The Best American Short Stories 2013
Night after night I sat between her knees while she opened and reopened the wound. One day she’d make a game of it, tell me that I looked like a pirate; another day she’d say it was her duty to mark me because I had sinned. Daily she and my mother worked against each other, my mother spreading salve on the scab each morning, Nemecia easing it open each night with her nails. “Why don’t you heal, hijita?” my mother wondered as she fed me cloves of raw garlic. Why didn’t I tell her? I don’t know exactly, but I suppose I needed to be drawn into Nemecia’s story.
By the time Nemecia finally lost interest and let my cheek heal, the scar reached from the side of my nose to my lip. It made me look dissatisfied, and it turned purple in the winter.
When Nemecia turned sixteen, she left me alone. It was normal, my mother said, for her to spend more time by herself or with older girls. At dinner my cousin was still funny with my parents, chatty with the aunts and uncles. But those strange secret fits of rage and adoration—all the attention she’d once focused on me—ended completely. She had turned away from me, but instead of relief I felt emptiness.
I tried to force Nemecia back into our old closeness. I bought her caramels, nudged her in church as though we shared some secret joke. Once at school I ran up to where she stood with some older girls. “Nemecia!” I exclaimed, as though I’d been looking everywhere for her, and grabbed her hand. She didn’t push me away or snap at me, just smiled distantly and turned back to her friends.
We still shared our room, but she went to bed late. She no longer told stories, no longer brushed my hair, no longer walked with me to school. Nemecia stopped seeing me, and, without her gaze, I became indistinct to myself. I’d lie in bed waiting for her, holding myself still until I could no longer feel the sheets on my skin, until I was bodiless in the dark. Eventually, Nemecia would come in, and when she did, I would be unable to speak.
My skin lost its color, my body its mass, until one morning in May, when, as I gazed out the classroom window, I saw old Mrs. Romero walking down the street, her shawl billowing around her like wings. My teacher called my name sharply, and I was surprised to find myself in my body, sitting solid at my desk. Suddenly I decided: I would lead the Corpus Christi procession. I would wear the wings and everyone would look at me.
Corpus Christi had been my mother’s favorite feast day since she was a child, when each summer she walked with the other girls through the dirt streets, flinging rose petals. Every year my mother made Nemecia and me new white dresses and wound our braids with ribbons in coronets around our heads. I’d always loved the ceremony: the solemnity of the procession, the blessed sacrament in its gold box held high by the priest under the gold-tasseled canopy, the prayers at the altars along the way. Now I could think only of leading that procession.
My mother’s altar was her pride. Each year she set up the card table on the street in front of the house. The Sacred Heart stood in the center of the crocheted lace cloth, flanked by candles and flowers in Mason jars.
Everyone took part in the procession, and the girls of the town led it all with baskets of petals to cast before the Body of Christ. On that day we were transformed from dusty, scraggle-haired children into angels. But it was the girl at the head of the procession who really was an angel, because she wore the wings that were stored between sheets of tissue paper in a box on top of my mother’s wardrobe. Those wings were beautiful, gauze and wire, and tied with white ribbon onto the upper arms.
A girl had to have been confirmed to lead the procession, and was chosen based on her recitation of a psalm. I was ten now, and this was the first year I qualified. In the days leading up to the recitation I surveyed the competition. Most of the girls were from ranches outside town. Even if they did have a sister or parent who could read well enough to help them with their memorization, I knew they wouldn’t pronounce the words right. Only my cousin Antonia was a real threat; she had led the procession the year before, and was always beautifully behaved, but she would recite an easy psalm. Nemecia was too old and had never shown interest anyway.
I settled on Psalm 37, which I chose from my mother’s cardboard-covered Manna for its impressive length and difficult words.
