Foxglove

The whistle howls from the stove. I dart across the small kitchenette to grab the kettle—the insulation on the handle has cracked and fallen away, and the exposed metal is scalding hot. My hand shoots back like a whip, and I curse myself, as though I hadn’t learned this lesson already when I was a child. This sensation—this pain—brings me back to a time gone past, the day my life took an abrupt turn that would lead me right here, to this very moment.

My full name is Carmen Alejandra Flores-Mendez de la Cruz, but for the entirety of my life, everyone has called me Flor. Don’t let the lengthy name fool you—I’m nothing special. Just an ordinary Mexican-American who grew up with her mama and abuela in a small house in a small American town. School was easy, as was making friends, and when I was nine my mother signed me up for a two-week long summer camp where I would be introduced to the first and so far only love of my life: basketball. From the first day, I was smitten for the sounds, the rhythm, the textured feel of the ball in my hands. It all made sense to me, like I was doing what I was born to do. Like I was doing something that elevated me beyond the ordinary, granting me the opportunity to give my mama and abuela a better life, just as they had done for me.

But that was a long time ago.

Today I work at a memory loss nursing home, changing sheets and rinsing out bedpans and boiling water for hot beverages. It’s not a terrible job if you don’t mind the smell of shit and piss clinging to your nostrils even when you’re not there, or having every protruding part of your body ogled and handled by dementia patients who “don’t know any better.” Everyone on staff is burnt out from the residents' behaviors and the company’s indifference. It’s made us mean and bitter.Sometimes flatout hostile.

And then there’s the death—you can’t work at a place like this if you can’t handle discovering a stiff corpse, which seems to be an almost daily occurrence. Some people learn this the hard way. I’ve witnessed my share of epic meltdown, consoling the sheltered nineteen-year-old girl who’s told her Insta-fam she “just wants to give back.” I do my best to be patient with them, although most of the time I want to tell them to get the fuck over it like the rest of us have and go take care of Mrs. Einhorn in 6A whose stool softener just kicked in.

Yeah. It sucks working here. But what really bothers me isn’t where I ended up, it’s the possibilities of where life could have taken me. The wasted potential of a girl who had found her calling—and then turned her back on it.

—

Coach Lawrence O’Shaughnessy marched into my house like he owned the place—I would learn that this was normal behavior for the local legend and minor celebrity. Known by all as ‘Coach O’, he was a pillar of the community, one of the most successful high school basketball coaches in the state, and his team was the team to be on. Not the football or basketball teams at the boys school across the street, but the girls team that had won more regional and state championships than any other school in the area.

And he wanted me—the black-haired, brown skinned immigrant’s daughter with the super long last name. He’d spent my entire eighth grade year scouting me, and then promised me the world if I agreed to play for him. My mother, as excited about this prospect as I was, invited him over for dinner, where Coach O drank my mother’s limonada and ate my abuela’s empanadas. That night—I swear, we were almost like a family. He kept telling us we were beautiful, all three of us, over and over again. I couldn’t ignore his charisma, his charm, the way he told jokes and made us laugh and smile. The way that this felt like the millionth dinner we’d shared together, not the first.

I also couldn’t ignore the bottle of tequila being opened and shared by mama and Coach O after abuela went to bed.

And then I couldn’t ignore the steady thumping of the headboard against the wall in my mother’s room later that night.

Weird? Awkward? Yes—but it didn’t matter. I was on the team. I’d been promised starting time as a freshman.

I’d be playing for Coach O—and the possibilities beyond seemed infinite.

—

The transition from childhood to adulthood—when we learn the world isn’t the fairy tale we’re made to believe—should be slow and gradual, an incremental metamorphosis so we have time to adjust to the difficulties life hands us. 

For me, this change was abrupt. And brutal.

At my first conditioning practice, I learned the Coach O who came to my home was nothing more than a mirage. On the court, he was a tyrant. He’d scream and yell at us until the skin on his face was bright red and glistening with sweat; veins would pound on his temples like the mallets of bass drums. All the coaches I’d had to this point were demanding, but kind; harsh when they needed to be, but gentle as well. This was something else entirely.

