PART THREE
Carlos Columbus Audaz breathed in slowly. How old was he? How old did he feel right at that moment? Still in that disorienting, hazy space between asleep and awake, Carlos Columbus Audaz could have been eight years old all over again. He was in his childhood bedroom, a medium-sized square space in the back corner of a faded peach-colored stucco ranch house. The sound of his phone buzzing across the warped, wooden end-table beside his bed woke Carlos up further. Ignoring the vibrating device an arm’s reach away, Carlos glanced around his room. He scanned the old posters still tacked to the walls, the colors yellowed and opaque, the edges worn down and curling at the corners. He looked at his open closet, at the pile of clothes falling out of it. The door itself was partially and permanently ajar as it hung onto a single remaining hinge.
The top of the end table shook again as his phone gave a few more short, quick bursts of noise. Whomever had called had just left a voicemail. Carlos climbed out of bed, straightening his wrinkled clothes as best he could. He had fallen asleep almost as soon as he had arrived. A nearby comic book-themed clock told him his nap had only lasted about an hour.
It was the smell of his mother’s cooking and not the hum of his mobile phone dancing across the bedside table that had awoken him. He stared past his reflection in the full length mirror mounted to the back of his bedroom door. The dusty glass rattled as another door in the house was opened and then quickly, forcefully shut again. The din of his family was growing in intensity as dinner time approached. Carlos wasn’t paying them much attention yet. His thoughts were focused on himself. He knew where he was in time. His reflection told him how old he was. His soft, jet-black hair he tried to maintain at a stylishly unkempt short to medium length was subtly showing signs of thinning at his widow’s peak. The skin around his tired, reddened green eyes was a little more baggy than it used to be. The lines of his jaw seemed harder and more defined. His chest looked broader, along with his waist, but without any real improvement or difference in his muscle definition.
Maybe it was because he was turning thirty in a few days. That might explain the strange feeling wrapped tightly inside of himself. He felt it like an anchor on his shoulders and in his soul. Yet, he could not define it or explain it. He wasn’t even sure when he had started to feel this way. Surely not forever, Carlos thought to himself.
Suddenly, the sound of his mother’s voice, rolling unstoppably like an avalanche down the hallway to his room, shook Carlos out of his stupor. He heard her rapid footsteps across the carpet an instant before he heard her call to him through the door. While often loud and direct, his mother’s voice still had a tenderness about it. Her spanish rolled off her tongue like a song. She often spoke it around the house but always preferred english when out in public. His mother had worked hard to become an American citizen long before his birth and so chose to speak the language of the country she loved over her own native speech.
She had called him to dinner and there was no keeping Luisa Audaz waiting.
“Look everyone,” his sister announced as Carlos entered the kitchen. “The great filmmaker is awake. Shh, he may be creating in his mind right now,” she added, chuckling deviously.
Carlos screwed up his face at her, his only reply to his always sarcastic sibling. Debbie Audaz was two years older than Carlos, a fact she often made sure to needlessly point out to him or anyone she felt might be curious to know. She was standing against the counter, sweat beading on her brow. She was either waiting to be helpful or just trying to secure attention for herself while other people stayed busy around her. She was absently fingering the slightly tarnished engagement ring on her left hand. It had been over two years since her fiance had proposed. It wasn’t a case of cold feet or procrastination on the couples’ part. They were in the waiting period to get all three marriage licenses needed in order to make it official.
Carlos felt a tender, wrinkled hand on his shoulder. He caught a whiff of familiar perfume before turning around to be greeted by the smiling face of his sixty year-old aunt, Victoria. “Ahh, mijo,” she said radiantly. He had always felt as if he were her favorite. Carlos made a show of hugging her tight in front of his sister. “How are you feeling,” his aunt asked.
Carlos smiled down at the shorter woman. She was watching his face carefully. “I’m fine, Aunt Victoria. I promise.”
Aunt Victoria blinked but kept her gaze locked onto Carlos, peering without a sense of end into his own eyes. Carlos quickly went from feeling awkward to uncomfortable. What is she looking for, he thought, practically in a panic.
Just then, his mother’s voice cut through the steamy silence of the kitchen. Carlos jumped in surprise. His aunt smiled up at him, letting go of his shoulders she had been gripping tightly under her wrinkled fingers. “You’re going to burn a hole in my son like that,” Luisa had said curtly when she entered the kitchen and pushed past her sister in-law. “Now come stir your sauce. I’d like to serve dinner now.”
Carlos stared at his mother. Even sweating in the sultry kitchen that felt as if it had never been touched by an air conditioner, even moving in a busied fluster of motion, Luisa Audaz was radiant. Her strength was like Atlas, her shoulders strong and square as she carried the weight of her family across the top of her back and through space and time.
“Carlos, go sit down at the table,” she said, turning away from the overcrowded stove. “I’ll bring you a plate.”
Carlos didn’t argue. He simply nodded, walking quietly into the dining room. A spicy-sweet scent flooded his nostrils as he crossed the threshold into the softly lit room. It was a wide rectangle with a pair of narrow, curtained windows on the far wall past the foot of the dining table. His mother had repainted in there since he had last been at home. Two years, he realized. At least that. The thick, dark brown, wooden table was the same. All the chairs appeared to be the originals, a fact confirmed when Carlos applied some pressure with his index finger to the top of the one nearest to him. The ornate carvings along the sides and head of each chair were crowned by an evenly finished cross. In his youth, Carlos had been roughhousing during a random adventure. His game ended when the chair rocketing him into space sank backwards against the wall and then to the floor. The jarring impact had made him dizzy and nearly snapped the hand carved cross clean off the top of the chair.
“Not in there,” his mother said, leaning her head through the doorway.
Carlos turned around. “Why?”
Suddenly, the hazy bulbs on the low-hanging chandelier went dark. The mustard-orange glow from above the stove vanished. Everything in the house went quiet and still. Carlos glanced around curiously. He looked at his mother again with confusion.
“It happens everyday, mijo.”
“Everyday?”
“Yes. Sometimes later. But, sometimes not. Today is not.” Luisa shrugged her shoulders. “We’ve learned to start doing without during the time.”
Carlos began to speak, “But...” His mother waved her hand, brushing his thought away.
“We’ll eat outside. The table is already set. Your sister and Uncle Ramòn are outside already.”
Carlos looked toward the windows at the far side of the room. His eyes lingered on the lifeless and lightless chandelier hanging over the center of the table. He turned to his mother once more. “But-”
“Go, Carlos! Dinner is ready.”
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