You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, page 21
“Xiomara!” Yaritza pounded on the door. “Are you in here?”
Xiomara fumbled with the Walkman, jolted by the sudden interruption. She wondered if Yaritza would leave if she stayed silent, but not knowing the definition of privacy, Yaritza turned the doorknob. The lock stopped her from getting any farther.
“Hey, unlock the door!”
Frantic, Xiomara shoved the Walkman back into her pocket. “Give me a second!”
She cursed her cousin under her breath and flushed the toilet. Hopefully, Yaritza would take the bait and leave her alone. After a second of silence, the door shook again.
“Stop pretending like you’re actually using the bathroom!”
Xiomara quickly undid the lock. It swung open, hitting the arm that held the Walkman in her pocket. Xiomara was surprised to see that Yaritza wasn’t alone.
Marisa pushed past the both of them and marched into the bathroom. Behind her, Aury pinched the bridge of her nose, walking the fine line between looking exhausted and annoyed.
“Okay, where is it?” Marisa demanded to know.
“Marisa, tranquila,” Aury said. It was rare that Marisa could get so angry. Just an hour ago, the woman had been utterly heartbroken and a little suspicious of Xiomara. She flipped the switch on her emotions so fast that it gave Xiomara whiplash, and she tried backing away from all three of the women without giving them even more reason to be suspicious.
“What’s going on?” Xiomara asked. She felt her face twitch and thought back to how Papi Ramon had praised Aury’s ability to lie. Hopefully, Xiomara was as talented as her.
“What were you doing in here?” Yaritza asked.
“I can’t be alone for five minutes?”
Yaritza narrowed her eyes. “Weren’t you the one who told me earlier that no one should be alone even for a moment?”
Heat spread from cheek to cheek as Marisa quietly seethed. The woman made a sharp turn and backed Xiomara into the door frame.
“In Papi’s bathroom? With the door locked?” Marisa’s eyes pinned her to the spot.
“Am I not allowed to be in here?” Xiomara’s voice struggled to climb above a mumble.
“Give it back,” Marisa demanded. “Aury’s tape.”
Beads of sweat gathered behind her ears. The tape was still in the Walkman she was hiding.
“I . . . don’t have it?” Xiomara said.
Marisa narrowed her eyes, a woman scorned and believed the scorning was done by her niece. “Yaritza, check her pockets.”
“Don’t you—”
Immediately, her cousin was on her. A dull throbbing pain bloomed at the back of her head. Even though Xiomara had thought she was flush against the wall, Yaritza had slammed into her with so much force that she was still knocked into it. Heavy pressure kept her there while several pairs of hands pulled at her arms. Xiomara struggled against them by trying to curl into a ball—only to be met with an elbow to her nose. Sudden numbness gave way to sparks of pain that pulled tears from her eyes as her nose began to drip.
“Stop!” someone yelled. “She’s bleeding!”
Xiomara blinked her tears away to see Aury joining the fray, doing her best to peel Yaritza off her.
“Just show us what’s in your pockets!” her cousin screeched. She pulled at Xiomara’s cardigan until it was stretched past the limit, popping more stitches and digging a finger-sized hole in the shoulder area.
Eventually, Marisa’s impatience won out. She took hold of Xiomara’s other arm and pulled until her hand swung out, and the Walkman with it.
“Give it to us!”
The Walkman clattered across the tiles, shards of plastic breaking off and scattering behind the toilet. The four of them froze as they stared in confusion, heavy breathing replacing their previous shouts and demands. Marisa dropped Xiomara’s arm as Aury slowly retrieved the broken Walkman.
“What is this . . . ?” She held it up and looked to Xiomara. “You were hiding this from us?”
Xiomara tasted blood. It rolled down her tongue as she pinched her nose. She held Aury’s stare unapologetically, shoulders squared in defense like she was waiting for another elbow.
“I had to.” She swallowed. “I needed to know which one of you it was.”
