Fruit of the Drunken Tree

by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

The second floor stuck out like an overbite.

I thought about what she had said—that the girl with the red shoe didn’t even know she was dying—and how she had meant it as comfort, but how the thought only filled me with terror. Mamá’s prayers hung about me and I went to sleep.

As feministas, Mamá said we had to choose our battles: “With your father, only fight the really important battles, which are: profession, love, money, and the right to go out in the world unhindered by him. Hair is not an important battle.” Cassandra nodded meaningfully. Her hands folded primly in the lap of her school skirt and her right leg crossed carefully over the left.

How are we going to eat? I used to ask him when our harvest failed, small in his lap. Don’t you worry your little head, he’d say. That’s what you got me for. You go play, Petro, go play, go find me a pretty stone.