For a long time there was only the night and the myriad of cricket songs. Then, all at once, power found its way into the silent house. Electricity was pushed down the idle lines swaying in the occasional breeze. After ten hours without any energy, the cold gadgets and essential appliances plugged into wall outlets throughout the quiet rooms came back to life. Digital clocks beeped and ignorantly flashed the wrong hour on their illuminated faces. The refrigerator rattled and popped as it reactivated. A small telephone chirped once then returned to silence.
Carlos Columbus Audaz was only half asleep when the air conditioner outside of his window suddenly snapped on, its heavy fan loudly whirring just beyond the thin pane of glass. It made enough noise, along with the vibration of the vents in the walls, to startle Carlos fully awake. Groggily, he yawned and stretched over his wrinkled quilt and sheets. The smell of paper was strong in his nose He’d fallen asleep with his cousin’s latest letter over his face. Gently pushing the wrinkled, college-ruled sheet of notebook paper aside, Carlos looked at the glowing face of his old watch. The lens was scratched. The wristband was stiff with years of dried sweat. Carlos sighed and shook his head. Barely an hour had gone by since he had last looked at the time.
He pushed himself upright onto his elbows. One leg was already hanging off the side of the bed, his foot almost touching the soft, thick carpet. Carlos shifted, putting both feet flat on the floor. He stood up slowly, the groggy sensation persisting mercilessly. He tried to remember the last time he had gotten any real sleep. After a minute, and then two, Carlos gave up. He couldn’t recall if he’d ever had a real, decent night’s sleep. It didn’t matter. He certainly wasn’t getting any sleep these days. Stepping into the bathroom, Carlos figured that over the last four nights he had managed to acquire only about a total of six or seven hours of sleep. Reading helped, but it was not a lasting antidote. That was one reason Carlos had dug the letter from Gabriel Audaz out of his cluttered belongings. The other reason had been the dinner with his family. Sitting so close to his uncle had been a grating test of Carlos’ patience and will.
Dinner was served and eaten on an old, round, glass table that had been on the cracked concrete porch since Carlos was twelve. It had been their first summer in California since his father had moved them to Los Angeles from St. Augustine, Florida. The table was bought used, the umbrella that would have gone at the table’s center declared missing long before Carlos’s father had purchased the aluminum-framed furniture piece at a flea market. Carlos remembered that besides birthday parties and the rare winter mornings when his parents felt it was cool enough to enjoy a cup of coffee on the patio, the table was hardly ever used.
“You know your father started spending more time out here,” his mother had said a few minutes into dinner. The conversation had been lagging. The older adults surrounding Carlos seemed so unsure of what to discuss; and, Carlos had nothing he felt like contributing.
He looked up from his food. “Really,” Carlos asked with little enthusiasm.
His mother nodded, “Oh, yes. He said he finally wanted to get some genuine use out of this thing before...” Her words trailed off.
Carlos looked up from his food to his mother again. He couldn’t explain why, but he suddenly felt confused by the heavy appearance of mourning in her eyes. His mother was supposed to be a firebrand, a tenacious and passionate woman quick with her wit and intelligence. She was supposed to be brave, a figure who couldn’t help but naturally demand your attention and respect just by walking into the room. Yet, there at the half-heartedly decorated table covered with plates and serving dishes that were old and discolored, Lucia Audaz appeared weak. The inability to say something so simple as the concept of death, to have lost her frankness and talent to be direct and out with it...Carlos found it tragic.
He quickly decided to finish her sentence. “Since he died?”
Carlos felt and then saw the sharp, pointed glares his older sister, aunt and uncle were shooting at him from their places across the table. He shrugged his shoulders, feigning ignorance.
“Yes,” his mother whispered. Lucia Audaz’s eyes were gazing in the direction of her son but she wasn’t looking at him. It was more like she was looking past Carlos, to another person, another time. “Since he died.”
It wasn’t long after the awkward silence that followed that Carlos’ uncle took the reigns of topics to discuss. Carlos quickly began to feel nagged by his uncle. It started off subtly. Broad questions about studio life and living and breathing a movie rolled without much pause over the glass table top. Maybe it was because Carlos felt defensive since the fiery looks his extended family members had given him. Maybe it was because he simply didn’t like the undertone in his uncle inquiries. It didn’t matter. The conversation was irrevocably heading in one direction. To Carlos’ surprise, his mother did not intervene until it seemed like both men were about to jump across the table at each other.
It had been when his pride was insulted, and then his work ethics and patriotism were questioned and mocked that Carlos could not take sitting at that table any longer. He stood up suddenly as voices had been steadily rising. His stance was aggresive, his chest heaving with hot anger. His shoulders were locked as his hands tightly pressed down on the wavy texture of the glass table top. His uncle took the posture as a signal of escalation. The older man was half way out of his chair when Lucia Audaz’s voice cut through the mild night. The heated argument was over, the noise echoing quickly away. Lucia, with a course and low, even voice, commanded her brother-in-law to sit down.