“Xiomara . . .” Yaritza let go of the cardigan sleeves nonchalantly. “I already said who summoned it . . .”
“No, I’m not talking about that.” Blood coated Xiomara’s throat as she spoke. It was all she could do not to choke on it. “Papi Ramon said something in Mami’s tape . . . about how he knew that none of you ever liked her. And maybe it was because you thought she was his favorite—”
“She was.” Marisa snapped then rolled her eyes when Aury let out a small gasp. “Oh, don’t act like you didn’t know. We all knew. Josefina was Papi’s favorite. That’s just how it was. So what?”
“He knew.” Xiomara nodded. “Just like he knew at least one of you killed her.”
All of the women froze. One by one, they looked to one another, brows knit together in confusion, until Yaritza blurted, “What?”
Her cousin laughed nervously, the way she always did when trying to downplay something or lighten the mood. It was never genuine. She just stretched her lips out wide until her teeth resembled a billboard and forced out a few puffs of air.
“You’re serious?” Yaritza asked. Her smile fell, emotion replaced with pseudo-concern that hardened her stare. “Xiomara, no one killed your mom. It was a car accident—you know that, right?”
“Am I supposed to believe you? When none of you even remember the time I split my head open?”
Yaritza’s jaw dropped. “When was that?!” she demanded.
Xiomara was sure of it now—she couldn’t trust her family any more than she could trust her own memory.
Do you want to know how your mother really died?
Her aunts looked at her with contempt. “Fix your faces,” she said, sidestepping to the sink. She let the water run for a few seconds, pinched one nostril, and blew out a bright red globule, sticky and surrounded by a splatter of blood that hadn’t yet coagulated. It all ran down the sink, the globule getting smaller until the last drop slipped through the strainer.
“I cannot believe you would say something so cruel.” Aury’s voice shook. “I don’t understand what your problem is. Ever since you were a child, you never liked being around any of us. You never liked your family. You were always trying to stay away from us. And after Josefina died, there was your excuse. You didn’t come back, didn’t visit. Papi wouldn’t stop talking about you, how proud he was of everything you were doing, but did you ever call? No. And now he’s dead and you show up, acting like we owe you the world because your mother is dead. Do you see Yaritza acting like that?” She whipped her arm out to point at Yaritza, whose widened eyes made it apparent that she wasn’t used to being the shining example of the Dead Mom Club.
“No, you don’t.” Aury sniffled. “You should know that before Josefina was your mother, she was our sister. And we would give anything to have her back.” Turning on her heel, Aury stomped out of the bathroom. Marisa tossed a glare over her shoulder as she followed.
“That was so . . .” Yaritza made a face to finish her sentence. Like always, her emotions were superficial at best, and once her hand found the doorknob, she dragged it behind her, leaving Xiomara with her own reflection to contend with.
Instead, Xiomara thought back to Aury. Not her words, not the way she talked about missing Josefina. But her face. Aury had tried to hide it in the sniffle, but Xiomara could tell—her nose had flared, just like Papi Ramon had said.
* * *
It took another ten minutes for her nose to stop bleeding. Xiomara scrubbed her hands raw and dried them with her cardigan. Her fingertips knocked against Josefina’s tape—she had almost forgotten about it. It was lucky the tape was in her other pocket or it might have gone flying with the Walkman.
Inside Papi Ramon’s room, she listened for any movement in the home. The roaring thunder and crashing rain had been pushed to the background, nothing more than white noise that tried to dull Xiomara’s nerves.
She heard people walking and felt them when they passed in front of the door. She waited until all the walking had gone down the hall, away from the stairs, before making her move.
“Took you long enough,” said Yaritza. She sat on the floor just outside of the door, one leg crossed over the other while scrolling her cell phone. She stood up in the time it took Xiomara to calm her startled heart.
“Why were you sitting there?”
“To make sure you’re not alone.” Yaritza yawned as she lazily put away her phone.
“Right, because you’re concerned about my safety.” Xiomara rolled her eyes and turned to the stairs. Yaritza grabbed her by the elbow.
