Oh How The Past Repeats

The woman raised her hand and grabbed her child by his arm, "Tell me where your Papi is! Where is your damn father, Julio!" She dared to swing at him again.

The child cowered as his mother hit him across the face. The only sister that lived in the house, for the other two had been given away to the grandmother and aunt, hid behind the moth-eaten couch as she cried.

"I-I don't know," the boy whispered. He too cried, afraid of his mother.

The mother, in her rage, went after the sister. "Margarita, come here!" And the girl went to her mother, only to be tied in working rope and tossed into the bathroom, the door swiftly being locked.

The mother grabbed at her only boy and hauled him out the door. It was night. The few street lights in this Cuban city twinkled with an eerie yellow glow. The boy sobbed as his mother mistreated him so. The mother silenced him with a simple, "Shut Up!"

As they walked, few people took notice. It was not uncommon for a mother to beat her child. It was welcomed even. When a child was misbehaving, it is the parent's right and responsibility to beat their child until they understood what respecting their elder meant. No matter how young or how naive.

But this...this was no simple beating.

"You are going to tell me where your father is! Where does that whore live!"

"D-Down the street!" He could not take this pain. This agony! His young mind did not comprehend. He had wanted to protect his father.

And so the woman marched, her gait wide and powerful as she walked. The boy felt such guilt, but it was too late. The mother reached the street. The very same street that he had promised his father to keep a secret from all the world.

"Which house?"

The boy raised a small finger to the only house painted an apricot color, its door a dark blue. The mother finally released her iron grip on the boys arm; a red hand print marked him as hers. He will always be hers.

The woman stormed to the door, violently slamming her fist against it. In her savagery, she cried out insults. Words the whole neighborhood could hear. She did not care. She was blinded by the rage of a Spanish fighting bull.

She had not been fed and needed to hit something.

The boy stood naked to the town in the middle of the street. He could not run away. He watched his mother through his teary eyes and waited, hoping that he had gotten the houses mixed up.

He didn't.

The dark blue door opened, revealing a handsome man. A hard-working man. A lying, deceitful man.

"What are you doing here?" The father asked the beastly woman, who slapped him across the face and spat at his shoes.

"You disgust me, Julian. Where is your whore, so I can rip out her throat!"

"Control yourself, Yolanda!" He said, his jaw clenched.

"Never! You cheating sack of shit!"

The father took the mother by her arm and pulled her away from the apricot-colored house. They yelled amongst themselves and the boy watched on. From the dark blue door, a woman stood. The boy could not remember her face, but he had seen her rub at her stomach, which bulged and swelled from under her amorphous nightgown.

-+-

"This is your father's story, Sophia," my stepmother said, her eyes watered as she recounted his pain.

"Why didn't he tell me, Rosa?"

"Your father is a secretive man, amor. He does not like retelling such painful memories, especially if it will only hurt you."

I closed my eyes, my heart heavy within my chest as Rosa rubbed my arm. "Your father is a kind and honest man. It is because of his suffering and his love for you and your brother that made him so different from his parents."

I nodded, breathing to try and keep the tears at bay. So alike we are. So very much alike. Such mothers we had to deal with. Such miseries.

"Your father is the only man who understands what you have gone through. He alone knows of what it feels like to be used by the woman who gave birth to you."

"What ever happened to that woman, Rosa? What happened to her baby?"

My stepmother shook her head, "I do not know. Your father and I believe your uncle lives in Cuba still. He was never recognized by your grandfather."

"That’s horrible!"

"That is life, Sophia."