Cuentos de la Novia

1. Knocking on Doors

I am unemployed, so I count the states. I lie in his bed in his apartment in his city while he goes to his job. I try to name all the states that I had to fly over in order to get here. It’s one way to deal with my broken heart. I'm 18 and 10 months. 18 and 3,000 miles from home. He's 9 years older. 27. I met him online. He’s a virtual poet, and I memorized every word. He was a way out of the church where I was trapped. My father works tirelessly, and so I would be alone with my mother. Her only protest to America was her refusal to learn English, whereas my father took to the language the way he took to everything. He could sell ice to Eskimos. He could sell religion, too. He sold it to my mother and then we were all sold. Only I didn't know how it happened. I didn’t consent, but I was so small that his palm fit over my head. So who’s listening to me? One day I was wearing a white dress for my confirmation and the next day our church became a kingdom center. We had to give up birthdays. And Christmas. And grandparents. I learned to cry instead of praying. But then prayer was gone, too. I snuck out of my father’s redemption. I gave it up for the other coast to live with a man I barely knew. This man who wrote about fire and creation and showed me pornography. He didn’t have to sell me. This time I converted without protest. And now I am not only counting states but days as well. It’s 62 days until my birthday. He promised me a party. I was a sinner when I was six, and then I was a witness. I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut. Nightly, this new man pries my mouth open. And even though I feel as if I am nailed to his bed, a bed that I have washed with my tears, I’m relieved to be here with him. I’m glad to be anywhere to be honest. I haven’t knocked on a stranger’s door in months. Happy Birthday, he says, even though it’s 62 days away, I told him I wanted a big cake. He puts his hand on my head and sings sonnets just for me.

2. Squinting in the Mirror

I had my own room when I was six. I made it my space. There are things I taped to the walls. I had a cork board and funky lamps. I put things in the corners of the mirrors. My closet was filled with clothes that fit me at every size. But my bed was the bed I inherited from my childhood. It didn’t grow up. There was a time when I loved it. And then I kept sleeping, and I stopped thinking. It is that bed where I had smaller legs and smaller arms to fill it. Today, I am standing in a single room that I have inherited from him. From this new parent of mine. From this boyfriend. This fiancé even. And that is not my dresser. That is not my bed frame. In fact those are not my sheets. How can I put my fingerprints on these lightbulbs? Because as it turns out some of these things are the things that he inherited from his childhood, and yet he's so much older than I am. How can I tell him that the bureau that his mother picked for him when he was 2 years old is not the bureau that I want to have at 19? I don't know how to find the words to tell him that I need to decorate the corners of the mirrors. He breathes hard when he sleeps. I've never slept in a bed with anyone but my shadow. He is not a shadow. He takes up a lot of space. But he's not a lightbulb either. He does not help me see. I squint and I squint and I still can't see myself. I wonder why the mirrors don't work. What I used to see in the mirrors of my home was a small girl who was longing to escape. And now when I look in the mirror all I see is his bedroom behind me.

3. Immigration

I can't believe how long each block is. Everywhere there are statues. There are nymphs. And sea monsters. And handsome lions. Then there's what seems to be a giant phallus in the middle of the street. A tribute to the first president. Not my president. My family came from border towns. It was the slow inching up from the interior. My father and my mother made the final leap. They told their parents that they were going to Disneyland. And they did. It’s just that, they never went back. They were 19. This was their college. This was their graduation. I haven't been to college either. I dropped out of high school actually. Too many absences. There was too much hurt. Too many times I had to participate in the secret pain of my family. The anger of my father. There was no monument except the bruises that I couldn't hide. I wouldn't want anyone to see these tributes. Because I know that these are the markings and the memories that stretch back in my family for hundreds of years. How much was I indigenous? How much European? Now in my new city I travel from the main arteries to smaller ones and I see evidence of my people. I see The bodegas and the grocery stores where you can buy 20 different types of peppers, peppers you won't find at the grocery store or even the fresh veggie stands on the side of the road. Goya. Everything Goya. Harritos. Pina is my favorite. But I haven't entered any of these stores. I haven't bothered to speak Spanish except when I call home or when I go to the Mexican restaurant with my fiancé. He loves to hear me order. He loves to see me talking to the waiters and the waitresses who know me before I speak. And their eyes light up cuando hablamos. Both theirs and mine.

4. Ceremony

I'm married. I'm 19, and I'm married. Hello Mom, this was your life, too. By next year I should have a baby. Yes? Isn't that when my sister was born? You were 20. I am married. We went to City Hall with his father and his two friends. No one was my witness. I would not have wanted them there. Not yet. One day. Later they would fly here. Later they would stay and we would travel to New York and see the headquarters where they make the Bibles. We would see New York City where they make everything else. But today on our wedding day I am the only Mexican. There will be no Spanish. I’m not going to speak to myself. I don't need it. I'm good with languages. He plays guitar. We communicate. We talk. We share. And after we were married we went to a crab house and ate the staple of his state. As I opened the Maryland crabs, it struck me that I would have a new last name. I'm opening crabs for the first time as a brand new person. And even though for quite some time I had felt like a stranger in a strange land, I could see the Red Sea was splitting apart. Nothing that had been gifted to me in the past would matter. Everything from this point on was mine. I had signed that paper. I had said those things that you say when you get married. I was wearing a ring. This was the beginning of something. We moved into a new apartment. We even bought new furniture for the place. A brand new couch. A chair to match. The bed was the same. But we bought a new desk. New sheets. It was a beautiful place. And for the first time I thought I was speaking like an east coaster. It was confidence. The darkness that had lived with me lifted. My job was my job. I was good at it. Even without a high school diploma. They didn't know. I had all the answers. I was born at the right time. And now that all the pictures had to be hung and the clothes needed to be put into the closet, I could choose where they would go. They could go where I wanted them to go. All of this was floating through my head as I cracked open another crab. And afterwards we walked down along the water and into the store where they sold cigars. We bought two, and we took them out and we smoked them together. In the hotel by the harbor, we went swimming. It was the first time we had ever gone swimming together. I remember feeling light. I'm not actually light. Sometimes people like to use the word curvy. Sometimes people use the word fat. But in the water he could hold me, something I don't think he could do anywhere on dry land. I was his first wife. He was my first husband. “First” was a word that both of us would need to use in the future because we would each have a second. But this was our first night. And when we climbed into the bed and I asked him to do things to me that I had never asked of him before, we found a way to turn 3000 miles into two lips pressed together. And all the miles disappeared. There was no flight now. There was no need to travel. I could put my hand on his face and he could put his head on my chest. And I thought that this must be what it is to be married. This is what my parents felt as they were longing for their Mexican homes, starting something new in a brand new country. This is what it's like to be born again.

