You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, page 25
Not without a casualty. Xiomara would have to figure out another way to deal with her.
“You were gloating earlier. About my church, and Henry. You said people like me deserved to die.” Manuel took another step forward. Aury took one back.
“Manito, please . . .” She cried, arms shaking.
Xiomara’s heart leaped into her throat. Just one more step and Aury was in arm’s reach. She sent a look to Naomi and glanced at the door. Get ready to run, she hoped to communicate.
The home aide widened her eyes.
There was a very good chance that Aury was going to pull the trigger again. Xiomara’s plan was to make sure that she could only do it one time. Tightening her uninjured fist around the base of the hammer, she prepared herself for the worst. While Aury begged Manuel to take a step back, Rafael caught sight of the hammer at Xiomara’s side.
“Xiomara, don’t!”
That warning was enough. Just as Aury spun to her niece, Xiomara’s arm flew out in an arc.
The shot rang in her ears. Aury dropped to her knees, cradling her hand and screaming as she went down. She no longer held the gun.
Xiomara blinked, waiting to feel a warm puncture spread in her body. But just like before, there was none. Just the same aches and bruises she’d collected before.
“Let me see, let me see!” Marisa pulled at Aury’s arm. She held up her crushed knuckles, fingers unable to straighten due to the pain alone.
Rafael wasn’t at all concerned.
“Where’s the gun?” he asked, frantically looking around the room.
Manuel had returned to the corner of the bed, catatonic. Marisa scanned the floor.
“I thought I heard it drop,” she said, leaning far enough ahead to peek out of the door. “Is it in the hallway?”
“No,” Naomi said, rising from door frame. She’d ducked but not made it out of the room. Click. The barrel reappeared in Naomi’s hand, pointed straight at the family.
“I’ve got it,” she said. And it did not look like she intended to leave or give it up anytime soon.
1:32 a.m.
The family collectively became a statue. A wave of alarms sounded in their heads as they watched Naomi take another step forward. Every single person leaned back.
“Hm?” she asked. “What’s wrong?” The gun moved in a curve, pausing at each member of the family like points on a line, stopping just before she got to Xiomara. That puzzled her, but she watched as Naomi made eye contact with her family. Each time, they flinched at her sight, as if it were the first and only warning they would get before she pulled the trigger.
Xiomara wondered why Naomi wouldn’t look at her.
“G-good job, Naomi!” she stammered, somehow finding the boldness to speak. She tried on a smile and laugh like a child trying a cigarette for the first time. Her confidence was about as real as the emperor’s new clothes. “I can take the gun now.” She tentatively held out her palm.
Naomi’s lips curved upward, audacity solidifying in her eyes. “Go on, take it.” She shook the gun. Marisa quickly stepped back and threw her hands up. “What’s wrong? Don’t you want the gun?” Naomi pursed her lips, in mock concern. Despite being ignored, Xiomara didn’t think she was free to do as she pleased. The weapon was only ever a few degrees from being in her direction, and her wounds alone sang like they were going to drag her kicking and screaming into a dreamless sleep.
“Naomi, let’s be serious.” Rafael swallowed, inching toward her. Then she pointed the gun and he fell back.
“So why’d you do it?” Naomi asked. Rafael stilled, his face slackening into an expression Xiomara couldn’t read. She watched his arms remain up and out, hands splayed in a defensive pose, while he kept his knees at an angle. Rafael looked ready to bolt.
“Do what?” He let out a breathy chuckle and swallowed. Naomi was not amused.
“You know what,” she said. “But I’m sure your family doesn’t. Do you want to confess your sin, or should I do it for you?”
Xiomara’s eyebrows shot up. “The letter was you?”
Naomi didn’t take her eyes off Rafael. “It was. But don’t worry—I don’t have a goddamn clue what your grandfather was on about with that demon business. That was as much a surprise to me as it was to you. But let’s not get off track. Rafael?”
Though his lips parted and shook, Rafael would not speak.
