ERICA

The dog is dead. In the garden lies a patchwork of orange soil where he used to sleep. The stain will remain there, waiting for the pulsing Santa Ana winds to sow the shining particles into the Hollywood Hills, yet no one will watch the tail twist and float above the concrete suburban lacework. Instead, suburbanites will be drawn to the blemish staining a shiny, emerald lawn in Windsor Hills, Los Angeles. A memorial for a bloodhound who did little in its life but cough at a three-story house before falling asleep and failing to wake up again.

Erica is certain that the Paradise Homeowners Association has denounced the orange gash in her garden through a scrawled cursive letter that was lost in the mail. The hurried thought tempts her to unfurl her rigid fingers around the canopy curtain draped across her king-sized bed to claw for her cellphone. The mailman assures her with platitudes of yes, ma’am if the letter shows up, I will let you know, and of course I take my job seriously. This is not enough. The retiree finds herself in the garden after a day of strained exchanges with the association’s disinterested administrative assistant, attending a funeral for a dog she never loved. 

Isaac, her husband, hoists the animal and carries it to the young Mimosa tree in the corner of the yard. While watching him silently trek across the garden, Erica notes how the shrubbery surrounding her has sagged and withered with age. Fête blanc parties with midnight cocktails tracking rings of condensation on iron wrought tables had given way to one-year-old birthdays riddled with jelly-covered hands, high-schoolers drunk-diving into the shallow pool, charity events hosting fossilized big spenders, and numerous tear-filled graduation celebrations. All precipitating into an emptiness that was hard to name. One in which an old dog reveled and died.

“This house is too big, Isaac. We’ll kill each other in there,” Erica says, rubbing her temples in an effort to stave off a headache before wiping the fake tears from her eyes. The dog’s burial ditch leaves a spot of soil mirroring the first on the other side of the garden.

“We’re not moving,” Isaac says with his back to her. Erica watches the smile of his receding hairline rise and fall as his shoulders collapse.

Looking down at her Chanel houndstooth heels, Erica huffs, “Well, then. At least don’t let me look at this shithole.”

As she stomps into her home, she turns back to her husband of 30 years, staring at the quiet hush of the Mimosa tree, whose pink, feathered flowers peak through the branches like the heads of the cockatiels her grandfather once caged in his two-bedroom house in southern Florida. In the last few moments of dusk, the woman watches as the world takes on a subtle, orange hue. All at once she is tired of taking it in, the glory of it all. She shuts the door.

MARGO

The sun shines in Margo’s eyes as the LaCosta Landscaping Company pickup truck rocks from hitting a stray pothole. She is sitting between her father at the wheel and his co-worker staring out the window, blasting music through broken neon-green headphones. As they rumble slowly up palm-tree lined streets, paper-thin green lawns fill the windows in stray lines of color. Margo leans into her father, blinking back the light from her eyes. He looks down at her.

“Va a estar caliente. ¿ Tienes tu sombrero?” 

It’s going to be hot outside; do you have your hat? 

The Spanish and English abruptly wind together. The young girl of twelve nods and lifts her tan bucket hat in response. Her father smiles, and he turns the radio to a Mexican station. 

To be in middle school is a trial for most, yet Margo knows that it is all a matter of survival. She, herself, was ousted from the moment she stepped into St. Andrew’s Regional Catholic School that year prior. Her parents had moved from Phoenix to the Los Angeles area to live closer to her uncle, who had found a better paying job at the LaCosta Landscaping Company. This is where her father, Héctor, now works. 

Héctor was a carpenter in Mexico. All day he sat, shaping the light pieces of wood that he would occasionally find on the side of the road into frames or chairs or tables or spoons. Margo remembers how friends and neighbors would stop by in the middle of the day, saying, no sé cómo encuentras una cuchara en un pedazo de madera. I don’t know how you find a spoon in a piece of wood. Truth be told, he did not know either. Simplemente como una bailarina aterriza. Solamente, lo hago. It’s like how a dancer knows how to land. I just do it. Now, he no longer builds chairs or coat racks or fences, but rather cuts grass, cleans hedges. 

