La alma de la comunidad, that’s what St. Cajetan’s was. And still those pillos used her to undercut their fight. The city would’ve torn the church down too if his people hadn’t managed to save it, something they couldn’t do for their own homes and businesses. He could still hear Father Garcia reading the archbishop’s letter. His chest burned, words cutting, mind reeling through confirmations, weddings, funerals, Easters, Christmases, all the life lived in and around that church.
“Gota.” Footfalls followed the voice that he couldn’t believe was speaking. Hot sunlight made the back of Rogelio’s head and neck itch, sweat. He tried to steady his breath, heart knocking against teeth, nails tearing into armrests.
“Dame una gota.”
He didn’t understand what the whistling voice was asking for. A drop? A drop of what? His eyes widened when a shadow darkened the lip of his door.
Light, insistent knocking. “Río.”
“¿Qu-quién es?” Stupid question. Only one person shortened his name like that.
The bookcase by the door, dressers, bunk beds, the coffee table by his feet, they all rattled. A ringing in his head grew unbearably loud. When tunnel vision set in, he squeezed his eyes shut.
Loose black hair and braids cascading over shoulders, red lips curved up, brown skin creasing around dark, friendly eyes. He saw her standing outside his door, wearing la falda roja he loved to climb into so he could play with silver necklaces that dipped under the collar of white peasant blouses. Bangles on her wrist chimed as she reached forward.
The doorknob turned. The bedroom door creaked. His eyelids peeled back, and Río stared, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his temples. At the threshold of the hallway, past his now open door, lay scattered pictures, a smattering of white feathers trailing from them, across his floor and into his lap.
He shot up, walked into the hall.
Every photograph at his feet was of her and him, his gaze landing on one with his younger, little body balanced on her hip outside the family home that had stood two blocks west of St. Cajetan’s. The Auraria home was now broken beams and rubble, lost two months after they lowered her body into the ground.
Tears beaded at the corners of his eyes. Heat in his face, down his throat, into his belly. “I’m angry about it too.” He wiped his cheeks. “No se que hacer.”
“Dame una gota.”
The sound of running followed the whisper this time, chills rushing down his spine. He grabbed the picture, chased after the footsteps until he rounded a corner. The chain was swinging from the ceiling. He took a deep breath and pulled, stairs to the attic lowering with one smooth yank. His feet clattered up worn, hollow steps and pattered across the gray planks he swept once his family moved out of public housing and into this place by Lincoln Park. They somehow managed to buy it after scrimping and saving when the city underpaid them for their former home.
A breeze swept past his face, rustling the hem of the white tablecloth he’d laid over the wooden table he’d waxed himself. The altar was coming together, albeit slowly, with Río decorating it privately during the days leading up to Día de los Muertos. She was the one who’d taught him how to prepare, how to honor and to celebrate. A woman standing in and out of time, she chose to reclaim traditions lost to their family. She was proud of what others said she should let go, held her head high when they saw her difference. He loved how she commanded respect, even if people scorned her for what she held sacred.
In the end, who did they seek when they were sick? La bruja. La curandera.
Her red lips curved into a knowing grin when they returned to her and their people’s wisdom.
Río dug into his pockets, found a lighter and a plastic-wrapped disc of marzipan candy. His heart slowed when he peeled the powdery round free and set la ofrenda on her favorite porcelain dish. His fingers traced the raised, painted roses and green stems running the dish’s rim, his other hand lighting the tallest of the white candles on the table. Rogelio set down the photo he’d brought from the hall, propped it against the candle as it burned. His feet backpedaled until they hit the legs of the fold-out chair he’d taken from Casa Mayan after it closed. The metal creaked under his weight.
He already had her picture centered on the second level of the altar; he had painted the frame gold two nights ago. The metallic sheen glistened in the flame and in the speckled sunlight peeking through the attic’s shuttered, round window. Resting over the purple, red, pinks, and blues of el papel picado he’d crafted, the tissue paper created a colorful skirt under her face.
He was missing several things. His anger toward the church made it difficult to place the saints and crucifixes on the top level. He would wait until the night before Día de los Muertos to put them up, leaving those supplies covered and stacked beside his chair. Her small plot of marigolds lay wasted under the rubble of the neighborhood. Río wasn’t sure if he would be able to buy any, with how tight money was. Same with copal.
But as he sat there in the dim light, it didn’t feel like she minded.
He wrapped anxious hands around knees. How the days dragged on without her. His father always kidded about how much he was like her, not understanding how true that really was.
“Tía Paloma,” Río’s soft voice floated onto the altar, stroked her picture, held up el dulce de cacahuate.
The house creaked and moaned.
“I’m listening, Tía.”
The white tablecloth billowed. He felt the cool breeze cutting through space like a knife, whirling around the tall white candle, red-orange flame dancing, Río feeling a heat spread across his cheeks as the fire brightened. Footsteps creaked toward him, slow, deliberate, heavy. The candlelight changed direction, spotlighting the house in the picture of Río and Tía Paloma until it felt like the fire was burning inside the windows.
And then he felt it, someone in front of him, the air dense and unmoving. Cold swept over his body like a hug, pushed him deeper into the metal of the fold-out chair. His vision blurred.
Blood in the streets. Blood in the ground.
He stood amid the rubble of the Auraria neighborhood dressed in a red skirt, huipil, and shawl, holding her hand, staring at the shape of the house they still saw silhouetted against moonlight.
She whispered in his ear and let go.
Río opened his eyes when he heard the front door open, not realizing hours had passed since he sat down. His family poured inside, bodies filling the two floors below him. Laughing, singsong voices swam into brick walls and ceilings. Bedroom doors swung open. Closets peeled back to receive dress shirts, pants, and skirts. Pans and cutting boards clattered in the kitchen, and soon he heard his mother calling for help with Sunday’s meal.
The candles on the altar had gone out. He sat in the dark, watching speckled sunlight fall on the photograph of his little smiling self in front of his home.
“Rogelio,” his father called from the base of the attic stairs.
He stood up, body heavy and relaxed.
“Rogelio, will you come?”
He strode across the floor. Before taking a step down, he glanced over his shoulder, eyes peering at the dark shape of Tía Paloma’s framed photo. “I’ll be right there,” Río said with a smile. “I’m coming.”
“What does he want it for?” his mother asked his father, in reference to the sewing kit Río wanted to borrow.
“Does it matter, Esther?”
He felt it best not to ask for it himself, since Mom huffed around the house past sundown. Throwing dishes into the sink louder than needed, groaning without prompting, and providing one-word answers. Queen of guilt trips, her quiet anger could seethe for days after being defied. He hoped to get used to it one day, but he cringed as he listened to his parents’ sniping from outside the closed bedroom door.