“Where are you going?” Her grip was firm and Xiomara got flashes of past skirmishes with her cousin. In the study, in the dining room—one time even in the bathroom. Yaritza was always getting the drop on her, wasn’t she? Xiomara considered learning a new fighting technique.
For now, she would remain calm.
“Downstairs.” She tried not to look down at Yaritza’s hand on her arm. “Don’t think anyone wants to be around me right now.”
Yaritza let go only to cross her arms. “I mean . . . yeah, but we still don’t want you to be alone. Well, no, not alone, just not so far.”
They think I’m suspicious. Xiomara saw most of the adults milling about in front of Rafael’s room. Aury leaned against the door frame with Marisa to her right. The older aunt was glowering in her direction. Manuel came from the other side of the hall, meeting her with a stern expression.
“Oh.” Xiomara blinked. Wow. She hadn’t expected this—her family taking a stand against her when she had been right from the beginning. Why did they demand to fight her every step of the way? She crossed her arms. “Fine. I’ll stay up here.”
Silent sighs and shoulders dropping. They all seemed to relax a bit until they noticed that she noticed and all together, they straightened their faces and nearly stumbled over one another to get back in the room. Marisa was the last to go, looking Xiomara up and down with puckered lips.
Yaritza shrugged. “Sorry, cuz.”
No, you’re not.
“Can I at least stay in Mami’s room?” Xiomara asked.
“Oh yeah, don’t worry about it. I am not sleeping in that room.” Yaritza’s snicker hit her like a smack.
Then she was alone, in Mami’s room, with someone guarding from the hall. She turned out the light, making it easier to see shadows cut across the lit hallway from under the door. They just stood there, waiting silently, and Xiomara wondered what their plan was. Were they just going to isolate her until morning? Or find a way to torture her and get her to confess? Then what? Did they think the demon would grant them wishes if they found out who it was, a fucked-up game for a fucked-up family?
Ill at ease, Xiomara chewed the inside of her cheek as she paced. If she was being honest with herself, what did she think she was going to do when she found the demon? The creature had shifted her memories and that of the entire family. It had even touched the tapes that Papi Ramon had made and left them for her to find. It had painted her as the demon, and now whatever Xiomara had thought she was going to do to it would be done to her.
She thought back to Papi Ramon’s first message of the night.
Find the demon—and get rid of it.
12:02 a.m.
Xiomara was sitting silently on Mami’s old bed, engaged in the mindless doomscroll that plagued her generation (and drained her battery to 40 percent), when the lights suddenly went out and she lost all bars. There was a shout in the other room, proof that the family had been caught off guard just as much as she was. She heard footsteps scrambling, a door opening, and someone shouting for Naomi to find a flashlight.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll try,” she said. Her footsteps disappeared down the hall, going so slowly that Xiomara was certain the home aide was going to take her time searching. When the family quieted down, Xiomara flicked on the flashlight app. A ring of light came alive at her feet again, and Xiomara pointed it to the bed just as she smelled it—a pungent whiff of flaming sewage.
It—el bacà—was here, somewhere in the room, watching her from the corners, mocking her from the shadows, daring her to do something from the confines of the room. Goose bumps spread over her skin like a rash, and Xiomara felt herself swelling with anxiety. Her breath became shorter and shorter, fear compounding until she was overtaken by a strong desperation to break down the door, run to her relatives, and sob like a child needing immediate comfort. She imagined it as well—throwing herself into the arms of her uncle or aunt or cousin (whoever was closest, really) and telling them the demon was there, in Mami’s room, and it was going to attack her next if they didn’t do something.
But a laugh from the hall jolted her. She stood in place, listening to Rafael sputter and muffle himself while being shushed. A second shadow under the door fused with the first, blocking out most of the light filtering into the room. Xiomara’s lungs struggled to fill themselves.
They won’t believe me. The truth lodged itself in her throat. She was on her own.
