FFP#23 – Tía Raquel
I was six years old when my parents bought the piano. An upright piano purchased for $200 from the elderly woman down the street. The piano itself was in good condition, beautifully smooth dark wood, bright white and solid black keys. The bench seated me comfortably.
It was so beautiful that I cried.
Around the same time I got the piano, my Tía Raquel move in with us. She was only fifteen, rebellious, and a habitual runaway. My grandmother felt they needed some time apart. She reasoned that if Raquel stayed with her older brother (my father) and had to take care of me, she’d become a more responsible teenager. Raquel didn’t seem to mind the change of families. She liked my parents quite a lot, but I wasn’t sure how she felt about me. She always referred to me as “mocosa.”
One of Raquel’s duties was to pick me up after school. We walked home together. Sometimes, she’d give me a piggy back ride. Other times — most of the time — she was in a sour mood. On these days, she’d make me walk behind her or she’d tease me, telling me my nose was so wide and short that I looked like a pig.
When we’d get home from school, I’d watch TV, have a snack, play the piano. At this point, I hadn’t taken any lessons yet, so I tried to teach myself how to play by sounding out familiar tunes. The first week, I taught myself how to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” The second week, I mastered “Jingle Bells.” The third week, I figured out how to play the first five measures of “Für Elise” and considered myself a musical genius.
“That sounds nice,” Raquel said when I’d play something she recognized.
Some days, before my parents came home, she’d bring out a fancy, fold-out cosmetic case that she kept hidden in the back of her closet. Inside weren’t the usual tubes of fruit-flavored lip glosses or plastic pots of body glitter you’d think most teen girls would have. Instead, Raquel used it to store five little cloth dolls that she’d sewn herself.
I always wanted to play with the dolls, but she wouldn’t let me touch them. She’d dress them up and show them to me and that’s about it. “This one’s your mama. This one’s your dad,” she’d say, holding up the two larger dolls, one dressed in blue plaid, the other in orange. “This one’s Saul.” She’d hold up the doll dressed in denim. “This one’s me.” A black haired doll in a pink dress. “And this one’s you.” I was the smallest doll, overstuffed and naked, without hair. “You’re the baby,” she’d say.
“Make me some pants,” I’d tell her angrily. “I’m not a baby.”
“Make you some pants?” Then she’d laugh.
When my mother arrived home early from work one afternoon, Raquel panicked. She messily threw the dolls back in the cosmetic case. We were in my bedroom, so she tried to find a place in my closet to hide it. In the rush, her hair got snagged on the buttons of one of my shirts. She yanked her head back, losing a barrette and a diamond earring in the process. She grabbed the barrette, but didn’t notice the earring. Neither did I, until the next morning when I found it in one of my tennis shoes.
I took it out carefully, deciding I wouldn’t give it back — punishment for her unflattering, nude replica of me.
Other than her dolls, she was completely obsessed with her boyfriend Saul. In his mid-twenties, with a lot of free time, he drove around town wearing a stone-washed Levi jacket and checking out high school girls. I didn’t know what Raquel saw in him. He had a goatee and smelled like cheese.
But Saul was the reason Raquel ran away. She went to him whenever she had problems or whenever he needed her. He was as obsessed with Raquel as she was with him.
This was how it usually went: Raquel would call Saul as soon as we got home. She never told him about her day at school. With Saul, their conversations were all about music and cars or Raquel telling him over and over that she loved him. I was young enough that I didn’t quite understand the drama; all I knew was that it made me uncomfortable. I didn’t like to hear Raquel sound so compliant. I preferred her tough act, even if it meant she’d boss me around all day.
Once, when we were walking home from school, Saul followed us in his blue Mustang. He was hanging out the window, begging Raquel to get in the car, telling her I could make it home just fine by myself. I stuck my tongue out at him when he wasn’t looking.
Raquel ignored him, grabbed my hand and walked a little faster.
“What did you do in school today?” she asked me. She never held my hand and never asked me about my day, so I was a little surprised.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Oh, that’s interesting,” she replied, dragging me along.
The next day, after another huge argument with Saul on the telephone, Raquel started crying. “Asshole!” she yelled, slamming the phone on the receiver so hard it cracked.
“Are you okay?” I asked. I felt shy, never having seen her cry before.
“No.”
“Do you want to play my piano?”
She shook her head.
Probably less than an hour later, a car screeched to a stop in front of the house. Saul emerged, red-faced and angry. He pounded on the front door cursing and yelling at Raquel to let him inside.
“Fuck,” Raquel muttered to herself. She was still crying, but now she looked terrified.
Saul kicked the door. It shook in its frame; the hinges loosened.
Raquel ran to the piano and opened the cabinet’s lid. “Get inside. Now,” she whispered.
I climbed onto the bench, then stepped on the keyboard. She helped me get inside the cabinet. I was small enough to fit, and I laid myself across the soundboard, leaning against the softly padded hammers.
Raquel closed the lid. I tried to keep as still and quiet as possible. I didn’t ask why we were hiding — I felt her fear, sensed some unknown danger — I was wondering where she would hide.
The cellar, I thought. Raquel, go to the cellar!
Inside the piano, I was safe. Invisible. The outside world was muffled. I heard Raquel and Saul arguing, but they sounded so far away. She must have let him inside. Maybe they would make up. Maybe she would run away with him again. I relaxed.
Then came the gun shots. Muffled, but still louder than firecrackers. And then silence.
I shivered. In the darkness, I felt protected. What was happening out there, it wasn’t real, I told myself. In here, within the womb of my piano, I was safe. I touched the hammers and strings. The soundboard groaned peacefully under my weight. I fell asleep.
I awoke some time later to the muted sounds of my mother screaming.
“Mommy!” I yelled, waking up slowly, not remembering where I was or why it was so dark. “Mommy!”
But she had heard me. She opened the lid and pulled me out. Placing a hand over my eyes, she carried me from the living room into the bedroom. She checked me all over, touching my face and my arms, asking me if I was okay. Then she carried me outside, to her car. In silence, she drove us to the police station.
About a month after the shooting, my mother found the cosmetic case. She convinced my father and me that the dolls were evil, that my cousin was dabbling in brujería. “This is why such bad things happen to us,” my mother said, even though the bad things had happened only to Raquel. She made my father burn each and every doll.
We hardly talked about my aunt after that. I started taking piano lessons that same year, and I was surprised at how quickly Raquel’s existence began to feel like dream. All I had of her was that one diamond earring, which I kept tucked away in my jewelry box. When I was in middle school, I started wearing it and any time a boy flirted with me or asked me to a dance, I touched the jewel and said no. I knew that not all boys were like Saul, but I couldn’t be sure, not for years anyway, that I wasn’t like Raquel.
Tags: flash fiction project
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June 14, 2010 11:29 pm
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By EZ, June 18, 2010 @ 8:07 am
A story that hit home with a sadder ending. Work well done Maria! Sometimes it takes a tragedy to not make the same mistakes others may of done.