El Pecador

  “Take care, Mr. Montero.”

  “You too. Please take care of my boy.”

  “Always.”

  The corner of his lip drew into a subtle smile, and sadness laced his eyes when he peered over at me. “I just want you to know that I’ve followed your career, son. You’ve made quite a successful life for yourself, and I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of you. That was all I ever wanted for my boy. A life without Cuba, Emilio, and… me.”

  It was my turn to squeeze Amira’s hand, caught off guard by his statement.

  “I love you, Damien. I’ll always love you. No matter what, you will always be my son.”

  Since I didn’t know how to reply, I simply stated the only words to be true, “And you’ll always be my father.”

  “I hope to hear from you sometime.” He smiled. “It was good to see you. Both of you.”

  “It was good to see you too, Mr. Montero.”

  We nodded a goodbye, and Amira and I made our way into the SUV. Neither one of us saying a word, taking in the silence for as long as we could. Driving through the city to a place both of us needed to let go of. As soon as the driver started descending down a familiar road, it was time to tell her what was next on our journey.

  With or without her consent.

  “I told you, Muñeca. Salazar’s viewing was only the beginning, but this is the final stop. It’s time to go back to where it all began.”

  She sucked in a breath, never expecting me to say,

  “El Campo, your home.”

  THIRTY

  AMIRA

  I wish I could tell you I predicted this would be the last stop on Damien’s downward spiral, he was adamant we’d take part in. But I didn’t. Not even close. I couldn’t pinpoint what bothered me more, the fact that I felt blindsided by the place I once called home, or that I hadn’t even considered coming back at all. As if this rancho only existed in my nightmares, and there hadn’t been a devoted, loving family living within those, now tainted, walls.

  The tension was so thick you could cut it with a sharp knife as we drove down a familiar unsteady road. Where the only sounds that could be heard were my rapidly beating heart and the voices from a life I started to believe was a figment of my imagination.

  I struggled to ignore my plaguing thoughts formed by the sudden spike of adrenaline pumping through my veins. Trying my hardest to keep them in check, to keep myself in check. The eerie quietness wasn’t helping my disposition. I felt my nerves set on fire, adding to the relentless emotions sitting heavy on my chest. My fingers fell upon the cool tinted window, reaching out to touch the memories blurring by instead of the trees passing in front of my eyes.

  Blink.

  “Papi, Papi, Papi! Look at all the Mariposa flowers I picked for you!” I exclaimed in Spanish, flapping my arms up and down like I was flying. Twirling around for him, making him smile and laugh.

  “I see, Mamita. I see.”

  Blink.

  “Papi, can I keep these three baby chicks? Can they be mine?”

  “Amira, what are you going to do with baby chicks? They won’t be babies forever.”

  “I know, but they’re my favorite and look, they already love me,” I pointed out, snuggling them up to my face.

  His eyes shined with love and a yielding smile. “Yes, Mamita. You can keep those.”

  Blink.

  Papi twirled me around in a circle before he lifted me up, placing my bare feet on top of his work boots. His arms holding me steady when he started to sway, dancing around our living room. Humming the melody of an old Cuban song his mother used to sing to him. Tucking my head under his chin, he held me closer to his body.

  I peered up at him adoringly. “You’ll always be my hero.”

  He smiled. “Mamita, one day you’re going to get married and your husband will be your new hero.”

  “No, Papi. No one will ever take your place in my life. I promise.”

  Blink.

  “Mami, why are you and Papi so sad?”

  “You’re too young to understand, Amira,” she replied, caressing the side of my face.

  I leaned into her embrace. “But, Mami, my heart hurts when yours does.”

  Blink.

  “Amira, I have a present for you,” Papi revealed in Spanish, touching the end of my nose with his index finger.

  With wide eyes, I watched as he stood up and showed me what he was hiding behind his back this whole time.

  “Papi,” I gasped. “You got me one!” Jumping up and down, unable to control the excitement running through my body.

  He mischievously grinned, handing the doll over to me. I never had a baby doll before.

  “Thank you! She will never leave my side! Now I don’t have to be sad when you leave, Papi. You’ll always be with me through her,” I let out, holding back my tears.

  I didn’t realize I was crying until Damien wiped away my tears with the back of his fingers, snapping my attention to his empathic eyes. I stared into the same intense glare he prominently displayed when he was aiming his gun at my head. Throwing my mind right back into the night of fucking torture bleeding out in front of my eyes.

  The next few moments of my life happened in slow motion. Mania erupted in our once loving home, but I didn’t hear a word that came out of anyone’s mouth. The sounds of my heart beating its way out of my chest took over my senses. My ears were ringing from the palpitations, and my vision tunneled. Papi’s words from a few weeks ago, mixed with the screams of my name, played like a broken record in my subconscious.

  “Amira, promise me… You swear to me that you will hide. No matter what, you hide. And you hide until you don’t hear another word or scream.”

  I could feel my body shutting down and my mind going into a dark place inside of me, where no one could hurt me. Shot after shot rang out, causing my body to jerk with each and every one of them. Bullet casings started falling to the floor followed by their bodies. I felt like I was suffocating from the emotions that I felt in a split second.

