The Distant Marvels by Chantel Acevedo Page A

alone in the world; I can see him meeting my mother in Santa Clara, see her bandaging a bite he’d received from the dog of a Spanish soldier, who’d turned the animal loose on my father.
    Tears press against my closed eyelids. My legs and arms feel like they’re manacled. The stories weigh so very much. Who will carry them when I’m gone? Beatríz? I hardly know my own daughter. She went off to Havana to become a stranger to her mother. And Mayito? I grip the beam harder.
    There’s a knock on the door. Someone calls out, “Apúrate,” and I hurry to rearrange my dress, which is still tucked up under my arm. The pain strikes again and I grunt against it.
    The person on the other side of the door calls out: “Are you well?”
    I am dying. The stories will die with me.
    I open the door and my head spins. My thoughts scatter like minnows in shallow water. Susana is there to catch me when I stumble.
    â€œI didn’t know it was you in there,” she says.
    â€œYou have to help me,” I tell her. She runs her hands up and down my shoulders.
    â€œAnything,” she says. “There must be a doctor here somewhere.” Her forehead wrinkles in concern and a little divot appears above her nose.
    â€œHelp me,” I say again. “Help me convince them.”

15.
A Reluctant Witness
    W hen we return to the room, the women are huddled by the window, their breath fogging up the glass. Their chatter sounds like a hive of bees.
    â€œÂ¡Ay!” Mireya cries out suddenly, breaking through the buzz. “Miren,” she says, tapping her finger against the lower left corner of the window.
    Susana and I hurry towards the group and see a flash of red in the water below. It is Noraida, swimming in the debris-filled water, her brightly dyed hair like streamers in her wake. We watch as she pushes aside a plastic cup, a sheet of plywood, an umbrella floating upside down and bobbing along. Noraida is a fine swimmer, and every so often, she does something with her legs to lift her out of the water, up to her waist. She scans the horizon, then dips down again, stroke after stroke taking her away from Casa Velázquez. We watch as she swims into a sheet of plastic, invisible in the water like a jellyfish, watch as it wraps around her face and she fights it, ripping the plastic away at last and beating against the water with her long arms.
    â€œI can’t look anymore,” Estrella says, and sits on the bed.
    â€œEstúpida,” says Dulce, and a few of the women nod in agreement. We watch Noraida until she’s only a speck of red in the distance. She swims up a side street, sticking close to an apartment building. On the balconies, people wave at her. She rests for a moment on the roof of a huge truck, running her hands over her face and neck. “She’s stuck,” Dulce says.
    â€œShe looks like an island out there,” Mireya whispers. But Noraida kicks out once more, slipping into the water. She waves back at the onlookers, and swims on, disappearing from our view.
    â€œPor Dios, I hope she doesn’t drown,” Mireya says solemnly.
    We are still by the window, watching the swamped world come to life bit by bit. Every once in a while, a person floats by on a raft. I wonder whether the owners were planning on taking to sea, leaving Cuba on their own terms, visas and government permissions be damned. Overhead, the fat, black clouds roil away quickly, headed to some other place in the Caribbean. The sun is peeking out of the east dimly. I’m reminded of something my mother used to say, that should I ever feel afraid for my mortality, I should look up and remember that the sun, vast as it is, is dying, too. “None of us are alone in death,” she’d said to me, even as her own light was extinguishing. Where she picked up that information I could not guess. My mother knew a great deal somehow, especially how to charm others into giving