A little Gray Building
27
“Ignore her!” My Abuela’s voice pulled me back. “She stayed here, never dreaming of anything. My daughter may be loved here, but you will see everywhere. I can guarantee it.”
Her words! No one ever dared to speak of my aunt in such a manner, not even her own mother. A small smile curled across my lips. Free! “How? She promised to marry me off to some old man!”
At this, my grandmother just shrugged. Sometimes I imagined that she shrugged her way through everything in life, just stopping words with a roll of her shoulders. “Turn out your pockets, Valencia.” I did so, and was surprised when she asked to see the handkerchief I had found. “This was mine once. Did your aunt ever tell you that? No, she wouldn’t. She likes to walk around, saying that we have always belonged here. It’s simply not true! No one can truly belong to a place, have it tie you down forever. You only belong somewhere if you choose to.” Finished with her rant, which had surprised me as much as anything else today, my grandmother gave me a few final words. “You dream of seeing places? Then go see them! Simple as that,” she proclaimed.
“Run away?” I asked. If I left, there would be no escaping Tía’s wrath if I ever returned. But why did I have to? “But what will I do for food? It’s not as if I could take a whole pantry, and even then it wouldn’t be enough.”
“I see you’ve thought about this. You know how hard it will be? Do you know the river two days south?” I nodded. “Take your fishing pole, the one we made and use that. But when you get to the river, cut me a bouquet of the wild roses, the ones yellow like the sun, and wrap them in that handkerchief there.” Having been quiet this far, I saw no reason to interrupt my grandmother in what might be the last time we ever spoke.
“Goodbye, Abuela. I will miss you the most of all.” I smiled, too bittersweet for the moment.
“Go! You don’t have a minute to spare! I can hear your aunt coming! I will tell her you brought me my soup and went to draw maps under your tree.” My tree was one more thing I knew I could never see again. I looked one last time at my grandmother, the strongest person I knew, and fled.
I had reached the river after two days of hard riding, just as my grandmother had said. She must have been here once before in her youth, I supposed. But before anything else, I had a promise to keep. I was surrounded by a field of wildflowers, which glowed softly in the light of the setting sun. As I drew closer to the river’s edge, I saw the roses my grandmother had described. I cut a few with my knife, and took my handkerchief out of my pocket to wrap the roses. As I was wrapping them, a thorn pricked my thumb through the fabric. A stain quickly began to spread over the beautifully embroidered fabric.
Perhaps I gasped, but not only at the blood. For as the blood spread, black swirls began to envelop the fabric. Strangely, they resembled the tattoos that covered my own hands.
Mystified by the change to the handkerchief, I slowly drifted off to sleep with the rush of the river in my ears and the stars overhead. I had cut the roses.