Paola Villacís

Short Story (September 2023)

“Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure that you are…” – Mary Jean Irion

On the final day with Mom, I woke up without knowing. 

There was a slight breeze coming in through our kitchen window, and the wind made any loose napkin or paper swish around in the air before it fell to the floor. 

I didn’t know as I walked down the stairs. 

We were on the beach side, and the water looked bright blue, so bright I squinted when I looked at the waves. The sun beat directly down onto our beach house right by the sea and surrounded by clear sand. The fans were on because it was hot outside, though not hot enough that we were uncomfortable.

It was just Mom and I. 

I walked out onto the beach house’s balcony and sat with my coffee and toasted bread. Mom had the butter on the table, which had already gone soft from the heat.

“Oh, it’s Charlie. She just woke up. I’ll call you later.”

Mom would never call them back, and I didn’t know.

“Hi, baby,” she said in her usual tone because she was Mom, and she always greeted me this way. 

“Hm, did you sleep well?” My voice was still groggy with sleep. She nodded. 

I didn’t know when I looked at her then. 

Her eyes were decorated by laugh lines, and her hair was thinner now, different than the luscious locks I used to run my hands through at seven years old. Her skin was just as beautiful, however, and under the sun, she looked perfect. She’d tanned during our trip to the beach, so she looked sun-kissed, like she used to every summer before we moved too far away from the coast— when we’d spend months laying in the sand because school was out and no one else came to the beach where we hung out. I felt eleven, in an emotional, sappy, nostalgic sort of way. I didn’t let myself reminisce because I was very prone to crying in the oddest of moments. 

“Was that Aunt Lou?” 

“Mhm, she was just asking about you.” 

I didn’t ask her about what they said, about why she’d called. Because we were supposed to have forever together. I didn’t know.

“What should we do today?” she asked, still looking at the ocean, the waves crashing loudly onto the sand. Her voice was mellow, calm, unlike the usual upbeat, energetic, what-do-we-do next lilt she normally used in the city, where she had things to do, errands to run to, lists to cross things off of.

“We can swim,” I suggested lazily, yawning, then rubbing sleep off my eyes, “Or we can go into town. There’s that restaurant we wanted to go to. We could have lunch there, check out if it’s any good.”

She hummed and put her face up to the sun, her eyes closed, “I like that plan, let’s do it.”

Did the sun know what I didn’t?

I smiled into my mug. Spending time with Mom always separated the stress from my body, like a colander, if one could be used to rid ourselves of any pain and dark thought. She looked at me then, after she’d rested her head on her seat for a while. 

“Has she texted you?” Mom asked, and she smiled, her eyes scrunching where the laugh lines were.

I rolled my eyes at her, “No, and I don’t care. She can never text me again, and I won’t care.” 

“But you really liked her,” Mom protested with pouted lips. She stretched a hand and rubbed my shoulder. I laughed and let my head fall limp onto it. 

“It’s fine. It’s her loss, right?”

“Right, that’s my girl,” Mom laughed again and removed her hand, using it instead to move a hair away from her mouth where the wind had blown it. “Forget her. I’m cooler to hang out with anyway. This trip is about healing. Let’s let the beach and the sun heal us, hm?”

Mom’s accent caught in some words, which let me know she was being more serious. Her accent was a tapestry of a long history, an important mosaic of moments that had made her my mom. She pronounced every syllable, and she paid attention to every word as if it were her last. Mom knew how to say what she wanted to say, and no amount of mispronounced words could take away that from her. She’d figure out a way around any word, and her lips would pause in an oval form as she thought once, twice, thrice, pondering if what she’d said was right.

Mom’s accent told me she’d learned English later on to give her only daughter a better future, so they could move to the U.S. for her. Her voice was comfort enough.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” I laughed at her and bit into my toast. It wouldn’t go cold with the unrelenting sun over us, but I was hungry, and my stomach had already growled twice.

Mom watched me eat in the quiet way she always did when I was younger, and I didn’t like my vegetables. But, when she looked at me now, she was just looking at me, drinking in something about me. Perhaps how my hair had changed over the years. I used to have it long, naturally brunette, and down to my shoulders, whereas now I had a mullet, and I’d dyed it black. Or, perhaps she was also looking at me because I’d been crying into her shoulder the night before, and thoughts of René walking out the door of my apartment had almost made my throat close up. She’d held me, like she used to hold me when I was so small I could fit in her lap. She cradled my head like I was a newborn with no strength in their neck. She whispered words of comfort to appease the hiccoughs and the ugly sobs. 

