Read Online The Moths and Other Stories by Helena María Viramontes - Free Book Online

her place. Tomorrow he was leaving for Fresno, to go to his wife, and who knows when she would see him again. Tomás—buried beneath the blankness that liquor caused—slept soundly, unyielding to the fingers that petted and comforted him.
    Olivia undressed and lay close to him, defeated but warm. The heaviness of his slow breathing and his oppressive presence held blocks against her sleep. She rested her hand against the firm folds of his breasts, crushing his unraveled curls. Her hand caught the rhythm of his breath. She heard the Sunday morning church bells summon the mourning, sleepless women with dust on their hair, and she would have to wake him before the dawn revealed her secret. Today he was returning to Fresno.
    â€œTomás.” She hoped to awaken him, but all he did was grunt and jerk away from her. The bells of the church rang heavy in the air. Olivia touched his shoulder.
    â€œTomás.” The bells faded. “Sometimes in my sleep,” she whispered to him as if speaking to a child not yet born of its senses, “…I can see the inside of me. Mesh. It looks like mesh. Pieces of bones rattling like ice in an empty glass. Those are times I wish I was an artist so I could paint a picture ofmyself…” Olivia closed her eyes. “…Lime-light green, dull yellow, mixed together like vomit.” She turned away from him, facing the window. The cool awakening gray-glow dawn illuminated the room slowly.
    â€œIt’s true, Tomás. It’s true,” she whispered to the window. “Sometimes in your sleep, you can see the inside of you.” His snoring was like the soft hum of a bee next to her ears. She became still, almost tranquil as that morning, and her eyes bled tears, first quiet flowing tears, then hot, salty stabbing tears uncontrolled, while his snoring was like the soft hum of a bee next to her ears.
IV
    â€œWhat are you raving about? You think you’re not guilty? You, a whore, a bitch! I’m not finished, stay. Before I hit you again. And again. But you won’t cry in front of me, will you? You won’t please me by unveiling your pain, will you? Let them hear. They’re probably not mine anyway.
    â€œThe marihuana opiates, the liquor seduces. That is why nothing can hurt me, not even you. I work to live, and I hate it. I live for you, and I hate it. I have another shot of tequila—tequila is a good mistress—and two more before I ask myself, why live?
    â€œI loved you too much. Now I have no pride, no respect for myself. I’m waiting for the breeze that will lift and carry me away from you.
    â€œHa. Ha. You say that I am unfaithful? In Tijuana, last week? Like the devil, you disguise yourself as a gnat to spy on me? I should have spied on you that night you let him rip the virginity out of you, the blood and slime of your innocence trailing down the sides of his mouth. You tramp. You righteous bitch. Don’t I have the right to be unfaithful? Weren’t you? Vete mucho a chingar a tu madre, más cabrona que la chingada…”
    Martha, please pray to God to make them stop. God doesn’t listen to me.
    â€œPerra, don’t rage to me about that barmaid! Answer me, vieja cabrona, ans…”
    Like a drowning, hissing fire, his ghost smoldered while he lay there. Tomás’ wife thought of towers crumbling and then of his intoxicants that unleash and loosen those hiddenpassions that burn through the soul and float up to a smoldering belch, causing him to rage that pure rage that no one really knew of. Tomás was now an invincible cloud of the past, she thought. A coiled smoking ghost. She kneeled beside him, laying her puzzle-piece heart against his unliving one. Unliving because she had pressured the trigger tight, then tightfingered it until his chest blew up, spilling the oozing blood that stained all tomorrows. And yet he seemed more alive. No. More real than anything, anyone around her. She