The Queen of Water (15 page)

chapter 24

T
HE DOCTORITA RETURNS
from her eight-month prenatal appointment pale and terrified. The doctor has said there’s a major problem, that she has to go immediately to the big hospital in Quito.

In a panic, Niño Carlitos packs her bag and drives her to the hospital, over an hour away. That evening, when he comes home, dark circles hang beneath his eyes, and he sinks into a velvet chair. “Can you get me some lemonade,
m’hija
?”

I pour his lemonade. “How’s the Doctorita?” I ask nervously. “Will she be coming home soon?”

He shakes his head. “She has to stay there until the baby’s born.”

“How long?”

“A week. A month. Depends when the baby comes.”

My muscles tense. That means a week or more in the house with just him and the boys. No amount of booby-trapping will stop him from getting what he wants. I’ll have to do something else. In the meantime, until I make a plan, I hope he’s so exhausted he’ll just go to bed and sleep all evening until the next day.

After dinner, he goes to his room to rest. The boys are in their room, playing with their dump trucks. I can hear faint
bbbrrrs
and
vvvrrrmmms
and plastic truck crashes through the door. I start washing the dishes, praying Niño Carlitos will just fall asleep and sleep until morning.

His voice calls out. “Virginia!”

“Yes?”

“Bring me some water.”

I pour a glass of water and take a deep breath. The water shivers in its glass. Upstairs, I knock on his door softly.

“Come in.”

I push the door open. Niño Carlitos is lying on the pink llama bedspread, his head propped on fluffy pillows, watching me with colorless eyes, the lids half closed. His face looks gray and pasty and eager, his thin hair combed pathetically over the growing bald spot. How could I ever have wished this man was my father? How could this man ever have been my protector?

I set the glass on a doily on the bedside table and turn to leave.
“M’hijita,”
he says, his voice greasy. “How nice you are. How pretty.”

“Thanks,” I mumble, and head out the door.

“Come here,” he says. “Come sit down on the bed.”

I keep walking. “I need to wash the dishes now,” I call over my shoulder, and run downstairs to the kitchen. With trembling hands, I finish washing the dishes. As I’m drying my hands, his footsteps sound on the stairs. He presses up behind me, same as always, but this time is different. This time I know I can defend myself for only so long. Even if I run out on an errand, he’ll be waiting for me, alone, when I come back.

I duck away. “I’m going to clean the floor now,” I say, and dash upstairs.

He follows me.

I run up the next flight of stairs to the terrace, where I keep the bucket and mop.

Thankfully he doesn’t chase me up here. “Bring me more water,” he calls.

I lean against the wall, feeling nauseated. Orange light pools at the horizon, like heaps of glowing silk. I think about
Understanding Our Universe,
of its diagram of the sun’s rays angled in the evenings. Air molecules scatter the short wavelength colors, so only soft, warm pinks and yellows and oranges shine through. Knowing this comforts me. I want to stay out here, beneath the sky where things feel safer and simpler, where I understand things.

“Virginia!” he shouts. “Now!”

Every cell in my body dreads going downstairs. Clutching the bucket and mop, I force myself to walk down to the kitchen and pour another glass of water. This time, as I put it on the bedside table, his hand shoots out and grabs my wrist. He pulls me onto the bed, on top of him.

“No,” I cry, struggling with all my strength. His grip is firm, but I manage to untangle myself. I stagger back, away from the bed. Once I catch my balance, I run upstairs to my room. I lock the door and sit on my bed, my heart hammering.

And then, with a drowning feeling, I realize: he has an extra set of keys to all the rooms of the house.

*  *  *

Later that night, after the boys are asleep and the city is dark and quiet, Niño Carlitos bangs on my door. “Open up!” His voice is slurred. He must have been drinking. “Open up, Virginia!”

¡Dios mío!
It’s only a matter of time before he goes downstairs for the extra set of keys.
What to do? What to do?
I sit on the edge of my bed and hug my pillow tight.

Even if I push furniture in front of the door, that will only keep him out for so long, and this time there’s no Doctorita down the hall. I look around for a weapon. Nothing. My room is stark—a narrow bed, a small table, a bare lightbulb, an old chest of drawers for my clothes. Not even a lamp or a pocketknife.

Eventually the banging stops. Niño Carlitos curses and stumbles down the metal stairs. I take a deep breath and open the door a crack, peering out. All clear. Now’s my chance. I run across the dark terrace, climb over the wall, and head toward the neighbor’s glass doors. The lights are on, but no one’s in the room.

