You Should Have Been Nicer to My Mom, page 9
You believe it, too, huh? Not that she could blame him. He didn’t know Henry as well as Xiomara did—and it turned out that Xiomara didn’t know him at all. Anyone in Papi’s position would be nervous about being under the same roof as someone with those kinds of allegations hanging over them.
For some reason, though, those worries seemed small compared to the bigger issues exposed in this house. “I’ll be fine, Papi,” she reassured him.
“It’s been almost two hours. You should already be back by now.” He switched subjects. “What happened with the will?”
Ah, right. Papi didn’t know the situation. How was she going to fill him in?
So, actually, Papi Ramon left me a really cryptic message about a demon infiltrating the family, and he wants me to figure it out, so the lawyer left to find another version of the will that doesn’t mention demons . . .
Mm-hm. That will convince him that she was perfectly safe.
Or insane.
“The lawyer got stuck in traffic when the storm began,” she blurted. “We’re not sure if he’ll be able to make it at all. We might have to reschedule.”
Technically, it wasn’t a lie. Mark really did have to get the will. And the storm really had started when he drove out. Xiomara’s anxiety prickled at the thought of him driving around in that vicious weather—but fear made her selfish and hopeful that he would be back very soon. At the very least, with the lawyer present, the family would be back on their “best” behavior, and Xiomara wouldn’t have to worry about another fight breaking out. The longer she sat with the news of Henry in her head, the more her fear skyrocketed. If he was capable of sexually assaulting multiple women, what else could he be capable of?
“Oh, mija . . .” Papi sighed, bringing Xiomara back to the present. “I’m sorry. I know you wanted to get this over with. Just . . . promise me you’ll stay away from him, okay? Stay with your aunts. They’ll keep you safe.”
Xiomara swallowed. There was a lump in her throat that she swore wasn’t there before. “Okay, I will. I’ll call you once I’m on my way back, okay?”
She hung up. First she’d promised a text. Now she was promising a call. Xiomara hoped her urgency had slipped underneath Papi’s radar, otherwise she couldn’t be surprised if he showed up in the torrential rain to rescue her.
Truth was, part of her did want to be rescued.
I’m sorry, Papi Ramon. With their secrets being revealed, Xiomara wasn’t sure if she wanted to crawl around in the dark looking for clues anymore. At least now the letter made a little sense. Confess your sins. She’d thought it was about Yaritza and Rafael, but now it was clear it was meant for Manuel and Henry. The two’s sins may have been tied up in each other, but that still made them two separate sins.
Unless there’s still more. Xiomara’s spine stiffened. More sins to uncover? More secrets? Xiomara didn’t want them to be revealed. It would be hard enough dealing with her uncle and cousin for the rest of the night. If more of the family were in the same foul moods, Xiomara would rather take her chances in the storm.
“Let go of me!” Naomi shrieked.
Xiomara sprinted to the library. The door was thankfully ajar, and when she pushed it open, she saw Henry gripping Naomi’s shoulder.
Xiomara’s nose flared. “Hey! What are you doing?”
Henry amazingly let go of Naomi, yet didn’t move away from her. Naomi backed into the wall.
“I’m asking this one who gave her the letter.”
“No one gave me the letter!” Naomi gritted her teeth. “It was in the mailbox with all the other junk mail!”
“Bullshit. Someone had to have given it to you, so who was it?” He now had her cornered. “Was it Clarissa? Was it Eden?”
Xiomara forced herself between them. Henry barely registered her. He only glared at Naomi, jaw flexing.
“The letter was in the mailbox, Henry.” Xiomara invaded his line of sight. “I checked the security camera. It must have been sitting there for days.”
For a second, it was like Henry was looking through Xiomara. His anger wasn’t directed toward her; she wasn’t even there, not to him. Once more she was a plant, at most.
Until she wasn’t.
He blinked and turned his attention to Xiomara. The whites of his eyes had grown red and veiny, little roots crawling inward to the pupil. His shoulders came up and down with each quiet breath, and in his eyes, Xiomara could see how quickly she’d transformed from a plant to a roach.
