You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, page 23
And then she was alone again. Naomi ran off, yelling into the house about needing a towel. It was unclear whether it was for her or to cover the body. Regardless, Xiomara sat in a half trance while clutching the player. Her back was bruised, and she was sure she was very concussed, still feeling a light touch of vertigo even while planted on the ground. The study window had been utterly shattered, and the creature had slashed through enough meat and bone to nearly decapitate Marcus. Yet despite it being thrown with enough force to crack a windshield, the tape player was in perfect condition.
How did Marcus know I needed a tape player? She hadn’t even spoken to him since she’d told him off. And with the cell tower being down, there was no way for him to contact her either. Yet somehow he had this address.
Xiomara curled over the tape player. Was this the demon’s way of getting her to stay? Did it want her to find the last two tapes? Xiomara wondered what the demon stood to gain from that. If there was a lesson her grandfather tried to ingrain in her, it was to always fight against demons. Do the opposite of what they told you. If they went right, you went left. If they walked into the ocean, you walked off a cliff. If they offered you a glass of water, you were better off self-immolating. Xiomara considered taking Naomi’s advice and driving off in Marcus’s car. That would be playing it safe, for sure. She would be able to get farther and faster.
Just as she stood up, a stray scent rooted her to the ground. No. She held her breath, denying her recognition. That’s not possible. And she was right—it wasn’t possible, not in the endless rain and wind, for any smell to stand out. But it did. Against all logic, when she breathed, it was there. Not the smell of blood or the inherent gore of exposed muscle and bone. Not even sulfurous rot.
An earthy musk with an underlying sweetness, too refined to ever be attributed to nature. It was the unmistakable smell of sandalwood—her father’s favorite scent.
And a threat.
Insssiiide, the rain hissed.
Xiomara looked away from Marcus’s body. She stood on two shaky legs and made her way to the back entrance. If the demon was capable of luring Marcus—a true outsider of the family—just to kill him, then her father was no safer. She had to deal with it here and now.
It was great luck that no one was on the first floor. Xiomara slipped in through the back entrance, shuffling into the long narrow hallway that led to the dining room. The lights were all off, and hardly any movement could be heard from the second floor. Xiomara guessed that they were too afraid of the thing that had killed Marcus and thought it might’ve still been prowling. Whatever the reasoning, it worked in her favor. She sat in the farthest corner from the stairs, hoping to remain out of sight as the warmth of the home gently enveloped her.
Welcome back, it said. Xiomara could only shiver in response. She stared at the player, turning it over and studying it. Unlike her childhood Walkman, this was sleek and black with smaller buttons and sharper corners. It was like someone had wanted to modernize a vintage piece of technology only in style but not in function. It was even lighter in weight. Xiomara slid the back compartment open, revealing an emptiness where a set of AA batteries should have been.
Xiomara stifled a groan.
“Even when he tries to help, he’s . . .” She left the sentence unfinished. Marcus was dead. There was no need to deal more blows to his character. Xiomara searched the dining room in silence for the remote and found it underneath the couch. She placed it on a cushion once she removed the batteries and returned to her hidden spot. The player blinked on, awaiting a cassette tape. Xiomara slipped in Marisa’s tape and connected her earbuds.
“Marisa was supposed to drive,” Papi Ramon whispered conspiratorially. “I know this now because I listened to the voicemail. Josefina called me that day, upset because she knew Aury had taken more of her pills—the painkillers she needed, and that Marisa had promised she would drive to get her more but she’d canceled. She was supposed to drive.” He repeated himself, sounding more crazed with each sentence. “She was supposed to drive. Aury wasn’t supposed to take her pills. And Rafael . . . did he do something to her car? I think he said he tried to fix something. I know something is weird. If I could just remember—”
There was scratching in the background, like a dull pencil against paper. The tape cut off. She stared blankly at the cassette player. Despite the cold, she burned with indignation.
Did Rafael do something to Mami’s car?
“Where is the last one?” Her throat was raw. She imagined the demon was still watching her now. “I know there’s one more. Give me Rafael’s tape.”