I practiced fervently, in the bathtub, walking to school, in bed at night. The way I imagined it, I would give my recitation in front of the entire town. Father Garcia would hold up his hand at the end of Mass, before people could shift and cough and gather their hats, and he would say, “Wait. There is one thing more you need to hear.” One or two girls would go before me, stumble through their psalms (short ones, unremarkable ones). Then I would stand, walk with grace to the front of the church, and there, before the altar, I’d speak with eloquence that people afterward would describe as unearthly. I’d offer my psalm as a gift to my mother. I’d watch her watch me from the pew, her eyes full of tears and pride.
Instead, our recitations took place in Sunday school before Mass. One by one we stood before our classmates as our teacher, Mrs. Reyes, followed our words from her Bible. Antonia recited the same psalm she had recited the year before. When it was my turn, I stumbled over the sentence “For my iniquities are gone over my head: and as a heavy burden are become heavy upon me.” When I sat down with the other children, tears gathered behind my eyes and I told myself that none of it mattered.
A week before the procession, my mother met me outside school. During the day she rarely left the store or my little brothers, so I knew it was important.
“Mrs. Reyes came by the store today, Maria,” my mother said. I could not tell from her face if the news had been good or bad, or about me at all. She put her hand on my shoulder and led me home.
I walked stiffly under her hand, waiting, eyes on the dusty toes of my shoes.
Finally my mother turned to me and hugged me. “You did it, Maria.”
That night we celebrated. My mother brought bottles of ginger ale from the store, and we shared them, passing them around the table. My father raised his and drank to me. Nemecia grabbed my hand and squeezed it.
Before we had finished dinner, my mother stood and beckoned me to follow her down the hall. In her bedroom she took down the box from her wardrobe and lifted out the wings. “Here,” she said, “let’s try them on.” She tied the ribbons around my arms over my checked dress, and led me back to where my family sat waiting.
The wings were light, and they scraped against the doorway. They moved ever so slightly as I walked, the way I imagined real angel wings might.
“Turn around,” my father said. My brothers slid off their chairs and came at me. My mother caught them by the arms. “Don’t go get your greasy hands on those wings.” I twirled and spun for my family, and my brothers clapped. Nemecia smiled and served herself seconds.
That night Nemecia went up to bed when I did. As we pulled on our nightgowns, she said, “They had to pick you, you know.”
I turned to her, surprised. “That’s not true,” I said.
“It is,” she said simply. “Think about it. Antonia was last year, Christina Garcia the year before. It’s always the daughters of the Altar Society.”
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but of course she was right. I would have liked to argue, but instead I began to cry. I hated myself for crying in front of her, and I hated Nemecia. I got into bed, turned away, and fell asleep.
Sometime later I woke up to darkness. Nemecia was beside me in bed, her breath hot on my face. She patted my head and whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Her strokes became harder. Her breath was hot and hissing. “I am the miracle child. They never knew. I am the miracle because I lived.”
I lay still. Her arms were tight around my head, my face pressed against her hard sternum. I couldn’t hear some of the things she said to me, and the air I breathed tasted like Nemecia. It was only from the shudders that passed through her thin chest into my skull that I finally realized she was crying. After a while she released me and set me back on my pillow like a doll. “There now,” she said,
and arranged my arms over the covers. “Go to sleep.” I shut my eyes and tried to obey.
I spent the afternoon before Corpus Christi watching my brothers play in the garden while my mother worked on her altar. They were digging a hole. Any other time I would have helped them, but tomorrow was Corpus Christi. It was hot and windy and my eyes were dry. I hoped the wind would settle overnight. I didn’t want dust on my wings.
I saw Nemecia step out onto the porch. She shaded her eyes and stood still for a moment. When she caught sight of us crouched in the corner of the garden she came over, her strides long and adult.
“Maria. I’m going to walk with you tomorrow in the procession. I’m going to help you.”
“I don’t need any help,” I said.
Nemecia smiled as though it was out of her hands. “Well.” She shrugged.
“But I’m leading it,” I said. “Mrs. Reyes chose me.”
“Your mother told me I had to help you, and that maybe I would get to wear the wings.”
