The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (33)

Marimar stormed out the side entrance, past the smelly chicken coop. Past the shed bloodied from the pig Tío Félix killed earlier. Past the dead orchards with leaves and bark crumbling into ash.

She stopped at the cemetery, overgrown with yellow weeds and dead flowers. She wasn’t going to get answers from the dead, either, but at least here she would have quiet. Her father had been responsible for her mother’s drowning. The momentary elation she’d felt at the prospect of knowing his name was gone. She wanted to scour the earth for him. And what? Introduce herself as his daughter and then ask Sheriff Palladino to arrest him? Kill him herself, perhaps.

She wanted to scream.

Marimar was so full of want for things she couldn’t put to words. She wanted a magic that had always existed at her fingertips. Every time she thought she got closer, it drifted away. She wanted her mother alive. She wanted her grandmother’s love. She wanted simpler things, too. A good job. A home of her own. She wanted truth.

“You should be here,” Marimar said to her mother. She brushed the simple, marble headstone. She traced the letters, Pena Lucero Montoya Galarza. Sometimes, when she was starting to forget her mother’s smile or laugh, Marimar remembered the little things. Her mother was the wildflowers blowing in the breeze. For someone who had rarely left Four Rivers, who had worked at the local vegetable farms and the video stores, Pena Montoya had gone through the world like she’d already seen it all and loved every second of it. She burned with light. Effervescent. And then she drowned. She was murdered.

“You should be here.” This time, the hollow space in Marimar’s chest felt like it echoed. She heard a susurration in the sunset air, the cicadas and crickets nearby. When she was a little girl, her mom and Tía Parcha liked to say that they could hear the stars speaking to them. That’s why they spent so much time outdoors. Marimar could never hear stars speak. But for a moment, there was something out there. It felt like a voice calling to her.

“You should be here.” Marimar only said it once more before moving on to tug at the wilted weeds growing around the headstones. She moved on to her grandfather, Luis Osvaldo Galarza Pincay. Tía Parcha, whose headstone was purely decorative since she was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. Then Héctor Trujillo-Chen. Caleb Soledad. Martin Harrison. By the time she was done, the sun was nearly finished setting, and her anger had ebbed.

Marimar noticed a glittering stone sticking out of the dirt. She crawled on her hands and knees to get closer. It almost looked like bone, but bone didn’t gleam.

She brushed the earth away, digging her fingers around the object. It was stuck. She found a flat rock and used it as a pick and shovel. She looked up to see fireflies surrounding her, illuminating as she dug deeper and uncovered the artifact.

It was a baby the size of a watermelon made entirely of moonstone. How many more of her grandmother’s secrets would she find that night?

Marimar picked up the moonstone baby and held it in her arms. It was cold to the touch, but she traced its smooth forehead, its closed eyes and round little nose. Strange as it was, it looked peaceful. Whoever had carved it had done so to perfection.

Sitting on her knees, Marimar glanced back at the house, all lit up to celebrate a death. As she trudged back, the statue in hand, she noticed Gabo flap his blue and red feathers on the roof, chest puffed up like he was ready and waiting to crow at the waning moon.



* * *



Rey couldn’t find Marimar anywhere. He’d half expected to see her running up the main road, but he remembered that if she was going to steal his truck, she’d need the key in his pocket. He decided to be mad at her later when they were on their way home. She’d left him all alone to finish helping in the kitchen.

He didn’t want to be the guy who got drunk in order to deal with his family, but as Tío Félix told Rey of his detailed plans to retire super early and take a fishing road trip across the States, Rey fixed himself another drink. He was good at listening. His mom told him once that he had a tender heart and a sincere face and needed to protect himself. He’d been ten, and it wasn’t the strangest thing his mother, who liked to dance barefoot on full moons in Coney Island, had ever said.

In a few hours, he was caught up with everything the Montoyas were up to. Tía Florecida had just had a divorce party, which no one in the family had known about until Rey asked about the tan line on her ring finger. Penny was living with her dad most of the time, since he got to keep the house, and Flor was having a second coming of age in San Diego. Ernesta had gone into marine biology and spent her time in Florida and labs because she was better at talking to sea life than to people. Caleb Jr. was busy smelling great and making designer perfumes. Silvia was an ob-gyn and every spare moment was dedicated to making sure her twins didn’t accidentally burn the house down with their pranks. Honestly, Rey didn’t see what the big deal was. When his mom was still alive, she’d left Rey and Marimar alone all the time, and between her smelly sage and his cigarettes they’d never burned down the apartment. Everyone seemed to be doing just fine.

“How’s work treating you?” Félix asked as he cut a sliver of crackling pork skin and crunched down on it.

“Good. Got a promosh. Totes fulfilling.” He didn’t want to talk like the bros in his office who abbreviated every word, but it just slipped out when he was nervous or if he didn’t want to have a conversation and deflected. “Actually, I forgot I had to refill grandma’s drink.”