There was a hum that moved through the walls, a vibration that mimicked the pitter-patter of the rain outside. It carried into her skin, and Xiomara became all too aware of the movement in the room above.
That’s Rafael’s room, she thought, envisioning her family huddled around the bed in various states of plotting. Wanda, as silent as ever, only speaking when spoken to. Henry, likely still unconscious while Naomi ran back and forth between checking on him and carrying out orders from Aury. Marisa arguing with Manuel, while Rafael refereed: the two oldest kids fighting for dominance while the youngest attempted to placate both.
Yaritza’s probably bored without a cell phone signal.
All of this, Xiomara envisioned in her mind’s eye until she heard something move. It was subtle, like the feeling of a plate being slid across a wooden table. She stiffened, pressing her back into the wall as if that would strengthen the signal. Then she realized, something was actually moving behind her, until it dropped off, shattering into pieces. Xiomara’s eyes snapped open and she zipped toward the dining room.
There was good reason why she could feel something so vividly through the wall—it was shared with the pantry, a small closet space where Papi Ramon stocked cans of Roman beans, mixed vegetables, and a large container of rice, among other nonperishables. Large enough for a person to stand in, which was good because Xiomara was pretty sure someone was coming to investigate the noise. The ceiling creaked toward the stairs. For her own sake, she hoped it was just Naomi.
Quickly parting the pantry double doors, Xiomara searched for the sound of the crash. The pantry appeared mostly bare, with only a few cans left on the top shelf, and the large container of rice in the corner. Broken glass was sprayed around it with the round bottom of a cup that normally would never have been placed in the pantry in the first place. Xiomara’s eyes flitted up to a blue tin can. The Royal Dansk cookie label was barely visible, hanging halfway over the shelf. Xiomara grabbed it just as the first creak hit the stairs. She panicked and climbed into the pantry. The one good thing about it was that the tiled floor didn’t make any noise. She forced herself into a ball, tucking her head under the lowest shelf. The horizontal panels in the double doors were spaced apart by millimeters, giving her the narrowest view of the kitchen. If anyone were to walk in, Xiomara would see them.
It was only after the footsteps had completely descended that Xiomara thought about the trail of water she likely left after coming in from the pouring rain. It may not have been noticeable in the dark unless someone stepped in it themselves.
She prayed they wouldn’t.
Footsteps approached from down the hall, so cautiously slow that a splintering pain formed in Xiomara’s neck. Eventually, they stopped at the dining room and turned back, feet picking up speed and jumping up the stairs, running to the safety of Rafael’s room.
Xiomara pushed herself out of her hiding place, and crawled into the kitchen. The Royal Dansk cookie tin felt warm in her hands as she wrestled with the top. It came off with a soft pop and a light puff of air that smelled of rotten eggs. Inside was exactly what she’d thought she would find—not cookies, but rather an entire sewing kit. Needles poked out of a palm-sized tomato plush, surrounded by tiny spools of cheap thread.
The tin can had belonged to her grandmother, a surly woman who had very clear expectations of all of her children and grandchildren and didn’t hide it. Xiomara thought it was strange to find her grandmother’s kit in the pantry. She was sure that everything that had even remotely belonged to that woman was packed up in a storage container elsewhere.
Xiomara fingered through the can, digging out spools one by one and quietly placing them aside. She hissed when a stray needle caught her finger, pricking it hard enough to produce a single drop of blood, then fought the impulsive urge to stick her finger in her mouth. The rain might have washed away Marcus’s blood, but Xiomara still felt it on her hands.
She flicked the needle aside and continued unpacking the can.
Her breath hitched when she saw it—another cassette tape. Xiomara flipped it over to read the label: Rafael 5/6.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, sniffling. “Okay.”
Fishing her headphones out of her pocket, Xiomara slipped the tape into the player and pressed play.
“Rafael is . . . probably one of my best kids. He is always trying to get his siblings to get along, doesn’t ask for anything, and doesn’t cry about anything. Because of that, his mother would give him anything he wanted. And when his siblings complained, he shared it with them. Food, toys—whatever he got, he shared. Even with Josefina.”