I stood. Even standing, I came only to her shoulder. I heard the screen door slam, and my mother was on the porch. She came over to us, steps quick, face worried.
“Mama, I don’t need help. Tell her Mrs. Reyes chose me.”
“I only thought that there will be other years for you.” My mother’s tone was imploring. “Nemecia will be too old next year.”
“But I may never memorize anything so well ever!” My voice rose. “This may be my only chance.”
My mother’s face brightened. “Maria, of course you’ll memorize something. It’s only a year. You’ll get picked again, I promise.”
I couldn’t say anything. I saw what had happened: Nemecia had decided she would wear the wings, and my mother had decided to let her. Nemecia would lead the town, tall in her white dress, the wings framing her. And following would be me, small and angry and ugly. I wouldn’t want it next year, after Nemecia. I wouldn’t want it ever again.
Nemecia put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s about the blessed sacrament, Maria. It’s not about you.” She spoke gently. “Besides, you’ll still be leading it. I’ll just be there with you. To help.”
“Hijita, listen—”
“I don’t want your help,” I said. I was as dark and savage as an animal.
“Maria—”
Nemecia shook her head and smiled sadly. “That’s why I am here,” she said. “I lived so I could help you.” Her face was calm, and a kind of holiness settled into it.
Hate flooded me. “I wish you hadn’t,” I said. “I wish you hadn’t lived. This isn’t your home. You’re a killer.” I turned to my mother. I was crying hard now, my words choked and furious. “She’s trying to kill us all. Don’t you know? Everyone around her ends up dead. Why don’t you ever punish her?”
My mother’s face turned gray, and suddenly I was afraid. Nemecia was still for a moment, and then her face clenched and she ran into the house.
After that, everything happened very quickly. My mother didn’t shout, didn’t say a word. She came into my room carrying the carpetbag she used when she had to stay at the home of a sick relative. I made my face more sullen than I felt. Her silence was frightening. She opened my bureau drawer and began to pack things into the bag, three dresses, all my drawers and undershirts. She put my Sunday shoes in too, my hairbrush, the book that lay beside my bed, enough things for a very long absence.
My father came in and sat beside me on the bed. He was in his work clothes, pants dusty from the field.
“You’re just going to stay with Paulita for a while,” he said.
I knew what I’d said was terrible, but I never guessed that they would get rid of me. I didn’t cry, though, not even when my mother folded up the small quilt that had been mine since I was born and set it into the top of the carpetbag. She buckled it all shut.
My mother’s head was bent over the bag, and for a moment I thought I’d made her cry, but when I ventured to look at her face, I couldn’t tell.
“It won’t be long,” my father said. “It’s just to Paulita’s. So close it’s almost the same house.” He examined his hands for a long time, and I too looked at the crescents of soil under his nails. “Your cousin has had a hard life,” he said finally. “You have to understand.”
“Come on, Maria,” my mother said gently.
Nemecia was sitting in the parlor, her hands folded and still on her lap. I wished she would stick out her tongue or glare, but she only watched me pass. My mother held open the door and then closed it behind us. She took my hand, and we walked together down the street to Paulita’s house with its garden of dusty hollyhocks.
My mother knocked on the door, and then went in, telling me to run along to the kitchen. I heard her whispering. Paulita came in for a moment to pour me milk and set out some cookies for me, and then she left again.
I didn’t eat. I tried to listen, but couldn’t make out any words. I heard Paulita click her tongue, the way she clicked it when someone had behaved shamefully, like when it was discovered that Charlie Padilla had been stealing from his grandmother.
My mother came into the kitchen. She patted my wrist. “It’s not for long, Maria.” She kissed the top of my head.
I heard Paulita’s front door shut, heard her slow steps come toward the kitchen. She sat opposite me and took a cookie.
“It’s good you came for a visit. I never see enough of you.”