So, now, she looked slightly worried, though mostly pensive, drinking me in.

I wanted her to look at me forever. I didn’t know.

When I’d almost finished my one sad toast, she nudged my foot.

“I’ll shower and wait for you by the porch, kay’?” 

“Mhmm,” I mumbled through the last piece of bread.

The sad toast did little to calm the growling in my gut, so a hasty attempt at fixing my hair and picking a passable outfit had us on the road down to civilization, twenty minutes away.

That day, Mom had the latest on Uncle Hugo’s mysterious divorce. Apparently, he’d never moved in with his wife, and they had lived in separate houses for the four years they were married. Mom asked around to find out why, but her sisters and brother had no clue either. It’d be the topic for another day. 

The restaurant was not busy, so we found tables quickly, and our food was served. 

Mom moved the food around her plate almost politely, in that mild mannered way that she did everything. She dug into a fried shrimp and scooped it into her mouth with the elegance I’d tried to mimic as an adult, though I never got close to her level of delicateness.

She gasped as the taste registered, waving her hands about in excitement like she did whenever something was quite delicious.

I watched her, and she covered her mouth with a laugh, the air leaving through her nose as she scrunched her eyes up in realization.

“I did it again,” she said after she’d swallowed her food.

I laughed, too, “You did. It’s like a tic or something.”

She shook her head and covered her mouth, still laughing, “I don’t know why I do that, I swear.”

“Well, is it good?” I laughed. She nodded fast.

“Oh, it’s delicious. I just forgot I do that thing.” 

I snorted and tried mine. The sad toast had not been enough, lunch was a welcome entrée.  

“Ooh, that’s really good. We have to come here again if we come back.”

“Right?” she raised her hands up, letting the embarrassment leave her. 

After lunch, we decided to skip dessert at the restaurant and look for a famous ice cream stand down by the pier instead. We walked for about ten minutes when we finally spotted it. Mom ordered a chocolate cone with M&Ms, and I decided to try out the pistachio one just to change it up a bit and see if I liked it. 

I did, and Mom mentioned wanting to try it, so I gave her a spoonful of my cup. She made a satisfied noise.

“That’s yummy. I’ll have that one next time.”

We walked for a while in our comfortable silence. 

“What day are we leaving?” 

“We reserved the beach house until the day after tomorrow, so we can leave in the morning on Monday. Will your boss mind?”

“Nah, I go in at six p.m. anyway. They won’t even know.” 

I placed my arm over Mom’s shoulder and made us walk close together.

“Let’s make this our tradition,” I said as the evening breeze came in. It was colder and less dry. It also smelled less like fish, though I wasn’t sure why.

“What? Eating ice cream?”

“No, coming here. To the beach. Let’s come here every other month. Or, let’s make it a yearly thing. We come here, we hang out, we go to the beach, we gossip, we do nothing and relax,” I squeezed her closer to me. 

“Let’s do it. My bank account won’t like it, but I don’t care,” she chuckled as she kept eating her ice cream.

“You flatter me, ma’am.”

“Oh, have you thought about asking for that promotion?”

I shook my head and tossed my empty ice cream cup in a nearby trash can, “I don’t want to. I don’t even know if the position is still open.”

“If you never try, you’ll never know, Charlie, why not at least try? You always used to try when you were little. You had the most god-awful voice I’d ever heard, but you said you wanted to be like Hannah Montana, so you auditioned for the school choir. The music teacher actually asked me to come in and told me to let you know that you’re not musical at all. She just didn’t know how to break it to you.”

“I think your advice got lost in there somewhere,” I laughed hard enough that my stomach hurt, “That was shit, Mom!”

“You know exactly what I mean, though,” she said, trying to keep herself from laughing too because that would make her look like she was laughing at me. I kept laughing so hard that I had to stop in the middle of the sidewalk and hold my stomach. 

“Charlie, oh my god, it wasn’t that funny,” Mom laughed, and she knew exactly how funny that was.

A minute passed before I was composed enough to keep walking, “That was golden.”

