Verónica
“Ten more minutes and I’m out of here.” I was not in the mood for this shit today. I was still fussing when my younger brother Ramon’ walked into the room.
“Look who the cat drug in.”
“Oh, you’ve got jokes.” I shot him an angry look because I was pissed at the world. Rummaging through boxes in my old room for discarded baby clothes was not on my list of things that I wanted to do.
“What are you doing over here?”
“I promised Madrea Sita that I would come by today to look through these old clothes to see if I could use them for my baby.”
“She don’t know your uppity ass ain’t gonna allow that?” If he wasn’t telling the truth I would have popped him.
“Guess not.” I chuckled. There was no way in hell I going to put a child of mine through that torture. Been there and done that.
“You’re right but I promised Madre I would look. Where is she?”
“Where else, she’s writing at her desk. Do me a favor and take all that crap with you when you leave” Ramón said as he left the room.
“Like hell. The only thing I’m taking home with me is my fat ass. Besides I thought I’d save them for your children.”
“Over my dead body,” Ramón yelled back. I surpressed a smile as I listened to him going down the stairs.
I gained a reprieve from my search when the phone rang.
“Whew, I needed that,” I said aloud as I braced my back to stand up. I had been bending over boxes for the last half hour and my lower back had begun to vibrate. I wobbled to the hallway and grabbed the phone, thankful for the temporary reprieve. Although it had stopped ringing by the time I got to it, I still picked it up and heard a strange voice. For a split second, I heard Madre Sita’s mutter something but it was so garbled I couldn’t understand it.
“Canary, prepare your nest,” the voice said with a heavy Spanish accent.
I was about to hang up the phone. I thought they had the wrong number, but the call piqued my curiosity. “Hello?” My voice was met with silence. An eerie feeling came over me. I wasn’t sure why. I wanted to hang up but I could not get my fingers to release the phone. I played the waiting game.
Another few seconds passed and the caller repeated the alien words: “Canary, prepare your nest.” His voice was low and guttural. It sounded like the voice of a man who’d been chain-smoking for years. He struggled with his English. Irritation won over curiosity, I had little patients for people living in the United States yet barely managed to speak the language.
“I’m sorry; you must have the wrong number.” The voice spoke again as I attempted to return the phone to the cradle.
“Nest or grave? Prepare … ,” he said as if he didn’t hear me telling him he had made a mistake.
“Excuse me?” Did he say grave? What the hell was he talking about?
A distinctive thud followed by the sound of our downstairs phone hitting to the floor startled me. I snatched the phone from my ear, straining to hear what was going on downstairs.
“What the hell?” I muttered aloud for the caller to hear, even though I wasn’t speaking to him. That’s when his next words stunned me.
“Verónica …” he barked my name like a command. “Prepare,” he hissed as he elongated the word, using his native Spanish language. His voice, no longer coarse, irritated me with its familiarity. Who was this person? Before I could ask who he was and, more important, what he wanted, I was summoned downstairs.
“Verónica!” My brother’s voice jolted me.
“Oh shit! Veronica, hurry… it’s Mother.”
I slammed down the receiver all thought of the mysterious call dismissed from my mind. I navigated the rickety stairs as quickly as my girth allowed. Fear the likes of which I’d never known gripped me. I wrapped my free hand around my stomach as I clutched the handrail to keep my balance. My petite body struggled to handle the heaviness of my unborn child. By the time I had reached the bottom of the stairs, I was winded.
Madre Sita was lying on her back on the kitchen floor. Laying next to her was the cordless phone that she had apparently dropped.
“What happened to her?” I gasped as my mind fought to understand what my eyes were seeing. My feet refused to move.
“I don’t know. I was in the living room when I heard a noise. I came in and she was lying on the floor.” Tears were streaming down my brother’s face. To stunned to cry, I pried my stubborn feet from the floor. I had to do something.
“Madre,” I yelled as I attempted to lower myself to the floor. With the exception of a small knot growing on her left temple, she looked to be sleeping. Her face held a terrible grimace as if she were in dire pain minutes even as she slept.