As the berating continued, and as Coach O whipped folding chairs at us as we ran laps around the gym, I watched the other girls. Most seemed to accept it—not that they were thrilled about being screamed at and chased around the court. Being called fat, a bitch, a whore. A cunt. Nobody enjoys that. But they tolerated it, and I guessed they did because they wanted to be on this historic team, a team that had sent dozens of girls to D-1 schools on scholarships, and Coach O was simply the price for admission. And I decided the price was worth it, so I stood tall and took it. I took everything that coach O threw at me (metaphorically and literally), and was determined to never, ever allow him to know I was bothered.

But I would learn as the season began that when a player stood tall as I did, it only made Coach O go harder. He wanted to destroy us, and he would accept nothing less. If you’re a sports person, this is the part where you say he wanted to break us down so he could build us back up. This is the part where you say that the bruises of tough love build strong muscles.

Well, if it’s you that’s saying that, this is the part where I say fuck you.

During particularly difficult practices and games, I thought of my mama and abuela, how I wanted nothing more than to accomplish something that would make them proud, to do something that would afford me the chance to give them a better life. I thought of what they had endured and survived, why they had left Mexico and the difficulties in having to adjust to life in America.

When I was about ten years old, I asked my abuela about my grandfather. She grinned in a peculiar way, a way I’d never seen before, looked around to make sure no one could hear us, then said, Flor, I’m going to tell you a story that you must promise you will never tell anyone.

She took me out into her garden, and gently pulled down a beautiful tube of flowers that faded from white to purple in an elegant gradient. Do you remember these? she asked. Foxglove, I responded. She nodded and smiled in that funny way again, then her smile slowly disappeared.

Then she told me the story.

My grandfather was a drunk, violent man. He could never hold down a job, never had much money. He would often come home from the bar driven by rage, having spent what meager funds he had on drink, and would take his anger out on abuela. Little by little his violence intensified, until one day she was explaining away broken bones to family and friends. Fear consumed her—fear that one day he would lose control and kill her, and her daughter—my mama—would be all alone with him.

So I did what I had to do, she said, plucking a single flower from the tapered tube. And he never hurt me again.

What did you do? I asked.

She handed the flower to me, setting it in the palm of my hand. I can still remember the beautiful purple and white gradient on its petals.

She said, I dried up the foxglove and put it in his beans and rice.

Sometimes, she said, beauty can be deadly.

—

The first time I lied to my mother about why I had a black eye, I cried for hours. Maybe this all seems crazy to you, that I could allow this to go on when I could just tell someone, but not only was I under the belief that I was enduring all of this for the benefits of being on this team, Coach O was also very good about upping the intensity by such small increments, you barely knew his maltreatment was getting worse. And one day your basketball coach launches a basketball at your face at full force from eight feet away and you tell your mother one of the other girls did it by accident during a drill and all you can think about as you cry so hard that you puke is Why the fuck am I doing this Why the fuck am I doing this Why the fuck am I doing this???

But when the physical abuse seemed to have no effect on me, he went for the low-hanging fruit and started calling me a spic. A beaner. A wetback. I wish I could say this didn’t bother me—I’ve heard other people of color claim that they aren’t bothered by racial taunts and epithets—but it did. I was the only Latina girl at my school. There was one Black girl, but she hated me. The basketball team was all white, except for me. I had no one else to absorb this with. I had to take it alone. So yeah, it bothered me. But I still couldn’t show him that.

And then one day, he said it. In front of everyone. The most horrible thing I’ve ever heard another person say. About my mother. 

And then I quit the team.

—

The guy who ate my abuela’s empanadas and shared tequila with my mama returned and begged me to come back. He called me to his office and smiled and joked and laughed—but I wouldn’t be fooled this time. I couldn’t go back. And there was no way I could face the rest of the team. I was done.

I never told mama what he said, although this didn’t stop stories from circulating in the hallways. Between the rumors and losing my basketball scholarship, I had no choice but to return back to the public school. I would now be playing for the rivals, and I looked forward to tipping off against my old team and scoring fifty points every game. In the end, I would have my revenge on the court.

