You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, page 8
She pushed the thought from her head.
“Ha! Since when has she ever helped lift a finger?” Yaritza snickered.
In that picture, you can clearly see her cleaning up. However, Xiomara kept the thought to herself. Nothing she said was going to improve Yaritza’s image of Naomi. It was better to move on.
“Hey, so . . .” Xiomara leaned closer to Yaritza and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I’ve been thinking about the demon. Why do you think it’s Marisa or Aury? Why not Wanda or Henry? They don’t have kids either.” And neither do we.
Yaritza lowered her phone. “Hm. Good point. Hey, Henry!”
Their cousin perked up at his name.
“Got anything to confess?”
Henry’s face scrunched at the question. “Why you asking?”
“It’s a yes-or-no question.” Yaritza pressed with a smile. Not wanting to be caught between them, Xiomara turned away from them just as Manuel began flipping channels.
“What are you doing? Leave it on,” Rafael complained.
“It’s just a commercial. I’ll change it back in a few minutes.” Manuel continued surfing, while Henry got up and left the room. The screen quickly went from Home Shopping Network to a Lifetime movie to a news channel returning from another commercial. Manuel clicked again, just as a familiar image came on-screen. Xiomara jumped to her feet.
“Wait, what was that?” she asked. Her chest felt weirdly tight, like a premonition taking hold. “Go back.”
Manuel scowled but obeyed. The female newscaster wore a bright yellow suit while standing next to a candid photo of Xiomara’s cousin Henry exiting a Tesla.
“. . . Several women have come forward with accusations against the influencer, ranging from sexual assault to overt sexual trafficking. The story began originally circulating online, in part due to his father’s role in covering up the alleged crimes.”
The room fell silent as Manuel’s headshot appeared next to Henry’s. The man of God held a gentle smile on-screen.
“Manuel Abreu,” the newscaster began, “appears to have been embezzling money from his church in order to pay off the women his son allegedly targeted.”
Footsteps breached the dining room entrance.
“Oh, is the game on . . .” Henry sauntered in with a glass of water in his hand, casually grinning until he looked to the TV. His jaw immediately dropped. The family slowly turned to him—and Manuel—with questions spinning in their heads.
“Is this true?” Aury’s face hardened. Henry’s eyes flicked to her, to his father, to everyone currently in the room. Yaritza averted her stare as her thumbs moved quickly across her phone.
“Hey, what are you texting?” Henry snapped, coming toward her. Aury cut in front of him.
“Answer the question!” she demanded. “Is what they’re saying true?”
Henry scoffed. Refusing to answer, he stomped away, but Manuel held Aury’s stare all the same.
“Manuel?” she demanded.
Confess your sins, was all Xiomara could think. Or I will confess for you.
3:58 p.m.
When Xiomara had been much younger, too young to understand the animosity between the older generation, Josefina had tried her best not to isolate her from her cousins. It had been important to her that Xiomara had a healthy relationship with some of her relatives, of course, and she’d felt it necessary for the children to socialize with one another whenever possible. That meant near-weekly visits to the park with Yaritza, semiregular get-togethers during holidays or even just being sent to stay with Manuel while her parents ran errands. Wanda was closer in age to her, practically a peer—but Henry had always been an enigma. When Xiomara was nine, Henry was already eighteen. He had graduated high school and was looking forward to college. (At least, that’s what Xiomara had assumed he was doing.)
“How am I supposed to go without a car?” he had argued on one particular Friday afternoon. Xiomara’s mother had a doctor’s appointment that started right before school let out, and Papi worked a late shift, so she begged Manuel to pick up her daughter and watch her until she was done.
“You’re too young.” Manuel shook his head. “You’ll get into a car accident and then your insurance will get too high for you to pay off.”
“I have to pay for my own insurance?” Henry balked.
Xiomara was sitting in Wanda’s room, pretending to play with dolls while their voices carried through the house. Wanda, at age fourteen, busied herself with the television, flipping through the reality TV channels to get to a Disney movie about teenhood and responsibilities.