  Regret.

  Grief.

  Anger.

  Hope.

  All of them hitting me at once, as if my papi, mami, and sister’s souls were holding onto mine for dear life. I didn’t think it was possible to feel so much and not physically die right along with them.

  I was.

  I had.

  There was this imaginary line that was pulling deep within my bones. I felt it from my head down to my toes. It was flashes of the life that wasn’t mine anymore. My past taunting me and comforting me simultaneously.

  My vision suddenly cleared when I faintly heard, “She’s yours now. She can be your daily reminder of the family you took away from her, and what happens when you betray me.”

  All the night’s memories came tumbling down, burying me in the rubble of their blood. I couldn’t breathe, staring into the eyes of the man I thought was going to save us all. I was terrified that if I looked away, he would disappear. A huge part of me didn’t want him to leave. I knew if he did, I’d be alone with only my thoughts and feelings. The physical need to die with them.

  The nightmares I would never survive.

  The longer I stared into the eyes of the man named Damien, the louder his internal thoughts got. Repeating… “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” over and over again.

  This wasn’t a nightmare.

  This was my reality now.

  With no end in sight.

  “Muñeca, come back to me,” Damien coaxed, angling my chin to look at him. Using the same words he used after Roman died. When I was also lost in my mind.

  My lips parted, profoundly breathing in and out through my mouth. Needing to alleviate the pressure building in my chest, in my core, in the fucking depths of my soul.

  “It’s okay, Muñeca… it’s okay… shhh… I’m here… I’m here, Amira…”

  His soothing words didn’t deliver the usual comfort they always provided. I was too far gone. Lost in a cruel world, tr
apped against my own will. As soon as the driver hit the brakes, my hand reached for the handle and I opened the door. Abruptly getting out before Damien could stop me. We were parked near the empty vast land where my home was burned to the ground, holding the bodies of the family who used to live inside, captive for an eternity.

  The only thing that remained was our barn in the far distance that was on its last leg, barely standing. Far more rundown than it was when I was a child from being neglected for the past twenty-four years. When I took a closer look in the direction of where my childhood home used to stand, though now replaced by the nightmares I lived in broad daylight, I noticed a single stone rising from the grassy area, precisely where the torturous acts were performed.

  My feet moved on their own accord, towing along my nightmares that were ruthlessly assaulting my mind.

  “Amira, run faster! You’re so slow!” Teresa shouted, running in front of me.

  I saw her as if she was real. A hazy figure in my tunneled vision. Our house now standing in front of us. More tears falling to the dirt beneath me. “Teresa? It’s me, Amira,” I found myself whispering, reaching out to touch her.

  “I am! I am, Teresa! But you’re too fast! I can’t catch up! Slow down!” I yelled back, trying to get to her.

  “I’m not going to slow down, you slowpoke! Come on!” she laughed, about to run into our house.

  I saw them before she did.

  The monsters.

  “NO! Teresa! Don’t run in there! Please, don’t run in there! They’re in there! I can see them! Please!” I pleaded from a distance.

  I kicked off my heels and started running through my tunneled vision toward the house. Breathlessly pleading for her to stop. Praying to God to give me one more minute with her.

  “Please, God, please…”

  My voice sounded so far, yet so close at, the same time. It echoed all around me, making it difficult to tell if she heard me or not.

  I blinked, and it wasn’t the cabinet I was hiding in when I was nine-years-old. Instead, it was what appeared to be a gravesite I was standing in front of in real life. Enclosed with beautiful, blooming Mariposa flowers. I fell to my knees as if being pulled to the ground by the past, my legs were no longer able to hold up my shuddering body. Instantly taking in the engraved scripture on the large, gray tombstone set before my glossy eyes and tear-stained face.

  “Here lies Julío, Yoselyn, and Teresa de la Vargas.

  A father, a mother, and a daughter.

  Three souls resting in Heaven, joined together by an unbreakable bond of love and devotion to one another. Together they lived, together they died. Together they’re free to rest in peace, watching over their beautiful, blossoming Mariposa.

  Fly, Mariposa, fly.”

  Fresh tears streamed down the sides of my face. “You did this, didn’t you?” I breathed out, feeling Damien’s looming presence behind me.

  “Yes.”

  Silent sobs wracked my body. I bowed my head and allowed it to take over.

  “I had this made a few weeks after we ripped your life away. I wish I could tell you I did this for you, Amira, but I didn’t. Selfishly, I did it for me. I had to do something after what I took part in.”

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I didn’t think it would help you.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because I know it will heal you. You’re ready to let go of the past and look forward to an amazing future filled with happiness and not darkness. Everything I ever wanted for you.”

  The last word barely left his mouth before my body experienced every emotion possible in that moment hearing his words. Catapulting me back through every bad thing that had occurred in my life. Everything from hurt, to anger, to emptiness. Almost like I was purging my hollow shell. My heart had been ripped out by Damien more times than I cared to count, by the one person who I never thought was capable of causing me so much pain leaving me behind.

  So much agony.