“Oh no. The cowardly brother’s a coward,” Naomi remarked, deadpan. “You know what might help? If we all got a little comfortable.” With just a simple look and a wave of her arm, Naomi corralled the family onto the bed, including Xiomara. They surrounded Henry on all sides, who made unpleasant groans when the bed shifted in a painful direction. Manuel avoided looking at Aury while she cried softly into her hand. Naomi’s eyes swept over them, and because of the gun, every glance felt like it lingered a little too long. She looked at them like they wore targets, and adrenaline made every blink aggressive.
To her right, Marisa pressed her arm against Xiomara’s, a subtle nudge meant to grab her attention, if only for half a second.
Xiomara looked and saw Marisa’s eyes flutter to the home aide. Do something, her eyes seemed to say. The swelling from the beating Marisa had given her had barely gone down. Xiomara pushed her aunt’s arm away.
Then Naomi took in a deep breath. “I’ve always known.”
Xiomara studied her face. The heart-shaped face that belonged to Julia was shattered by the look in Naomi’s eyes. The home aide swallowed, pushing down a feeling, a rising lump, and again, she breathed. Calmed. “I’ve always known you killed my mom,” Naomi explained. “I don’t know why exactly, but I think I can piece it together just by the way you look at me. You wanted her, but she didn’t want you. And what drove you insane was she never told you why, huh? Just pretended like it was for the best that you didn’t know.
“Until you found out.” She reached an arm behind her back, Xiomara imagined she was going to produce a second gun from thin air. But she didn’t.
Instead, she held another cassette tape. Naomi tossed it to them and watched it bounce off Manuel’s chest onto his lap. Aury quickly plucked it, and turned it over—the label was torn right before the fraction 6/6.
“Where did you find this?” Aury asked, as if forgetting who held the gun.
“Looks like none of you knew it.” Naomi laughed. “I guess that’s not a surprise. You Abreus do everything you can to die with your secrets. Play the tape,” she said, tossing a look to Xiomara. “With the little gift your boyfriend got you.”
“How did you know . . .”
Naomi blinked. “Who do you think told him to come?”
Xiomara realized it then—the moment Naomi asked Xiomara for her phone. She used it to contact Marcus. “Why would you do that?” she asked.
Naomi rolled her eyes, and again she ordered, “Play. It.”
“It’s downstairs. In the kitchen.”
“Perfect. Yaritza? Did you hear that?” Naomi waited. No one replied. The house was made of silence. “I know you’re there.” The home aide raised her voice, slightly turning her head to the open doorway. “You’ve never known how to mind your business, and it’s not like your ass can drive. I just need you to do me a favor.”
If Yaritza was there at all, she was doing a great job staying quiet. Xiomara watched Naomi’s stone expression. The woman was certain the loudmouth cousin was out there—and she was determined to bring her back to the group.
“How about this: if you bring the cassette player up here within, hm, twenty seconds? If you can do it that quickly, I won’t shoot your father in the face.”
The family gasped, each person extending a hand over Rafael, partially shielding him like any of them could stop a bullet. Their voices rose up in a soft crescendo, pleading with both words and alarmed noises.
“Naomi, please—” Aury begged.
Marisa’s face went pale. “This isn’t funny . . .”
“Am I laughing?” She called out to the hall, “You have fifteen seconds now. Fourteen. Thirteen.” In the half second that stood between thirteen and twelve, footsteps came to life, clopping against the floor in quick and clumsy succession down the stairs. Naomi didn’t stop counting. The family strained their ears to listen for movement on the first floor, mentally mapping Yaritza’s journey to the kitchen and back.
“Five . . . four . . . three . . .”
Just a few feet away from the door, there was a loud slam. The family jolted and watched the door expectantly. Whatever happened, Yaritza finally blustered into the room just on the heels of “one.” Her feet came down on the floor with such force that there was an audible snap! Xiomara looked down to see her cousin’s kitten heel had broken and now dangled from her shoe in between steps. Yaritza stumbled as she held the cassette player at arm’s length.
“Uh-uh.” Naomi shook the gun the same way she shook her head. “Go sit with the rest of them. Aury, give Yaritza the tape. I want her to press play.”
