You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, page 12
And that left Xiomara. All eyes were on her once again, seriously taking her in. She willed herself to become transparent, shrink down, or open up a hole in the earth to fall in. This much attention from the people she liked least was taxing, and somehow the tiny prey-like part of her sensed that not only did they know, but that they enjoyed it.
“No one. All right?” she answered steadily as if to appear earnest. “I haven’t pissed off anyone or done anything bad. Well, not as bad as what everyone else did . . .” The thought of Marcus made her stumble. “I’m just flawed a normal amount.” No part of that sentence sounded normal, and Xiomara wished she could take it back.
“Except for that weird scar you have,” Yaritza mumbled again.
Rafael and Marisa shared a look. “What weird scar?”
“Whose side are you on?!” Xiomara shouted, face reddening.
“The back of her head,” Yaritza divulged. “It looks like her skin split open, and she says she doesn’t remember how it happened.”
“Because I don’t!” Xiomara snapped, hiding the scar behind both hands. With no access to the sight, Rafael and Marisa quickly lost interest.
“It probably just happened when you were a baby,” Rafael said, readily dismissing it. Xiomara gritted her teeth. The longer she spent with her extended family, the less they seemed to take her or her concerns seriously. I have to tell them about it. It was the best clue she had so far, save for the Bible, and it wasn’t one anyone could steal and hide as easily.
“There are claw marks on the front door,” she said. Everyone stilled. Xiomara decided to repeat herself. “I saw claw marks on the front door. It’s on the bottom corner.”
Yaritza was the first one out of her seat, followed by her father and aunt. Xiomara remained seated. She listened intently as an open door allowed the roll of thunder to echo through the house. The sound of rain became more pronounced.
“Ay!” Marisa exclaimed. Xiomara waited until the closing door muffled the storm. When her family returned to the dinner table, they were cold, damp, and muttering between themselves about animals in the area.
“When did that happen?” Rafael scratched his head. Genuine confusion beat out any exhaustion, and instead of sitting back down, he made long strides to the back door behind the dining room. A gust of wind blew into the home, chilling the room quickly.
He came back after shutting the door. “I don’t see anything out there. Is it just on the front door?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t there when I got here. I would’ve remembered that,” Marisa said. “You think it was a coyote?”
Yaritza took the seat next to Xiomara, eyes serious and cast down.
“Hey,” she said, trying to get Xiomara’s attention. “When did you notice that?”
Xiomara stared through her. “When I said I was going to the bathroom earlier, I was actually outside to get some air. I saw it then.”
Yaritza was quiet for a moment. Xiomara could tell the gears were turning in her head.
“Why’d you lie?”
Xiomara struggled to come up with a good enough answer. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time was not good enough. I said it without thinking was also not good enough. It was the truth, though, and the truth was Xiomara’s character could also use a bit of work.
“I just wanted to be alone,” Xiomara said with a shrug. When Yaritza didn’t answer, Xiomara decided to take her leave then, using her bowl as an excuse to escape to the kitchen. She discarded the scraps into the trash bin and looked around for Naomi. The kitchen was empty. Wanda had probably escaped upstairs when she’d gotten a chance. Xiomara went down the hall to the library. The door was locked when she tried it, and a stern voice answered, “Who is it?”
“It’s Xiomara.”
Naomi unlocked the door. “Sorry,” she said. “I have to be careful.”
Xiomara didn’t blame her. As she closed the door behind her, Naomi took a seat in the corner.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked.
“Yaritza’s instigating,” Xiomara hissed, still in shock over the instant betrayal. Of all people who should’ve been accused of stirring up trouble, it should’ve been Yaritza, not Xiomara. Yet somehow, Xiomara had been dumped in the same category as her. “And Marisa wanted all of us to confess to something, I don’t know.”
“Let me guess, she had nothing to confess herself?” Naomi chuckled. “Sounds like she just wanted to feel better than everyone else.”
That was possible. Between an older brother covering up a crime for his son and a younger sister who was responsible for selling unsafe products, Marisa and Rafael were the only ones who seemed to have good heads on their shoulders.