  So much fucking hatred.

  Physically feeling sick from his actions, wishing for one second, he would have stopped to see my face. To see my heart.

  To. See. Me.

  And what leaving would do to me.

  I had all this pent-up anger from being ruined by Emilio and then by him. The hatred took over, producing feelings I’d never felt before, ones that I didn’t even know existed. The pain was beyond crippling to the point I couldn’t even stand myself. I spent countless nights where I broke down and had no one to tell me it would be alright, that I would be alright. He took that away from me, his comfort, his support, the family he gave me, the same night he was a part of taking mine.

  They both did.

  When neither of them had any right. Especially Damien, not after he witnessed what I went through under Emilio’s cruel hands.

  How do you cure a broken heart?

  How do I stop the pain?

  The memories?

  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I was a good person. I had feelings. I lost my rock, the one person who knew me inside and out.

  My weaknesses.

  My faults.

  My heart.

  I didn’t know if I would ever fully recover from losing my family and then Damien. Neither of which were my choice. I wasn’t given one.

  I drowned myself in tears, sitting in front of my family’s tombstone. This gesture might have been for him, to ease his guilt, but it still meant the world to me. I uncontrollably cried over something I couldn’t change. My heart was excruciatingly heavy with hatred and that wasn’t who I was.

  It wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore.

  I went from feeling dead inside to my heart breaking while I tried to fight for a life I always imagined.

  With him.

  Struggling to stay in the present, focusing on the remorseful man standing behind me, burning a fucking hole in my back. Battling to get out of my own head, inflicted by acts of weakness brought on from him.

  The man who was my everything.

  Suddenly became my nothing.

  I placed my hand on their tombstone, tracing the engraved words that felt like they might be setting me free as well.

  Fly, Mariposa, fly.

  Those were the words that stuck out to me the most. I knew Damien put them there, but they couldn’t have been closer to the truth. It was what they would have wanted, it was the only reason my father told me to hide. Shielding me from their ultimate demise, brought on by his sins. Punished through the lives of my mother and sister. But, for some reason, as I sat there, it made me consider maybe he was trying to save me because in the end, he knew…

  I was his only chance at penance.

  His only chance at freedom.

  The one he so dreadfully gave his life for.

  I peered up toward the sky, envisioning them looking down at me for the first time after twenty-four years of dreaming about them in the fiery inferno of Hell, situated below me. There were no words I could possibly express to let Damien know how much this meant to me.

  Slowly.

  Gradually.

  The thorns that had been tightly wrapped around my chest started diminishing. Each rapid, suppressing breath became easier to let out than the one before. Over two decades of thick barbed wire had barricaded itself throughout my entire body. And just like a rose, I was beautiful and perfect on the outside but the second you touched me, I’d make you bleed. Showing you my pain and destruction, and that I wasn’t beautiful or perfect at all. At least not on the inside where it truly mattered the most.

  I leaned forward, kissing each of their names on the grave as if they were actually standing in front of me. Permitting my lips to linger before resting my forehead against the cold stone. Weeping, “I’m so sorry you lost your lives for me. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss you, think about you, pray you were still here with me. I love you, Papi, Mami, Teresa… I love you so much it hurts,” I whimpered, shutting my eyes. Not ready to say goodbye, knowing
we would all be together someday, somehow. “Please, rest in peace now. I beg you. Let me finally fly.”

  I stayed like that until my tears ran dry.

  Until I washed away all my sins.

  All my nightmares.

  All the things I couldn’t change.

  Allowing myself to grieve, to let them go, to believe in the greater good that they had always been together in Heaven, watching over me on Earth. Hoping I’d find my way back to the carefree, happy little girl who did indeed lose her family, but also gained a new one.

  Through Damien’s love and loyalty for me.

  Making me believe he wasn’t there that night to take part in destroying my life, God put him there so he could protect and take care of me. Knowing I’d need him to take their place in my future.

  I suddenly blinked again, and we were standing in the barn, remembering the significance of the term of endearment he always called me. Taking me back to later in the night when he ended up saving my life.

  “Amira, my name is Damien. Can you look at me please? I need you to look at me… Can you do that for me?”

  I sucked in air, snapping out of my worst nightmare. Turning my attention to gaze at him, realizing he was there with me. I immediately scooted back, further away from him and into the wall like I was trying to mold myself into the wood of our barn. My lips wouldn’t stop shaking, staring at him with wide, petrified eyes. Lifting my trembling hand in the air, showing him I had a weapon, a hammer.

  “It’s okay… remember? I told you to run into the barn and hide, and I’d come back for you,” he reminded in a soothing tone.

  I winced, shutting my eyes. Sinking deeper into the darkness where my mind had gone, fiercely shaking my head back and forth.

  “Amira, tengo algo para ti, mira… Por favor, muñeca, ayúdame para que pueda ayudarte,” he voiced, “Amira, I have something for you, look… Please, doll, help me so I can help you.”

  It wasn’t until I heard him call me Muñeca and say he had something for me, that I realized he was real. For some reason, the image of him at that very moment brought back the memory of when Papi said he had a gift for me.