The problem lies not with the act of dreaming, but the act of dreaming in the wrong places. The act of sending one’s child out of Temple City, having her take two buses to reach the suburbs, all in an effort to attend a preparatory school where being a Mexican American is rare enough for others to notice. Eager to get their child into a suitable, Catholic school, Margo’s parents filled out every potential scholarship with the help of their child, who translated beside them at the wooden kitchen table in-between feeding her three-year-old sister, JoJo, baby carrots. Margo was naturally bright and entered the school one Monday morning with a full scholarship, a hand-me-down green-checkered jumper, and a small stipend for materials. 

Recess was the time of day she hated the most. There was no structure to lean into, no rhythm. Nevertheless, she took her book of poems by William Carlos Williams to the shade of the oak tree on the school grounds. There she would sit, memorizing without fully speaking. Allowing the words to exist as a concept rather than a fact of sound. 

The little sparrows/ hop ingeniously/ about the pavement/ quarrelling/ with sharp voices/ over those things/ that interest them. 

 Margo had looked up from her book to find a piece of gum in her hair, lodged between her ear and the black strains of the wispy curls that framed her face. Turning to see where it had come from, she found Cara, who laughed and said a word that Margo had not understood. A word that Margo had asked her mother about that night at dinner, as her sister threw her plate of rice onto the floor. A word that caused her mother to run into the other room and cry a horrible sound resembling the stray cats that would occasionally prowl in their neighborhood. A sound that had made Margo choke on her dinner, retreat the tones that had once formed words back into her mouth. That day, Margo had learned to understand what is spoken under others’ breath.

Now she is in a landscaping truck with her father in the early summer. Her jet-black hair is gone, and what is left will soon be smothered by a bucket hat. The air conditioner in the truck is broken, and the windows only partially roll down. So, Margo, with sweat dripping down her cheek, leans into her father and whispers a tune her older brother had taught her.

De colores se visten los campos en la primavera.

De colores,

De colores son los pajaritos que cantan el la pajarera.

De colores

In moments like these, she urges her mind to recall the smell of his shirt when he hugged her, the rush she felt when they raced through the lawn sprinkler, his smile. Seventeen, her abuela had wailed to the crowd before she, too, had passed. Too young, she said.

Somewhere, in the depths of their house, Margo knows that her mother is sighing in tandem with her. She is perched on the edge of her sofa and sewing bits of sadness into her daughters’ clothing. Margo learned a long time ago that those who have the most to say often have the least opportunity to do so. In that way, she has never told another soul about what happens at night in her family home. How in the stark gray of the moon, Margo has awoken to her parents, who have not forgotten her brother’s name; Sébastian.

ERICA

Erica begins to pace the length of her bedroom. Ten minutes late. She can hear the garden shrubbery growing, unearthly and grotesque in its shape, forming bodies en masse in her garden.

She stops as she catches her foreign, moving figure in the vanity mirror. Following the cracks of age down her face toward her neck, she finds blue spider veins flowing through hills of sunken pallid skin. Where once a vibrant green, her eyes have muted behind bags of black, and her brown hair pulls her face taut by way of a tight bun. Moving closer to the mirror, she comes across a gray strand which eluded years of brown hair dye. Not daring to flinch, she plucks it.

The inside of Erica’s world is frozen in time, and as she passes by forgotten school portraits of her three sons, each two years apart in age, she does not pause to remark on their likeness to her own. Boys who moved several years prior trading snowboarding trips to Aspen for corner offices and training wheels for BMWs. A part of Erica misses the pitter-patter of feet, the feeling of knowing that other bodies are sleeping surrounded by the same walls as she. Nevertheless, their noses and mouths hold an imprint of her, their voices traces of a southern accent she spent her younger years trying to choke back into her throat. She walks out of her home toward her driveway.

MARGO

A woman, tall and narrow shouldered, walks out of a three-story house in a manner reminiscent of a toy soldier, her hands at her sides.

“I would expect that they would teach you all how to read time in LaCosta Landscaping,” she says pursing her lips, caked with red lipstick. A smile forms. A silent, pointed form of seizure.

“We’ll start now, miss,” Héctor motions to his coworker, who has since switched out the neon green headphones for a more subtle, black shade of the same pair. The man runs behind the truck, leaps into the cargo bed, and begins to hand down materials as another truck pulls into the driveway. After pulling a red backpack out of the car, Margo turns to follow her father.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Margo looks up at the woman squinting from the direct sunlight. She shifts her weight in her sneakers and digs her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants. The neon yellow LaCosta Landscaping company shirt, a size too big for her, clings onto her back as sweat casually rolls down her neck. She kicks away an artificial rock.