Niño Carlitos’s shouts rise from below and his footsteps start clanking up the metal steps. I hear the keys jangling.

No time to knock. I open their door, slip inside, and lock the door behind me. I wander down the hallway and run into Blanca in a sky blue nightgown and fluffy pink slippers.

She jumps. “Virginia! What are you doing here?”

I try to think of a good reason. “I—I—I—” And then I break down into tears. “Blanquita, please don’t make me leave. Please let me stay, please.”

Her mother comes into the hallway. She has a sweet, worried face and a frilly blue and white checked apron, just like a TV mother’s. She takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen table. Everything is blue and white checked in the kitchen—the towels and napkins and curtains and tablecloth. A neat, cozy place. “What happened, honey?” she asks in an angel’s voice.

“It’s that—it’s that”—I can’t cover it up any longer—“it’s that my boss, he’s drunk, and he’s trying to come into my room, and the Doctorita is in Quito, and I’m scared. I’m really, really scared, señora.”

She pats my shoulder. “It’s all right, Virginia, you can stay here. Calm down, honey. You’ll spend the night here. He’s not going to touch you. We’ll take care of you.”

She boils water and serves us lemon balm tea in dainty yellow cups. She takes the chipped cup for herself and gives me the perfect one, as though I’m a real guest. As I sip, she looks at me with concern. “Is there anyone you can call, honey? We have a phone. You could call your parents.”

I shake my head.

“Brothers or sisters?”

I hesitate. “I think my sister lives in Quito. I know her phone number.” If it
is
still her number. It’s been years since I found her note in the Bible, and who knows how many years earlier that Matilde had written it there.

“Well, honey, Quito’s not far at all. Just a bus ride away. Now, why don’t you get a good night’s sleep and tomorrow you can call your sister.”

I nod. “Thank you, señora.”

That night, I sleep with Blanca in her bed. We stay awake talking for a long time, and she tells me about her boyfriend and makes jokes and giggles a lot. “I’m glad you’re here, Virginia,” she confides. “I’ve always wanted a big sister.”

I stay awake most of the night, wondering what will happen when I call my sister the next day. I can’t imagine what she’s like now. I’ve always pictured her the same age she was when I left—probably about twelve. Younger than I am now. Blanca’s age. Which means Matilde must be a grown woman.

This realization makes a new round of tears soak my pillow. What I want is to go back in time—to a childhood I didn’t have—and be a carefree girl like Blanca, giggling with her big sister, sharing jokes and dreams. I want this simple sweetness, this innocence. I want it so badly. I ache with wanting something that never existed, something that never can exist.

The next morning, I wake up early, after just a few hours of broken sleep. The señora is up already, wearing her blue checked apron. “Good morning, honey,” she says, and serves me chamomile tea and bread with blackberry jam, while the morning news blares on the TV. “Your boss hasn’t come for you,” she assures me as she whirls around the kitchen. “I don’t think he even knows you’re here, dear. You’re safe with us. You just take all the time you need.”

I thank her and try to force down the bread and tea. It’s good, but my insides feel too fluttery to eat. After breakfast, she shows me the phone and then, with an encouraging smile, leaves the room to give me privacy.

I put my hand on the receiver, feel the cool plastic. Will Matilde try to make me go back to our parents? Will they give me away again? Is my sister even at this number anymore? Hundreds of questions bang around in my mind while my stomach leaps wildly. Finally, I dial the number that I’ve known by heart for years and press the receiver to my ear.

After three rings, a woman’s voice answers. “Hello?”

“Hello,” I say, sweat trickling from my armpits. My voice sounds strange, outside of my body. My life is about to leap into an unknown place. Here at the edge, it feels like a dream. “May I speak with Matilde, please?”

PART 3

chapter 25

“T
HIS IS
M
ATILDE
,” she answers in a grown-up voice, smooth as cream. As children, I realize, we always spoke Quichua, and now her Spanish words make her sound like a stranger, even though I no longer speak Quichua myself.

I try to steady my voice, but it squeaks out with an edge of desperation. “This is Virginia.”

A pause. “Virginia?” Another pause. “Virginia who?”

I go numb. Then, suddenly, I want to cry, scream, throw the phone against the wall. I grip the edge of the table until my knuckles turn white. “This is your sister.”

A silence. Then a whisper. “Virginia? It’s really you?”

Within seconds, I’m blubbering like a little girl. “You forgot about me, all of you, didn’t you?”

“Oh, Virginia, no, little sister. It’s just that it’s—it’s been so many years.”

