Vampires of El Norte

by Isabel Cañas

Nena no longer feared boogeymen or ghosts snatching at her plaits when rain lashed the rancho and lightning fractured the broad, black sky. In the last year, Tejas had been ripped out of México, leaving a gaping wound in its wake. She had learned that there were real monsters to be mindful of now.

“Buenas tardes, Abuela,” he said. His grandmother raised her sewing and smacked his shoulder with it. He flung up his arms, belatedly, in surprise. “When Jesus Christ told the story of the prodigal son, He says the father forgave the boy,” Abuela cried. When Néstor left, he was a hair taller than her; in the nine years that passed, he had grown to add a head and shoulders to that height difference. Perhaps she had shrunk as well, but that did not prevent how she still towered over him. “But did He talk about the boy’s grandmother? No!” Another smack. “Because she was angry and that would ruin a pretty fable!”

A more coolheaded woman would understand why he never returned. A more rational woman would forgive him. She was neither, and had no desire to ever be.

The silence that fell on the jacal was so complete, so thick, that she swore if she had dropped a needle, it would hover before touching the floor.