Page 6 of Mariposa
“Mija…por favor. You’re going to get hurt! There has never been a woman from our family in that specific field! It’s always been the men.”
“I know! I’ll be the first. I promise you that,” I declare.
She scoffs. “Okay. Say you make it.” She spills out the scenario as if it’s a delusion. “What happens when you go to war?” She exhales like the thought is too much to bear. She tightens her dark brown eyes at me, and a tear falls down hercheek. “I can’t lose you! You are my oldest, Violet.” She waves her hands in front of me as she makes her argument.
“Mom…I’ll be okay.”
“You don’t know that! And if something happens to you, I don’t want to be the one who says, I told you so!”
“Mama!” I pull back as her words stab my heart. “Then don’t.” I stifle the gasp that wants to pour out of me. How could she say that?
She continues to disconnect from me. She turns away from me and grips her elbows for self-comfort over her black cardigan. She has a very unfair mentality. It’s her way or no way.
“Please, Mom. I will do this whether you approve of it or not.” I let go of my father’s dog tags in my pocket. I try to get my ‘see you soon’ hug from her with my arms stretched out, but she walks away and denies me with a shake of her head. She holds the rosary in her hand until her knuckles turn white.
My vision blurs until my lashes can’t hold the tears anymore. I quickly wipe them away, not wanting to show her weakness—no skips in my determination.
“Write me letters?” I offer gently while sniffling, my tone full of hope. “I won’t be able to have my cell on, but I can get letters. I’m sure I’ll be able to have phone calls sometimes. As soon as I get there, I’ll call you, and?—”
“Don’t bother.Salte de mi casa.” She keeps her gaze pinned to my father’s portrait as she points to the front door behind me.
“Ma?” I cry out. I place my hand on my chest, aching to hug her. She hasn’t held me since he died…since the funeral.
Finally, our eyes meet, but hers are no longer the eyes of a mother. They only hold dark resentment. She plays with the ends of her peppered, curly black hair like she’s trying to refrain from saying more things she may regret.
I don’t recognize this side of my mother.
She’s talking to me like I’m a stranger in the home she raised me in for the past twenty years. I look around the cream-colored walls and stare at the furniture, at the television I used to watch my favorite horror movies on while she yelled at me to change it to her favoritenovellas.
I gaze at the kitchen, where I used to help my mom bake flan every other month whenever she felt stressed, or on special occasions.
Then I stare at my cross necklace that hangs down my neck.
I open my mouth, trying to stabilize my trembling lips to wish her my final goodbye.
“Don’t do this. I’m going to need you. I’m always going to need you because I am your daughter. You’re the only family I have left. Please,Mama.”
“No entiendes? I’m disowning you. You’re not an Isla. You are no daughter of mine.”
Pure silence fills the room as I register what she means.
“Because I’m joining the military?”
“Yes!”
The wind and warmth knock me out as I process her denial. She’s denying her daughter. Because I want to honor my dad. I genuinely believe this is what my father would be so proud of. I won’t deter my decision for anyone.
All the emotions and stress from training and enlisting I’ve held within me spill through the cracks of the shield I’ve built. I’ve learned to stay strong and handle anything that gets thrown my way ever since my father passed away because the man of the house was gone, and I needed to step up. I’ve been the strength my mother needs on the days when the grief gets too much.
She blames me for his death. She’s never said it, but she doesn’t have to. She says it in the way she hasn’t hugged me since the funeral. She screams it with the way she’s been absent from all of my school graduations since joining the military. Ithought she needed more time. I hoped that she would stop seeing me as the girl who is responsible for her husband’s death and treat me like her daughter again…but I was wrong.
“You don’t believe I can do this?” I squeak out.
She shrugs with a blank stare as her chest rises and falls fast.
“I’m sorry, but you’re on your own now.”
A hot tear rolls down my cheek with broken hope that I’ll see her on my graduation day.
