Touched

There was guilt in her decision to go back, and fear of what she might find. She hadn’t seen her friend for many years. Shortly after the... incident... Anjelica had moved away from the island for good. An escape disguised as personal ambition for bigger things, but in truth a selfish move more than anything else. She couldn’t bear to watch Marisol’s descent into madness.

Anjelica hadn’t kept in touch, hadn’t once written to friends to check on Marisol’s wellbeing. Too painful. The guilt had kept her away for all these years, but the seed of it had grown insidiously, the invasive weeds had tangled her inner landscape to increasing wreck and ruin of her life until she realized the only way to have peace was to return.

It was hot. Every day was hot, but she left the rental at the hotel and walked the long mile, stirring up chickens and children that scampered in the roadside dust. The children stared, not because they knew her—they were too young to remember—but because she was unfamiliar, wore pants and silver jewelry. Not like their mothers and aunties.

At midday few adults were about; those who saw her quickly looked away. A scrawny dog snarled at her; she bent to pick up a rock and the dog yelped and scooted away.

It was at the end of the village where not much was left but jungle. No longer visible from the road, the small thatched bungalow with its rusted metal roof was smothered by palms and pandanus, kudzu and fallen fronds. The front walk, once kept meticulously swept and trimmed, was impassable, buried under decaying garbage and organic filth that reeked of rotting breadfruit and bananas. The place seemed a complete surrender, an impossibility, but Anjelica had been told Marisol had come back to the house and was still there, so she fought the urge to turn away. She’d come so far and she owed Marisol this, at least.

The road here was empty; nobody saw her hesitate and almost change her mind. As she stepped closer, the tangled mess of jungle closed overhead, blocked out the sun and gave a breath of shade. Birds stopped singing. She found a trodden path along the side fence.

The back door was ajar. She knocked—once, three times, and decided to give up. Relieved, she took a step away. The door swung open.

It was the right house, it had to be, but this couldn’t be beautiful Marisol. Then:

“Anjelica.”

The person she once knew whispered through.

She hadn’t planned to enter but Marisol smiled and beckoned.

There were teeth missing, hair missing, a map of pain carved into the face. A housedress ill-buttoned and unspeakably filthy. The stench of feces and urine turned Anjelica’s stomach so she had to put a hand to her mouth and cough to cover her gagging. And there was movement, the room unsettled: birds nesting, rats scuttling along the baseboards, flies, water dripping from dark stains in the ceiling. Marisol’s hand shot past Anjelica’s startled face and snatched a scrabbling lizard off the wall. She held it up—translucent green skin with squirming tail—and popped it into her mouth.

Anjelica bleated an anguished sob. This was her fault.

“Marisol. Forgive me. Please forgive me.”

Fifteen years ago Marisol had come home early and discovered them right here in this room. She’d gone berserk. There was screaming, arms and fists flailing, and suddenly a gun. Anjelica had climbed out the window, had heard the shots pop! pop! pop! as she ran down the road. She found out later that Eddie was dead. The sleeping baby too—a ricocheted bullet to the cradle in the corner. Marisol spent her prime years in prison, her beauty and sanity rotting away to the wreckage now left.

Anjelica backed away.

"No, no, no!” A snigger, and green skink blood spattered onto Marisol’s lips.

Anjelica found the door; her hand fumbled on the knob for support, for escape. But Marisol’s thick yellow fingernails clutched her with a hard grip. She held a lizard to Angelica’s lips and imitated her plea: “Forgive me, forgive me...”

~~~

There is no surprise when I see her face at my door. I always knew she’d come back one day.

“Anjelica!”

I immediately feel the love and the rush of memory: laughing and holding hands on the way home from school, sharing clothes and secrets and swimming naked on the reef when we knew we weren’t supposed to, hiding the bleeding cuts we’d gotten from the coral. She cried with me when my mama died. She helped me sew curtains when Eddie and I got married. The same curtains she ripped when she jumped out the window. She was here in this room the night I gave birth to Mati. She was here in this room the night I killed Mati.

She was here in this room with my Eddie.

When she comes in her eyes hate me and in them I can see the monster that lives here now. (I smashed all the mirrors when I came home.) She’s not from here anymore. She has city clothes, and shoes with heels and her hair is cut short like those people do. Her face is ugly with colors. There’s something wrong in her black charcoal eyes, but I only see through fog. There’s always fog.

“Marisol.” She says my name sweetly. “Forgive me. Please forgive me.”

The red comes now, the same mad red that came the night I killed Eddie. And Mati. And Mati. And Mati. I remember my hands beating on Anjelica and grabbing her neck and I can see my hands now through the fog and they’re grotesque with nails like horns so I take another lizard, I have a lizard I want her to eat because I remember and I hate her like I hate me and she moves to leave but I can’t let that happen again. She left that night and I can’t let that happen again.

“No, no, no!”

I feel blood on my lips. I hold her with my claw hands and breathe in her face. “Forgive me.” (But I feel like laughing. I really don’t care.) “Please forgive me.”

She left that night. She left me alone with the horrible mess and I can’t let that happen again. I won’t let it happen again.