The video was born in that miserable corner that exists between shame and memory, that place where humiliation no longer only hurts you: it reorders you inside.
I was wearing my mom’s old handkerchief, as usual. It was washed blue, with white flowers almost erased by the years and a tear next to the pocket where she kept folded prescriptions. Sometimes, if no one saw me, I would zoom my face to the fabric just to find the impossible trace of her perfume. I was hardly ever there. But the memory does, and sometimes that hurt just as much as a recent absence.
It was Christmas Eve in Puebla. The house was warm from the oven, turkey oil, cinnamon, melted butter and rosemary. I had moved the dining room table to the center, like every year. It was a table too big for that space, battered, old, sturdy wood. My mother always said the noble things also age with dignity. That’s why I accommodated her with the same care with which others prepare an altar.
The dishes didn’t match because Mom collected broken dishes: a nice dish from a market, an inherited supper bowl, a saucer bought at a liquidation. With her, even an ordinary dinner seemed like a celebration. Without her, I was trying to imitate her miracle.
My brother Bruno was talking lol in the living room, telling a story no one had asked him to. My sister Paola, sitting on a bar bench with a glass of wine in her hand, had that comfortable expression on who silently thanks that the problem of the night doesn’t involve her.
I’ll stretch out my hand to straighten the sauce. She was cranky, and my mom would have bothered her. My hair fell on my face, but I didn’t take it away. I had sticky hands for the freshly varnished buns.
Then I heard my daddy’s laugh.
Didn’t Come Back Right Away. My dad, Rogelio, always laughed harder when he wanted to remind everyone that he was still the center of the house. But then I heard the small sound of the cell phone changing to video, and something in me tensed before I understood why. I looked back.
I was standing between the kitchen and dining room, recording myself.
She had the phone on her chest, the screen on and that half smile of hers, which always seemed teasing even if she wanted to play dress up. Paola leaned in to see what she was doing.
— Oh, Daddy… already —he said, laughing.
But it wasn’t a real “ya”. It was a “follow him”.
I came back to the table and I told myself it was nothing. Ever since mom died, he had turned everything into content. I uploaded dog photos with ridiculous phrases, mom’s old photos with hearts, mourning turned into a spectacle. I told myself if it stopped being interesting, I’d stop recording myself. In that family, I almost always stopped caring quickly.
But it didn’t stop.
I felt the camera following me to the kitchen when I went for the water jug. I felt her behind my back as she handed out napkins, as she handled glasses, as she served mash. Crossed eyes with Bruno. My hands were empty, like most of the time. In him, uselessness looked relaxed. To me, effort seemed like obligation.
—Smile, Lu — he told me, jokingly.
I didn’t smile.
Dinner passed between noise, cheers and that hypocritical gratitude that appears when no one wants to look who cooked, who served, who will wash up afterwards. My dad made a toast to “the family” and to “Elena, who is surely watching us from heaven.” All bowed their heads in solemnity. I stood staring at the edge of my plate, feeling something harden inside me.
After dinner they went to the living room Paola’s boyfriend fell asleep on the recliner. Bruno put on the match. My daddy, satisfied, reloaded in his favorite recliner, with rosy cheeks and a full tummy. I started lifting plates because nobody else did.
My phone vibrated inside my palm pocket. I didn’t pull it out. I kept scraping mash scraps into the garbage can, listening to voices from the other room as smoke coming under a door.
So Paola appeared in the kitchen with her phone in her hand.
—Did you see this yet? —he asked.
I didn’t get close. There was no need to.
It was my dad’s Facebook. Thumbnail showed my back leaning on the table, my handkerchief blue, my hair falling on my face. Uploaded this an hour ago.
The post said : **Just look at this one. Always a maid. **
The word fell on my chest like a stone.
Not a helper. Not daughter. Not a caretaker.
Bred.
Something useful. Something available. Something that exists to serve.
The post already had hundreds of reactions. Bruno had commented some laughing emojis. Paola had put: “Hahahaha, she looks like my mom.” As if the memory of her could be used to wrap around cruelty and make it tender.
—Oh, don’t take it so seriously — said Paola, shrugling —. You know how daddy is.
That phrase. As always. The one that makes any humiliation bearable, provided the victim cooperates.
I just dried my hands. I walked across the room without looking at anyone. My dad yelled at me from the recliner:
– And where are you going now?
Her voice had genuine bewildering. In his head, he had done something funny. Something normal. Something I had to endure, as usual.
—I’m tired —I replied.
Grabbed my coat and walked out.
The door closed behind me with a gentle, small click, but I felt like a huge lock had just turned inside my life.
The next afternoon, when I was barely able to stop shaking, I received a message from Paola.
I didn’t get a hello. I was out of context. I was just saying :
**Why can’t I withdraw money from your account? **
And I knew that night hadn’t really ended.
I read the message three times. It wasn’t “my account.” Paola was referring to the savings account my mom had left with twelve thousand dollars equivalent in pesos, between insurance and savings she accumulated for years giving regularization classes and selling desserts to order. He once said, half jokingly, that it was his “background in case one day I had to run out.” My dad laughed like the idea of her needing to escape was absurd. I didn’t laugh. I never touched that money. It seemed sacred to me. Two years ago when Paola needed a deposit to rent an apartment in Cholula, I gave her the card and NIP. He took out one amount, then another, then he stopped mentioning the subject. In silence, the money stopped being my mom’s and became a “family resource”, as if I was the only guardian of something everyone believed was theirs. That afternoon I opened the bank app and transferred everything to a new account, just in my name, which I had opened two days earlier without telling anyone. Then I wrote in the family chat: **The account mom left is in my name. I already transferred the money and no one else is going to use it. She wanted me to use it to study nursing. I’m going to do that. **send the message before I regret it. 20 minutes later my mom’s best friend called me Diana. The woman who brought me soup last week of hospice, the one who held my hand while mom slept, slowly passing out. —I saw what your dad uploaded — he said, no way—. And Paola also talked to me about the money. I won’t convince you of anything. I’m just calling to tell you something you need to know. I stayed quiet. —Your mom wrote you a letter — he said—. He kept it in his Bible. He asked me to, if you ever doubted yourself, remind you that I existed. I felt the air leave my body. Went to my dad’s house two weeks later on a grey Saturday. He opened me with a face of relief, as if I had returned to repair the usual. He told me we were doing unnecessary drama, that the post was a joke, that I had always been too sensitive. —I want mommy’s Bible —I told her—. And I want the letter. His face has changed. – There’s no letter. He said it way too fast. – Yes, there is. —I already told you no. Then I knew I had found her before I did. I opened the closet under the stairs without asking for permission. There were some of Mom’s things, stored away as if they had lost value as soon as she stopped breathing: a flour-stained cookbook, a cheap novel, a prayer notebook. And above, wrapped in cloth, the Bible. My dad came through behind me. “Don’t touch that,” he shouted at me. I held her against my chest. —You’re going to give it to me. He tried to take it from me Both of us yelled for a terrible ridiculous sad second. I then let her go. The Bible fell to the floor. Leaves opened at once. And a cream-colored envelope slid out of them. It fell right at my feet. It had my name written in my mother’s trembling and beautiful handwriting.
