Page 2 of Daughter of Rot

THE PERFECT FAMILY

Isela’s version of a perfect family sits at the dinner table and they swallow their pride and their resentment and they pretend to understand what unconditional love could possibly mean. They eat in silence and they toast to another meal. The aroma of the herbs she’s pulled from the community garden to garnish the food settles in the air. Dinner is cooked to perfection and no one can say otherwise.

She laughs at Alfonso’s stories, even when there’s no funny anecdote, no reason to throw her head back in delight. She wants him to understand that she’s been trained in the language of placating a man. In dumbing herself down. In holding her tongue. She can disarm him with her body and by treating him like she thinks his mother would.

Isela’s version of a perfect family lives hundreds of miles away from anyone who might have the audacity to tell Alfonso stories of what she’d been like before she met him. Isela’s lies were plentiful, flimsy, and lacked afterthought. She blurted them out as though she had no choice but to say them. Her stories meandered toward the absurd. It got to the point where she began to question which versions of her past self were real or made up. It’s not that she felt guilty. The idea of consequence was never on her mind. She wasn’t capable of shame, but she understood that chisme could spread like a thunderstorm, so the family moved from Texas to New Mexico.

The baby can’t say much about Isela’s mothering as she’s barely babbling. Isela wonders when this child of hers will stab her in the back. What lies will this girl tell? Isela bottle feeds her while she describes the celestial movements of the planets to the little being. Every three hours, they wake together, Isela drenched in sweat, with clumps of her hair cemented to her pillowcase. The baby gets fed, over and over, and then she cries, over and over. Delirious and numb, Isela wonders if it will ever end. She finds herself outside of the apartment complex with the baby in her arms, rocking back and forth. The thought of leaving the baby at the base of an oak tree as an offering overwhelms her. She steps inside and rocks the baby by the glow of the TV, but she also warns the baby not to make her do it. Do not make her a destroyer of worlds. The baby says nothing and Isela likes it that way.

The baby has Alfonso’s eyes. They almost sparkle, but this moves nothing in Isela. There are mornings when the baby reaches for her, but Isela doesn’t pick her up. Instead, she gives her a pacifier and plays oldies on her record player. When the baby wails, the fluctuation of phantom contractions echo in Isela's belly so she locks herself in the coat closet furthest away from the baby’s crib. She hides until the baby stops. She daydreams about clawing her own eyes out. She fantasizes about dancing barefoot in the rain until flood waters take her, swift and violent, and most of all, the water could make her disappear forever. Sometimes, Isela goes out at night and wanders under the gleam of street lamps begging for something to take her. A demon. A ghost. La Llorona.

It never happens so she settles for screaming into her pillow or going outside and sticking her head under the deep end of the apartment pool knowing she won’t drown, but she could try.

THE HOUSE

The house was born in 1995. It was born from an easy blueprint and brought earthside in a rush by the hands of beautiful brown men who played songs from their youth. A mixture of early 90’s R&B love ballads and rancheras from the diaphragms of crooning, yearning men. A vibrant adobe home amongst a canopy of quaking aspen, blue spruce, and ponderosa pine. The house imagined itself as a sturdy ancient redwood, with sprawling roots spreading to the earth below. When the house was finished, it held onto the echoes of the men who built it. Their sounds swelled within empty walls. Laughter. Rage. Arguments. Conversations of uncertainty. Forest spirits and the ghosts of mice and hummingbirds floated through as they continued their afterlives.

Oak trees embraced the house. Fields of wildflowers swayed in pops of reds and yellows along the gravel road which led families to the little house. Out back, a steady stream babbled along, and the house eavesdropped on the frantic movements of squirrels and racoons storing food and bickering over territory. Beyond the river, birch trees stood tall with their skinny trunks, watchful and ready to judge hikers who underestimated the trails.

When the house was new, families came and went, year after year, filling the space with their energies and turbulence and warmth. The house became infused with recipes and songs and the quiet alchemy of prayers. Violence and rage seeped into the walls as well, enmeshing itself by the grit and the fumes and the uncanny way people transformed with alcohol coating their tongues. The laughter and giggles of imaginations peppered the rooms with light.

The house understood family dynamics intimately as it learned, watched, and listened. One truly never knows what happens behind closed doors, but when Isela, Alfonso, and Olivia Velasquez walked through the bright red door, the house knew that this was the family who could handle what was to come.

HOME IS WHERE THE MOTHER IS

The house is far away enough from the nearest city that it feels like no one else on earth could possibly reach it. The house looks like any other quaint adobe. A doppelgänger of sorts. Isela added a white picket fence to outline her ever-growing herb garden. She hung chile ristras on either side of the blood red door.

This is where Olivia grows up. A momentary second womb. Her family moved in when she was four. She’s six now and she likes to be alone. Well, she’s used to being alone during the mornings. She sings to herself and erupts with noises that make her laugh. Pops. Clicks. Gurgles. On Wednesdays, she screams until all the grackles and crows surge out of the surrounding trees. Wednesday is her longest day alone.

According to Olivia, the soul of the house sleeps in the white shed out back. The soul glistens along the thin lines of sparkling spider webbing intertwined with years of insect carcasses and dust. The soul of the house remains appeased as long as the plants around her are alive and well. Olivia obliges and sings to the greenery in the mornings. She watches drunk bumblebees fall asleep inside rose of Sharon petals as the sun hits the highest point in the sky. She sniffs the flowers and tells them they are glamorous and beautiful. She licks petals and pokes at their centers, hoping one of the flowers will suck her inside and tuck her away forever.

