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Yo quiero luz de luna para mi noche triste, para sentir divina la ilusión que me trajiste, para sentirte mía, mía tú como ninguna, pues desde que te fuiste no he tenido luz de luna.
Orquídea’s favorite color was the blue of twilight—just light enough that the sky no longer appeared black, but before pinks and purples bled into it. She thought that color captured the moment the world held its breath, and she’d been holding hers for a long time.
People think they know about misfortune and bad luck. But there was being unlucky—like when you tripped over your shoelaces or dropped a five-dollar bill in the subway or ran into your ex when you were wearing three-day-old sweatpants—then there was the kind of bad luck that Orquídea had. Bad luck woven into the birthmarks that dotted her shoulders and chest like constellations. Bad luck that felt like the petty vengeance of a long-forgotten god.
Palladino couldn’t understand why anyone would be opposed to change that looked like this—fresh and strong and vibrant.
Coffee so rich that it made him stop and sigh. It was not possible but somehow, he could taste the earth where it had been cultivated. When he smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, he tasted the minerals in the water that helped the plant grow. He could feel the shade of the banana and orange trees that gave the beans their aroma.
Marimar had wondered who she wrote to since Orquídea didn’t have any friends that Marimar knew of, and for a period of time, all their family lived in the same big house. Her grandmother had only ever responded with, “I’m writing letters to my past.”
El Barrio came alive after sundown like the goblin markets she’d read about in poems.
There was something about her that her employers didn’t like after a while. Things would start off fine. She’d say the right things, go above and beyond. Then, like clockwork, after three months or so, something flipped. Suddenly, she was too pretty, too ugly, too smart, too dim, too short, too quiet, too loud, too—everything, and not enough at the same time.
Rey knew who he was in his bones. He’d lose himself often, but he had memories, lodestones to guide him home.
He returned to the docks, and that was when Orquídea learned that she was exactly like her father, untethered, belonging to nowhere and nothing and no one, like a ship lost to the seas.
“You can still love someone even after they hurt you.”
Orquídea doesn’t just push people away; she scorches and salts the earth.
Orquídea didn’t like it because she knew she wasn’t a flower, delicate and pretty and waiting to be plucked. For what? To be smelled? To sit in a glass of water until she withered? She was more than that. She wanted to be rooted so deep into the earth that nothing, no human, no force of nature, save an act of the heavens themselves, could rip her out.
She’d hide items around the house and give them clues, like they had to find something that had many eyes but could not see. Marimar had brought a button, Rey had brought a potato, and Tatinelly picked up a picture from the fireplace mantel.
Where Marimar felt like a blowhorn, Tatinelly was a windchime.
Orquídea didn’t have a word for it, other than “monster.” But what was a monster, really?
The world is bad and sometimes good things happen, not the other way around.
The river monster was never seen by anyone other than Orquídea, though there were rumors that it had been sighted by a gringo American tourist couple who documented exotic wildlife on their vegan travel blog. All they had to show was a blurry photo.
She was thirteen, but still so young. Younger than Orquídea had ever been allowed to be at that age.
“I know you have questions. I don’t have answers. I did the best I could. I knew the price y lo hice de todos modos. Ya no tengo tiempo.”
Orquídea was as imposing as a mountain and as mysterious as the sea. She imposed hard rules. She filled their minds with whimsy. She would laugh one moment and then lock herself in her room the next. It was as if there was something jagged within her, a bruise that she had passed down to all of her kids, and maybe even grandkids.
“I couldn’t water a houseplant with the things you know, Greta.”
I’ve kept this note for decades, sealed, not even spending it when I had nothing else to my name because it carried a promise.” “What promise?” Wilhelm asked. “That I would never be indebted to anyone ever again, especially men like your father. This was a loan, and I want to pay it back.”
Orquídea met her daughter-in-law’s eyes and said, “What is it like to live without rage in your heart?”
“I question it all the time. I’m just okay with not having answers.
When she met Michael Sullivan’s family, she realized they didn’t have remedies or languages they spoke only in private. Everything the Sullivans ate came from a can or a frozen bag. They didn’t use salt on anything, except a pinch in their food. They didn’t suck the marrow from their chicken bones for health. They didn’t have stories of ghosts or duendes or cucos hiding underneath the bed. Their grandmothers lived far away in old people homes and, though he had cousins, Mike could go his whole life without ever seeing another Sullivan and be all right with it. Tatinelly was starting to make
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She ached for a time that was long gone and for things she could never get back.
In that moment Orquídea realized that some people stay in certain places forever, even when they’re miserable, and that is neither bad nor good. It’s survival. She had learned that lesson too early because one day she’d grow comfortable in thinking the worst was behind her.
What broke your heart so completely that its splinters found their way through generations?
Marimar was so full of want for things she couldn’t put to words.
He knew from Orquídea that wishes didn’t grow on trees. They had to be nurtured, carefully constructed like houses so you got exactly what you wanted.
How could something that had never been his leave a hunger nothing else could fill?
The last song of the record was followed by the hollowness of the end. Sometimes he wondered if that’s what the afterlife sounded like.
Tío Félix and his wife Reina brought in the roasted pig while the others carried bowls of crisp salsa topped with cilantro. An ají that made Rey’s eyes water even from across the table. Heaping towers of patacones and maduros. A mountain of arroz con gandules. Yuca frita stacked like a Jenga tower. Camarones apanados. Whole avocados ready to be cut.
He looked at her like she was someone who should not be ignored. He looked at her like he wanted to be consumed by her.
When she crawled into her narrow bed, she thought of Bolívar Londoño’s stare, the way he made her skin feel hot, like molten sugar turning, transforming into something to sink teeth into.
He’d only approach her slowly, like she was a deer he didn’t want to scare off. But she didn’t feel like the doe. She wasn’t even the hunter. She was something else. A spider, perhaps, letting him tangle himself in her.
Marimar knew she needed to end things with Chris. That she hadn’t healed enough yet to give him what he needed. That she didn’t even consider what she wanted.
Marimar was like the earth covered by layers of ice and snow. She needed rest. She needed to heal.
Rey went out less. Didn’t return calls. Every moment outside of his studio felt like a moment he was wasting. Creating something out of nothing came at a cost. Seven years after the fire he could still remember his grandmother telling him that. There was a cost. A price. Why did some people have to pay a price and others didn’t?
It was a funny thing that people warned of the dangers of pretty women, that there was power in beauty. But Orquídea thought beautiful men were even more dangerous. Men were already born with power. Why did they need more?
When he looked at her, she felt every brick she’d built around her heart come crumbling down.
“It’s not whether or not you can trust me. It’s whether you want to. If you have secrets, I swear I would never tell.”
Marimar wondered why some people left and others didn’t. Is it just that you stay until someone forces you out? Until it becomes uninhabitable? Until it gets demolished to make room for others? There were people all over the world who probably would have wanted to stay home, but they couldn’t.
It was good for Rhiannon to be around family, since Mike’s family never came by and seemed to forget to invite them to birthday parties and camping and barbecues.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. I will give my whole life to make sure you are safe.”
Her father had given her so much love. He’d taught her how to fish, how to be patient. He taught her that one love was enough. That when she found it, she should reel it in, not rush it, hold it tight.
“Protect yourself, Orquídea,” Agustina said. “Protect your heart from brittle things.”
How could she protect her heart from brittle things? She was the brittle thing.
When a man dismisses other women as nothing, he would eventually do the same to her.
