The Table of Truth - Chapter Two, Part 1c

I tried to find a good time to tell Diego. A time when he was in a good enough mood he wouldn't beat me out of anger. He seemed cold. Distracted by something. It took me off guard and I put off telling him. Then he didn't come home until late on most nights. He didn't notice me. Even when I lay naked under the bed and stretched out one leg to entice him. I had decided that if I wasn't going to leave, if I was going to stay for the sake of the kids, I might as well make it enjoyable. But even that night he walked past me, lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
The next time I was at the Oxxo buying milk I noticed a few people staring at me. Rosarito is a small town where everyone knows each other's business, often before the people who are being gossiped about. Apparently I was the one being talked about this time because they looked away whenever I turned toward them. In times like this it's usually your family that gives you the bad news. And this was no exception. Berta finally told me that Diego was running around behind my back. She could hardly hide the smirk on her lips.
And it wasn’t just one affair. He was sleeping with several girls. It became more widely known what he did for a living, and they were all excited by his recklessness. I wanted to go to each one of them and punch them in the face. They knew he was still living with me. And they purposely played around with him behind my back. They humiliated me. I wanted to return the favor.
But my belly was beginning to show. And I couldn't risk damaging the baby. I was beginning to have back pains. I was often sick in the mornings. And I even had trouble sitting because I was giving myself multi-butt-vitamin injections again.
One of the girls didn't know I was home all the time. She came knocking at the door and I answered, Tino in my arms. As she stammered, I placed little Tino into his brother's arms, punched the bitch in the nose, then calmly closed the door and took Tino back into my arms again.
I finally confronted Diego and he denied it. Of course. I stopped sleeping with him. I slept on the floor. The couch. Anywhere he wasn’t. I kept meaning to leave, but I could never bring myself to take the children away. Part of me somehow wanted to work things out. Another part of me knew I couldn't. But I could not imagine life without him. More importantly, that same part of me didn't want the children to grow up without their father. I stayed with him in spite of my entire being.
Sleeping away from him seemed to work. He humbled himself. Stopped disappearing. And acted like a boyfriend again. He even started referring to me as his wife. I suppose by law I was since we had lived together for more than a year and had children together. I couldn't help but notice that he never got a ring. But at least he took a better interest in the lives of the children. And at last he noticed what was happening to my body. He wasn't angry. He was too apologetic to be angry.
The baby turned out to be a girl. She was simply a work of art. A painting made in heaven. I named her Mona after the Mona Lisa. I didn't even ask Diego. This was my little girl.
My family was around me again, my mother, Elsa, my two older sisters. Claudia now had a daughter. Berta had a second son. They swooned over my fourth born the way we always did over every baby. My father was there, too. It was the first time I had seen him in a long time. He looked older. Pale. I barely noticed at the time, though. I was in such a daze of exhaustion and euphoria.
I held Mona aloft as though presenting the new queen. She cried, and we all laughed to one another. My father stepped forward and pet her on the head and I pulled her slowly back down. He smiled at her. Then at me. I always felt lost in that smile. He put his hand on me the same way he had put it on Mona. Like I was the baby now. That was the first moment I noticed how he looked. The shakiness in his hand gave it away.
“She's a little miracle,” he told me.
“Yeah,” I replied. “They're all miracles. And tomorrow I'm getting my tubes tied so I don't have any more little miracles.” We shared a laugh together.
Then Diego pulled her away from me. “Careful!” my father scolded. But Diego was being careful. He knew how to hold a baby. He folded his arms under her shape and stared at her.
“We'll name her after my mother-”
“No!” I snapped. “Her name is Mona.” He began to open his mouth, but I leaned forward, my eyes ablaze with the fury that came with giving birth. “Her name is Mona and that is final.”
He backed down. “Fine,” he said, handing, almost tossing her back to me. “She's your kid.”
I suddenly wondered something I had never thought of before. How had Diego been treated as a child? His mother was almost certainly insane. She sat in front of the television most of the time. Except for the moments of rage when she would rise and throw things at whomever she was mad at. Or whoever was closest. He had two older brothers who took out their frustrations at the world on him. They told him they were teaching him to be a man. It was an excuse for them to beat on him. He never knew his father. Except that he heard he beat his wife’s ex-boyfriend almost to death. That’s how they had gotten together. That’s how Diego was born. And then the bastard disappeared. Diego vowed that he would never do that. Never abandon his family.
This was the reality Diego had grown up in, and I only saw the result of a child who came out of that kind of existence. I pitied him.
The pity didn't last long. When I got home I could barely walk. Which made it nearly impossible to chase the boys around. Especially while I was holding the new baby. Diego didn't help. Most of the time he wasn't there. And when he was, it was like taking care of a fifth child. He was needy. Lazy. Completely self-involved. I was too busy to notice if he was high. But he was downing several beers at any given moment.
It was Diego Jr, now eight, who stepped up and helped. He became known as Little Daddy. He was far beyond his years in maturity and intelligence. The multi-butt vitamins were finally paying off!