Go to the window, the demon said, in a voice like static. It sizzled out toward the end, soft enough Xiomara wondered if she’d imagined it. If she pretended that it was all in her head, would the demon go away? She wiped away trailing snot—when did she start crying?—and didn’t take another step. The sliver of light became her air, and it was thinning.
Go, it growled, and Xiomara’s feet hurried to the window. Her flashlight flickered on and off—then settled on off, and Xiomara was completely swaddled by the dark. The window in front of her was still mildly reflective, and the longer she stared into the abyss, the more she saw a strange figure standing there.
Right behind her.
Xiomara’s phone clattered to the ground. Her eyes felt glued to the creature, unable to look away. The edges of its silhouette blended nearly perfectly with the dark around it, and what she could make of the outline wriggled like snakes.
Then there were the eyes. Torches of lava swirling with an eternity of agony—screams of torment coming through like a phone call. She smelled the burning flesh, felt her body pour with sweat as though she were the only source of hydration for miles.
Do you want to know how your mother really died? el bacà asked, in a voice that sounded like a mix of Papi Ramon and a room full of hissing roaches. Xiomara’s skin itched with revulsion.
El bacà stepped closer. Xiomara shut her eyes tight, whimpering as the heat closing in singed the back of her neck. Too afraid to speak, she curled into herself, praying silently.
Dear God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please save me, I can’t do this. I need Papi Ramon, I need Mami, I want Mami, I’m scared, someone help mehelpmeHELPME—
She felt those eyes spidering up her spine, and the noxious smell hung over her shoulders like a scarf. Even without sound, she felt the demon laughing at her now, amusement digging under her skin like worms. Xiomara wanted to tear it off, claw at herself until bone was exposed. Yet she was petrified—the only movement came from her lips. She let out a prayer in a choked whisper. “Please help me . . .”
As if an answer, the heat dissipated, leaving a soft clack behind her. Xiomara’s flashlight app flicked back on. She wiped the snot from her nose as she used the light to look behind her.
On the floor was a tape.
Marisa 2/6
Xiomara swallowed. Without a cassette player, there was nothing to play it on. She had listened to the tapes belonging to Mami, Aury, and Manuel. Now she had Marisa’s, but Rafael’s tape still hadn’t been found.
And time was ticking. How long until her family grew desperate? Until the next scandal hit the news? Would they descend upon her as she slept, sneaking into the room with a pillow—or would they enter with a hammer?
Xiomara pocketed the tape and looked back to the window. There was a minor possibility she could survive a second-story drop—but a leg fracture would be enough to make her a sitting duck, making her family’s decision easier. She looked at her mother’s bedsheets—could she realistically make a rope out of them to climb down?
And did she even want to? The storm outside remained as ferocious as it had begun. If the weather made it too difficult for ambulances, she had little hope to get somewhere safe. I don’t need to get home, she told herself. I just need to get away. She was not above spending the night at a gas station, if it meant her family could not get to her. That would have to be the plan—get out and get somewhere else.
There’s a trellis outside Papi Ramon’s window. It would only take her a couple of steps to cross the hallway and enter his room, and then she was as good as home free.
Except someone was out in the hall, guarding her. Options dwindling, Xiomara quickly went to Mami’s closet, hoping there would be something she could use to escape.
Xiomara drew the sliding doors apart and froze.
The closet was bare. That couldn’t be right. Everything else in the room had been untouched, down to the very same mattress Mami had slept on. When had the closet been exhumed? Above her was a single shelf over the hanging rod. Even on her toes, Xiomara couldn’t reach the back of the shelf, but she spread her arm out in a wide circle, risking small jumps to search with her eyes.
“Xiomara?” Naomi knocked on the door. Startled, Xiomara jumped into the closet and listened as footsteps approached. Naomi peeked inside. “What are you doing in the closet?”
Xiomara answered her with her own question. “What’s going on out there?”
“Nothing interesting, if I’m being honest.” She shrugged. “They sent me over here to check on you. Make sure you haven’t gone anywhere.”