Mother and son stared at each other. Neither spoke for a second’s-long eternity. Finally, Carlos blinked. “Thank you, mother. Dinner tasted very good. If you’ll excuse me...” There had been the heavy sound of stunned silence behind him as Carlos walked back into the house. He could feel their eyes staring him down, watching him until he disappeared into the darker recesses through the open doorway.
In his room, Carlos stood with his back against the door. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened. A shiver of panic lapped up and down his body. He had shouted his uncle down over insensitive, but meaningless comments. He’d stared his mother down then turned his back to her. He was feeling like the defiant child suddenly and fearfully barricaded in his own room.
A noise in the kitchen shook Carlos back from his drowsy thoughts of the previous evening.
* * * *
Lucia opened the cupboard above her head. Reaching for a can of coffee on the second shelf, she spied her fingers strangely quivering. No, she commanded herself, willing her nerves to stay steady. It wasn’t working as well as it once did. The coffee can felt heavy in her grip. It took two hands to lift and bring it down from the raised shelf. She still almost dropped it. The wide, aluminum can landed hard against the granite countertop, Lucia’s wrinkled fingers still clutching it. She knew the sound had shot through the house. She didn’t want everyone awake, not yet.
The scoop of aromatic grounds trembled disconcertingly in Lucia’s grip. Her weary eyes, holding back stinging tears, watched her whole hand bounce and twitch without control. Her will was strong, it had always been. But now, in the dim light of her kitchen in the waning years of her home and family, Lucia Audaz felt she had no power to stop the painful dissolve of her entire world.
“Mom?”
Lucia nearly dropped the entire scoop into the waiting filter. She took a deep, startled breath, gathering every ounce of strength to steady herself. “Yes, son?”
Carlos waited for her to turn around. He stood in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the trim that was in desperate need of a new coat of paint. Lucia didn’t turn to face her son. She kept her back to him, adding another scoop of coffee grounds into the bleached-white filter. “Why are you up so early,” Carlos finally asked. “It’s only 4:30.”
“I coulnd’t sleep. And, I thought you might be getting up. You never liked to sleep in.”
Carlos let himself smirk. It was true. He liked getting up with sun. Though, while he reveled in it in his youth, at thirty he no longer could muster the enthusiasm. Maybe it was the growing lack of sleep. Maybe it was just life in general.
“I’m making coffee,” Lucia said, a positive inflection revealing itself in her otherwise even tone. “Would you like to have a cup?”
“I can’t,” Carlos said. “Thank you, though. I have to get ready. I have to be on set soon.”
Lucia nodded. “Of course.”
Carlos’ brow furrowed. “It’s work, Mom. I have to go.”
Lucia finally turned around, facing her son for the first time that morning. She once thought he was going to grow up to look just like his father. More than that, there was a time when Lucia was convinced that her son would mature into the man that his father had been, that the character of Adrian Audaz would become the mold Carlos Columbus Audaz would not only shape his life around, but reshape and make better.
It was a different time and a different world when Lucia considered such things, when thoughts like those made her smile. Instead, the young man standing in the doorway of her kitchen had the physical features similar to her beloved and deceased husband. But the shadow of that man had faded over her son. This man was family but he was also a stranger to her. She looked at him as such. Who he was, Lucia did not know. Who he was becoming was a question she feared the answer to, the evidence of his path disparaging to her once bountiful hopes.
Lucia blinked once then nodded her head, almost diplomatically. “Yes, Carlos. I know.”
Carlos stopped leaning against the slightly warped doorframe, standing straighter as he put his hands on his waist. “Are you all right?”
Lucia took a deep, quiet breath as she turned her back to him, returning to her first morning task. “Yes, son. Don’t be late for work.”
Carlos’ hands dropped to his sides. His mother’s distant words struck him like a cannon shot. He blinked, stunned by her cold frankness. He opened his mouth, his lips beginning to form words that never came. There was nothing he could say. So he turned around, walking away to his room while his mother quietly finished making coffee. He never noticed the way the muscles in her arms were as tense as tree limbs. He didn’t seem to be aware of the fact she was struggling to keep her body still, to fend off the queasiness bubbling in her system, to simply keep from collapsing on the floor in front of him.
When the moment’s new dizziness had passed and she had finally swallowed back her nausea, Lucia Audaz filled a pitcher with water, pouring it with well rehearsed, calculated and precise movements into the reservoir of the coffee pot. She never wondered or feared if that would be the last time she would be able to do such a simple task herself. Lucia simply closed the lid over the filled container, making sure the plastic cover snapped into place. She pressed the ON button which glowed red under the pressure of her fingertip. Then, she turned around and walked casually out of the kitchen, remembering to lightly tap the light switch on the wall.
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