Page 13 of Daughter of Rot

Olivia moved out without telling Isela where she was going because they weren’t on speaking terms. Isela became more of a hermit and Olivia kept herself busy with multiple jobs. It was as though Olivia never lived there anyway. At that point, Isela and Alfonso had fallen out of love and were separated for a little over three years. Isela resented him and said as much to anyone who would listen.

Olivia and Alfonso spoke over the phone every other day. They became close. When he was in town, they went to the movies together. It became a sort of tradition for them to get a giant bucket of popcorn and dump dozens of jalapeños over the top and then drizzle extra butter on top of that. They loved horror and sci-fi movies. The weirder and cheesier, the better. After their movie, they stopped by their favorite comic book shop (Milagros Comic Shop) and stacked piles of individual issues at the register to make sure they would both have enough in between Alfonso’s next visit. Olivia was grateful for Alfonso, even with all of his flaws. He was trying to bond with her. He was trying and that was tender enough for Olivia.

In Santa Fe, inspired by surrealist art, Olivia enrolled into a film program at a community college and worked at a local bookstore during the days she wasn’t in class. She joined a coven and practiced witchcraft with them during the new moons. Her nightmares stopped. She dyed her hair different shades, depending on her mood. Cherry red or blue or purple and one time half white and half burnt orange. She wore vintage clothes and colorful clothes. She transformed into someone her mother could never get to know.

Most importantly to Olivia, she learned what it meant to be loved in earnest by her sisters, her dad, her tías, and her ancestors.

When she looked in the mirror, it wasn’t a stranger anymore. She was learning to love herself. She was learning to accept herself as the wonderful weirdo that she was. She was breaking away from the whispers of cruelty and disdain that her mother tried to drill into her. Olivia was learning to love herself more and more each day and this meant more than anything her mother could ever say.

MEMORIES OF A HAUNTING

Olivia copes. She copes through painting and making chaotic experimental short films and dancing until she cries. Dancing feels intimate. Dancing feels close to pleasure. Dancing is as close as she can get to strangers. When she goes out alone, she doesn't drink alcohol to numb herself, but she dances with an intensity that soaks her in sweat. It's a theatrical ritual mixed with folly mixed with the occasional ass-shaking required to move with a song. By the end of the night, she's a cloud of patchouli and lined with glimmering tears. When a stranger notices the tears and asks if she’s okay. She always says yes.

Yes, it’s just sweat.

Olivia sees a therapist through the community college and she talks to them about Isela and growing up as a child to strange parents. She lies to the therapist in every session. She figures it’s all a part of shedding her mother’s skin from her own. According to her therapy sessions, Isela is dead, the old house burned down, and The Inflorescence was only a room where her imagination went so intensely wild, the hallucinations felt real. They were forms of escapism she used to cope with the truths behind closed doors. According to her therapy sessions, Olivia wanted nothing more than for her mother to love her. This sounds like it could be true, but Olivia isn't sure anymore. If she had the choice, she would not choose her mother in another lifetime. One lifetime was enough.

Olivia copes. She meditates. Or, she tries to meditate. She asks Saint Michael for a sign that she's on the right path. In her silence, her ears ring, her pulse is thunderous. Her body vibrates. She pictures her skin coming undone like a falling piece of heavy cloth. Her muscles are a dewy and pink translucent jellied texture. Her heart is a pomegranate and cherry blossoms emerge at the crown of her head. Her organs tremble and turn into magenta and white cosmos flowers and then jagged obsidian beneath her gelatinous form.

Olivia copes with numbing indifference. A perpetual void. The insidious indifference her mother obviously felt for her growing up and the indifference Olivia feels when she knows a social interaction calls for a sympathetic response. Perhaps, it was passed down. Olivia understands the concepts of love and empathy. She pictures love as hues of cornflower blues and carnation pinks. Empathy is electric orange infused with a constant soft hum. She loves her sisters. She adores them, but she can't shake the feeling that she's doing it all wrong.

Olivia films herself every morning. It's a quick daily ritual. She whispers a secret to the camera. About The Inflorescence. About her mother. About the ways she feels in her body. She mouths the words. She looks directly at the camera with her arms folded. She watches herself to see if it stirs anything new within her. It never does, but it's proof of being young, a little vain, and a little boring.

Olivia copes by loving herself. A skill she formed as a child like a shield. She loves herself in spite of and to spite her mother. She wonders if she will ever stop being haunted by Isela.