5. One Million Words

When we were courting, I was careful to keep myself concealed. I was afraid that he would reject me. My previous boyfriend from high school was there at the beginning and then the end. He saw my body change. Now it's years later, and I've been through two pregnancies. PCOS has been attacking me since I was in puberty. It's left me incapable of becoming a mother. At least biologically. It's also done many other things to my body. I was ashamed. When we met, it was difficult to tell what his reaction was to me but he certainly embraced me and took me into his life. How much did we really know each other after all? Yes we'd spent almost a year online. I had “met” him the night of my 18th birthday. And when he picked me up at the airport it was almost 2:00 in the morning. My flight had been delayed. I was a wreck. But he took me to his apartment, and we made love. That was a relief. One day I woke up and I thought about the little electric doorway that we had created from one side of the country to the other. And I went to see the doorway, and I realized his door was still open. Only I wasn't on the other side, but somebody was. I felt rage. I had lost two babies. And here he was giving out his words. He had so many words. But I thought they were all mine. Once he told me that there were probably a million words in the English language. I figured he knew them all. Well you would have to know that many words to speak to so many different girls. Which words did he use to seduce? Could I remember the words that he used on me? I didn't have to remember. I have them saved. And when I would climb into my computer and pull open all the drawers to find the files that I had of his, I could see the words he used. You'd think that with so many words in your head you could find different ones for different people, but it was clear he had used the same words on them as he had for me. How should I react? They had pictures. They weren't careful to hide themselves. Some of them were naked. And so what do I do? Because now his name is mine. This home is ours. These are words. “His” and “mine” and “yours” and “ours.” But even these words were not sacred. Because he was theirs, too.

6. The Secret Names

He went back to school to become a teacher, and we took out a loan which we used to help me buy a car. I got a new car. He drove our used car. And I drove the new one. My car. Because it was mine. It was the first car I had ever owned. It was the first car I ever drove that wasn't somebody else's. It was the first car that I could name. I named her after my sister. It was a secret name. I never told him. And then one day we took the car to the dealership and we sold it. We made a good amount of money on that car. And we sold the house. You see we bought a house after the apartment. That was my house as well. That was my choice. I'm the one that painted the walls in the dining room. I'm the one that chose the couches and the silverware. I had taken over those jobs. And I was only 27. A lot had happened between us. Too much. Too many different times we discussed his vocabulary. We discussed the open door. He slammed it shut and nailed it but of course everything you close can be reopened. And he did it many times. Too many times. You know what? I quit. I'm taking the money from the car, and I'm buying a plane ticket. I'm taking the money we made from the sale of the house and I'm moving. I'm going to fly to my friend in Seattle. She has agreed to let me stay with her for a bit. And that's where I'm going to buy another car. And with that car I’m going to drive to the places where I want to go. And again I will name that car. And he won't know her name either. He knows too many names. I'd like to keep a few for myself. I named our daughters. He was too busy learning everyone else's name to ever bother asking me theirs. I doubt he even wants to know them now. They are long gone. (just like me).

7. Speaking English

I carried it. I picked it all up and took it with me. No matter how heavy everything else is, nothing is heavier than this. This is the thing that I took with me into my next marriage. This is the thing that now clogs my heart. The heavy wet dirty washcloths that used to stop my breathing have all been replaced with this. Failure. Regret. Loss. Oh, loss. That’s the worst. When you're young and you experience loss you look around desperately and you expect the world to turn off and turn to you and acknowledge the pain you're feeling. But when you get older the last thing you want to do is waste your time on some kid who's crying over her grandmother’s passing. You don't want to even bend your neck down to see the child who's hurt because she no longer gets to celebrate Christmas or her birthday. These are significant losses of course but as you grow older the losses pile up. Like laundry. And everywhere you look you see the losses. I see my two losses. And now there are more. Because I can't have children. I can't make them. I can't keep them. They don't want to stay inside of me. They won't hold on. So how could I ever take care of them in the world? Maybe this is the universe's way of keeping them safe from me. My second husband is a wonderful man. He wants children but not more than he wants me. And that's something different. He doesn't have the words. He's not a poet. But he’s present. He lives every day in the same world where I live and never tries to escape through the door at the back of our computer. There are other options for us. We will explore them all. To adopt. A surrogate. He will do them all. Without a high school education I have still managed to land one big job after another. I currently hold an important position at an international bank. Once again I just know how to whisper to the computers. I know the language. My father mastered English. My mother always pretended she couldn't. But I'm pretty sure she understood everything we said. When the words were the most hurtful, I know she could translate them all.