For now. Xiomara still couldn’t rule out the possibility that either of them had something to hide. Not to mention Wanda or Yaritza—their relationships with their fathers were something to be studied.
“You just going to hang out here?” Xiomara sat in front of her. She noticed that in Naomi’s corner were a blanket and a folded comforter that cushioned the floor. The home aide was going to do more than just hang out here, it seemed. She was ready for bed.
“Where else can I go? The weather is too dangerous for me to go home. And with all of you here, this house is more cramped than usual,” Naomi said as she leaned into the wall.
Xiomara glanced around the room. The library was about half as big as Mami’s room, and made smaller by the stacked boxes sitting in rows. Even without the bookshelves lining the walls, Xiomara felt this would be a cozy fit for one person, much less two. Still, she could breathe easier here. Maybe it was because Xiomara had never felt afraid in the library, or maybe it was because she wouldn’t have to listen to Yaritza cackling the night away at the family’s misfortunes.
She turned to Naomi with a question.
“You mind if I camp down here with you?”
Naomi looked at her, then got to her feet. “Sure. I’ll grab an extra blanket and pillow.”
While she did that, Xiomara remembered she had left Papi Ramon’s Bible upstairs.
“I’ll be right back,” she said, and headed toward the stairs. On the second-floor landing, a tense silence filled the hall. She felt it flush against her skin and thought she needed to hold her breath as she walked by each door. Maybe it would make her lighter, and the floorboards wouldn’t creak.
No dice. Each step came with a louder groan, somehow reverberating through the house. This place would not let go of its grudge against Xiomara and made sure she knew it.
She quickened her pace, only hesitating when she thought she heard a sharp inhale of breath. A sniffle? To her left, inside Aury and Marisa’s room. It was almost a surprise to think that her aunt may have been crying, even distraught, while her company suffered the consequences of her choices. She didn’t think Aury was capable of such emotions. Regret was hardly in Aury’s vocabulary.
Regret for what you’ve done is one thing, Xiomara continued on. Regret for how it comes back to bite you in the ass is another.
To her right, Papi Ramon’s room, now housing Henry and Manuel. Neither of them was speaking, by the sound of it, but Xiomara noted the empty bowls sitting right outside the door. Like they were waiting for Wanda to come by and scoop them up. Either she didn’t see it when she went to Aury’s room or she blatantly ignored it. Pettiness, in this family, could not be understated.
Xiomara grabbed the Bible from Mami’s room and met Naomi back in the library. Her face was twisted in annoyance as she entered with a bundle of blankets in her arms.
She said, “Your uncle is a piece of work.”
Xiomara blinked and looked past her to see Rafael at the storage room. He waved at her with a forced smile. She mirrored his smile right back, and let it fall once he disappeared behind the door.
“Something happen?” Xiomara followed Naomi inside. The woman dropped the bundle across her own nest.
“He wouldn’t stop looking over my shoulder when I was trying to find you a blanket. And then he starts saying shit like I look just like my mom—does he think I want to hear that? Ugh!” Naomi fell into her corner, seething with a tension that Xiomara could pick up but not name. And half a moment later, she shook it off, sending self-conscious glances to Xiomara as if she was hiding something. “I swear, if it’s not your cousin getting on my nerves, it’s your uncle. Or your aunt. Or your other aunt. Honestly, your whole family is annoying.”
“Sorry,” Xiomara said sheepishly. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like them either.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Naomi snickered. “I’m surprised you showed up at all. But I’m glad you did. It’s . . . nice to see you again.” The last few words came out low, nearly a whisper, but it was enough to make warmth bloom in Xiomara’s chest. Bashful, she fidgeted with the Bible, flourishing the pages to make a satisfying shh sound.
Naomi’s eyes jumped to it, and she snorted. “Is that what you were getting? Did you want read a book above an eighth-grade reading level or something?”