Yaritza’s jaw flexed, but she obeyed nonetheless. Taking the tape from Aury, she clicked it into the recorder and raised the volume. Static immediately filled the air.
“There are many things in my life that I regret. Many things I wish I had or hadn’t done, not because I shouldn’t have done them but because the consequences . . .”
Xiomara felt her heart slow and ache at the same time. Papi Ramon had never sounded so tired. No matter where she imagined him, whether in his room or in the study, she pictured him the same. Sunken eyes with crow’s-feet and a parched throat. Softened bones and wrinkled skin folding over him like an oversized sweater.
She didn’t understand why she could see him in such a state. Even lying in his coffin, Papi Ramon could have passed for a man ten years younger than he actually was.
Perhaps that’s what it was. She’d looked past his exterior, dug through the superficial memories that painted Papi Ramon as a still-spry grandfather, bouncing her on his knees and tickling her imagination. That Papi Ramon was no longer with her. The only version of Papi Ramon that still existed was the one on this tape. His voice sounded like gravel, and he spoke like defeat was all he’d known in this life.
“I know you don’t care about that. You’re angry. But you have no right to be.” The tone in his voice became so chilling, Xiomara wondered if this was the same person who’d doted on her. “I had a decision to make. A tough one. And I made it. You’re here for a reason. And that reason is to take everything. Just take it. Don’t tell anyone I gave it to you—I have things set up in a way that it’ll look like a charity donation. No one will know it was you. So please . . . please stay away.”
“Why should I?” Naomi mumbled, staring at the cassette player like she was contemplating shooting it. Xiomara leaned away as if to leave the splash zone, while her eyes traveled to her relatives. Their expressions ranged from distraught to incomprehensibly baffled.
Manuel suddenly found his voice. “What is he talking about?”
“Shh,” Naomi responded. The tape continued.
“Stay away, and most importantly—” Papi Ramon was interrupted by an assault on his throat. He coughed violently and half gargled until he was calmed. “Don’t ever tell anyone you’re my daughter.”
Rafael’s jaw slackened as he paled at the audio recording.
Xiomara’s head spun. She didn’t want to believe it was him. That Papi Ramon had had a secret kid. She looked at the others—Rafael’s jaw had slackened, and the shadows on his face heightened his shocked expression. The rest of the family circled a question that only Aury was brave enough to ask.
“Who is this for?”
Xiomara quickly did the math in her head. She and Naomi were the same age. Julia was . . . what, in her late thirties, early forties when she died?
How old was Papi Ramon?
Her brain short-circuited. Xiomara didn’t want to do the math on that. It was obvious already. Papi Ramon was old, even twenty-one years ago. He had to have been in his fifties when he approached Julia.
Papi Ramon wouldn’t do that. She refused to believe it. This tape was a lie. It had to be a lie, a fabrication made by the demon solely to fuck with her. Naomi might even be in on it. Xiomara could believe that. After all, she was just as much of a hostage as the rest of her family.
Xiomara felt a pressure rise over her shoulder. Aury leaned over, her chin nearly resting on her niece’s head. She whispered, “Did Papi and—”
“No!” Marisa said, refusing the question before it solidified. “He wouldn’t. Papi was a good man.”
The home aide only stared, bored with the family’s insistence. “You of all people should know Dominican men can’t be trusted.”
“Shut up!” Xiomara blurted, grabbing the player. “I can’t hear it.” She held it up to her ear, catching Papi Ramon’s final words.
“. . . think about your mother and what she would want for you. Goodbye, Naomi.”
The tape stopped. The room felt like it had dropped several degrees. Naomi stared at the little square player with a blank expression that made the existence of the gun even more dangerous.
“You found out that Ramon and my mom used to be . . . involved.” Naomi paused, the barrel of the gun aimed directly at Rafael. “And to say that it upset you would be an understatement.”
“Th-th-that’s not true!” Rafael shook his head. “I mean, I knew that Papi and Julia were close, but I swear, I didn’t kill her.”
