Soledad: A Novel

by Angie Cruz

Can it be my mother is dead? Ever since the day my father, Manolo, died, I fantasized about finding my mother dead. I dreamed her in accidents, caught in a shoot-out, slipping in the tub and accidentally stabbing her head with the Jesus on the cross hanging in the bathroom. I thought I was switched at birth, hoping my real mother would one day appear at the door to take me away. I held on to the fact that I don’t look like my mother. Maybe our lips are the same, full and pink. But my hair falls pin straight, my eyes are smaller, shaped like almonds, and my skin is fairer. My mother has the kind of face that when she smiles it makes you want to cry. A lifetime of misery, Gorda calls it. My grandmother, says it’s because my mother, was born on the wrong side of things. Came out feet first, that child. But I know it has everything to do with my father. Before my father came into my mother’s life, I imagine her to be more like me, with a desire to see the world, to try new things. Maybe if she had never met my father she would have been the kind of mother who would have understood why I had to leave home. Maybe I wouldn’t have left in such a hurry.

Serious mother issues, enough to want her dead. Resentment while hoping that circumstances caused the strife.