Summer of the Mariposas

Yes. If I could have anything, I’d have Papá come back into our lives and take care of us. I wanted him to stop touring, get a real job, and be home every day like he used to be when we were young. I wanted Mamá to stop working and worrying all the time. It’s not like I wanted her to tuck us in at night and sing us a lullaby in Spanish like she used to. We were too old for that now. No. I just wanted to be a family again.

“This is about all of you: your sisters, your parents, even your abuela,” La Llorona continued. “You must travel to the other side, into the land of your ancestors, to find each other again.”

As apprehension spread into every pore of my being, I did the one thing I could to quiet the guilt in my mind. I turned the radio on. But even with the sound of loud music reverberating through the car, I could still hear my conscience nagging at me. You could have stopped this, all of it, it whispered. This is more your fault than anyone else’s. You’re the eldest. You should have known better.

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Cecilia said, shutting off the television set with one click of her remote control. “That Jiménez is a corrupt anaconda. His position on the force is just a front. He’s suspected of being in business with the mafia. Only, he’s so cunning, so sly, no one can connect him to any of their crimes. But everybody knows he’s working both sides.”

My heart suddenly ached for her, and I wondered if this sadness, this pain that seemed to overwhelm La Llorona, was what Mamá felt after Papá had left, when she went to bed at night and cried alone in the dark. Did she miss having a family then? Was it the family and not Papá she had mourned? Had we misjudged her sorrow?

“Sometimes, men leave, for whatever reason,” Abuelita continued. “Nothing you did or could have done differently would have changed that. So I want you to stop blaming yourselves or your Mamá for the choices your father has made. Instead, I want you to continue taking care of each other the way you’ve been doing so far. I’m so proud of you for standing up for your hermanitas against those evil creatures. I’m sure having to do that has taught you how important it is to stick together and love one another more than anything else in the world.”

“Your father is like the sun, splendid to behold, but he must descend and let darkness rule for a time.”

I don’t get it,” Pita said.

The virgen stepped down from her throne and touched Pita’s face. “Without night there would be no rest, no room for growth. It is just the way things are,” Tonantzin explained in a serene voice.

[…]

“I know you don’t understand what is happening with your family,” Tonantzin said gently. “But you will, when the time comes. A new dawn is approaching, but you are very clever, very brave. You will not be blinded by his light.”

Then, just as reluctantly as the last leaf of autumn falls off a desiccated branch, Juanita’s hand slackened and fell away from mine. She walked away from me, leaving me alone with my anger and resentment. Papá’s arrival had done what Cecilia and her Evil Trinity could not accomplish. His empty promises broke the code of the cinco hermanitas. We were five little sisters, together no more—cinco hermanitas torn completely apart.

“We’re not tortas you can take out of the oven and set aside to cool off while you dillydally with a whole other life. Families are supposed to be important, and that’s one thing you never did: Make us important. And now you want to take away the only real parent we’ve ever had? Well, it’s not going to happen. We’re not going to let you get rid of Mamá.”

In Aaron, Mamá had found a strong heart, and she’d attached herself to the offered hands slowly, cautiously, making sure he was the right man with whom to start a new life. But when she’d emerged from the safety of her cocoon, Mamá was happier and more radiant than we’d ever seen her. In our eyes, she was reborn into beauty—celestial, divine. And we couldn’t be happier for her.