“But how could you—” And then my sobs take over.

“Virginia.” Her words are soft. “Shhh, it’s all right.”

I wipe my nose and try to breathe. “Matilde, I want—I want to go home.”

“Of course. Of course, little sister. Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

An old, familiar feeling washes over me, Matilde’s tenderness when I least deserved it. I remember the time when I was little and ventured alone to the market in Otavalo to buy boots with my saved-up snack money. I got hopelessly lost. As punishment, Mamita beat me with a eucalyptus stick, but later, when I told Matilde about it, teary and embarrassed, she held my hand and used that same soothing voice.
I’ll help you, little sister. I’ll take you to the market myself.
As though she’d forgotten about all the times I’d hit her and refused to share fruit and yelled at her in a jealous rage over who would get the biggest potato.

“Thank you, Matilde,” I say.

After she copies down my address and assures me it’s not far from her home in Quito, she says, “Virginia,” her voice full of concern, “can you wait until tomorrow? The señora isn’t here now and I can’t leave her children alone.”

How will I survive one more night of Niño Carlitos? Maybe I can sleep at Blanca’s again if things get bad. I take a deep, wavery breath. “All right. Can you come around eleven tomorrow morning, Matilde, when my boss is at work?”

“Of course, little sister. There are plenty of buses from Quito to Ibarra. I’ll see you at eleven o’clock.”

My tears finally stop and I feel a strange sense of calm, the glassy surface of a lake once the wind stops. Now that we’re older, maybe I can let go of the last lingering envious feelings. Maybe it isn’t too late to giggle together and tell each other secrets. I rub my fingers along the edge of the blue checked tablecloth, feeling the crisp, fresh fabric. A new beginning.

And then, with excitement creeping into her voice, Matilde says, “I have some news.”

“What?”

“I’m getting married.”

Married. A punch in the stomach. Matilde will live with her husband and start having babies and have no time for a little sister. A new batch of tears and mucus streams down my face.

“Virginia, are you still there?”

“Yes,” I manage to say between gasps.

“Hermanita,”
she says. Little sister. The word comforted me for so long whenever I read it on my precious piece of paper. Now it stabs at me. “Tomorrow I’ll bring my fiancé with me so you can meet him.”

“All right,” I whisper.

“See you tomorrow, little sister.”

“Bye.” I hang up and cradle my head in my arms and bawl all over the freshly ironed tablecloth.

An hour later, I’m standing on the terrace in a gray drizzle, watching Niño Carlitos leave for school, his widening bald spot exposed, followed by the boys, who are hunched under big backpacks that make them look like turtles. I’m not sure what Niño Carlitos thinks about my leaving last night. I wonder whether he looked for me, or whether he’s worried about me. I wonder what he told the boys this morning when I wasn’t there to make their breakfast and get them ready for school.

Once they disappear around the corner, I shiver, then breathe out slowly. I poke my head inside to thank Blanca’s mother.

“Oh, honey, are you sure you don’t want to stay here until your sister comes?” she asks for the tenth time.

“I’ll be all right, señora.” I walk slowly across the terrace toward our house, not caring that the rain is soaking me, vaguely wondering why I refused Blanca’s mother’s offer. And the only answer I come up with, unbelievably, is that I don’t feel ready to leave the Doctorita’s family, as flawed as it is. Inside, I sit on the red velvet sofa, my skin damp and goose-bumped, my feet tucked under me. I stare at everything I might never see again: the dangling plants, the crocheted doilies, the cross-stitched roses that I know so well.

Do I really want to go with Matilde tomorrow? I remember the elementary school diploma and the house the Doctorita has promised me. My rewards for putting up with them for eight years. But if I leave now, I’ll have nothing. Absolutely nothing. After all these years.

I’ve already survived the worst. Now the Doctorita only beats me once in a while; maybe after this next baby she’ll get a fourth chin and be so fat, she won’t be able to muster the strength to hit me. Besides, a small part of her appreciates me, respects me even, a part she tries to hide but that springs out sometimes.

A few years ago, when she and Niño Carlitos were in their biggest fight ever, on the verge of divorce, I decided it was up to me to save their marriage. I cooked them a special candlelit dinner, complete with blackberries and cilantro sprigs as garnishes, and rice molded to the shape of an upside-down cup like I’d seen in a magazine. I played a tape of old, romantic music from the years when they were dating, the kind that always gave the Doctorita a far-off, dreamy look in her eyes. Then, despite their protests, I lured them to the table and made a speech. “We are a family. Jaimito and Andrecito and I want our home to be peaceful and happy. So we’re asking you to make up. Now apologize and hug each other.” They smiled hesitantly, then laughed, then really looked at each other for the first time in weeks. And as they said they were sorry, their voices softened, and they melted into a hug.