“Margo.”

Héctor appears beside his daughter and lightly rubs the top of her head. There is no noise between the three of them, only the movement of equipment, the grunting sound of work.

“Would he like to come in for some lemonade?” 

Hands on her knees, the woman leans down to meet Margo’s eyes. The young girl directs her gaze to her father, searching for any indication that the gender change has landed in his ear. He looks taller to her from this angle, as he stares ahead. Héctor nods. 

“¡Ve!” Her father tells her with a smile, “Pero regresa pronto para ayudar.”

Go, then, but be back to help in a little bit.

The woman waves the child to follow her inside the dark, cool invitation of an open door. Her purple shape disappears into the darkness of the other side.

Following behind, Margo balls her hands into a fist as if heading into an abyss.

MARGO

Not many people talk about Sébastian anymore. A young boy of seventeen with thick black hair slicked back, even on Sundays, with a chalky grin of white teeth dancing on his face. That’s what she had left of him. 

Sébastian was like many of the teenagers in Margo’s old neighborhood in Hermosillo, Sonora. He would smoke cigarettes by the convenience store around the corner and would ditch school in the middle of the day. When he was young, he would disappear for days, coming back in the dead of night through the window of the bedroom he and Margo shared. She remembers his tall, thin shadow, her squeak of fear, and his reflexive move; a finger to his smiling lips.

Margo remembers when the gunshots began every night before closing her eyes to sleep. She could remember seeing Sébastian sneaking to the door of their bedroom in an effort to hear their parent’s hurried whispers, speaking softly. Héctor’s business was not doing as well as it once had, but Margo didn’t know this. She did not know that, in those moments, Sébastian was steeling himself to quit school and work in town.

Margo learned years later that he had been caught walking to the bank. They found his body in the middle of the road, shot twice in the back. From that day forward, Margo learned to live with the knot in her stomach, the feeling that something was missing. She watched as distance glazed over her father’s eyes when they buried Sébastian. How, out of pain, her parents stopped saying his name at dinner. When the days grew longer and the orange hands of sunlight stretched over the world, the Esquivels packed up and left the town where Margo spent the first six years of her life. And soon, a fog of forgetfulness washed over their new apartment in Phoenix, Arizona, sweeping Margo up in grief that she knew she must endure alone. One that blended day-by-day into the dry, rasping earth, the relentless shrill of cicadas, and the happy screams of children playing on the blacktop tar.

Margo yearned to be like the rest of the girls in her school, with their prim lawns and their straight blonde hair. The kind of people that held dinner parties on Saturday nights without waking to Mariachi on early Sunday mornings. She resisted the memories that twisted cobra-like around her heart: the shrill strum of the viheula and her parents tapping the zapateado on the linoleum tile kitchen. She hated her curly hair and the way her skin browned in the sun. At the end of her summer days, she feels betrayed by both of the worlds that she was forced into. A story that everyone believes they know. A number of the dotted line. 

ERICA

They must not be able to make ends meet. That’s the only way that Erica can justify that man taking his son to work in the hot sun all afternoon. Erica stopS herself from mentioning that the child had not taken off his hat as they entered the house. She winces as he follows her down the checker-tiled hallway, his skechers chirping like a lost bird. The two of them do not pause to admire the minimalist-style of Painting of a Blue Square in the foyer nor does the child ask about the clouds of dust gathering in the hallway. Erica is thankful for this; it is unusual for guests to follow her indoors. As soon as she enters the kitchen, Erica takes mental stock of its contents: the light that cascades through the windows, the brightness of the yellow cabinets against the stark white walls, and her husband’s Rolex on the kitchen table. She walks over, picks it up, and places it on her wrist.

“Do you want something to drink? It’s so hot outside.”

Erica gestures toward the outside window as she walks to the cupboards. In turning to see whether or not the child is still by the doorframe, a glass slips from Erica’s hands and onto the floor.

“Shit,” Erica places her hands over her face and breathes deeply. She clutches to the marble countertop and focuses on a gray line snaking through the white stone. Holding her hand to her temple, Erica smiles, “I’m fine! Sorry about that.”