There was a long pause. Xiomara heard a few muted gulps and a satisfied aah. She imagined he was drinking a Malta when he recorded this. When he continued, his tone of voice changed. It had lowered to a near whisper and she had to strain to hear his words.
“I don’t think he messed up Josefina’s car on purpose. I think he thought he was doing a good job. He’s never been as smart as Aury, or as driven as Manuel. But he liked cars enough. So he tried to fix something in her engine, I think.”
Another long pause. And what was this nonchalant tone? He’d gone from sobbing in his last couple of tapes to placid and well-adjusted. Xiomara’s finger lingered on the fast-forward button.
“I just didn’t think he’d find my gun. I didn’t think he’d do that to—”
The audio ended.
So. That’s it. Xiomara focused on her breathing. In and out. Process what she’d just heard. Negligence? That’s the best her grandfather could come up with? Her mother had died because of negligence? Aury swiped her pills, Marisa refused to drive her, Rafael tinkered with her car, Manuel was unbearable to contend with—a hodgepodge collection of her family’s poor traits leading to her mother’s death—and what, she was supposed to be okay with that?
And a gun. She couldn’t forget about the gun.
Xiomara sucked in a deep breath until her head rattled with pain.
“Tell me,” she whispered. “Where is the last one?”
She waited. And waited. Xiomara strained her ears, tried to imagine any lingering vibrations pointing to any location. She waited for the smell of burning sulfur to guide her to the last hiding place. But all she heard was the sound of thunder, crashing into the stubborn house. The demon said—and did—nothing.
Desperation folded into resentment as Xiomara stared at the tiles on the floor, imagining what it would feel like to tear it up one by one, piece by piece. She’d claw at the floorboards, too, tear away the ugly floral wallpaper just to get at the walls. Then she’d use the wooden panels as a crowbar or shovel, dig into the foundation of her grandfather’s home, curse the ground it was built on, and scream until even God couldn’t ignore her anymore.
She wanted to do all of this and more—but she didn’t. Xiomara only sat there, eyes watering while her lips pulled back into a sneer.
Leaving the cassette player in place, she turned out of the dining room. The house groaned and wailed with every step, alerting anyone who was quiet enough to listen, but they would not get to her in time. She threw open the front door and left it open behind her as she approached Marcus’s body. The constant rain had all but washed away the smell of gore, not to mention the color in his skin. He was paler now, with lips tinted bluer than red.
And then there were his eyes. He hadn’t been dead long, and yet they had the look of peeled grapes, veiny and moist to the touch. She wished they would flash with playfulness like they always did, the corners crinkling in encouraging optimism. He had always been a glass-half-full kind of guy. Now, Marcus wasn’t anything.
Only death stared back.
Xiomara reached for a jagged piece of glass two inches from his face. She stretched her cardigan sleeve over her palm as she gripped it tight then turned to the study window, which was still lined with craggy edges of glass, like the open maw of a voracious creature. She broke through its teeth with her sleeve-covered fist and climbed through.
The study no longer smelled like Papi Ramon. It no longer retained any semblance of warmth. The room had been excavated of all that had brought Xiomara happiness. Now it was empty and cold, less a maw and more a lifeless grave. Fitting, considering she was out for the blood of her blood. She stayed by the door, waiting until she heard it—the sound of footsteps cautiously descending the steps. Her hand gripped the doorknob, slowly turning once the steps had passed in the direction of the wind howling through the open front door.
Xiomara peered out, confirming that it was Wanda they had sent. Her arm was raised up at her side, gripping a claw hammer. Once she turned the corner, Xiomara pounced, tackling the woman into the downpour and knocking the hammer out of her hand. They both hit the wet ground with a sharp smack, and before Wanda gathered her senses to scream for help, Xiomara curled her arm around her cousin’s neck and pulled tight.
“Listen, this doesn’t have to—” was all she could get out when an elbow suddenly drilled into her side. Xiomara’s grip weakened just enough for her to hear Wanda wheeze while reaching for the hammer a foot away. She brought the pointed end of the glass to her cousin’s temple. The struggle between them slowed at once. Xiomara took the chance to explain.
