La Santisima
Copyright 2013 Teresa Frohock
Acknowledgements
Cover art by John Hornor Jacobs
Many thanks to Sabrina Vourvoulias who read a very early version of this story and assisted me with names and locations—I think of you every time I read it.
John Hornor Jacobs and Carrie Cuinn donated their services for this short story. All I ask is that you pay forward as they did. Check out their books and services. John does amazing cover art and Carrie offers workshops, and both are authors worthy of your attention. Stop by their web sites and check them out. I am indebted to both of them for their assistance in bringing this project forward.
La Santisima
I turned fifteen the year the desert swallowed my brother. I should have gone first, but Mamá said that I looked too young, too skinny—no one would hire a boy my size. Although I possessed the sharper wit and even spoke a little English, my wiry build went against me. Time wasn’t our friend and we couldn’t wait for me to attain Jorge’s girth.
Our sister Lucía had lost the ability to walk. At thirteen, her leg braces and crutches no longer fit her, her spine curved more with every passing year. Surgery was out of the question, we couldn’t afford it. She knew she didn’t have long for our world, yet she rarely complained.
The doctor recommended a motorized wheelchair with supports to make Lucía comfortable while her body crucified her. He patiently explained the benefits of the chair to Mamá and Lucía, who sat before his big desk. A nurse propped pillows around Lucía and patted her shoulder gently before departing. Lucía was dwarfed by her chair.
Jorge and I stood behind her, a tattered honor guard dressed in clothes made pale and thin by too many washings. Jorge held his baseball cap in one hand, his knuckles black with the grease that never seemed to leave his skin no matter how hard he scrubbed. He had our Papa’s sad eyes and our Mamá’s quiet demeanor. His gaze flickered to the brochure but he didn’t study it hard—Jorge could barely read.
Lucía pretended to scan the pamphlet. Her gaze followed the direction of mine, straight to the prices. A sour drop of acid hit my stomach. Our finances were stretched to the breaking point. We’d never be able to afford such a machine, and even if we could, our building had no elevator. To hand those glossy pages to Lucía was cruel.
“Look, Mamá, the doctor wants to sell me a Tsuru,” she said. She reached over and patted her wheelchair, an ancient device patched with duct tape and wire. “But I am happy with my old Volkswagen.”
Jorge huffed a soft chuckle.
A tense smile crawled beneath the doctor’s mustache.
Mamá shushed her and took the brochure. “Jorge, Sebastian, take your sister downstairs and wait for me.” She wanted us out before we injured the doctor's pride with more jokes. She knew us too well. “I need to talk to the doctor.”
I dropped my head to hide my grin and folded Lucía’s wheelchair. The idea of the doctor as a car salesman amused me and defused my rising anger just as Lucía probably knew it would. We barely made it from the room before Lucía and I broke into giggles.
Car jokes became the order of the afternoon as Jorge, Lucía, and I left. Jorge led the way, carrying Lucía down the narrow stairs; I followed with her folded wheelchair in my arms.
At the street, we paused to set her in her chair. A well-dressed man shoved his way past Jorge and almost caused him to drop Lucía. The man glared at Jorge as if my brother was shit on his shoes.
Harsh words flew from my mouth to bury what little happiness we’d conjured. My anger was born of my frustration and our vulnerability, but that made it no easier for my family to bear. My rage hovered over us like unquiet stones, an avalanche waiting to fall.
The man didn’t notice my shout. His arrogance escalated my rage.
I cursed and started after him.
Lucía called me back. “Sebastian, stop!”
I whirled and met her hard glare. I saw myself reflected in her eyes, a boy made of rags and brittle shards of fury. Shame merely fueled the fires of helplessness that burned my gut.
Lucía refused to drop her gaze. She never backed down from my rages. Her strength was born of adversity. She defied pain the way I defied authority. If her body matched her spirit, she would be twelve feet tall with legs of thunder and eyes of flame.
We all feared her might.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw the man’s head bob and weave as the distance grew between us. I shoved my hand in my pocket and clutched the only comfort that I possessed. I felt for the small pewter icon of La Santa Muerte.