The best part of me and my sisters all having children is that they got to play together. We all became closer in motherhood than we ever had been as children. We shared ideas, experiences, and what we learned. I left my children with them, but neither left their children with me. They didn’t trust Diego. It was okay. Four children was all I could handle anyway.
Occasionally Diego would forget to pay the electric bill and I would have to go pay to turn the lights back on. Once that happened on a cold, windy night when it was too late to do anything about it. We would have to accept it until we could do something about it in the morning. I began wondering again why I was staying with him.
I pulled out the candles and lit a couple. Tino was frightened. I held him close along with Mona. Little Daddy, being the man he was, held Mario close to himself. The wind howled outside, making the night more chilly and frightening. We huddled together. We lit a candle on the floor between us.
“I'm scared,” Mario whined.
“Don't be, darling,” I told him. “Changes in life are opportunities for something new. This storm has given us the opportunity to tell a story. Look at me, Mario. Listen. Once upon a time there were three little pigs and they were all building houses.”
“How do pigs build houses?” Mario asked.
“Don't be stupid,” Little Daddy scolded. “With bricks and stuff.”
“I'm not stupid! You're stupid!”
“Nobody's stupid!” I told them, my hands out. “We're all smart, just like the pigs who made their houses, but not all out of brick. Only one of them did. The rest made them out of straw, and paper, and stuff like that.”
“Why would anyone make their house out of paper?” Little Daddy asked.
“Because they're pigs,” Mario blurted from his lap. They laughed together. It's amazing to me how brothers can be at each other's throats one moment, then laughing together the next. We sisters were close, but when we got angry with each other we held a long grudge.
“But then a big, bad wolf came along,” I continued. “He wanted to eat the pigs! He came to the first house and said, 'Let me in! Let me in! Or I will blow your house down!' And the little pig said, 'Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin!'”
“They had beards?” Mario asked.
“These pigs did. So the wolf huffed, and puffed, do it with me.” We all took a big breath and the children copied me. “And he blew the house down!” We all blew. The candle went out. Mona screamed.
“Is our house going to blown down?” Mario cried.
“No,” I assured him, rocking Mona. “That was just the wrong fairy tale to tell.” I lit the candle again.
A knock came at the door. A sudden and loud cracking at the wood. We jumped at the sound. I told Diego to go answer it. He took Mario with him and together they opened the door.
It was Berta. “Is your mother here?” she asked hastily. Little Daddy led her to me. Not a long distance. Her form moved briskly through the dark. And when her face appeared in the candle light it revealed fear. “You must leave here right away,” she said urgently.
“Why?” I asked.
She looked briefly at the children. Lifted me up and led me away from them. I continued to hold Mona, but left the boys by the candle light. I could hear Tino beginning to whine. But Little Daddy looked after him.
“Diego has been caught selling drugs.”
“Where? How?”
“I don’t know. But the Federales are on their way. They’re going to arrest you and take your children away. They’re not here yet because they’re stopping at the DIF to get a social worker to take them.”
“No one’s going to take my babies!” I cried out to her. I was too loud and Mario began to cry.
“No one’s going to. We won’t let them. But you have to come with us right now!”
We blew out the candle and ran to the car. Mario’s crying became a bellow. He wanted to get his toys. His dolls. His favorite possessions. To him they were like real living beings. Like pets. But if he went back for them we would probably lose each other. I told him no. We hurried out to the waiting cab.
A couple blocks down the road we saw two police cars and an unmarked federal car pass by, their lights blazing. Home was gone.
The paved road gave way to the dirt roads in the hills where most people in Rosarito live. To the home of my parents. The place I grew up where I would now be hiding my children.
We rushed inside and the kids took refuge in the guest bedroom. My mother had known we were coming and prepared it for us. My father only shook his head.
For the next few days my sisters created an entire spy network. Watching for the police. Trying to get information about Diego. He was in serious trouble. He could only get a lighter sentence by telling on other people who might come back and hurt him. I couldn’t visit him. I couldn’t even go into town. I had to remain hidden.
The entire family pulled together and brought groceries for me and my kids. My father played with the grandchildren. Made them feel like nothing was going wrong. It almost made me feel like everything was okay. Or was going to be.
But reality caught up with us a week later. Berta, who lived next door, came to the house hurriedly. The look on her face said it all. I knew it was time to move on.
We stayed with Claudia and her husband for a few days. Our children got to know one another as they never had before. Neither Claudia nor her husband looked happy to have us there. This could get them in trouble. But she kept us hidden nonetheless. I was grateful.
Me and the boys slept in one bed together, while Mona, dearest Mona, slept in a cradle.
After a couple weeks Claudia’s husband was willing to pay the fee of a hotel if we would just stay there instead of live with them. He put us up in one of the nicest places. The Hotel America in Tijuana where the police would hopefully not search for us… And a long way from the rest of the family. It was none too soon, either, for a day after we left the police arrived on their doorstep looking for me. Looking for answers I couldn’t give them. And looking to take my children away.
Now all five of us slept in one bed together. We ate in bed together. We played in bed together. There was only one chair and a table, a bathroom, and the large bed we spent most of our time in. No one was allowed out without the whole group traveling together. And then we only walked down the hall and back. Usually to get ice.