When Olivia dreams about The Inflorescence, she misses the house and the oaks and the wildflowers. The house calls to her. There's a longing to have lived there as one of the creatures in her past lives or a child with a different set of circumstances. It feels unfair. It feels like injustice. Olivia knows she cries too much, but she doesn't know how else to cope with her memories.

TOUGH TO BE TENDER

I’m going to die. Isela sips from her mug of coffee and then cleans the tears from her face.

Olivia doesn’t respond. She takes in the sentence and tries to figure out what the main goal of the statement is. Is this a general idea? Her death. Or is she being vague on purpose so Olivia won’t know actual details? She doesn’t say much on her visits. She sits in the living room or goes to her old room to shuffle through her stuff for the sake of nostalgia.

Olivia wants to say: If you are going to die, you should talk to Lucia and Isabel. Reach out to them and ask for their forgiveness. It’s the least you can do.

Olivia passes the hall and pretends like the mossy door to The Inflorescence isn’t there. She’s curious to see what’s growing inside, but knows not to enter in front of Isela. What kind of ecosystem is thriving in there? Or dying? Will the room rot away with the rest of the house?

What has The Inflorescence shown you? Isela’s tone is pointed. As though Olivia broke some kind of promise.

It has shown me plants and stories. Olivia stops herself from saying the rest. She wants to tell her mother that the room didn’t belong to her. It didn’t belong to either one of them. It belonged to the earth. It belonged to the forest. It could never belong to them.

I could never have one thing to myself. You think you’re special because you were allowed to go behind that door? You think that makes you special? I have seen so much more than you in this life, including that room. You're not special. Isela watches for a reaction from Olivia.

Olivia holds her tongue. She smiles and controls her face as still as she can because she wants to roll her eyes until they roll out of the house. She wants to tell her mother that she isn’t special either. We don’t have to be special. She wants to tell her that she knows The Inflorescence loved her, but she didn’t think the room could love someone like Isela.

A thought creeps into Olivia: what would happen if she and Isela walked into The Inflorescence together? What would the room offer if they both went inside?

What if we went in together? Olivia gestured toward Isela, who was chugging more coffee and had now reached for her cigarettes. Smoke twirled around her face.

Why? What do I get out of it? It won’t bond us, if that’s what you’re thinking. Isela inhaled smoke and exhaled it into a miniature cloud.

Forget it. It was just a thought. Olivia walked out the door without looking back. Her chest thrumming with anger. Her mother inside, most likely fuming from an invisible battle. Olivia sprayed her hands with Florida water. She patted her hands together until they dried. She asked Saint Michael to protect her on the way home. She envisioned a radiant golden light surrounding her body. She whispered with gratitude to the house and to the trees as she got into her car. She rolled the windows down and sped off.

THE FUNERAL

You hold no power over me. This is what my mom used to say to me when she lashed out for reasons that are complicated to explain in a short speech. I can only guess what was wrong with her. She never went to a therapist or a psychiatrist. She never wanted to be helped. She never wanted to change. When she hit me, she used belts or broomsticks or shoes. Never her hands. It was as though she needed distance. I am not a victim. She told me that. I was not a victim of hers, I was simply a circumstance. I don’t know if anyone truly knew my mother. I don’t know what her philosophy on life was. Was she secretly an optimist? Or was she a nihilist? I don’t know what she thought about the afterlife. I only know what I saw when I looked her in the eyes. It looked like sadness and rage. Sometimes, she went silent and hid for days on end until she decided it was time to come out and tell me what chores to finish around the house. You forgot to water the plants. You forgot to dust the living room. You forgot to clean up the kitchen floor. Why can’t you do it correctly? She used to let her nose bleed freely down her face and belly, trailing down her legs until the floor was smeared with her. She used to dirty up rooms on purpose. Bursts of frenzy that resulted in a lot of broken glass, torn up furniture, and holes in the walls. My mom seemed to be a turbulent force of fury. She hated how I looked. My hair. My face. My belly. My teeth. The shape of my hips. It was as though she couldn’t stand seeing me accept myself. She really wanted me to hate myself. I used to forget that I was a kid. It didn’t matter to her. I looked over my shoulder when Mom was home. I held my breath and waited for her to fall asleep. I stayed up all night because that was the only time I could spend truly alone. Without her. I used to think something was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I stand my mother? Why did looking at her piss me off and make me want to chew my nails until my hands bled? Looking inward is for the weak. That’s another thing she used to say. We pave forward. We never look back. I have no choice but to look back at this strange force of a woman who was my mother.

Now, she’s in decay, she’s moving into another realm, and none of this haunts me.