The skeletal figure was no longer than my finger and fit neatly in my palm. She stood on a pedestal; her long robes concealed all but her face, hands, and her thin, silver feet. She held her globe and scythe close to her body, the long blade curved over her head, an upside-down crescent moon like a frown. Two yellow beads made her eyes glisten wetly.
Neither Mamá nor Jorge knew that I owned the icon. If they did, they would take it from me—Mamá because Father Andrés said La Santa Muerte was the devil and Jorge because the icon was most often associated with the narcos.
My friend Carlos claimed that La Santa Muerte was neither devil nor symbol. He said that she watched over the poor, the ones the Church forgot. Death comes for us all. Keep her as your friend. He promised that she would be my patron saint, that she would protect me and grant my wishes.
I wished the arrogant man who had pushed Jorge would be hit by a bus. The man paused at the street corner. A bus passed without coming close to him.
Fuck the saints. I would catch that bastard and make him sorry with my fists. “Hey!” My shout was swallowed by the crowd as I stepped toward the corner.
“Jorge!” Lucía slapped the arm of her chair in frustration. “Make him stop!”
Jorge snapped at me. “Let it go, Sebastian.”
I turned on him, a retort on my lips.
He threw me a dark glare that wilted my righteous tongue. Jorge, who refused to kill a mouse, would batter my flesh to paste if I continued to upset our sister. He tolerated no abuse of Lucía, and she defended him with the same passion.
He placed himself between the pedestrians and Lucía to protect her from being jostled.
She held her hand out to me.
I gave the man one final glare, then took my sister’s brittle fingers in my own. For her sake, I bit down on my rancor and nailed it deep within me so that my heart hammered and my ears rang. I said nothing more.
Mamá finally joined us and my family walked home.
None of this was their fault.
When my father died, we moved from the country to the slums of Pachuca to be closer to Lucía’s doctors. My mother worked two jobs; the pay at both was poor—like us, we sometimes joked. We’d sold all that we could sell and, as the months passed, our humor stretched as thin as our budget. My two younger sisters Ana and Jazmín took turns watching over Lucía and attended school on alternate days. We depended on ourselves, we had no one else.
Later that evening, after Ana and Jazmín were in bed, Mamá, Lucía, Jorge, and I sat around the table and talked about the journey north. We had scraped together the funds to pay a coyote. A year in the United States, maybe two, and we could earn enough money for Lucía’s surgeries and the means to keep her comfortable. With some time, we might save enough to buy a little store and leave the slums behind. We discussed the dangers—there were many—and our options—there were none. One of us had to leave Pachuca and ride the trains.
My brother was slow and simple, but he possessed a great heart and a strong back. We decided that Jorge would cross the border first.
Lucía held his hand and although she wept no tears, her smile was white with her fear.
Jorge
glanced at the door and I needed no further cue; I knew he wanted to talk to me alone. It was then that I realized how effortlessly Jorge had stepped into our father’s role. Just as Jorge and Lucía had their rites, Jorge and I had ours. Perhaps that is why I never felt left out of the special bond between my siblings; Jorge made sure we all were loved.
He stood and kissed Lucía’s forehead. I followed him into the hall and down the dim stairwell. Outside, cars floated by and offered glimpses of ghostly faces before moving down the street. People chatted as they walked and somewhere a radio played a corrido, the singers’ voices as far away and plaintive as our dreams.
We didn’t walk far before Jorge slipped into the alley between our building and the next. He lit a cigarette and passed the pack to me. “Watch out for them.” He nodded toward our apartment.
I inhaled deeply, the nicotine bitter on my tongue. “I will.”
“Always pick Lucía up from her right side; her left hip hurts all the time. And be gentle. Sometimes you are too rough, Sebastian.” The tip of his cigarette glowed hotly in the darkness as he took a long, hard drag. “I want you to stay away from Carlos.”
I met his gaze, then looked away, but not before he saw my guilt. Carlos ran errands for the narcos. He had approached me recently and told me of the easy money to be made. To prove his goodwill, he had given me the icon of La Santa Muerte.
Carlos understood my rage and frustration. He knew what it meant to be poor with nothing before you and nothing behind. Out of respect for my brother, I never sought him out, but if he found me, I didn’t turn him away.