“Shut up, you’re such an idiot,” Mom kept eating the last of her cone, and I wiped at my eyes since they had actual tears. “Anyway, you always did whatever you wanted when you were little. I just don’t know why you aren’t doing that now. Ask for that promotion, Char. You’ll get it because you’re smart, and I made you.” We passed another trash can, so she quickly approached it and threw her napkins in. 

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I kicked beach pebbles with my foot as we walked, then shrugged, “I guess I just grew self-awareness. Wouldn’t recommend it. I don’t like being like that now.”

“That’s a shame. You looked so cool when you were little. You just didn’t care one bit. Be like little Charlie,” she nudged my ribs with her elbow, and I nodded to the floor, hands in the pockets of my jacket now. 

“Fine, yeah, I’ll think about it. Does that work for you, Mother?”

“That definitely works for me. I know you, child, you’ll think about it so much it’ll make you sick of thinking about it that you’ll just do it to shut up that tiny voice in your head.”

I stopped walking again, and Mom looked at me, “Ew, that was too real. How do you know that?”

“Because it’s my voice in your head. “She smugly cocked her eyebrow while fixing her jacket where it’d gone crooked.

“Terrifying, you’re terrifying.”

“I’m a mom!” She exclaimed in defense.

Some more silence followed until I spotted the signs up ahead.

“Let’s go to the little market. I saw a cute hat you’d love.”

“Fine, but I’ll pay for it.”

“I’ll just Zelle it back to you.”

“Don’t use technology against me. You know I can’t Zelle.”

“I’ll still do it.”

The market was a massive collection of small stores that sold a variety of different types of clothes, jewelry, and bags. We shopped until the sun went down, and by the time 7 p.m. came around, we had spent enough that Mom had to physically pull me out of the shop I’d been browsing. 

Let me be there forever. I didn’t know.

“There’s only so many cute beach hats you can buy, Charlie, let’s go.”

I only relented because I’d already gotten everything that I could excuse buying, and I had been bordering on aimless shopping. 

“Fine.”

Back home, we set down the six bags full of stupid stuff I compulsively bought and the three bags my mom had carefully piled up from the same excursion. I hadn’t learned to be an impulsive shopper from her. It was just something I’d picked up from having rich friends who always got whatever they wanted. I was never rich like them, but I loved spending what little allowance I had on the same things they did. I would skip eating at school, and Mom would always end up packing me lunches instead. She’d pretend to be angry for a while before she got over it— every time.

“Why did you let me be such a little shit when I was younger?” I asked my mom when we were sitting on the beach with our toes digging into the cool, dry sand. We’d put our shopping bags in our rooms and come out to see the sky. There were more stars by the coast, and we made sure to look at every one of them. There was the ocean’s breeze hitting us from the side, our hair blowing every way as we tried to tame it with sandy hands. The ocean’s waves weren’t as deafening that night. 

Did the ocean know what I didn’t?

“Mmm,” she started like she usually did when she knew exactly what she wanted to say, but she wanted to give herself time to phrase it right. 

“I guess because my mom was super strict. She never let me or your uncle and aunts do anything that could ‘jeopardize our integrities’. I don’t know. I just vowed to be cool. To let you make the most stupid mistakes so you could learn from them in your own way. The Charlie way,” she smiled at the sky, the wind blowing her hair away from her. Her white shirt billowed with the wind, and she looked younger again, her face less colored by age. 

Did the wind know what I didn’t?

“What did the Charlie way look like?”

“It still looks the same way,” Her hands held her knees close to her, and her recently manicured baby-blue nails glinted with the moonlight. I stared at them because I loved how she did her nails. 

“Charlie tries her best to be a good version of herself, and she always does things on time. She hates being late for anything, and she always apologizes when she’s wrong. That’s one of my favorites, by the way,” Mom looked at me then, and she smiled with her wonky teeth that looked just right on her. “She doesn’t tolerate rude remarks, and she cares for her cousins when they’re sick. She hugs me when I’m crying about something super dumb, and she makes fun of me all the time,” Mom laughed, and I put my chin on my knees, tucking them closer to me as the chilly early November breeze gave me goosebumps. 

Could I have known? Should I have known?