“Yeah. Something like that . . .” Xiomara paused. Should she tell Naomi the truth? What even was the truth? “I think Papi Ramon left it for me,” she finally admitted, passing it to Naomi.
“Really?” Naomi looked over the cover, as if appraising it. Just like Xiomara, she flipped through it from back to front, hearing the satisfying flap of pages as they fell together.
“Only, I can’t figure out what he wants me to do with it. I expected a hidden letter or maybe some highlighted passages . . .” Xiomara’s voice died as she watched Naomi flip through it again, albeit slowly and with odd precision. The home aide’s fingers crinkled the edges, sometimes picking up entire page chunks and sometimes only flipping a few at a time. Xiomara realized that Naomi was going book by book, from the start of Genesis, all the way to Revelation. Was this strange—for Naomi to not only take Xiomara’s concerns seriously, but to diligently help in pursuit of the source? Should it have been strange? Once upon a time, they’d been friends, and Naomi had verbally expressed desire of returning to that time. Other than being better at graciously mending relationships, what reason did Xiomara have to accuse the woman of being duplicitous?
Naomi got to the end of the book quickly and shut it with a sigh, inadvertently dashing Xiomara’s hopes in the silence.
“There’s a book missing,” Naomi said.
“What?” Xiomara dropped to her knees and scrambled next to Naomi. The Bible looked brand-new enough—not a dog-ear in sight. “How do you know?”
“Your grandfather may have been a businessman, but he still made me read the Bible to him daily.” She looked up at a confused Xiomara. “His eyesight was constantly failing. Even with glasses, he said he couldn’t read the small text without getting a headache. One time, he hassled me to learn the order of all the books.” Naomi pointed to the center of the book, where the pages met the spine. It was subtle, but it was there—the tattering of a page, like someone had carefully ripped it out.
“It’s not suspicious.” She frowned, noting Xiomara’s expression. “I swear, there are songs online with mnemonic devices—”
“I’m not suspecting you,” Xiomara clarified. “I just didn’t expect you to . . .” To help? Know the Bible that well? Neither sounded like anything other than a backhanded comment. Most of her family already looked down on Naomi’s role—and heritage—in their home. Did Xiomara want to sound like she did too? She cleared her throat and asked, “Could you show me where?”
“Jude, I think. It goes right before Revelation,” Naomi said. “I’m not surprised you didn’t notice; it’s the shortest book of the Bible and really only takes up one page.”
Just one page. Sweat percolated on Xiomara’s palms. Was this one of the distractions Papi Ramon had talked about? Coming to his old home, hearing her nickname in the will, getting a threatening letter in the mail, then having scandal after scandal hit the news—she couldn’t deny that something was going on there. But to find a pristine Bible in her grandfather’s study with exactly one page torn out—when did Papi Ramon get so cryptic?
Was it even Papi Ramon? Who else would it be?
Xiomara pulled out her phone and googled, The Book of Jude. The first link contained the entirety of it. Naomi was right—it really was short. She scanned the verses in the same way she’d flipped through the physical Bible—quickly at first, and then slowly. It had been years since Xiomara had read any part of the Bible, and she was beginning to feel the strain of an old muscle she hadn’t thought she’d ever need again.
It was a lot of what she expected. Talk of eternal damnation, of how to faithfully follow Jesus, etcetera, etcetera. And amen. But if there was one verse that stood out to her, it was the one about ungodly people slipping into the congregation and using God’s grace as a license to do more harm. Manuel immediately came to mind. Xiomara wondered if there were other torn-out pages. She went page by page, meticulously looking for other anomalies in the Bible.
But as the rain came down and the wind howled, exhaustion took root in her bones and lulled her to sleep.
8:10 p.m.
“Do you want to know how your mother really died?”
Xiomara woke with a start, the smell of rotting sulfur punching her from the dream. Her head and elbow slammed into the wall, pain plucking her humerus like a guitar string. She curled into herself, rubbing the arm until the reverb stopped, and then sat up. Slowly, all her other senses colored in the moment. The constant drumming of rain, an otherwise permeating silence, and her own heart, thumping against her rib cage, all in that order. Xiomara’s hands curled into the blanket.