He’ll kill me. An alarm rang in her head, as she took inventory of every possible weapon she could use if push came to shove. Hammer or drill in the toolbox, a knife or fork from the kitchen—how much force would she need to use to turn the blunt end of a glass bottle into jagged teeth?
“Henry. Leave the girls alone,” Rafael said. Xiomara hadn’t known that he’d come to the library, but there he was, at the door. He crossed his arms, keeping a stern eye on Henry. “Now.”
Without turning his back, Henry smirked and stepped away.
Rafael looked between the girls and held up a hand, a gesture that was supposed to mean, just stay away from him.
Xiomara shot him a look in response. Why don’t you keep him away from us? They weren’t doing anything. Henry was the one who was on a rampage, turning every woman in his family into his enemy. As soon as Rafael closed the door behind him, Xiomara leaped to lock it. There was a brief moment of shame, where she recognized the action as painting Henry as dangerous. But she shot the feeling down, the idea that familial solidarity held sway anymore. Henry was dangerous. He had clearly long been a danger to other women, and now Xiomara was getting the chance to view that side of him. It surprised her that she’d missed it so long, the selfish anger that poured out of him like sweat. As much as she hated that he wasn’t the one being restricted, she knew she would have to steer clear of him from now on.
Xiomara turned to Naomi. “Are you okay?”
Naomi rolled her shoulders in relief. “I’ll be better once I’m far away from this house.”
That was fair. Xiomara wanted the same thing. The storm outside wailed, though, reminding her just how treacherous the roads must be.
Like mother, like daughter, she thought morbidly. To keep her mind off Mami’s car accident, she went across to Naomi’s reading nook.
“Can I ask you something . . . weird?” Xiomara asked. “Have you ever felt something was off about this house?”
“Like something was always watching?”
Xiomara tried to contain her heart. “Yes. But also . . . gaps in your memory? Or just things that don’t feel quite right?” It was hard to put the feeling into words. “You try to think about something, but the more you look at it, you feel like you shouldn’t—or you feel your attention being directed elsewhere . . .”
Naomi frowned. Though she sat down next to Xiomara, the look on her face told her she wasn’t looking forward to whatever conversation Xiomara wanted to have.
“Are you sure it’s not just your grandfather’s exorcism stories getting in your head?”
“You remember that?” Vindication shot through Xiomara and settled in her bones, strengthening her resolve. “That Papi Ramon was an exorcist?” She couldn’t believe how easy it was for her family to gaslight her, make her think that Papi Ramon had either lied or exaggerated his time spent in religious fervor. Xiomara thought that she’d been able to spot when her family was lying to her, but clearly that skill had eroded over time.
“Why wouldn’t I remember?” Naomi scoffed. “It’s the one thing he bragged about constantly.”
“And you remember all the stories he told?” Xiomara hoped that Naomi’s memory was better than hers.
“You mean the stories he only told you?” Naomi pointed out. “I was never part of those conversations.”
“What? But . . .” She thought back, all those years ago: Every Sunday she had sat on her grandfather’s lap. She remembered the smell of his cologne, the bony feel of his knee as he bounced her up and down, the way sunlight trailed in through the windows . . . but no Naomi.
“I thought you were there.” Xiomara chased the memory like she was trying to keep sand from slipping through her fingers. Only grains were left behind, lodged underneath her nails. She tried to pick at it, feeling something was not quite right, but all that came was the dull beat of a headache circling her skull.
The home aide shook her head slowly. “Why would I be there? He was your grandfather. He always shut the door when you were in his study. Ma told me not to go in. The only reason I know anything about that is because . . .” Naomi stopped short.
“Because what?” Xiomara pressed.
“In the last few years . . . he would get confused.” She looked away from Xiomara. “He’d look at me and think I was someone else, and for a while I thought he thought I was my mom, because, well . . .” Naomi gestured to her face. “But then I realized, when he was laughing hard about the way I used to pronounce certain words, he didn’t think he was talking to my mom. Because I know he used to talk to her, and it wasn’t like that. The only time he laughed like that was when he was with you.”