Naomi continued, ignoring his pleas. “And then you rushed to cover up the whole situation by claiming it was a regular break-in. Did you think I wouldn’t notice that the TV was never taken? Just because you hide it for a week or two, doesn’t mean it’s automatically brand-new when you bring it back out.”
The entire time Naomi spoke, her tone barely wavered from anything above spa day calm. The same calm Xiomara saw when she asked Naomi what would she do if her family had killed her mom. Well, it turned out, they had.
And Naomi was committed to revenge.
“You Abreus paid the police to look the other way. Not investigate too heavily. And then Ramon generously offered me a job. I had no one and nothing else, and he knew that—he knew I couldn’t do anything to him if I needed him to survive.” The home aide’s eyes finally narrowed, lips tilting downward in a deep expression of casual distaste. As if she were simply staring at a pile of unwashed dishes, waiting for her to get to work.
As if she weren’t holding a loaded gun.
Xiomara did not envy Rafael.
“Wait . . . so do you mean—” Aury began to ask.
“Do you need to hear it again?” Naomi picked up the fallen chair, gun still raised in the direction of the family. She moved like she wasn’t concerned. Like turning away to reset the chair wouldn’t give them enough time to get the drop on her. Her arm was steady, and her grip was strong. That alone made Xiomara remain planted on the old bedding.
“Yes, I am Ramon’s kid, technically—not that he was all that great at hiding it. He was very sloppy at so many points. I don’t think he’s as smart as you want to believe he is. Do you know when I had that first suspicion?” Naomi asked. “That we were all related? I overheard Julia talking to Ramon around three years ago. It was in Spanish, but I could hear her nearly breaking through the barrier to Creole. That’s how I knew that she was upset. She sounded like she was holding herself back.”
Xiomara tried to remember it—a moment when Julia sounded strange or strained or even a little mad. Not a single memory was brought to the forefront of her mind. She watched Naomi carefully, trying to find a single opening to get the gun away from her. But unlike Marisa or Aury, Naomi was not someone who could be easily baited. She had endured too much to be caught lacking.
“And then, a few days later, my mother was dead.” The home aide’s shoulders came up in a half shrug. “A break-in. A bullet. Wrong place, wrong time. That’s what Ramon told me. I’m sure that’s what all of you would’ve told me if you had been at the funeral.”
“We had a good reason for not coming—” Manuel tried, but Naomi shook her head and stopped him.
“Don’t. Lying to me just makes me want to shoot you more.” She gripped the gun. “The point is, a dead housekeeper is one thing. A dead housekeeper you had a kid with—that opens you up to a lot more scrutiny. And I’m pretty sure he had a reputation he wanted to maintain.”
Aury was halfway to her feet before she caught herself. The gun was still there, a direct line to her chest. She sank back into bed. “He wouldn’t do that,” she said, more of a mumble than it was a proclamation. Her side was flush against Manuel, and he shifted half an inch away from her. He refused to look in her direction or acknowledge that she was there.
“He did do ‘that.’ This isn’t an argument.” Naomi dismissed her. “None of you get to pretend like you knew everything about him.” She pitched her voice high and low as she mimicked the Abreus. “‘He consulted me on the will’ this or ‘he begged me to stay with him’ that. Or ‘he trusts me the most because I’m godly,’ right, Manuel?” She sent a jab at him then leaned back. “You all thought he was a good man, but he was just as terrible as the rest of you.”
Me? Xiomara wanted to ask. What did I do? Her worst behavior included not speaking to Naomi for three years. That didn’t warrant a bullet wound.
Naomi winced, as she pulled the paper towels off her face. The gash underneath it was gnarly. Blood caked the area, dripping over exposed flesh. Xiomara looked around for something to clean it with. All the cleanest towels were with Henry.
“Anyway, thanks for this.” Naomi waved the gun. “I needed it to prove that my mom’s death was an inside job. I don’t give a shit about whatever money your dad was going to leave me—I earned enough money pretending to be Marisa’s boyfriend for two years.”
Marisa gasped audibly. Naomi gave a painful smirk. “It’s a wonder how far AI has come, isn’t it?” She made her way to the door, turning back at the last second for the final word.