Later, after dinner, I served them liquor in fancy crystal glasses and they insisted I join them. The Doctorita hummed along with the songs, her hand in Niño Carlitos’s. “The music is a nice touch, Virginia,” she said, “but I thought you didn’t know how to work the stereo.” Feeling brave, I said, “Well, actually, I listen to it every day when you leave the house.” She grinned. “Virginia, what would we do without you?” And Niño Carlitos pulled his wife closer and looked at me with pride. “Thank you, my daughter. You’re tremendous.”

They need me.

Now, in the watery light, I shift on the sofa, move my gaze to the framed photos on the coffee table that I dust every day—Jaimito and Andrecito looking adorable in their school uniforms; the Doctorita and Niño Carlitos walking down the aisle amidst flowers and rice, just married; all four of them together at Christmas, crowded around the Baby Jesus doll in its new lime green outfit. And more frames hold relatives at balloon-filled birthdays and First Communions and baptisms—parents and sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews, all arm in arm, fitting together perfectly.

Their favorite nephew, Raúl, with curly hair and a charming smirk, has a frame all to himself. The Doctorita loves to brag that he’s at the top of his class in the most prestigious
colegio
in Otavalo, República de Ecuador, the
colegio
where her own smart boys would surely go one day. I wonder, does she ever brag about me?

And then it hits me, I am not in a single photo. I am the behind-the-scenes person, the invisible one who makes their lives run smoothly, the one outside the camera frame, the one in the kitchen cooking food or on the patio washing diapers. As much as I want to be part of this family, I am not. And I never will be.

Still, it seems impossible to unravel myself from their lives. Like it or not, we’re crocheted together as tightly as the yarn of a Baby Jesus dress.

The clock says twelve o’clock. An hour until the boys and Niño Carlitos return from school. Maybe if he’s nice to me, if he apologizes, if he promises to go back to how things were before … maybe then I’ll give him one last small chance.

Around one o’clock the door opens and, with a burst of color and noise and raindrops, the boys tumble in and throw their slippery arms around me. Andrecito makes a beeline for his favorite dump truck and starts zooming it around the living-room-table legs. Jaimito shrugs off his backpack and asks, “Where were you this morning, Virginia?”

I glance at Niño Carlitos. Now is his chance to apologize, to make everything better. But no. He’s glaring at me, his face turning red. “Go upstairs to your room, boys.”

They start to protest. “But—”

“Now!”

Groaning, the boys disappear upstairs. Niño Carlitos moves closer. “Where were you last night?”

“In my room.” I stand up, bracing my muscles to run.

He takes a step toward me. “You’re lying.”

I edge away, toward the door, my heart pounding.

He blocks my path. “What’s going on with you?”

I force myself to look at his eyes, searching for a remnant of the soft-spoken man who once thanked me for saving his marriage. But there’s only this crazy-eyed man cornering me like a rabid dog, acting as if he wants to tear me to pieces.

For a tense moment, we stare at each other as the rain drums against the windows. Finally, he barks, “Make the boys their lunch,” and stomps upstairs.

I heat up chicken and potato soup and rice, crying. At the table, my stomach is too jittery for me to eat. Niño Carlitos doesn’t touch his food, either. Jaimito and Andrecito keep putting down their spoons to reach over and hug me. Andrecito offers me his dump truck for comfort, placing it gently on my napkin. Jaimito rests his head on my arm. “Why are you sad, Virginia?”

I look at Niño Carlitos.

In a flat voice, he demands, “Why
are
your eyes puffy, Virginia?”

For a moment I stare at him in disbelief, and then my voice shoots out, hard and cold. “Maybe I’m sick.”

He shakes his head and pushes his plate away, as though I’m the unreasonable one. “I have to go back to Quito for a few days to check on la Negra. You’ll stay here to take care of the boys.”

I look out the front window, past the dripping pink bougainvillea bush to the street, wishing Matilde would appear now and snip every last tie I have with these people.

He moves his head close to mine and whispers low enough that the children won’t hear, “You wouldn’t leave the boys, Virginia.” His words are smug. “Would you?”

I hand Andrecito back his dump truck, whisper thanks, then collect our dishes, letting their clatter fill the silence, and head toward the kitchen without a word.