Read Online A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernández - Free Book Online
Authors: Daisy Hernández
Ads: Link
forgiveness. The heart doesn’t work that way. I have to gather information, take notes, observe what changes, what stays constant, what remains hidden, what can be trusted. Forgiveness and faith are like writing a story. They take time, effort, revisions.
When Ana leaves, my father sits on a folding chair in the basement. He lights up a cigar and I put my clothes in the washing machine. Elegguá sits on the floor nearby as usual, his face blood-stained, his cowrie shell eyes watchful and, it appears to me, smiling.
A Cup of Water Under My Bed
L a Viejita María is a woman who looks like dried corn. Her face is a light yellow, the skin dry and wrinkled; her white hair like a husk, with silk threads pulled back and running wild around her head. She lets Tía Chuchi and me into her apartment, her dark eyes peering at me. It is the first time she and I are meeting. I am in high school and she grins, as if she approves of my height, my hair, my age.
The apartment itself is stuffed with white carnations, rosary beads, statues of San Lázaro and La Virgen del Cobre. Dollar bills are folded at the feet of the saints, creating the impression that the holy ones are grabbing the money between their toes. Apples are laid out for the saints, too, and unlit candles crowd the shelves and side tables, their wicks bent like black fingers pointing at me.
We talk with the viejita for a while. Actually, it is Tía Chuchi who speaks. She sits on the edge of a love seat and slips into a back and forth with the old lady about people they know from Bergenline Avenue and which priest is presiding over the morning Mass these days. Their conversation moves like a river, following the contours of question marks and commas. I try to not stare at the santos , because their eyes look more real than my own. I also ignore the bag of cookies my auntie brought and which sits unopened on the coffee table. When La Viejita María glances at me, I offer her a polite smile.
The old woman is supposed to read the cards for me.
We are here because I am growing older, because Tía Chuchi thought this was a good idea, because the factories in New Jersey are closing, and although I do not plan to work in a fábrica , I am worried about the money. No one ever told me how much college costs, and I keep imagining the worst: unable to afford higher education, I work as a manager at McDonald’s, closing the store at one in the morning, my babies binging on the Happy Meals I bring home. The cards, the tarot cards, will tell us what we need to know about the future.
Us. My future is always plural. It is always about my mother and my father and my aunties and my sister. The pressure is enormous, and La Viejita is here to ease the sensation that comes over me whenever I think of the years ahead: the feeling of a fist squeezing my throat.
The conversation between the two women continues until, as if by the natural order of things, the river takes a turn in the woods, passes a small clearing.
“María,” Tía Chuchi begins. “It’s that we came for the girl.”
The viejita sets her eyes on me. There are a few moments of mutual observation, and then the kitchen table is cleared and the cards are shuffled. The old woman instructs me to create three stacks with the cards. She picks one stack and places the cards on the table side by side, creating a long river of images: of men in robes, a smattering of swords, knights riding horses, a woman wearing a crown. The viejita observes each card as if it were an old friend and tells me what they are whispering to her: a man is protecting you, a woman is leading you, you are working with books and words, and this is good. There are other pronouncements until we reach the last card.
“Don’t worry about the money,” the old corn-face lady says, grinning at me. “The money will come.”
The viejita gives me that kindly old people way of looking, as if she has already been where I am now and she has no judgment about it. I
When Ana leaves, my father sits on a folding chair in the basement. He lights up a cigar and I put my clothes in the washing machine. Elegguá sits on the floor nearby as usual, his face blood-stained, his cowrie shell eyes watchful and, it appears to me, smiling.
A Cup of Water Under My Bed
L a Viejita María is a woman who looks like dried corn. Her face is a light yellow, the skin dry and wrinkled; her white hair like a husk, with silk threads pulled back and running wild around her head. She lets Tía Chuchi and me into her apartment, her dark eyes peering at me. It is the first time she and I are meeting. I am in high school and she grins, as if she approves of my height, my hair, my age.
The apartment itself is stuffed with white carnations, rosary beads, statues of San Lázaro and La Virgen del Cobre. Dollar bills are folded at the feet of the saints, creating the impression that the holy ones are grabbing the money between their toes. Apples are laid out for the saints, too, and unlit candles crowd the shelves and side tables, their wicks bent like black fingers pointing at me.
We talk with the viejita for a while. Actually, it is Tía Chuchi who speaks. She sits on the edge of a love seat and slips into a back and forth with the old lady about people they know from Bergenline Avenue and which priest is presiding over the morning Mass these days. Their conversation moves like a river, following the contours of question marks and commas. I try to not stare at the santos , because their eyes look more real than my own. I also ignore the bag of cookies my auntie brought and which sits unopened on the coffee table. When La Viejita María glances at me, I offer her a polite smile.
The old woman is supposed to read the cards for me.
We are here because I am growing older, because Tía Chuchi thought this was a good idea, because the factories in New Jersey are closing, and although I do not plan to work in a fábrica , I am worried about the money. No one ever told me how much college costs, and I keep imagining the worst: unable to afford higher education, I work as a manager at McDonald’s, closing the store at one in the morning, my babies binging on the Happy Meals I bring home. The cards, the tarot cards, will tell us what we need to know about the future.
Us. My future is always plural. It is always about my mother and my father and my aunties and my sister. The pressure is enormous, and La Viejita is here to ease the sensation that comes over me whenever I think of the years ahead: the feeling of a fist squeezing my throat.
The conversation between the two women continues until, as if by the natural order of things, the river takes a turn in the woods, passes a small clearing.
“María,” Tía Chuchi begins. “It’s that we came for the girl.”
The viejita sets her eyes on me. There are a few moments of mutual observation, and then the kitchen table is cleared and the cards are shuffled. The old woman instructs me to create three stacks with the cards. She picks one stack and places the cards on the table side by side, creating a long river of images: of men in robes, a smattering of swords, knights riding horses, a woman wearing a crown. The viejita observes each card as if it were an old friend and tells me what they are whispering to her: a man is protecting you, a woman is leading you, you are working with books and words, and this is good. There are other pronouncements until we reach the last card.
“Don’t worry about the money,” the old corn-face lady says, grinning at me. “The money will come.”
The viejita gives me that kindly old people way of looking, as if she has already been where I am now and she has no judgment about it. I
Similar Books