“Why are they arguing?” Xiomara whispered, as if her curiosity would shatter the walls.
Wanda shrugged. “Henry wants a car so he can drive around the university.”
Xiomara’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know Henry knew how to drive.”
“He doesn’t.”
The argument went on and on outside of Wanda’s room. Xiomara didn’t remember how it had ended. She assumed he’d gotten his car because he always got what he wanted—from the expensive Burberry coat to the unique pair of Yeezys. At first, Xiomara thought Henry was the odd one out in his family. After all, Wanda seemed content with plain clothes, whether they were from Walmart or Target. And Manuel was a pastor who seemed to dress modestly. But one time, while Wanda was ironing Manuel’s button-up shirt before a sermon, Xiomara snuck a look at the tag and looked up the strange Italian words. The price made her hair stand on end. It was the first time she’d learned that even the most unassuming clothes could still cost so much.
After Mami had picked up Xiomara and made her way down the street, Xiomara told her about her findings.
“Well.” Mami clicked her teeth, a mysterious look in her eyes as she stared straight ahead. “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.”
* * *
Now, there they were, in Papi Ramon’s house, as silent as the aftershock of a nuclear bomb. Aury’s fury showed itself in her eyes. They were twisted with venom while Manuel remained as stone-faced as ever.
“Manuel!” Aury shouted. “Answer me!”
“I don’t answer to you!” he shouted back. The boom of his voice reverberated around the room.
“Papi . . . ?” Wanda’s voice was small. He turned and she flinched, clearly choosing to interject at the wrong time.
“Go back to the kitchen,” he said sternly. She obeyed and disappeared.
Aury laughed scornfully. “Now I see where he gets it from.” She gestured between Manuel and his son, earning a sneer from Henry. “Oh, did you see that? Did you see that look he gave me? It’s true, isn’t it?” Aury nudged Yaritza and waved at Marisa to join in. From the looks on their faces, neither wanted to. So she turned to the only other woman in the room.
“Xiomara, you saw that, right? No wonder he thinks he can do whatever he wants. He doesn’t respect the women in his own family!” Again, Aury laughed, indignant. “I cannot believe you would do something so despicable. Ha! It’s a good thing Papi Ramon isn’t here to see it. You would’ve killed him with a heart attack!”
“Okay, calm down . . .” Rafael stood up.
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Aury smacked his arm. “Your nephew was just caught molesting women and our so-called godly older brother was paying for them to be quiet!”
“. . . and he took it from the church,” Yaritza mumbled, adding fuel to the fire.
“And he took the money from the church!” Aury screeched. “How long has this been going on, huh? Since last year? The year before? Give me back my ofrenda!”
“What, your little twenty dollars?” Manuel mocked.
“Everyone stop!” Rafael tried again. “We still don’t know if it’s true . . . or that it’s as bad as what they say.” Whoever’s side he was supposed to be on didn’t appreciate the fence-sitting. Aury’s face fell, and Henry pushed past Xiomara on his way out.
She hit the wall with a thunk.
“You don’t know if it’s true?” Aury pointed to Xiomara. “Look how he treated Xiomara just then! Xiomara, come over here. Don’t stand so close to those men.”
With her name being called, Xiomara felt a great spotlight on her. She began to sweat, already feeling Manuel glowering at her when she took a half step toward Aury. What else was she going to do? Either Manuel was going to be upset with her or Aury was going to yell about how the men were intimidating her.
Before she could take another step, Xiomara felt a tug on her cardigan sleeve.
“Hey, Xiomara, I need some help in the library.”
Thanking God, she followed Naomi away, eager to escape the imminent explosive argument that she could feel was underway. Xiomara wouldn’t be surprised if it ended in an actual fight, with Aury descending on Manuel like a crazed banshee while Rafael tried to keep the two away from each other. Manuel was short and much older, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have the strength to knock her down if he really wanted to. She wiped her sweaty palms against her jeans.
