The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico (13 page)

I didn’t want to be a
puta
. I didn’t want to bleed and die. “I promise,” I said.

If Delia was a
puta
, then what about Mamá? Since
pregnancy was the punishment, she must have been a
puta
with Papi! Was it the same in the States? Did Blake’s sister let men see her without clothes on? Had she ever been pregnant? I wrapped my arms around my stomach. Blake saw me, and I liked it. But I didn’t want to get fat and lazy and pregnant like Mamá.

“Good.” Mamá stood. “So tomorrow we go to church. You must repent, Verdita. I don’t want sinfulness in my house.”

I knew there was a price to pay. And I wished even more that I hadn’t confessed to Mamá. Now she had something to use against me.

“But can’t I repent here?” I asked.

Mamá shot me a look.
“Ay, Dios mio
.” She crossed herself. “You think God is that easy to please?”

I didn’t think it was easy to please God, but I didn’t think it was hard, either. And besides all that, I didn’t want to be like Delia and Mamá, spending good summer days in a cold church. I wasn’t yet a
señorita
.

“It’s not fair,” I whined.

Mamá shook her head. “Fair? Was Christ on the cross fair? Was—” She stopped and winced, then rubbed her belly. She took a few deep breaths, and when she spoke again, her voice was pinched and slow. “You
will
confess to Padre Ramos.”

Mamá was swollen and lazy and full of rules even she didn’t follow. Her soft paunch had grown round and hard, like she’d swallowed a whole pumpkin. It reminded me of
the story Papi told about how Puerto Rico became an island.

Back before Mamá and Papi were born, before my
abuelos
, before their
abuelos
, Puerto Rico was a mountain in the middle of a giant, grassy plain. That was a fact. The original Taino people loved their mountain home, but needed shade and trees for shelter, so they planted a handful of magic seeds and a thick forest grew. A vine with a beautiful golden flower sprang out of the ground and turned into a pumpkin. Two Taino men found it and began to argue over who could take it home. In their struggle, the pumpkin fell, rolled down the mountain and split open on a rock. Water poured out and covered the valley, forever making Puerto Rico an island, alone in the middle of the sea.

I wondered what life would be like if Puerto Rico was still a mountain. Then I could climb down and walk to the States, leave this place. The ocean wouldn’t stand in between.

Fine. I’d go to church. But I’d tell Padre Ramos a thing or two about Mamá, and the sin growing inside her. I hated that bump, that swollen pumpkin. I wished I could throw it down the mountain, let it split open, let the waters run back to the sea.

Repentance

T
HE NEXT MORNING
, M
AMá WOKE ME EARLY
.“Put on the dress I made with the
maga
buds. We’re leaving in five minutes,” she said.

I was willing to go to Padre Ramos and confess for acting like a
puta
, but I was too close to being a
señorita
for Mamá to tell me what clothes to wear. So I pulled out a purple dress with a scalloped neckline and moved the
maga
dress to the back behind all the others.

Mamá came back and saw my outfit. “This is not a party,” she snapped, and riffled through my closet until she found it. “Here. And
no
crinoline.”

Without the crinoline, the bell skirt hung limp, like a deflated balloon. I swore I’d never wear that pink print. It reminded me of everything I wasn’t. But I was already in enough trouble, and I didn’t want my repentance to last more than a day. So I stuck my arms through the holes
and yanked it over my head. It still smelled of starch and chalk and the rice-paper pattern. I clipped back the hair around my face and didn’t bother to look in the mirror. I knew what I’d see: ugliness, through and through, and that was fine. Even though I didn’t like going to church, it was the one place where being pretty was shameful, so I fit in just right. Being ugly was a virtue. The nuns were proof of that.

At the kitchen table, the boys looked up from their bowls of
con-flei
and then continued to slurp from their spoons. It was the first time I’d seen them since the creek. I avoided their eyes. Papi read the newspaper.

“Good morning, Verdita,” he said without putting down
La Primera Hora
.

“Morning,” I whispered.

Mamá had promised not to tell him, but she’d proven herself a liar in the past. Papi read his paper and drank his
café con leche
, slow and even, like every morning. He didn’t know. If he did, he’d have already thrown me out of the house. I wondered what lie Mamá made up to explain my trip to confession. I balled up my fists just thinking about it. I wished I could go back to the day before and shove a handful of creek mud in my mouth.

Nobody spoke. The boys slurped; the newspaper crunched and Mamá sat on the kitchen stool, loudly beating a broom against the floor. When she saw me, she flipped it over, cinched the handle between her thighs, and wrapped an old rag around the head.

“Why is Mamá beating the broom?” I asked Papi. Mamá heard.

“Sin comes with an evil spirit. I want it out of my house,” she replied. And even though she spoke to me, she faced Omar and Blake. Their eyes were fixed on their spoons.

Mamá set the broom on its handle behind the open front door, pinched salt from the salt box, and tossed it over the broom head, then pinched more and tossed it toward the boys, then again at me. I flinched.

This was an old Puerto Rican tradition. A wrapped broom behind the door made unwanted visitors leave; it always worked. I’d seen Mamá do it when nosy neighbors came to visit, but she’d never done it to family. Never to blood relatives. The broom stood tall, propped up against the doorknob like a thin ghost. I prayed this one time it wouldn’t work. I didn’t want it to sweep me out, Blake and Omar either. While Mamá got her purse, I pinched a little salt and prayed that instead of us, the broom would sweep out the baby. I spit on the grains to make them stick to the broom head, to make it more powerful than Mamá’s magic, and threw them on.