“She must have stuck her head against something, look at that knot on her head.” I smoothed my hands across her face as I noticed the gray that had streaked through her hair, especially around the temples. Her flesh was chilly and hard. I was attempting to pick her up and position her on the nearby sofa but Ramón stopped me.
“What are you doing?”
“We can’t just leave her on the damn floor.”
“But … the baby…”
He was right. I wasn’t in any condition to lift her up, even though she couldn’t have weighed more than ninety-eight pounds soaked and wet. Ramón weighed less than Mother so he couldn’t do it either.
I grabbed her shoulders and began to shake her but immediately stopped. If she suffered from internal injuries, I wanted to make sure I didn’t complicate the situation.
“Is she breathing?”
I pressed my nose close to her face but couldn’t be sure. My heart was beating so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else. .
“Hell, I don’t know!” I wasn’t sure if the breath I felt was my own or that of my mother. I pounded on her chest hoping it would help and not hurt. I did not do the breathing cause I was unsure of how that worked. I once took a CPR class but I could not remember a damn thing I was taught.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes as I looked on helplessly. “Dial 9-1-1,” I demanded. As the oldest child, I knew I would have to be the strong one in this situation. Grabbing Madre’s hand, I started to massage it, hoping she would open her eyes. I willed away the panic that wanted to overtake me.
“Now dammit!” I yelled when I realized Ramón was still fixed in place and had made no effort to pick up the phone, which was still laying on the floor. The harshness of my voice seemed to break his trance as he scrambled to pick up the phone.
“Hello … hello? There’s something wrong with the phone,” Ramón whined.
The sound grated on my nerves. In his haste to dial, he had forgotten to clear the line. Getting up from the floor, I snatched the phone from his hand and pressed the button to clear the line and made the call myself. Once connected, I gave the emergency operator our address. She advised me that help would be on the way. I handed the phone back to Ramón then I continued to massage Madre’s hand.
“Do you know CPR?”
“No, do you?” Ramón cried harder.
“They will be here soon.” I spoke to assure Ramón, but I prayed Madre Sita heard me as well. I looked over at Ramón to see if he was going to be alright.
He was seventeen years old but didn’t run the streets like most boys his age; instead, he preferred to stay at home alone playing video games.
“What if she dies?” I slapped Ramón’s face before I could stop myself.
“Don’t talk like that.” Ramón walked over to the couch and sat down. I regretted hitting him but it was done.
“What’s wrong with her?” Ramón asked. If he was angry with me for hitting him, he didn’t allow it to show.
“She’ll be fine. She’s breathing so that’s a good sign. Call your sister and tell her she is needed at home as soon as possible. Don’t tell her what happened, just tell her to get here.” I tried to keep my voice confident and calm despite how terrified I was on the inside.
“Can’t you call her? She’s going to yell at me if I do it.”
I didn’t have time for this shit. I fought the urge to slap him again, but the look in his eyes tore through my heart.
Thankfully I heard the ambulance in the distance and realized it was too late to call my other sibling, Victória.
“Never mind, they’re here now. We’ll call her from the hospital.” I was in control once again now that help help had arrived.
Ramón appeared to have breathed a sigh of relief. He raced to open the door and allowed the paramedics inside our small living room. They questioned me as they tended to our Mother.
“Is she allergic to anything?” one of them demanded.
I didn’t like the impersonal tone of his voice. I started to let his ass have it, but I held my temper. “I don’t know?”
“Is she taking any medications?” He was checking her vital signs.
“No, not that I am aware of.”
“Does she have a history of fainting spells?”
“Uh … no, I don’t think so?” I hadn’t realized how little I knew about Madre until I had to answer all those questions.
“What was she doing before she lost consciousness?” he said as they wheeled the stretcher out the door.
“I was upstairs. I assume she was on the phone because it was laying next to her when I came downstairs.” I recalled the four words I’d heard—canary prepare your nest—before she fell, but they made no sense to me. I wondered whether they held meaning to Madre. I made a mental note to give it more consideration when things got back to normal.