Sia Martinez and the Moonlit Beginning of Everything

by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

“There are some things you can’t just explain normally, with normal words. Like, you know how sage smells really strong when it gets wet? But what I just said now, that description of it, doesn’t even begin to cover that experience of smelling wet desert sage.”

“You know, it’s so weird, but I don’t hate him. Because while he was doing it, he was saying things like, You think this is bad? You should’ve seen my daddy on a Tuesday night. You think this is bad? You’re not going to the hospital over this. And I just felt bad for him. Afterward, he cried, Sia. And went in his room, slammed the door. And I couldn’t help but feel bad for him.” Noah looks right in my eyes. “How shitty, you know, to become the person you hate? And then have no idea how to stop.”

WHEN RUMORS CAME OUT THAT migrant children were being taken from their mamis, their papis, put in cages like zoo animals, with no windows, and, for days at a time, no food, the white people couldn’t believe it. I guess when your skin is light enough, you get to cast the benefit of the doubt like a spell or something. I bet it helps them sleep easy at night, that white witchcraft.

We knew better. We knew because we have cousins and mamis and tíos and abuelos and amigos who picked tomatoes and strawberries and avocados, who were chained or sprayed with things that made their babies come out without their jaw bones. Beaten, raped, treated worse than perros. We knew those white people never, ever gave a shit about us or our children. We knew better.

And as I watch the crisp line of sand and sky, I think about those babies on the border, locked up, dreaming about Mami’s milk, crying so hard they can’t breathe. And all the people out there, defending ...

I don’t know what it’s gonna take to make them care about brown people if they treat brown ...

Sometimes I imagine the return of Jesus. Imagine the look on their faces when they see his skin, browner than juniper and driftwood and hot summer sandstorms. The day they realize God looks more like us is the day they become atheists, one by one,...

I never liked that the Church worshipped such a violent act. My grandmother agreed with me, but she said if Christ hadn’t suffered, he wouldn’t know resurrection. And that’s what it’s like for us, too, how every shitty thing to happen to us leads us closer to understanding the point of life on Earth. Or elsewhere, apparently.

“They’ll stop at nothing to get them.” “Unless we expose them,” Mom says. I think about brown babies in cages. I don’t say it, but I don’t know. I don’t know if people will care about experiments on immigrants enough to stop anything.

“That part of the state, you know, Caraway, Pastila. It’s rough for people of color. God, last time I was there, at a gas station on the 99, I got called the N-word. And once, I got a flat right next to Rangestown, and not one, but two trucks went out of their way to splash mud on me before someone stopped to help.”

Redhead’s got a sour look now, like someone’s forced her to drink piss. “Well,” she says with a huff. “I lived in Pastila for many, many years and I’ve never met a racist there.” She gives a half shrug, crossing her arms. “Roberta, when you focus on the negative things in life, you miss out on all the kindness people have to offer.” She lifts her head and walks away.

MY GRANDMOTHER ALWAYS SAID WHEN we experience trauma, our soul fills with espanto, or terror. And that espanto makes your soul split into pieces and run away to hide.

“Why do people have so much hate about everything? Where did all that racism come from, anyway?” Abuela shrugged. “They believe in the cruelest god, Artemisia. What else can we expect?”

And the girl went to the boulder when the sky was black like coffee. And there she met the spirits of Silence and Darkness. And they taught her that the most precious things, like paths that are true, can only be seen in shadows. In the dark and in the quiet. Like a seed in the black earth.” I close my eyes. “And when the sliver of moon returned the next night, her light shone on the girl’s footsteps, where she had walked away on her path.” I sigh and focus on the sand beneath me, sparkling in the sunset’s glow. “The weird thing, though, was there were tons of true paths for her. They were all spread out, long and lined like snakes. Her true path right then was just the one she’d chosen.”

I mean, it’s got so many meanings. Like, there is no one true path. Or have some damn patience when you make a big decision. Eventually, though, I settle for: “I think it means that good things happen in the darkest places. Even though we can’t see them. Or hear them.” Even if it feels like nothing good could ever happen again.

In that moment, I wonder about where hate comes from. If it was passed to Jeremy by the fists of his father, and maybe Sheriff McGhee’s father did the same to him, all down the line until we reach the murder of Abel. Until we reach to when God told Adam and Eve they deserved to suffer.

None of us are all good and none of us are all bad. Like my mom said. All I wanted to do was label the sheriff a murderer and get on with my life, but he didn’t actually kill Mom, you know? And I keep thinking about what Noah told me, that Sheriff McGhee cried after hitting him. That’s gotta mean some little speck of soul is still left in there somewhere. And even Jeremy, who went to court, he could’ve lied about his dad’s abuse, but he didn’t. He told the truth. And that’s what helped Noah’s mom win her case.

and how maybe we’re all doing the best we can and the best we know how at the time, but we all make mistakes. And the beauty of it is we can fix them, you know? Just by being humble, by saying sorry, by showing our love.

CAN’T HELP BUT THINK about all the alternative realities spread out before me, the ones Mr. Woods once said may very well exist alongside all of us.

In one universe, the United States welcomes the hungry and the poor. Even the brown hungry and poor.