Once Naomi closed the door behind them, Xiomara looked around the room in confusion.
“What did you need help with?”
“Nothing,” Naomi admitted. “I just thought you needed to get out of there.”
There weren’t enough words in the English language to describe the weight of the relief Xiomara felt.
“You heard all of that?”
Naomi gave her a look that said, how could I not? “Your aunt’s voice travels.”
That was an understatement. Even now, Aury’s voice shot through the wall, each syllable like a bullet.
“Do not defend them!”
Xiomara winced. Naomi rolled her eyes as she went back to her reading nook. An unfamiliar book sat half-open on the floor, and when Naomi picked it up, Xiomara saw that it was Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land.
“How can you be reading when they’re about to tear one another apart?”
“They aren’t going to tear each other apart.” Naomi flipped a page. “And even if they were, what am I supposed to do about it?”
Xiomara opened her mouth and shut it. Naomi wasn’t wrong. There wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop them from getting at one another’s throats. Rafael and Marisa would probably try anyway, but Aury was definitely a fighter, and Manuel liked to swing his weight around to establish dominance. It wasn’t the first time Xiomara had seen a fight brew between her aunts and uncles. It was just the first time the fight wasn’t directed toward her mother.
Was it always so easy for siblings to duke it out?
“You should lock the door behind you,” Naomi said. “Make sure Henry can’t come in.”
And then there was that. Xiomara’s shoulders dropped.
“You think he really did all that?”
Naomi countered with a question. “You think he didn’t?”
Xiomara pursed her lips. It was hard to say yes. Damning, even, to look at someone and go, yes, you look like you would actually be a shithead. And worse to say that about a close relative. Henry was her cousin, after all. She’d stayed in his house several times. A few of those times, he’d even been in charge of her and his sister. He’d babysat her when needed, and made sure she was fed and not in any immediate danger.
Granted, he hadn’t fed her so much as he’d told Wanda to fry a couple of eggs with plátanos. Which she had, so Xiomara had definitely been fed. He’d been otherwise indifferent about her, now that she thought about it. As a kid, he’d just seemed nonchalant, cool even. Taking nothing and no one seriously.
But he’d never really talked to Xiomara. Never asked how her day was, or what she was learning in school. None of the usual questions that adults normally asked her, if only to feign interest.
In hindsight, Henry might have just been regarding her the same way as someone regarded a potted plant: It was there, and as long as it didn’t get in his way, that was fine. All he was required to do was pour water in the pot every so often and leave the plant out in the sun.
Still, to think he was capable of such cruelty! Sexual assault? Sex trafficking?
They said the stories originally circulated online. Xiomara quickly fished her phone out of her pocket. The first page of Google came with similarly written articles about Henry. He had no fewer than six victims, each one with a very similar story about how he’d originally flirted with them on Instagram, eventually propositioning them and getting them to start an OnlyFans.
The loverboy method, it read. When one of the women seemed unsure about doing any of this, that’s when the sexual assault occurred. Xiomara put away her phone. She didn’t want to know so much about Henry. She hadn’t known much about him before, only what she could see on the surface, and that had suited her just fine.
Now, everything was exposed, and it somehow made her feel exposed.
Maybe Henry is the demon. Yet as simple as that would make things, Xiomara struck that thought down. It was tempting to think so, to think that the worst person she knew was a descendant of hell, but she was still on the fence about the existence of demons.
It’s just a coincidence. Just a coincidence the story broke when it did . . .
“Honestly, I’m surprised we didn’t find out sooner,” Naomi mumbled. Xiomara had to agree. For this to hit the news on a Friday afternoon could not have been a coincidence. To go from a will reading to a thinly veiled threat and then a scandal all within an hour? A normal person could not have orchestrated all that.
Unless it wasn’t a person . . . Xiomara felt a chill run down her back.
There was a crash coming from the dining room. Xiomara flew out into the hallway just as Manuel stomped down toward her. Not wanting to be shoved again, Xiomara pressed herself against the wall to give him space. He didn’t so much as look at her and only went up the stairs to the second floor. Not a moment later, a door was slammed.