If guilt was an ocean, Xiomara resided at the very bottom. It was one thing to remember Papi Ramon’s voice and the feel of his hugs—it was another to be told that his laugh was exclusive, and that she was one of the very few privileged enough to hear it.
As if to steer grief away from herself, Xiomara mustered up all the moisture in her mouth to ask, “How did Papi Ramon talk to Julia?”
“Quiet.” Naomi shrugged. “And in private.” To mark the end of the conversation, Naomi went scrolling on her phone.
Xiomara leaned her head back until she was staring at the ceiling. Though Manuel was somewhere up on the second floor, it felt strange for there to be no noise coming from above. She’d thought she was remembering it wrong before, but now she was certain. Even when no one was on the second floor, there was a consistent pattern of thuds followed by light scratches.
It wasn’t rats. Xiomara felt her stomach tighten as the memory sharpened. It wasn’t rats, and she knew it for sure, because one day, she traveled all the way up to the second floor—to the source of the sound. It was right above the library, which meant it had to be coming from her mother’s childhood bedroom. The thudding stopped just as her right foot settled on the first step. She held her breath. There were the eyes; she felt them then—and she was feeling them now.
Xiomara glanced to Naomi. The home aide was not even looking up. Still, her own pores opened up, and the deer alarm rang in her head as she tried to remember what happened next.
I walked inside. Xiomara swallowed. She leaned against the wall, her legs shaking as she traveled down memory lane.
Xiomara, at barely eight years old, went into her mother’s old room. The room at the time wasn’t just stale—it was a vacuum. Not even a fan could stir up dust; that’s how strange the room felt.
I must be remembering it wrong. But intuition refused to acquiesce. Xiomara had felt the wrongness of the room to her core, and it was still fresh to this day. Once again, a thought scratched away:
How could I have forgotten about it? But she was remembering now, or at least she was remembering something.
So what then?
She was kneeling in front of her mother’s bed. Despite the utter stillness of the room, the end of the sheet hanging over the bed was billowing, a warmth flowing out toward her.
It was probably an air vent, Xiomara thought, attempting to tamp down the prickly sense of unease that was rolling over her skin. At eight years old, Xiomara peered under her mother’s bed.
And something said, “Hello, Xiomara.”
A knock at the door made Xiomara jump. Naomi glanced at her with a raised eyebrow before Xiomara answered, “Who is it?”
“We’ve got a situation,” Yaritza replied from behind the door. That’s an understatement. Xiomara went to open it.
“So, that lawyer?” Yaritza pressed her hip into the doorway, typing away on her phone with indifference. “Yeah, he’s not coming back tonight. Lot of blocked roads because of trees and car accidents.”
“Can’t he just call?” That seemed like such an easy solution to at least one of their problems. “He can read off the will over the phone.”
“He was going to, but then his phone cut off.” Yaritza shrugged. “Aury’s trying to call him back, but it keeps going to voicemail.”
Xiomara pressed her head into her hands, and felt the full weight of dread falling over her. She could read between Yaritza’s lines. It was obvious, after all.
No matter what, Xiomara was going to have to spend the night with eight people who were either upset with her or just didn’t like her.
And one of them was almost certainly a predator . . . and maybe worse.
“Hey.” Yaritza lingered. “You mind if I sleep in your mom’s room?”
5:36 p.m.
The arrangements were made. Yaritza and Xiomara would both be sharing her mother’s old room. Marisa and Aury would take their old room, sharing with Wanda. Rafael would take his old room. Manuel and Henry would take Papi Ramon’s bedroom. There was a brief argument about why those two wanted Papi Ramon’s room, but it was quickly buried when no one else offered to swap instead. Naomi was happy to stay in the library, not that anyone asked her.
Standing in front of her mother’s door with a fresh bundle of blankets and an extra pillow under her arm, Xiomara’s chest tightened.