“Charlie’s way is very wrong sometimes because she tries too hard to please everyone. So much so that she forgets to remember she’s important, too. She forgets to remember that she’s the most important person, not just in her life, but in the lives of others too,” Mom pointed at herself with a closed-mouthed smile, “Charlie is very intelligent, and she never likes to acknowledge that, which makes her dumb, but also humble. Charlie is a good person, but she doesn’t like to admit it very often. She’s a girl who liked to push boys away when they tried to hug her in kindergarten, and she’s a girl who came out to her mom in the middle of a very bad fight, thinking that would make her mom angrier. Charlie is someone who didn’t know her mom would cry on the floor and hug her like she’d just said that she found the cure for cancer or something.

“Charlie likes to pretend like she’s not sad, and she doesn’t know how difficult it is to see her shoulder on hard times by herself because she’s convinced herself no one else can ever help her out. Charlie is never angry when I can’t use my phone right, and she always has enough patience to teach me about technology. Charlie doesn’t always remember how proud I am that she’s alive because being alive is hard, but she makes it extremely easy when she’s around. I laugh until I cry with her, and Charlie’s way is silly and fun. I love the way Charlie lives, and I wish to live like her, too.”

I’d been crying for a while then. Mom had always been incredibly poetic when she was emotional. She liked to talk in a wondrous sort of lilt that made people listen to her. She had a soft voice, a voice that was sweet and mellow, like warm honey. When she was emotional, her accent would get thicker, and the Spanish-shaped words on her tongue would graze against her palate. Her voice always put me to bed and read me books growing up, so I always found comfort when she spoke. 

However, I was stricken by her words, so that night, she made me cry instead. 

“Couldn’t you just say something shallow? Oh my god,” I hiccuped, wiping at the bottom of my eyes and my cheeks. 

“Sorry, baby, I just like to tell you how much you mean to me. We don’t normally get to be at the beach or talk, so I thought we’d make a good memory while we were here.”

Did she know?

“Whatever, it wasn’t that great anyway,” I said, wiping my eyes and nose with the tissues Mom had somehow produced from thin air. 

“I live for your praise,” she laughed and drew figures absent-mindedly with the sand by her feet.

We sat the rest of the night with the sky brighter than it ever looked in the city. We pointed at stars and used my phone to name the constellations and planets. 

Did the stars know what I didn’t?

I told Mom some of my latest mishaps at work and what embarrassing things my friends did when they were drunk two weeks ago. I recalled moments from when I was younger. She told me stories from when she was younger, too, that I’d probably heard before, except this time, I really listened, taking in and remembering what she said. 

I didn’t use to listen to her when I was younger, not when she lectured me, not when she would try to give me advice, or when she would comment on something about my looks or my personality. I hated listening to her because I didn’t like being wrong at sixteen. I let her talk, and I pretended to listen, and I regret it sometimes when we speak now because she has so much to say, and everything she says is important and good, and I wish I’d listened sooner.

I can only remember when I did listen, and I didn’t know.

At midnight, we decided to go back in. The beach had gotten colder, and Mom’s back hurt already. We dug our feet into the sand and trekked our way over to the beach house. Inside, the rooms were cool and fresh, creating the perfect atmosphere for a good sleep. Mom kissed and hugged me goodnight, then disappeared into her room while I walked to mine.

I didn’t know. Why didn’t I know? How could I have known? I should’ve known. I try to understand why I couldn’t know and wonder if I can go back to not knowing. I don’t want to know anything anymore. I didn’t know, I’ll never know, I don’t want to know.

In beats, the end came. At one a.m., Mom texted that she’d forgotten to pick up her nightly prescription medication from the 24-hour pharmacy and left to go get it. At one thirty-five a.m., I received a call that Mom was gone after being hit by a drunk driver on her way back. 

Mom never drove back home, her suitcase remained unpacked in her room, and her bed stayed half-made, from where she almost went to sleep but didn’t because she remembered her pills— because she was careful and responsible. Her toothbrush and toothpaste were still on the counter of her bathroom, and back in the city, my childhood home still had Mom everywhere. Her house slippers were still by the door, and her perfume lingered in the hallway from when she’d walked out. She always wore it, no matter where we went. 

And I never knew. I didn’t know that it would be the end when I hugged her that night. I didn’t know her words on the beach would remain with me forever as her final words. There was so much I missed.

Did she know? Do we ever know? I don’t think we ever do, and that’s the most terrifying part of it, but at least I knew her, and that was the best I could ask for.