Xiomara treaded carefully to the dining room. A chair was flipped over, and the table had been shoved aside. Rafael stood with hands on his hips, shaking his head at the floor. Marisa was by Aury’s side, cooing as the woman sniffled. Aury’s hair was a mess.
And Yaritza was tense. She pressed her phone to her chest and locked eyes with Xiomara.
Don’t say anything, she mouthed. Xiomara nodded and backed away into the kitchen.
A subtle heat ballooned from the kitchen. Inside, Wanda looked to be twice as focused on making the sancocho, an array of ingredients out on the counter while a pot sat on a lit stove.
Xiomara approached the counter. She recognized the oxtails in an open Tupperware container, and the open jar of sofrito next to it with a dark green glob running down its side. But the rest of the counter was a mess of peels and spills that told Xiomara the woman was struggling to keep it all in order.
It looks like she has all of the ingredients, though. There were the yautia malanga, yucas, and half a calabaza waiting to be boiled. Three peeled plátanos, each cut in quarters while the discarded skin partially obscured the Doña Gallina cubes. She did wonder why there was a blob of dough sitting on the cutting board, though.
“You need some help, Wanda?”
The frenzied look in Wanda’s eyes could have been its own answer. She looked at Xiomara up and down before frowning and shaking her head.
“I’m fine,” she said. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead.
“Are you sure? This just seems like a lot—”
“Oh, this seems like a lot?” Wanda spat. “Is that what you came to talk about?”
Xiomara put her hands up defensively. “I was just asking—”
Wanda interrupted. “I know what you were just asking. I’m fine. Go gossip with Yaritza like you always do.”
Like I always do?
Stunned, Xiomara didn’t move. She watched Wanda dump the oxtails into the pot and jerk back as a sizzling roar released a large cloud of steam. Wanda grabbed the nearest yuca and a knife. Right as she positioned the knife over the root vegetable, she sent another vicious look to Xiomara.
“Can I help you?” Wanda scowled.
Xiomara backed away, and the knife came down. Xiomara lightly touched her neck, imagining it to be on the cutting board, and Wanda going, off with her head!
She tried not to take it personally. Wanda was clearly reeling from the news about her family. Henry was one thing—she had implied as much earlier. But Manuel was supposed to be above such things. What would the congregation think? What would they do? Xiomara couldn’t imagine he’d have much of a flock anymore. Unless they were incredibly forgiving . . . but if they had been taking cues from him on how to behave as people of God—a lot more Old Testament than New—then the last thing they would be was forgiving.
Xiomara’s pocket vibrated. She waited until she was farther down the hall to pick up her phone.
“Papi?” she whispered.
“Xiomara! Are you okay?” Papi’s voice sounded like heaven. Well, he sounded concerned—but it was heaven nonetheless. The house was filled with either tension or aggression, and this was a needed break from it. Xiomara rubbed her face in a soothing motion.
“I’m fine, Papi. The weather is bad, but I’ll be fine as long as I stay inside.”
He was quiet on the line. Then, “Have you seen the news?”
Xiomara closed her eyes and held her breath. She’d been hoping he didn’t know.
“Yes,” she answered on a sigh. “The whole family has.”
“Do you want me to come get you?”
“No!” Xiomara said. Thunder crackled outside. Or was that a tree being hit by lightning? Xiomara looked out of the front door’s peephole. The weather continued to rage like God Himself had forgotten His rainbow promise. “You can’t go out in this!”
“Mija—”
“Don’t worry,” she said, trying to inject as much calm into her voice as possible. “I’ll be heading home as soon as the rain lets up, but do not come here. Especially now—it’s still really bad.”
“It is really bad—”
“I meant the weather.”
“I don’t like you being there,” Papi said. Me either. But as Xiomara leaned her forehead against the door, she realized he wasn’t talking about the normal family dynamic, but the specific threat they were suddenly aware of.
