Ratio

Something comes back to me while I’m outside our favorite fancy bistro, waiting on Esperanza to arrive. She’s late as usual. Work is keeping her. Some crisis about one third-party company or another that can’t get their software straight. 

I wish she was here. It’s been a long week, and date night is what I need—some time with her and just her. When she turns off her work phone and we can just talk.

I stare at a text from her. The last one. Gonna be late. You better not be wearing that fuckin bolo.

She’s not serious. Well, not really. That bolo is hideous. I bought it as a joke at some gift shop in the Grand Canyon where we vacationed last year. It’s silver with a hideous fake gemstone the color of vomit. I hate it as much as I love it, but I would never wear it out. She knows that.

The something pings my memory. Five compliments negate one insult. It’s from some study or whatnot, probably some Harvard bullshit. My psychology professor in college told us that, and I have a hard time believing it takes so many compliments to make up for one measly insult.

Would my brain count Esperanza’s text as an insult? Or does the brain know the difference between teasing and being serious, and whether or not it knows the difference, do insults you can’t remember count too?

I have no idea, and I’m about to look into it when I decide maybe wondering about it is better. People used to do that before they had the world in their hands. I pocket my phone and look up, see a flashy automated billboard that scrolls through its advertisements: jewelry, coffee shops, a lawncare business.  

My phone chimes, and I pull it back out, thinking it’s Esperanza. Instead, it’s a story about Israeli troops advancing on Rafah. I hesitate to click on it, my stomach flipping. The last one I read stayed with me the whole day. When I had finished reading it, my hands had shook with rage—or fear, I wasn’t sure which.

I click on it anyway. Esperanza will have already read it, and if I can’t donate (you never know where the money’s going), I should at least be educated on topics I care about. The story leaves me shaking again.

***

While Esperanza gets ready in the morning, she listens to a true crime podcast. The crimes always remain unsolved to this day, some string of violent incidents that held the East Coast captive for a few months. The victims were unrecognizable… 

“They’re always unrecognizable,” I say, stuffing my feet into socks in the other room.

Esperanza flicks mascara over her eyelashes. She hardly needs it, but it makes her feel armored. Better. Who am I to tell her to stop?

“What?” she says, tubing the mascara. She glances at me over her shoulder. “What’d you say?”

“They’re always unrecognizable. The victims. Shouldn’t that be the point? That way, no one knows who you killed, so they can’t trace your motive—if you have one,” I say.

“I guess,” says Esperanza, shrugging. She turns back around and spritzes her face with setting spray. “But lots of serial killers want the world to know who they killed.”

“That’s dumb though.”

“No one ever said psycho murderers were smart.”

I stick my foot in my shoe. “But those podcasts always do. They make these people seem like unparalleled geniuses.”

“Is this your way of telling me you don’t like my podcasts?” Esperanza asks, and though her tone is lighthearted, I can sense the hurt beneath it.

“Just an observation,” I tell her. I quickly leave the bedroom, nearly giving our cat a heart attack on the way to the kitchen.

***

I’m eating lunch alone, scrolling through social media on my phone. Most of the posts are harmless, showcasing birthdays and memories and vacations. There are a few that I quickly scroll past. Political ones, posted by my uncle who I do not agree with on anything except for perhaps that the price of gas should go down. (Though he believes gas is made of 5% human blood—all children sacrificed by Hillary Clinton.) 

I’m almost successful in scrolling past this last post when I notice that my uncle has tagged me in it. Jesus Christ. This can’t be good.

It’s some poorly-written and poorly-backed conspiracy theory about chemtrails and the election and Satan. I can’t keep all this shit straight anymore. It’s all gone off the deep end. No, my uncle has gone off the deep end. He used to be moderate, voting Republican or Democrat as he saw fit (and he was quick to congratulate me when I announced I was a lesbian at a family reunion), but now he’s some alt-right Qanon wacko with a penchant for hating the Jews. I can’t stand it anymore.

I message him privately, Don’t tag me in your conspiracy theories, please. Miss you, Uncle Joe

It’s not long until he replies, jus looking out fo r yo juliet miss you to

He doesn’t need to look out for me. I have myself and Esperanza and my cat. Plus, how is raving about every conspiracy theory under the sun going to help me combat the rising tide of grocery prices?

A headache pulses between my eyes, and I click away from the direct messenger and continue scrolling and liking mindlessly. I end up silencing his posts for thirty days when I come across another one.

***

It’s four in the morning when Esperanza and I finally plug in our phones. We put on the TV to help us fall asleep.

***

“Remember that blog you started when you were fifteen?” Esperanza asks me one day while we sit in the living room drinking coffee.

It’s a Sunday morning in mid-July. Slow. A fat fly buzzes at the veranda window. Our cat lazes on her floating shelf, snoring lightly. 

“Yeah?” I say, confused. I raise an eyebrow at her. “Why?”

Esperanza looks away from me and smiles almost sadly. She picks at a loose thread on the pillow at her side. “Can I see it?” she asks.

We met in college, and it’s like I’m realizing that fact now. My wife didn’t know me in high school. We’ve traded stories, swapped escapades, but she didn’t know me. I’m glad she didn’t. I was a terror.

“Oh God,” I say. It takes me a minute to reset my password on my account, but soon enough, I’m logged in, scrolling through various “x reader” mini fanfictions. Often requests from random people on the internet. Most, if not all, contain some pornographic material, and I stare at it in shock. Did I have a porn blog at fifteen?

Indeed I did. The evidence is damning, and I look up at Esperanza, scrunching my forehead. “It’s a lot of… um…” I begin, unsure where I’m headed.

“Just let me see it,” she says, so I hand my phone over.

She scrolls through the blog for a solid ten minutes, saying nothing. I fidget, sipping my coffee then drumming my fingers on the armrest then getting up to pet the cat. Marvin purrs when I scratch between his ears.

“If it makes you feel better,” Esperanza finally says, “the writing’s not half bad.”

***

Esperanza and I crowd her phone when her sister, Raquel, picks up. Well, her husband picks up, a ruddy-faced man with a massive smile spreading across his face. “Do you wanna see her?” he says in a hushed voice.

“Yes,” Esperanza says, breathless, and David moves the phone.

There, laying on Raquel’s chest is our little niece, Maya Dare Rodriguez-Polsk. Her face is alien and wrinkled, and her tiny fists are clenched tight. She has on a pink cap, and I wonder if there is any hair underneath it. “Mierda,” whispers Esperanza. “There she is. Hi, Maya. Hi, baby. Aren’t you the prettiest thing alive?”

Her voice pitches higher, softer. I glance over at my wife for the briefest moment. Her eyes are shining, cheeks flushing with happiness. She wants to show Maya to the world. Say, Here it is. It’s all yours. I’ll make sure of it.

I smile back at the phone screen. I wish we could have been there in person, but neither of us were able to get away from our demanding jobs. We might be able to live in Long Beach, but the high salaries come at a price.

“Hi, Maya,” I murmur. “You look like a raisin, and I love it.”

Esperanza hits my arm. “Shut up,” she hisses. Butts me out of the way, hogging the phone. “She’s perfect.”

I hear Raquel’s throaty, tired laugh. “She’s our little raisin.”