She thought a little more deeply about her last visit, the entire week she’d spent helping Papi Ramon through his grief and burying her own, walking through the house like a ghost, like she was the one who’d died, and she remembered one thing—how utterly afraid she was of Mami’s room. It came to her in flashes, the feeling of being watched all over again. Despite being alone in the room, she could never keep her back to the walls. She always imagined there were a pair of hands reaching out to snatch her and that even the floorboards were conspiring against her.
Yet here she was. She told herself it was to keep an eye on Yaritza, to make sure she didn’t go through her mother’s belongings. But the truth was, it was that voice—the voice that had spoken to her from underneath her bed. She didn’t remember anything after that moment, didn’t like that it had taken her years to recall it at all, and most of all—she didn’t like the sound of it.
All Xiomara knew was that she shouldn’t leave her cousin alone in that room.
Yaritza tapped her on the shoulder. “Are you gonna go in or . . . ?”
Xiomara stepped aside, letting Yaritza be the one to open the door.
Josefina’s room was a 13 x 13 square space with a sizable closet and a full-sized bed made flush against the wall. It was obvious the room hadn’t been occupied in some time, with a coat of dust over the nightstand and dresser. Even the floor felt sandy underneath Xiomara’s feet. She thought about grabbing a broom, then decided against bothering Naomi for its location—she’d already upset the home aide earlier; the least she could do was give her space. Instead, she took in her mother’s room again, comparing how it had looked the last time she stayed to now.
Time had rendered it muted in all aspects of appearance. The bright yellow stripes of the bedsheets were dull, almost piss-colored. The patchwork quilt folded at one end of the bed was now only loosely connected by threads, stretched nearly to its breaking point. On the other end of the bed, two pillows lay side by side, flattened. Under the bed were a few rows of Josefina’s old shoes and sandals. If Xiomara bothered to look in the dresser or closet, she was sure she would be face-to-face with more of Josefina’s clothing from another era.
She stayed away from those, especially. Xiomara knew herself too well. She knew that if she so much as saw another one of Mami’s dresses or blouses, she’d want to touch it, smell it, feel any lingering essence of her deceased mother. The action never brought closure, just hurt.
Xiomara plopped the extra sheets and pillows on the bed, biting her tongue when Yaritza quickly sat down. Her legs dangled over the side of the bed, brushing carelessly against the bedsheet. Xiomara felt panic rising like a tsunami, a deep knowledge that there was something dangerous in the room, something that knew her name and could speak it.
There couldn’t have been a voice. It was ridiculous just to imagine it. She was clearly misremembering the moment, which was probably just a scene from a horror movie or a story she’d read.
But just in case . . . Just in case, she was there, with Yaritza, in the same room that used to terrify her. She looked out the window, watching the trees bend under the force of an angry sky, like they were bowing to a tyrant. The winds continued to howl, and the house was mercilessly pelted with rain. Between the room and the weather outside, Xiomara knew where she was safest.
Yaritza sighed. “That was crazy, wasn’t it?”
Xiomara pursed her lips together.
Go gossip with Yaritza like you always do. She hadn’t understood why Wanda accused her of gossip, but maybe this was what she meant.
This is hardly gossip, though.
She answered Yaritza with a question. “What even happened? I was in the library, and when I came back, a chair was flipped over and Aury was a mess.”
“Oh my God, you missed it,” Yaritza said, eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Aury got in Manuel’s face and said it was no wonder Claudia left him.”
Xiomara let out a deeply disappointed sigh. Of course she did.
It was an unspoken family agreement not to bring up Manuel’s ex-wife in front of him. The divorce was not amicable. It was so bad that even Henry and Wanda didn’t talk about their mother. And to throw it in Manuel’s face? Xiomara expected nothing less from Aury’s razor sharp tongue.
“So he threw a chair at her?” Xiomara asked.
“What? No. He just pushed her so hard, she tripped over it.”
While that wasn’t what she’d expected, Xiomara could see that happening—as well as Aury bringing on crocodile tears.
