Our Share of Night

by Mariana Enriquez

There was so much light that morning and the sky was so clear, its warm blue marred by a single white smirch, more like a plume of smoke than a cloud.

He had said to her once when she was alive, as a joke, imitating a character in a novel, Please don’t leave me alone, haunt me. He’d said it in English, “haunt me,” because there were no words in Spanish for that verb, not embrujar, not aparecer, it was haunt.

He’s like his father that way, she thought; they’re both like cats.

He didn’t like to hold things back, he never had, just as he didn’t like evasive looks or uncomfortable silences, the way people—especially adults—would exchange glances and bite their tongues, or the way his father would tell him this is all I’m going to say and you will know nothing more. He felt like if he were ever allowed to talk and ask questions he would never stop; he felt curiosity invading him like ants on a jar of jam left open in the kitchen.