She waves as if to signal that she is not hurt. Her voice is louder, exaggerated. Meanwhile, the child has crept to the floral fabric-lined chairs besides the kitchen island. He is standing on the tips of his toes in order to see the spray of glass. Disinterested, his gaze follows out towards the window, where the palm trees pierce the ground like giant teeth. Erica watches as he goes up to the window and looks out. Straining to see the workers outside, the child places his hands on the glass and recoils as the sharp cold nips the tips of his fingers.

“Do you like to help your father with the yard work?” Erica asks as she gathers bits of broken glass from the floor. When Margo does not answer, Erica stands and repeats the question, only adding a juvenile rendition of mowing the lawn. Margo turns from the woman’s gaze, and Erica huffs before throwing the bits of glass in the trash can. There is a tap on the kitchen door frame, and Margo turns to find a young woman with a concerned look on her face. She has a short bob haircut with a sharp angle that, to Margo, makes her face look like the shape of a lima bean. She is holding a purse in her hand.

“What is it, Luisa?” Erica stands by the counter with a hand on her hip.

“I’ve reorganized everything like you wanted me to, Mrs. Roberts. I’m heading home for the day.”

The woman looks tired. She is wearing what looks like blue scrubs and sighs quickly as Erica begins to speak again, a smile curling on her face, “Wait a minute—have you met, um?” Erica asks as she gestures over to the table at Margo, who has since taken a seat by the kitchen table to wait for the promised lemonade. The child begins to frame the syllables of her name when Erica cries, “Margo. That’s it! He’s working today with his father.” Margo pulls out a book from the backpack and pushes down her hat over her eyes. Erica gasps from the other side of the kitchen island. 

“Oh, the cake!” She rushes to the fridge and pulls out an elaborate, three-layered dessert, “I made this for the men.”

Once again, she gestures outside with a smile on her face. She holds up cake like a child who has drawn a simplistic picture.

“I’m going to make sure they know where it is. Don’t you two talk about me while I’m gone!” She yells as she walks out of the house. Margo turns in her seat to watch Erica run out to the garden. The woman pulls an iron wrought table under a tall palm tree beside the orange plot where the dog used to sleep. The men do not look up at her as she places a linen cloth on the table before adding the cake. Believing it to be safe from the sunlight, she lays the desert down and adjusts the previously set plates. While she is not looking, two flies land on the mountain of icing and begin to lick it, stopping only to wipe their hands in a manner reminiscent of a cartoon villain. They begin to pace in circles and defecate in small heaps, waiting for the rain.

Inside, Margo and the woman are silent. “Your name is Margo?” The woman asks. Margo turns from the window and nods solemnly. Luisa smiles, “That’s a nice name.”

MARGO

Luisa doesn’t yet know how to act around other people’s children. The jokes that she might tell her younger cousins seem inappropriate to say in front of a stranger’s child and playing a game of tag is out of the question in a house as expensive as this one. Fearing that Erica will be angry if she leaves before being formally sent, Luisa smiles painfully at the child as she looks around the room to find something with which to talk about. Her eyes fall on Margo, who has since turned back to her book. 

“You like to read?” Luisa asks as she moves a piece of hair out of her hazel colored eyes and scratches her head. Margo looks up from reading and purses her lips. She catches sight of the woman’s dry hands and clicks her tongue. Her mother would never let her leave the house with hands looking ugly as those. Luisa gestures over her shoulder.

“I think there’s a box of books in the dining room if you want to come see.” 

Margo shrugs in response. They find the box behind the dining room table beside a cabinet containing the china and silverware. Margo sits down next to the box, her legs neatly folded, and opens it. In it, she finds several books about space, some comic books, and some dime store novels. Her hands dig through with a sort of hesitancy, as if waiting for a trap to spring. Her hands clasp around a novel. The title reads The Great Gatsby. Looking at the cover, with its hollow eyes peering from the other side of a dark veil, she cannot help but feel disappointed. She looks over at Luisa. 

“Eso es todo?” 

Is this it? Margo coughs. 

“Oh. Do you need some water?” Lusia asks, “It’s all the dust in here.”

As Luisa runs into the other room, Margo is alone, staring at the pallid blue of the dining room walls. Margo looks back down at the book and thumbs through its pages, keeping part of her vision locked on the entryway. Throwing the book back into the box, she plunges her hand until she comes across a book of beginner’s Spanish. She opens to a chapter about Mexico:

Mexico’s culture is bright and beautiful. Every year, the Mexican people celebrate a multi-day holiday known as “Día de Muertos” in which they honor their family members and friends who have died.