“Let’s go.” Mamá pulled her purse over her shoulder.

I walked quickly past the broom without looking at it, and made sure that mine was the last pinch to be thrown before we left.

T
HE CHURCH WAS
silent, suffocating. When we entered, Mamá dipped her fingers in the bowl of holy water and crossed herself. I did the same, though the water always made my fingers smell like
escabeche
, pickled fish. There was only one Catholic church in Florilla, the Parish of the Saints. It had a gold, green, and red altar that stood as tall as the church steeple, with a statue of Christ staring blankly out over the pews. I didn’t mind the Christ statue as much as the Virgin Mary one. She made my scalp prickle. Her skin was pale and her robes hung over her head in white sheets, like giant gloved hands in prayer. The sun-crown behind her head fanned out in spikes of gold, bronzed knives splintering out. Everyone said she was beautiful, like a doll, but she scared me most of all: eyes forever downcast, silent lips glued together.

Mamá pushed me along to the confessional booths. Black whispering boxes. Usually I made up stuff when I went in, not wanting to bore Padre Ramos on the other side of the lacy window. None of my sins were too bad, though, just sinful enough to be interesting: disobeying Mamá, not saying prayers, pulling the tails off lizards, eating too much candy, not making my bed. A couple of rosaries and I was forgiven. But this was different. I wondered what it would take for God and the Virgin Mary, and Papi and Mamá, to love me again.

“You tell him everything.” Mamá opened the flap and pushed me inside the blackness.

The box smelled like the gray smoke they puffed over
us during mass. It made my nose run. I took a seat on the wooden slat. The latch creaked and slid open to show the pores in the lace.

“My child,” said Padre Ramos, “what have you to confess?” I liked Padre Ramos’s voice. It sounded like the ocean. Sometimes during mass, I closed my eyes and it nearly put me to sleep.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,” I began. “My last confession was two weeks ago because my cousin Omar and his friend Blake—he’s from the United States—have been visiting and I haven’t had time. But Mamá has been coming for our family. She comes almost every day, but it’s hard because she’s pregnant and her feet are fat and hurt and—” I was rambling. I didn’t want to tell him yet. I had to work up to it.

“Padre,” I whispered. Mamá shuffled outside the box. “I …” I didn’t know how to start it off. It was my first truly big sin to confess.

Padre Ramos leaned in and pressed the side of his head against the window. Little black hairs stuck through the lace. “Take your time, child. It’ll be all right.
Papá Dios
already knows your heart. Just tell me what happened.”

I scooted up to the window and cupped my hand around my mouth. “I took off my bathing suit in the creek.” There. It was out. I went on, “I only did it because Omar was bragging about his stupid armpit hairs. I wanted to show him that everybody has hair.”

“So you uncovered your body before your cousin and his friend?” He said it as a statement, not a question.

The Simplicity dress suddenly felt too small, and I tugged at the neck to get air. I hadn’t told Padre about Blake. I eyed the curtain flap, wanting to kick it and send Mamá flying back into the pew like a ball. She must have told him—called him or sent him a secret message.

Or maybe God had told him. I scooted back from the window.

“Sí
. But I had to.” I picked at my dress seams, pulling the stitches of the blooms apart. “He called me a liar. I had to prove I wasn’t.”

“Did they ask you to unclothe yourself?” Padre asked.

“No. I did it ‘cause I wanted to,” I said firmly.

He cleared his throat. “Verdita, just because you want something doesn’t make it right. That’s why God gave us the Ten Commandments and the Bible. To help us know what we can and cannot do. Lust is one of the seven deadly sins.”

But I hadn’t lusted.

“No, Padre—” I began.

“It is a desire of the body, Verdita.” He cut me off. “And the Lord tells us to treat our bodies as temples. We must not abuse what He has given us. And God sees everything.”

A deadly sin. Desire of the body. He spoke in riddles! Besides, if God was all-knowing, then he knew I didn’t lust. I did it to show Omar. I did it because I was right, and I
didn’t have to explain that to Padre Ramos, Mamá, or anybody. God knew. I yanked hard on a thread hanging from the hem and it split the seam open.

Padre Ramos went on, but I stopped listening. Mamá had told me that sometimes men talked to hear themselves, like when Papi lectured us on politics or the correct way to get eggs from under the chicken. I figured it worked the same for priests.

I remembered the Elvis Presley song. I could almost hear Señora Alonzo’s mandolin playing outside the confessional, and I tapped my feet to the rhythm.

“You are a good girl, Verdita. You don’t want to be stained with sin.”

He sighed deep, and I didn’t know if I was supposed to say something. His breath was heavy and whistled through his nose. I sniffed up the drips running out of mine and wished he’d blow his. He continued, “You must repent of this sin. You must promise never to do it again. You want to be clean and pure,
sí?”

Again, his nose whistled.

“Verdita?” He leaned into the lace.

“Sí
, Padre,” I replied. It was easier not to argue. I couldn’t make him understand the truth.

“Bueno
. Do six Hail Marys and six Our Fathers for penance. Anything else to confess?”

Now it was my turn to point the finger.

“Ay
Padre,” I sighed and propped my elbows on the ledge of the window. “It’s about my mamá and papi.”

I wouldn’t tell him how I wanted to kick Mamá in the stomach and roll her down the mountain, or that I’d written that I hated her in my journal. Hating people was a huge sin, and I already had enough Hail Marys. This was my chance to set the holy record right.