The next day I didn’t go to Mass. I said I was sick, and Paulita touched my forehead but didn’t contradict me. I stayed in bed, my eyes closed and dry. I could hear the bells and the intonations as the town passed outside the house. Antonia led the procession, and Nemecia walked with the adults; I know this because I asked Paulita days later. I wondered if Nemecia had chosen not to lead or if she had not been allowed, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
I stayed with Paulita for three months. She spoiled me, fed me sweets, kept me up late with her. Each night she put her feet on the arm of the couch to stop the swelling, balanced her jigger of whiskey on her stomach, and stroked the stiff gray hair on her chin while she told stories: about Tajique when she was a girl, about the time she sneaked out to the fiestas after she was supposed to be asleep. I loved Paulita and enjoyed her attention, but my anger at my parents simmered, even when I was laughing.
My mother stopped by, tried to talk to me, but in her presence the easy atmosphere of Paulita’s house became stale. Over and over she urged me to visit her in the store, and I did once, but I was silent, wanting so much to be drawn out, disdaining her attempts.
“Hijita,” she said, and pushed candy at me across the counter.
I stood stiff in her embrace and left the candy. My mother had sent me away, and my father had done nothing to stop her. They’d picked Nemecia, picked Nemecia over their real daughter.
Nemecia and I saw each other at school, but we didn’t speak. Our teacher seemed aware of the changes in our household and kept us apart. People were kind to me during this time, a strange, pitying kindness. I thought they knew how angry I was, knew there was no hope left for me. I too would be kind, I thought, if I met myself on the road.
The family gathered on Sundays, as always, at my mother’s house for dinner. That was how I had begun to think of it during those months: my mother’s house. My mother hugged me, and my father kissed me, and I sat in my old place, but at the end of dinner, I always left with Paulita. Nemecia seemed more at home than ever. She laughed and told stories, and swallowed bite after neat bite. She seemed to have grown older, more graceful. She neither spoke to nor looked at me. Everyone talked and laughed, and it seemed only I remembered that we were eating with a murderer.
“Nemecia looks well,” Paulita said one night as we walked home.
I didn’t answer, and she didn’t speak again until she had shut the door behind us.
“One day you’ll be friends again, Maria. You two are sisters.” Her hand trembled as she lit the lamp.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “
No,” I said. “We won’t. We’ll never be friends. We aren’t sisters. She’s the killer, and I’m the one who was sent away. Do you even know who killed your brother?” I demanded. “Nemecia. And she tried to kill her own mother too. Why doesn’t anyone know this?”
“Sit down,” Paulita said to me sternly. She’d never spoken to me in this tone. “First of all, you were not sent away. You could shout to your mother from this house. And, my God, Nemecia is not a killer. I don’t know where you picked up such lies.”
Paulita lowered herself into a chair. When she spoke again, her voice was even, her old eyes pale brown and watery. “Your grandfather decided he would give your mother and Benigna each fifty acres of land.” Paulita put her hand to her forehead and exhaled slowly. “My God, this was so long ago. So your grandfather stopped by one morning to see Benigna about the deed. He was still on the road, he hadn’t even made it to the door, when he heard the shouting. Benigna’s cries were that loud. Her husband was beating her.” Paulita paused. She pressed the pads of her fingers against the table.
I thought of the sound of fist on flesh. I could almost hear it. The flame of the lamp wavered and the light wobbled along the scrubbed wide planks of Paulita’s kitchen floor.
“This wasn’t the first time it had happened, just the first time your grandfather walked in on it. So he pushed open the door, angry, ready to kill Benigna’s husband. There must have been a fight, but Benigna’s husband was drunk and your grandfather wasn’t young anymore. Benigna’s husband must have been closer to the stove and to the iron poker. When they were discovered—” Paulita’s voice remained flat. “When they were discovered, your grandfather was already dead. Benigna was unconscious on the floor. And they found Nemecia behind the wood box. She’d seen the whole thing. She was five.”
I wondered who had walked in first on that brutality? Surely someone I knew, someone I passed at church or outside the post office. Maybe someone in my family. Maybe Paulita. “What about Nemecia’s father?”