On the afternoon before my first day at the public school, a knock came at the door while my mama and my abuela were out shopping. When I opened the door, Coach O was there—still the charmer, not the man who kicked folding chairs at my ankles or told me I was worthless and would never amount to anything. He was kind, complimentary. He pleaded with me to come back. Admitted that he had been too hard on me, that I was his best player and he saw so much potential in me, and—you get the idea. All things that were probably true, but were only being said so he could get what he wanted.

No, I told him. No. My mind was made up. I was starting at my new school in the morning. And the next time he saw me on the court, I’d be beating his team.

Suddenly, the evil twin returned. I prepared myself for his taunts—now I would hear how I was no good, how I wasn’t worthy of being on his team, how I was just a lazy spic who was only good for cleaning people’s houses and working at Taco Bell. I was ready for all of that, and perhaps much worse.

But he just stood there. Silent. Fuming.

This, for whatever reason, frightened me much more than anything he could have said.

The whistle howls, and we both leap at once for the kitchen. He’s taller, faster, and bounds his way to the stove. I’m there quickly because I’m confused, I don’t understand what’s going on, or what he’s going to do. 

“You fucking bitch!” he explodes, grabbing both of my arms roughly, dragging me over to the whistling kettle. His grip is rough, tight—he’s so much stronger than I am, and this is the first time in my life that I feel truly powerless, that I have absolutely no choice in regards to what comes next.

His hands slide down to my wrists, squeezes until my hands open re-actively. Before I can close them again, he forces my palms against the kettle, and I scream so loud I find it impossible to believe that no one outside can hear me, that no one will come to my rescue. But no one does. It’s just me, him, and my pain. 

I have no idea how long he forced my hands against that boiling teapot of water. Ten seconds, ten minutes—what difference does it make? All that really ever matters is now; and for me, the now was hell. Not only the pain, but the knowledge of the power he had over me, that despite my greatest efforts, he had beaten me. He had won.

He loosened his grip enough so I could take my hands from the pot, but kept my wrists in his grasp, as if to say that what I had just gone through could happen again. This whole time he hadn’t said a word—but now he began to speak, slowly and deliberately, and I shuddered from the burn on my hands and from what he was saying.

He told me that I’d never play basketball again. He told me that if he saw me playing for the public school’s team, he’d make life hell for me and my family. He knew my mom, where she worked. He knew where we lived, obviously. He knew we were all here illegally, that I hadn’t really been born in the States as my mother claimed. If I played, he’d ruin us. We’d all be back in Mexico within a month.

He asked me if I understood.

I nodded, whimpering, and said yes.

Good, he said.

Then he forced my hands back on the kettle.

—

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about what would have happened had my life gone differently. Sure, I wonder about what would have happened if I had called his bluff and played anyway; but more often than not, the ‘what ifs’ are about sticking it out with Coach O. Enduring him would have undoubtedly been a display of strength, so was quitting a weakness? Even after all this time, is that what I am—a quitter?

I’m not unhappy. I don’t have a house, but I live in a nice apartment. I’ve never been married, but I have a boyfriend who’s very sweet to me. My abuela is gone, but mama is around and still makes the best limonada. On the surface, you’d never think anything was wrong with my life, because there isn’t.

But every once in a while, I get pulled back into the possibilities of that other life. Basketball highlights will pop up on the TV and I hear the thumping of the ball on the court, the squeaks of sneakers along the hardwood. I’ll see a teenager out in public wearing a jacket that signifies he or she plays for the local school’s basketball team. Someone will notice my above average height and say, You’re so tall, you should have been a basketball player.

Yeah. I should have been.

Using a towel to grip the handle, I lift the kettle and pour the boiling water into a mug.

Drop the tea bag into the water, a special brew that I’ve brought from home.

Wait for the water to turn amber.

I don’t believe in should have’s. What’s done is done. When I was a kid, I made a choice, and that choice led me to where I am today.

I pick up the mug and walk into the living room.

But I do believe in retribution.

Sitting on the couch is a tall man who’s squinting off at the wall as though he’s trying to remember something. Dressed in a red Nike jumpsuit and sneakers, his eyes catch mine as I set the mug on the end table next to him.

“Here’s your tea, Mr. O’Shaughnessy,” I say.

He smiles warmly.

And thanks me.

Tells me I’m a beautiful young woman.

“Thank you,” I say and smile.

If only he knew, I think.

Sometimes beauty can be deadly.