As her eyes fall on the bottom of the page, Margo shudders and sets it down. 

“I’m sorry,” Luisa runs back into the room, “Here’s your water.”

Luisa puts the glass onto the mahogany dining table and fiddles with her hands. Margo grabs the glass and lifts it to her lips. Luisa sits down and sighs, “I don’t know any Spanish. What did you ask me?” 

Margo’s eyebrows raise without a moment’s hesitation. A repulsion floats up from beneath her belly, surprising her. She doesn’t know why she feels such disappointment for the young woman whose forehead has already begun to wrinkle from years of disbelief. Margo looks back down and fights the knotting in her stomach.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. I get it.” Luisa stands, towering over the child. She hesitates before speaking again, thinking better of what she wants to say, “I have to go home, but it was nice meeting you.”

Margo stands to watch as the woman walks out onto the front driveway and passes her father’s truck and turns toward the end of the street. Margo cannot help but feel that adulthood is not much different than childhood. The same uncertainty lies behind them; the same contempt for a life that one was promised but never given.

ERICA

“What the hell are you doing?” Erica crosses her arms. The child stares at Erica without a word, as if he is waiting for her to answer for him. Just as she takes a deep breath, her eyes fall onto the glass on her mahogany table without a coaster. 

“Do you know how long it took me to find a table like that?” Erica grits her teeth, “Or how much money it costs?” Erica’s voice rises with a fake humor.

The child looks down at the floor toward his feet as he walks to the side of the table. His brown bucket hat hides his gaze from her.

“Of course, you don’t,” Erica pushes the glass of water off the table, which flies onto the wall. Margo yelps and flinches, “Children like you couldn’t possibly know what it takes to get all of this. How much I had to sacrifice!” Erica gestures around her, “You ungrateful child!” Erica’s eyes wide, she takes Margo by the arm and marches him through the hallway, the kitchen, and out into the back yard. Margo squints as the light breaks through the clouds. Once outside, she looks over toward the cake, melting, crumbling, and enveloped in flies. Margo stumbles and falls onto the ground. Erica pulls her up by the wrist and Margo cries out. 

“Whoever’s child this is, take him and leave!” Erica screams.

The landscapers look at her. The man with the black headphones looks over at Margo’s father and yells, “Héctor!”

Héctor turns and races toward his daughter, whose face is covered in tears. It isn’t until he is face-to-face with Erica that he notices her eyes. He goes to take his child from the woman’s hands when Erica pulls Margo from him.

“Don’t think I won’t report you.” The woman says underneath her breath. Margo looks up to find her father staring at the ground, apologizing for his daughter, and for not finishing his work. Margo feels the world slipping away from underneath her. Staring at the grass-covered spot where the dog once slept, she knows she must choose.

“No,” Margo says as she rips her arm from Erica. “If you looked for a second you would know that I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t want to be inside there with you—no one wants to be in that house with you!” She points at Erica. “You’re just a sad, old woman!” 

Before she can see Erica’s response, Margo takes her father’s hand and leads him out of the backyard, past the gate, and into the truck. Furious, he starts up the car. 

“Puedo perder mi trabajo.”

I could lose my job, he says as Margo looks out the window, “It’s not about you.” 

“I know.” Margo replies. 

The men hold their gaze on Erica before turning back to their work. 

I just wanted to get rid of that damn orange spot, Erica thinks, I didn’t ask for this.

With tears staining her new blouse, the woman leads herself back into the house and through the hallway towards the dining room. There, bending to pick up the fallen glass, Erica remembers how Luisa had recently cleaned the boys’ rooms to be turned into guest bedrooms. Erica turns to see the box and feels the blood rushing to her face. She shuffles over, glass in hand, and finds an open book beside it. With her hands shaking, she picks it up.

Later, Erica will not recall the blood covering her hands from the broken glass, the weight of her breath, or the ticking clock somewhere in the depths of an empty house. All at once, her sight is frozen on a picture in the heart of a sixth grade Spanish for Beginners textbook. Alone in the depths of a world that she had once built up and torn down, Erica saw it. Beside a picture of a young, Mexican boy, whose eyes have been blackened out with a pen. 

A word that she cannot repeat aloud, written in her young son’s handwriting.