The Exquisite and Immaculate Grace of Carmen Espinoza (3 page)

Just like me.
 

I heard the tourist moving to rescue my camera but I couldn’t bear to open my eyes. Maybe, if I stood very still, they would just put the remains at my feet and leave me to my grief. They had the camera and a second later I could sense that they were right in front of me, the faintest scent of a spicy aftershave floated in the air around me.
 

Please
, I thought,
just keep moving
.

Seconds passed while I stood, painfully exposed, wishing the person away.
 

They took a breath, “I’m sorry,” he said. His voice was careful, as if he were dealing with a wild animal—or a mentally ill person teetering on the edge. When I opened my eyes I could see that it was the man from inside and his handsome face was full of pity. His hand held my broken camera, waiting for me to take it from him.

Without a word, I held out my hand and when he placed it in my palm, I could tell he was being careful not to touch me. He took a step backwards. “I really am sorry.”

My eyes kept to the ground but I managed to nod my head once, a silent acknowledgment that I had heard his words even if the rest of me had frozen up.

Then, he turned and left.

With his back to me, I finally looked up and watched him leave. Regret settled in my chest. I wanted to call out to him
I’m the one who should be sorry,
but I hesitated while the words lingered on the edge of my lips. I couldn’t decide what exactly to say.

I’m sorry I lost my temper.
 

I’m sorry, I sometimes have a hard time reading people.

Maybe just an
I’m sorry too
, would be enough.

The first word filled my throat and prepared to burst out of me with enough force to carry across the distance of the courtyard between us—but he was really far away now. I watched as he stepped from the courtyard into the busy street, and I realized the opportunity to at least try and make amends had been swept away by my hesitations.
 

I was too late.
 

I was eating my oatmeal too fast, and so, Graciana eyed me suspiciously. I forced myself to slow down, to match the slug like pace of my two younger host siblings but because my body vibrated with the desire to escape, to run back to my self-imposed seclusion, making myself slow down and uphold even basic breakfast table courtesies felt like prolonging a torture.

My host family hated me. At least I was pretty sure Graciana and her husband Hector did—their two kids, Sergio and Anna, often just stared at me with a confused mix of interest and apprehension, like I was a caged animal in zoo. They didn’t get too close

Graciana narrowed her eyes and lowered her spoon, “Do you have class today, Carmen?” she began her investigation in Spanish.

I took a few extra seconds to swallow my mouthful of cereal then reached for my small glass of milk, as if it were impossible for me to answer this question until my mouth were completely clear. In truth, I needed my head completely clear. Graciana watched me closely, she could tell I was stalling. I smiled apologetically and made a show of wiping my mouth with my napkin before saying, “No, no class today,” I answered in Spanish.

By the expression on her face, I could tell she expected me to offer up more information about what I
would
be doing today. When she could see this wouldn’t be the case and I took another bite of cereal instead, she sighed loudly and placed her napkin on the table.
 

“Then will you be volunteering at the food bank?”

Sol Abroad!
encouraged all its students to volunteer in the community in some way and the food bank was the activity I had chosen.
 

Graciana knew I was there just yesterday.
 

She had stopped by, to check on me, on her way home from the market. Her bags had been filled with fruits and vegetables, pounds of sugar for the sugar skulls, cacao beans and cinnamon for the cafe de la olla, and the bright orange and yellow buns of marigolds that would be used to decorate the graves and ornament the ofrenda for Day of the Dead festivities beginning tomorrow.
 

No, she already knew what I would be doing today—nothing. I would be in my room, alone, lying on my bed, trying to keep a grip on the tidal wave of depression that was drowning me. She wanted me to say it, to open the door on the conversation, because her facial expressions and body language had been communicating the message to me for weeks and since her earlier attempts to reach me had gone by completely ignored by me, she had reached the point of telling me outright.
 

I wasn’t well.
 

Trapped by breakfast table courtesy, a blanket of dread settled over me. I didn’t want to hear her say it. Out loud—clearly articulated. I was suddenly terrified that she was going to ask the question, and that question was going to make me start crying. Right here, right now, in front of all of them.
 

Carmen, what is wrong with you?
She would say. Even imagining it made a hard choking ball of tears form at the back of my throat.
 

I had no idea of how much “parental” influence my host parents actually had over me but I imagined that if they grew concerned enough about me, Graciana and her husband Hector would have no problem voicing their fears, imagined and otherwise, to Vicky at
Sol Abroad!
And given the problems I had fitting in with the other students, missing classes, and my persistent insistence on remaining outside their shared experiences, Vicky would hardly be a defender of me. In fact, she would probably love a good solid reason to send me packing back to the United States.
 

I could just hear it, “We are doing this for you, Carmen.” When, in reality, it would be because it was easier for everyone else at
Sol Abroad!
to be finished with a student that they so deeply disliked.

Graciana hesitated, Sergio and Anna, her own two children, were still scooping slow mouthfuls of oatmeal, stretching out the time before they would have to leave the house for school. Graciana wouldn’t question the status of my mental health in front of them.
 

What was the status of my mental health?

I spooned up the last glob from my own bowl and washed it down with the remainder of my milk, “Excuse me,” I said. Ignoring Graciana’s surprised expression, I stood up with my dishes in hand and rushed to the sink to get them washed before she had a chance to decide she was going to say something, kids or no kids.
 

Her eyes, I could feel the pressure of them on my back as I scrubbed the clots of oatmeal from my bowl so I changed the subject, “The ofrenda,” my voice was strained from the effort of keeping my tears back as I nodded to the decorated table pushed against the wall. “I’ve never seen one…it’s amazing.”
 