It was just a dream . . . And an unpleasant one, at that. But there was something about it that felt important nonetheless. Her gut feeling was to reach out and grab it, wrench the contents apart in a messy dissection. Yet the more her mind lingered on what the dream was about, the more it slipped through her fingers like silk threads. All she could remember was a single question.
And she refused to answer it.
How long have I been asleep? she thought, swallowing spit. Her throat was so dry, it felt raw. The dark was a curtain, and it obscured everything in the room. Xiomara felt around, hands knocking into the familiar leather of the Bible. Right, that was what she was doing before falling asleep. She decided to blame that for her strange dream and continued on. Eventually, her eyes adjusted and she recognized the vague outlines of the towering boxes—as well as her phone just a few inches away from her face.
It wasn’t even 9 p.m. She was barely asleep for an hour. Still, the lights were off, so Naomi must have decided to have an early night. Xiomara checked her phone—it had been charged to full battery before she arrived, but now it was sitting at 78 percent. She imagined the battery would last until morning as long as she didn’t waste it scrolling on social media.
I should’ve brought my charger. She sighed and spared at glance at Naomi’s figure on the other side of the room. Xiomara wasn’t insensitive enough to wake her for a charger and instead used her phone to light her way to the door.
On top of being thirsty, she realized she also had to pee.
Xiomara shuffled toward the bathroom next to the stairs. Upstairs, her family seemed to be up and about, with such energy that it made her envious. The floor above creaked and whined for every step taken. If Xiomara were fully awake, she might’ve been able to tell who each pair of feet belonged to. Despite the noise they made, the family had been kind enough to shut off the lights on the first floor. Her eyes thanked them for the consideration.
On the toilet, she thought about the Bible. Checking every single page would be time-consuming and might not even yield any results. What if she was instead meant to find the page? The task wouldn’t be any simpler. She would have to search her grandfather’s study again, rummage through his desk. Most papers would end up there or in the ottoman.
Or in his bedroom. Xiomara had only gone in there a handful of times, but she specifically remembered a small dresser drawer with bundles of old receipts, junk mail, or notepaper with numbers scribbled on it. All in all she would have to search three places.
Papi Ramon’s bedroom was absolutely not an option. Not while Manuel and Henry slept there. She would have to come up with a convincing lie to let her look through his dresser—and even then, they’d watch her closely as she went.
Xiomara flushed and washed her hands. Her best bet was circling back to Papi Ramon’s study. While everyone was still secluded in their rooms and avoiding one another, she could slip in and out without anyone knowing. The ottoman, she could get to at any time of day without rousing suspicion.
She killed the faucet when she heard it—the lightest creak just outside the bathroom. It came down the stairs, pausing at the door and continued down the hall, the soft whining of wood flexing under weight. Soon enough, the sound disappeared.
Xiomara cracked the door for a peek, working fast to decipher who had come down. It could’ve very easily been Marisa hunting for privacy to call her boyfriend, or Yaritza wanting to catch more scandals on the news. Or it could have been Wanda, needing to use the downstairs bathroom because Aury was using the one upstairs.
Or it could be Henry or Manuel . . . Her heart quickened at the possibility.
The light in the kitchen flicked on. Xiomara relaxed. Whoever was down there was not looking to keep their presence a secret. Curious, she found herself moving toward the light. The low rumble of water boiling and splashing against glass and liquid met her halfway. A rich, earthy smell flooded her nose, and she rounded the doorway just as Rafael grabbed a mug and turned to the coffee maker.
“Want some?” he offered.
Xiomara shook her head. The smell was enough to wake her. Instead, she grabbed a water bottle from the stack of cases and watched Rafael pour himself coffee with all the enthusiasm of an overworked high school teacher.
“Fell asleep fast after that sancocho.” He chuckled. Xiomara shrugged as she guzzled water. Half was gone by the time Rafael reached for the sugar in the cupboard.
