Read Online A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Samantha Mabry
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scratches from bumping up against hunks of wood and flotsam as she was tossed around by the chop.
I was taken to the station and ushered into a room with concrete walls. I was questioned, given a cup of weak coffee to lessen the shock, made to wait, questioned again by a second person, then by a third. After another cup of coffee and another delay, Mara Lopez entered the room. By then I was half delirious. The caffeine on an empty stomach had given me the shakes. I told La Lopez I wanted to go home. She put her hand on my knee, gave it a
there, there
kind of pat. She told me she just wanted to make sure she had the details right: why I was alone on a beach at four in the morning, in what capacity I knew Marisol, those types of things. I answered honestly; I had nothing to hide.
She also said she’d called my dad out in Rincón and explained the situation to him. He told her to relay a message:
We’ll talk when I get back
.
“His son tripping over a dead Puerto Rican girl in the middle of the night apparently isn’t enough to pull him away from his business,” she added.
It was mid-morning when I was finally allowed leave. I went to Ruben’s house, where I found Marisol’s mother sitting on the couch in the hothouse living room—all the doors and shutters were closed as a sign of mourning. The air inside was thick with the smell of smoke and incense. I handed her some lilies I’d bought from the market and offered my condolences. It didn’t really matter what I gave her or what I said, though. The woman didn’t hear a word. Her gaze was locked on the tiny flame of a pillar candle that sat on the coffee table. Her fingers skillfully worked the pink plastic beads of a cheap rosary.
Ruben was self-exiled behind his locked bedroom door upstairs, so for close to four hours, I sat on the couch wedged between Marisol’s mom and Marisol’s ancient, mute grandmother.I stayed there, sweating, through the duration of many candles, listening to the hiss of the paper fan Ruben’s abuela used to keep the mosquitoes at bay and to the clacks of her dentures shifting in her mouth as her lips moved in silent prayer.
All that time did not pass slowly, though. My thoughts ran on a loop: Marisol alive, laughing and determined to jump into the courtyard of the house at the end of Calle Sol; Marisol dead, her twisted limbs coated in wet sand and wrapped in seaweed; Marisol alive, moaning softly as my fingers traced her skin; Marisol dead, her mouth gaped open and her tongue, doubled in size and black.
I finally got up for a drink of water, and there in the kitchen was Celia, standing on a step stool at the counter. She was glaring at a half-cut-up pineapple and sucking on the pointer finger of her left hand. A ten-inch chef’s knife sat atop a cutting board. Both it and the pineapple were spotted with blood.
I bolted toward her, but she quickly pulled her finger from her mouth and held it up. The cut wasn’t bleeding anymore and not at all deep, just a shallow groove across her skin.
“It slipped.” Celia sniffled and then wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her green pajama top. “I’m sorry. I was hungry.”
“You shouldn’t have done this yourself,” I said. “You could’ve been hurt.”
I grabbed the knife, rinsed it with hot water, and tried to salvage some of the fruit.
“The police told us Mari drowned,” Celia blurted out, “but I don’t understand, because she knows how to swim. She was the one who was trying to teach
me
.”
The knife clanged loudly as I slammed it against the counter.
Celia was next to me, still up on her step stool, and when I turned to face her, I was reminded how much she resembled her sister: heart-shaped face, brown eyes that seemed to take in the smallest of details, hair the color of coffee. It was impossible not to picture that hair in wet knots or her cheeks covered in tiny marks left by teething fish.
I was at a loss. I didn’t know how to break this to a little girl:
I was taken to the station and ushered into a room with concrete walls. I was questioned, given a cup of weak coffee to lessen the shock, made to wait, questioned again by a second person, then by a third. After another cup of coffee and another delay, Mara Lopez entered the room. By then I was half delirious. The caffeine on an empty stomach had given me the shakes. I told La Lopez I wanted to go home. She put her hand on my knee, gave it a
there, there
kind of pat. She told me she just wanted to make sure she had the details right: why I was alone on a beach at four in the morning, in what capacity I knew Marisol, those types of things. I answered honestly; I had nothing to hide.
She also said she’d called my dad out in Rincón and explained the situation to him. He told her to relay a message:
We’ll talk when I get back
.
“His son tripping over a dead Puerto Rican girl in the middle of the night apparently isn’t enough to pull him away from his business,” she added.
It was mid-morning when I was finally allowed leave. I went to Ruben’s house, where I found Marisol’s mother sitting on the couch in the hothouse living room—all the doors and shutters were closed as a sign of mourning. The air inside was thick with the smell of smoke and incense. I handed her some lilies I’d bought from the market and offered my condolences. It didn’t really matter what I gave her or what I said, though. The woman didn’t hear a word. Her gaze was locked on the tiny flame of a pillar candle that sat on the coffee table. Her fingers skillfully worked the pink plastic beads of a cheap rosary.
Ruben was self-exiled behind his locked bedroom door upstairs, so for close to four hours, I sat on the couch wedged between Marisol’s mom and Marisol’s ancient, mute grandmother.I stayed there, sweating, through the duration of many candles, listening to the hiss of the paper fan Ruben’s abuela used to keep the mosquitoes at bay and to the clacks of her dentures shifting in her mouth as her lips moved in silent prayer.
All that time did not pass slowly, though. My thoughts ran on a loop: Marisol alive, laughing and determined to jump into the courtyard of the house at the end of Calle Sol; Marisol dead, her twisted limbs coated in wet sand and wrapped in seaweed; Marisol alive, moaning softly as my fingers traced her skin; Marisol dead, her mouth gaped open and her tongue, doubled in size and black.
I finally got up for a drink of water, and there in the kitchen was Celia, standing on a step stool at the counter. She was glaring at a half-cut-up pineapple and sucking on the pointer finger of her left hand. A ten-inch chef’s knife sat atop a cutting board. Both it and the pineapple were spotted with blood.
I bolted toward her, but she quickly pulled her finger from her mouth and held it up. The cut wasn’t bleeding anymore and not at all deep, just a shallow groove across her skin.
“It slipped.” Celia sniffled and then wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her green pajama top. “I’m sorry. I was hungry.”
“You shouldn’t have done this yourself,” I said. “You could’ve been hurt.”
I grabbed the knife, rinsed it with hot water, and tried to salvage some of the fruit.
“The police told us Mari drowned,” Celia blurted out, “but I don’t understand, because she knows how to swim. She was the one who was trying to teach
me
.”
The knife clanged loudly as I slammed it against the counter.
Celia was next to me, still up on her step stool, and when I turned to face her, I was reminded how much she resembled her sister: heart-shaped face, brown eyes that seemed to take in the smallest of details, hair the color of coffee. It was impossible not to picture that hair in wet knots or her cheeks covered in tiny marks left by teething fish.
I was at a loss. I didn’t know how to break this to a little girl:
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