The memorial alter to welcome the family’s dead back home sat beneath an arch of the yellow and orange marigolds that Graciana had carried home from the market the day before. On the table, Graciana had laid out her best table cloth and then the whole family had added the fruits and vegetables along with items that, according to mentor Vicky, were meant to represent the four elements. A glass of water for the souls long journey back, a candle, or fire, for each soul memorialized, food from the earth, and papel picado banners for the wind whose intricate cut designs reminded me of the paper snowflakes that kids cut out back home. The heads of sugared skulls and dancing skeletons dressed in bright Mexican outfits with cigarettes hanging out their mouths watched over the offerings.

Graciana pushed her chair back from the table. “It would have been good for you to help us,” she said as she picked up a box of matches near one of the candles and lit the copal scented incense sticks. As she lit each of the five candles on the table, the woody scent of the incense drifted through the kitchen, its spicy kick burned my nostrils. For weeks now, large parade floats and mountains of marigolds had been collecting and growing throughout Oaxaca in preparation for the Day of the Dead celebrations that began today.
 

Graciana blew out the last match, “Tonight we are holding the vigil at the cemetery, we would like you to come with us Carmen.”

In the three months since they had taken me into their home, I had made almost zero effort to join their family. Aside from taking meals with them, and then, only when hunger drove me from my room, I had practically shunned their every attempt to include me.

I finished washing my dish and shut off the water. My wet hands clung to the side of the sink as I wished for some way to silently escape this moment.
 

Graciana was waiting for an answer, but the only answer I wanted to give was
no
. I didn’t know how to be a real daughter to my own mother, what hope was there of figuring out how to be a fake one?

“I’m not really feeling all that well,” I said.
 

She didn’t answer me at first and the silence in the room behind me grew like an uncomfortable, pressing balloon. When I couldn’t take it any more, I turned from the sink and saw that Graciana was kneeling before the ofrenda and her lips moved with her silent prayers.
   

Even Graciana wished for Debbie.
 

After a moment more, she stopped, crossed her self, then stood up and faced me.
 

“Carmen,” her voice punctured the silence with its authority. “You are to come with us tonight—God has told me.”
 

I didn’t believe her, but I stared at her feet, brown like my own mother’s, and nodded my head anyway.

That night, in town, the streets were flooded in festival. On every street it seemed cars were stopped by road blocks and thousands of people migrated to some common location. As we walked down the street, a woman dressed as an angel in bright white satin crossed in front of us. The bottom of her costume was cut into a flowing set of pants designed to accommodate the tall stilts that hoisted her high above the rest of the crowd. Everyone was careful to give her loping gait a wide berth so she didn’t come toppling down on top of them. Her feathered wings stretched high above her head and her face was painted a stark white with her cheeks collapsing under a death mask of black.
 

“The comparsa,” Sergio said.

Graciana was still at home cooking and preparing for the crowds of family and friends that would be coming in and out of their home tonight and the all of tomorrow. She had sent Sergio, Anna, and me to the parade so we would be out of her way.

I pulled my eyes from the twelve foot angel and gave Sergio a questioning look.

“Comparsa,” he said again as if this explained everything. When I continued to stare blankly he laughed and shook his head. “You don’t speak any Spanish.”

Sergio was only twelve, but still, my face flushed and I could feel the embarrassment over my ignorance begin to grow. Anger flashed in my chest and I turned my face back to the crowds passing before us.
He’s teasing you Carmen. He’s teasing, nothing more. Let it go.
Always I had to give myself these calm down talks.

Oblivious to my battle, Sergio tried to explain, “Comparsa is like a carnival group. They dress up…with masks. Once it gets darker they will parade down the streets.”

Still not trusting myself to say anything, I continued my stony stare into the crowd. Sergio shifted uncomfortably, his eyes focused on me. “You’re mad,” he said.

“No I’m not,” I said still staring ahead, a family with three small children dressed as vampires walked by.

“Yes you are,” he said turning to watch the other children pass us. “I can always tell.”

Surprised, I turned to him, “You can?”
 

“I can too,” Anna, who hardly ever said anything to me added. “But mostly you’re just sad.”

Feeling exposed, I stared at them both. Since I had been here, I hadn’t really given much thought to either one of them—and this was the first time I’d ever been alone with them.
 

“Come on,” Sergio said taking his little sister’s hand. “Let’s go find a seat before they all fill up.”

I nodded my head and forced a small smile. We joined the crowds flowing down the street, searching for the best spots to view the parade of mummers that would begin as soon as the sun had dropped far enough below the horizon. Only in the dark would the people cloaked as death shake and dance in the attempt to coax the souls of loved ones to return to the living families who loved them.

Hand in hand, Sergio and Anna led the way through the crowd in front of me. Twice Sergio pulled his sister closer to him when the crowd threatened to separate them. I trailed after them, mesmerized, wondering what it felt like to be them.
 

What was life like for Anna? She had the love of her whole family—what did that feel like?

But most girls had that.

Most girls did get normal lives and not crazy mothers. And because their mothers were not busy reading the bible every spare second of the day, these girls knew how to dress and do their makeup, these girls knew how to make friends.
 

As I followed them, the thoughts spun faster until the injustices of my life collected into a tight ball at the base of my throat. There was my mother, disheveled and mumbling scripture, forbidding me from every experience that might otherwise have trained me to function like a normal person. My father, who I barely remembered, the man who escaped into a life without my mother but didn’t care enough to rescue me as well.
 

And Daniel. Always the specter of Daniel hung over everything. He was the shroud that blocked out the light so nothing could grow right.
 

I again thought of the picture in my bag, blonde hair blazing, happy and smiling—dead. Did Daniel and I once hold hands like Sergio and Anna?
 

The crowd pushed in around us and a panic rushed though my veins as people filled the spaces between me and the kids.