The kidney of the house is the kitchen. Olivia was born with one kidney and she’s not exactly sure what it’s supposed to do, but she was always told she could survive on the one. Kidney and kitchen sound close enough. In the kitchen, Isela left fideo in a container, along with sliced limes. An empty bowl and spoon are left on the table along with juice boxes, chips, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and a water bottle. Olivia understands microwave mechanics and she knows how to wash her own dishes. The fridge is sparse, but on special days, Olivia makes concoctions of different juices. Apple juice, pineapple juice from the can, and orange juice. It tastes too tart to tell any flavor apart, but Olivia insists it’s her scientific experiment and a treat for her sole kidney. A step stool leans against the kitchen sink, ready for her to use. Two of the upper cabinets are guarded with signs Isela drew indicating “do not open.” Duct tape from underneath the cabinet runs right up to the middle of the cabinet doors to keep them nice and shut.

Olivia turns the TV on and searches for telenovelas. She leaves them on in the background for ambience. Some of the Spanish words stick, others don’t. One of Olivia’s tasks during the week is to dust the ceramic chicken figurines on the shelves in the living room. She drags the step stool from the kitchen into the living room and gently swipes the chickens with a microfiber cloth. The silkie chicken is named Leonora because it sounds fancy and Leonora shimmers under the sunlight’s glow. The speckled Sussex hen is named Roberta the Second, as the namesake before her broke in a “spectral” accident. Isela blamed a poltergeist. In reality, it was her temper; enraged from a conversation on the phone, Isela threw Roberta the First against the wall and then pulverized her with a hammer in a frenzy. The Polish chicken is named Magdalena. Magda for short. Mags on days when the chicken’s eyes looked deeper than they were supposed to. Mags knew all of your secrets, Olivia just wasn’t sure how to prove it. The Jersey Giant is named Chupacabra. This particular chicken was definitely a troublemaker. Again, Olivia couldn’t prove it, she just knew.

The chicken shelf was the heart of the house. According to a Mexican medical drama called Glowing Hearts: Medical Drama Mexico (Corazónes Brillantes: Drama Médico Mexico), where the male lead (TML) has the power to see glowing hearts in the chests of unknowing strangers, the heart has four chambers. In the show, the glowing hearts only beamed inside people who were in love. In one episode, TML has a dream where he walks through four doors, the chambers of his own heart, and finds that each room is empty. Olivia likened the chicken shelf to these chambers.

Olivia’s room was an ear canal. A pleasant cavern with a winding path which she often imagined leading her further and deeper into the earth. She saw a diagram in the doctor’s office and loved the spiraling cochlea. It enchanted her, that such a darling shape existed inside of her head.

Her mom and dad’s room was off limits. Isela locked it shut every morning. When she felt brave, Olivia peeked through the bottom crack of the door. Lights flickered and shadows moved across the room. On those brave days, she stuck her fingers under the door hoping for something to grab them from the other side, but nothing ever did.

Olivia feels overwhelming admiration and affection for the big oak trees that surround the house like old guardians. In the evenings, Olivia sits under them with soft foamed headphones and listens to cassettes of songs she’s recorded off the radio. She dances around. She screams. She sings. She throws her arms up. She tries to shake out the nerves that feel permanent in her belly and she moves her hips around, mimicking scantily clad bombshells in music videos. She loves singing her own lyrics. She’s written songs about birds, bears, leaves, clouds, what she thinks love is. She watches fireflies and dragonflies who leave behind neon strings of light as they fly. The colors stick around for a few seconds and then they disappear.

If the landline inside ever goes off, Olivia sprints to ensure she answers. Her dad calls during his lunch break. Her mom doesn’t call and if she does, Olivia braces herself.

My little olive, I had a dream that I was murdered in the house. Hacked bloody at the face and the belly. I was a splat! Will you make sure there’s no one hiding in the closets? Make sure for me or I won’t be able to sleep tonight.

Or My little olive, I had a dream that you ran away in bare feet and never came back. I couldn’t find you, no matter how hard I looked. Where did you go?

Or What would you do if I died tomorrow? Would you be happy? Is that what you want? Tell me the truth, little olive. Do you want me dead?

Olivia hung up those phone calls with a gentle click and held her breath until she saw spots. The spores of her imagination floated around her until she calmed herself and carried on with her day as if nothing strange was said.

WE ARE LIKE WITCHES IN THE KITCHEN

Fresh ingredients are a must. Ground beef. Carrots. Potatoes. Zucchini. Roma tomatoes. Corn on the cob. White onion. Garlic. Cilantro. Mint. Oregano. This is how you’ll get the best results. This is the recipe passed down from your great-great grandmother, Catalina. She perfected the recipe. She understood the meaning of putting love into cooking. Even though her husband was a vile drunk who eventually left her, she never forgot about love in her cooking. Love in spite of being unloved. I am not saying it to be mean. Your great-great grandma was an excellent cook. I would give anything to taste her food again. She was a phenomenal seamstress too. Her handmade dresses were exquisite and impeccable. Her taste in men was questionable. As an enamorada, she was an idiot, but what can you do?

Okay, first, we chop the white onion but you have to be fast or you’ll cry. Then, the tomatoes. Mince the garlic. Then, the cilantro. Smell it on your hands and fingertips, get to know the layers of fragrances. Now, mint. I grabbed some from the garden. Smell the mint on your hands and in the air. Get swept away by the fragrances, get swept away by the fact that you are making something that will turn out delicious. You will be nourished by your own hands. Your great-great grandma never remarried, but she kept her children fed.