Skeletons in the Rain

CHAPTER 27 | 6 YEARS AGO

Marcelo wanted to hold his mother's hand to comfort her but knew better than to try. He was a big boy now. No. Not a big boy, a young man. Thirteen years old as of last week. Amazing, right? No longer a child but a teenager. If his stepfather, Anibal, weren't around, he would be the man of the house. But he is around. Always.

Besides, even if Marcelo decided to comfort his mom, he still wouldn't have been able to do it. Not when he had to carry a full case of beer all the way home. Because God forbid my stepdad gets thirsty. He cut off that line of thought, knowing better than to get angry at Anibal.

"Is it too late?" his mother asked. "It is, isn't it? Oh, Lord!"

"No, mommy."

"Don't call me that!" she scolded him in a harsh whisper. "You know he doesn't want you doing that anymore."

Right. He swallowed his shame without daring to say anything else. He ordered me to use my mother's first name: Emilia. In his latest effort to chisel away the boy's weaknesses, Anibal had made it clear that Marcelo was too much of a mama's boy, something that needed to change if he were to become a man like him.

That's fine. I'll call her whatever he wants me to, Marcelo decided as he took a deep breath, letting the memory of the awful, musty whiff from the water tank come to him—almost feeling it go down his nostrils and throat. As long as I don't end up in the Dark Place, I can handle his 'tough love.'

That's what Anibal called tough love. "I'd never lay a finger on you unless you deserved it," he would tell Marcelo and Emilia.

With beads of sweat on his forehead, Marcelo repositioned the beer case higher on his chest, trying to lessen the burning pain of the scratches that the edges of the plastic box had inflicted on his forearms. Man up! We need to hurry. They owe Anibal that much.

His stepdad was working from dawn till dusk in their backyard, taking house appliances apart, removing and fixing spare parts from broken ovens and washing machines to sell them again for profit. A lucrative endeavor, no doubt, because clients were coming in and out of their garage twenty-four seven.

Besides, since Anibal had been a part of their lives, going to bed with an empty stomach was a thing of the past. Yes, even though Marcelo had never received a single Bolívar Fuerte from him, the truth was his stepfather brought home the dough.

And he made Emilia smile, too. Finally, a man that sticks around, the kid overheard his mom saying once to a friend from her work. And what a man!

Thinking of this hollowed out Marcelo's chest. There was a strange disconnect between his heart and his mind when it came to the dynamics of his home. Sure, his stepfather was quick to lose his temper, but when he did, there was a good reason. It's not like he asks for much, and he does make my mom—Marcelo corrected himself. He makes Emilia happy... When she's not afraid, anyway.

That's why he wanted to hold her hand. She seemed frightened. As a counter clerk at the biggest bakery on La Independencia Avenue, Emilia didn't have any free time on her hands. Her nine-to-five was more like nine-to-never-around, with a busy Saturday here and there, and an even busier Sunday once a month. It was a soul-sucking job according to her own words, as Marcelo once heard her confess to Father Ismael at church, but it made getting three meals a day on the table that much easier.

Ever since finding basic supplies—like sugar and Harina P.A.N.—had become an ordeal in Venezuela, she cherished her connections to food distributors the same way a dragon of legends would cherish his pile of gold.

The problem was her job meant the twenty-four hours of the day weren't enough to 'take care of her man,' as Anibal used to complain. Something he hadn't brought up in the last few months, now that Marcelo stopped to think about it.