LA, Latino USA, Catapult Magazine, Asteri(x) Journal, Hippocampus Magazine, Moko Magazine, The GirlMob, Accentos Review, La Galeria Magazine, and Blavity.
Avila spends the majority of her time between Pittsburgh, The Bronx, and the Dominican Republic.