Jorge’s palm touched the back of my neck. He drew me close and pressed his forehead against mine. “Are you listening, Sebastian?” He forced me to look at him and the fear in his eyes sparked disquiet in my heart. “We don’t need Carlos. Money never comes easy, no matter what he says. You stay away from him and all the ones like him. Promise me.”
I squeezed the icon in my pocket and wished for a miracle. None came. “I promise,” I whispered.
“What else?”
“Pick Lucía up from the right, help Mamá, watch my temper, and make sure that Ana and Jazmín go to school.”
“Good.” Jorge kissed my cheek and released me. “Rely on Lucía. You both can do this.”
My hand shook as I raised the last of the cigarette to my lips. I looked away. I didn’t share his confidence, but I said nothing more. I tossed the butt into the gutter and followed him back inside.
Two days later, Jorge was gone from us. He disappeared into the crowds, headed for the trains. I expected Lucía to grieve; instead, she devoted herself to Ana and Jazmín, making sure they did their schoolwork. Her constant humor kept my anger subdued.
The days passed into weeks and we fell into our routines. I clearly saw why Jorge admired Lucía. Rather than focus on her pain and fear, she channeled her energy into loving us. Attuned to our moods, she easily defused confrontations before they began.
Only in the evenings, when Mamá had fallen into her exhausted sleep and Ana and Jazmín curled up on the sofa, did Lucía give in to her fears. One night, the sound of her weeping dragged me from uneasy dreams. I staggered out of my bed and hurried down the short hall to her room. She had slid sideways in the bed so that she lay crumpled on her side.
“Ya, ya, ya.” I lifted her gently, mindful of her left hip. Then I eased her into my lap as I’d seen Jorge do so many times in the past. Her wet cheek rested against my chest. Birds weighed more than she. “Are you in pain? Do you want your medicine?”
She shook her head. “I miss Jorge.”
“Me too,” I whispered and smoothed her hair.
All during the days, she was strong for us, and we easily forgot that she was just a child. Often I had awakened in the night to find Jorge gone and now I understood. Just as Lucía comforted us, so did Jorge hold her while she wept her fears to him. I patted her shoulder as gently as I knew how, woefully aware that my brother’s role was too large for me to fill.
Uncomfortable in the face of Lucía’s grief, I sought some way to deflect her sorrow. All I had was the small icon in the pocket of my shorts. “Be quiet now. I’ll show you something, a secret.”
She wiped her eyes with the sheet and frowned up at me.
I withdrew the icon and held it up in a strip of pale moonlight. “No one knows I have her, not even Jorge, especially not Mamá.” Santa Muerte’s eyes were amber in the night.
“I know her,” Lucía whispered. “I have seen her in my dreams and made her my friend. She walks beside me every day and lends me her strength.”
A chill passed over my flesh. Lucía lived on the periphery between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Of course she would know La Santa Muerte.
Lucía stroked the icon’s silvery head. “She is cold.”
“She is death.” My hand closed over Lucía’s and we sat quietly, holding the icon together. “I pray every night that she will give us some news of Jorge.”
“Has she answered you?”
I shook my head. “You won’t tell Mamá, will you?”
“No.” She breathed the word softly. “Pray to her.” The command resurrected the Lucía I knew, a woman-child with eyes of flame and a heart to match.
“The icon is yours, Sebastian. You must pray to her,” she said again. “Tell her we want to see Jorge.”
Many times I had prayed to La Santa Muerte and received no answer. I didn’t believe anything would happen tonight, but I saw no point in refusing Lucía. If the ritual helped her sleep and brought her rest, then I could play the game. I settled myself on the bed and cradled her in my arms. We held the icon together as I whispered the Lord’s Prayer, then invoked my request to La Santa Muerte to reveal Jorge to us as he traveled north. A mild shiver coursed through my body.
Lucía repeated my prayer. The third time, we said it in unison. I kept waiting for Mamá to investigate the noise, but she never came.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall. The night grew still and cocooned us in deep silence. The heavy carbon odor of the city gave way to the scent of creosote. A hot wind tousled my hair.
I dreamed that I stood in the desert with Lucía in my arms. We held the icon, hot between our palms, and watched a man run across the wasteland. A cloud yawned over the stars …