Page 5 of Mariposa
I pull out my keys and hit a button twice to get into my white sedan. Sitting inside the driver’s seat, I text my mother.
Me:
Grandma is having a good day today. I’m on my way back home.
Ma:
Okay.
I’m surprised she texted back so fast. I take it as a sign to try to have one last conversation with her before I leave again. I stare at my screen and scroll through my photos, a habit I like to do when I’m stressed. I scroll all the way to the top, where I find pictures of the four of us—my once-complete family: my dad, my mother, and my older sister, Isabella.
My father’s black peppered hair is short and combed to the side. His large, circular prescription glasses are on his small nose. The sun shines on our olive skin, and my sister is dressed in her outfit of pink head to toe, with pink lipstick. I’m holding onto my mother in my jeans and striped, dark blue sweater. It was my sister’s celebratory dinner for college graduation at the local Italian pizza place. I turn my phone off before grief can come back in a harsh wave and swim out of the memories.
As soon as my car turns on, I make my way towards Mom’s house. We live in a cozy one-story, three-bedroom home in a neighborhood near the Catholic church I grew up attending every Sunday morning. As I drive out of the hospital vicinity, dread slowly creeps into my chest. It doesn’t feel like my home anymore, not since my father passed away. Ever since he died, my mother has too. A cold aura now replaces her warmth. I wish she would accompany me on the visits with my grandma.
I die slowly every time I see her receive treatment. I can’t lose her. Ever since she got diagnosed, I’ve been on edge, terrified at the thought that she won’t be here anymore, even thoughshe is here.
My throat constricts, and I’m doing everything I can to fight the dry tightening in the back of it as I park my car in my mother’s driveway. I sit there, listening to The Fray, and suck in a breath.
Everything feels like it’s going to shit lately. But it’s too late to change it now. There’s nothing left for me here anymore.
3
VIOLET
“Ma…por favor.Habla conmigo.”
“No!”
“Please.”
“No! I lost your father to the same job you’re signing up for?” She glares disgustedly. “Now I get to worry about you, too?”
I try to grab her hand, but she pulls away like I’m a disease and my ambition is a poisonous infection.
“I just got back home from Basic Training. Please don’t do this to me. I was looking for you in the crowd, Ma, and you weren’t there!”
My mother’s youngest daughter wants to honor her father’s legacy, but she can’t accept it.
“Ma!”
“Why can’t you settle down here? In this town? Go to the local college? Focus on your relationship with Adam. Have his kids, be his wife, and stay home? Hold down the house while he works? Why are you going to do that job?”
I whip my head back like she slapped me in the face with her palm. She might as well have. Tears cling to my lashes, and my shoulders slump in defeat.
“I want more…” I murmur. My face drops when I play with my father’s dog tags in my pocket. If my father were still alive, he would have been my number one supporter. He would convince my mom to stop overreacting because I’d be fine.
I meet her stern gaze, but she doesn’t waver. I search for my father’s ghost, wishing he were standing before me, telling her to let me go, but when my mother continues to deny me with flinty eyes and curled lips in the living room right by our family portrait, he’s nowhere to be found. He’s not here because he’s dead, and I’m still struggling to accept it years later.
“I want to do more,” I concede. “I want to be just likePapa.”
“You’re small.” She points to me like she’s been holding back her true feelings. “You’re short and little. You’re slower. You’re not as strong as the men. You. Are. My. Little. Girl.”
My nose scrunches.
“But I am alsomy father’s daughter,” I point out. My brow raises, and I meet her stressed gaze. Her nostrils flare, and she clicks her tongue, pissed off.
She knows exactly what I’m talking about. I turn to the picture of my father on the wall. He’s in his uniform. A photo from one of his deployments shows him holding his rifle in one hand. He was the most successful sniper in the world until someone named Daegan Hannibal came along and surpassed his record.