“I’m not going to kill you,” she blurted. “I just need you to know—there’s a gun. And I think Rafael knows where it is—”
“Let go of me!”
“Just listen!” Xiomara said. “I listened to almost all the tapes. Papi Ramon said something about Rafael and a gun. Think about it—why was Rafael in the storage room all day? I think he was looking for it.”
Wanda’s body slackened underneath Xiomara. She could feel her cousin struggling to breathe from the extra weight and shifted to plant a knee into the ground.
“. . . your father . . .”
“What?” Xiomara strained to hear her over the plummeting rain. First, all she saw was the back of Wanda’s head—then she saw stars. Her face went from numb to sudden agony, gathering at the nose and splintering out over her cheeks and over her eyes. Wanda bucked until Xiomara rolled onto the ground. She wasn’t sure if she was even holding the glass shard anymore.
“You are of your father, the devil!” Wanda shrieked, kicking up mud beside Xiomara’s head. “And your will is to do your father’s desires!”
Xiomara grabbed her ankle, attempting to pull her back down, but by then, Wanda had already gotten to the hammer. She swung it back, blunt end on the bone of Xiomara’s wrist.
The pain was exquisite.
Xiomara howled, rolling in the other direction, split between wanting to cradle her hand and wanting to disconnect her arm from her body entirely. But her cousin was not done.
Wanda sat on her stomach, stopping her from moving away and pinning her down. Whatever mercy Xiomara extended her was not reflected back—Wanda did not give her room to comfortably breathe, and Xiomara battled both insufficient oxygen and the excruciating ache now radiating in her wrist. Facing the sky, she now felt like she was being drowned by the rain.
“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth.” Wanda spewed the Bible verse with rage-filled self-righteousness. “Because there is no truth in him.”
Unable to sit up, Xiomara rocked from side to side and clawed at Wanda’s shirt, yanking her collar to unseat her. Her cousin retaliated with the hammer again, striking the side of Xiomara’s arm. Though it didn’t connect directly to the bone, the blow was not any less painful, and the resulting ache ricocheted up and down her humerus. Her arm dropped weakly to the ground.
“When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Wanda raised the hammer high. In the seconds that followed, Xiomara thought about her mother again. She had always been told that Mami was probably looking down at her, proud that her daughter was growing into such a respectable young woman.
Xiomara hoped that her mother wasn’t looking down at her now. God, how embarrassing that would be to meet her again for the first time in a long time, and it’s because the rest of the family sent her?
Xiomara closed her eyes and waited to feel the blow that would welcome her into death. But while listening to the roll and echo of thunder sounding in the dark, all she felt was her cousin jolt in place. And then a splash in the mud beside her. Xiomara opened one eye. Her cousin appeared frozen, and on the ground was the hammer.
Xiomara coughed up the water that filled her nose. She shivered. The only good thing about the cold now was that it partially numbed all her throbbing aches and pains.
“Wanda?”
Her cousin didn’t answer. She only followed the hammer.
Xiomara winced as she sat up. Wanda was utterly silent and motionless, while scarlet trailed out of her back. Xiomara flipped her over, and found the source—a puncture tearing through her clothes and down into her shoulder blade.
Someone had Papi Ramon’s gun.
12:58 a.m.
Blood pooled around Xiomara, lapping at her knees and sinking into her pants while simultaneously being washed away. Despite having already flipped her cousin over, she couldn’t bear to touch her again. Xiomara’s hands hovered over her, shaking fearfully as if contact would cause Wanda to deflate immediately.
“Wanda!” Manuel bellowed, suddenly at the door. He tossed Xiomara aside and fell beside his daughter. “Mija. Mija, wake up.” He propped her head over his knees. “Wanda, you have to wake up.” He muttered prayers and promises under his breath. Bargains with God that if He didn’t take Wanda, Manuel would really give his life to the church, return all the money he stole, go to prison if he must. When that didn’t work, the pastor turned to curses and threats. If God didn’t bend to his will, embezzlement would be the least of his sins.
