Photo by Tatiana Tochilova on Unsplash
If you’re new here, this is part of my ongoing experiment where I’m publishing raw, completely unedited chapters of a novel I’ve been writing (and rewriting… deleting… swearing at… and rewriting again) for the past couple of years.
If you’d like to catch up first:
This week, I’m sharing Chapter 5. As always, your feedback keeps this little experiment alive—so if you’re still enjoying the story, please let me know.
Chapter V
Soccer practice had been brutal, and every drill and extra exercise coach S. gave us today felt like a personal punishment to my already bruised muscles. Better get punished by coach than… I quickly shook the thought off my mind and went to the shed behind the house to drop off my sweat drenched soccer gear lest I stink up the whole house.
I walked up to the house, making sure to wipe my feet on the door mat before inserting my key and opening the back door.
“Mom”, I said in surprise. “I left this morning, and you were washing dishes; I come back, and you’re still washing dishes?” I walk up to her and give her a light peck on her cheek.
“Rodrigo, meu filho,” try not to make too much noise. Your baby sister just fell asleep now and your Dad should be coming from work soon, so go wash yourself quickly while I finish dinner for us."
“Why don’t you go take a nice, long shower while I finish the dishes for you, momma*?*” I gently take the yellow-blue sponge still soaked in water and detergent from her hands, and start pushing her toward the hallway. “besides,” I continued with a smirk on my face, “you don’t know how to wash dishes anyway.”
“Oh, so now I don’t know how to wash dishes, huh? Who thought you everything you know, then? YouTube? Tick Tack?”
“Tik Tok,” I correct her for the one millionth time.
She comes closer to me, pulling the apron off from her neck and handing it to me. The skin of her hands are wrinkled from the time spent washing dishes but I still can feel the bumps from her many callouses as she caresses my face, each one valiantly earned working as a house cleaner to help support our family.
“I don’t deserve you,” she looked at me with tenderness in her eyes. “you’re a gift from God, the best gift a mother could ask for.”
“Mom, you’re going to make us late for dinner.” I kiss her again and steer her back to the hallway. “And when you’re back, can I get that in writing, please? Just so I can show it to my baby sister when she’s old enough to read on her own.”
We both laughed and she finally disappeared inside, telling me that she’d be back before I was done scrubbing the slow cooker.
Both of my parents met in high school back in their old country and fell desperately in love with each other, or so they claim every time the story is told.
My mom dreamed of becoming a famous fashion designer, her creations being celebrated at all the big fashion shows around the world, her name forever associated with innovative and elegant clothing worn by women of all walks of life.
My dad claims that he dreamed of being an architect and becoming the Frank Lloyd Wright of his time, his grand vision the urbanization of his country, and our family last name, Fortaleza, synonymous with modern and environment friendly designs and structures all throughout the world. His plan was solid: As soon as he was done with high school, his father was going to take him to America where he could go to a better school while he found work with the many construction crews building the new homes for future generations of North Carolinians.
Their future looked bright and certain, until Dad’s father was fatally hurt at work when a crane the size of a small office building tipped over on a stormy day, falling on top of the barracks where he was collecting his belongings for the day. This being a small town where safety regulations and workers rights could be easily worked around when money exchanged between the right hands, nothing came out of the investigation from the insurance company and the accident was quickly swept aside.
Faced with the premature death of his father and with him his dream of a better future in America, Dad found himself pulled into a whirlpool of despair and self-doubt. At the age of seventeen, he was now the man of the family and the sole provider for his mom and two younger siblings. He felt trapped and now unequivocally destined to follow his father’s steps and ironically, take the position now vacant with his passing.
Mom likes to tell him that it was her who rescued him from that path when after several persistent days of first cajoling, then encouraging, and finally flat out using what she called “tough love,” she was able to convince him to get married earlier than they’d planned and immigrate to North Carolina where an uncle of a friend of her family supposedly had a job for a busboy at his restaurant.
Knowing Dad as I have for the past seventeen years, I can barely imagine the vast amount of patience and dedication my then younger mom must have had—that woman must’ve been born a saint—to change his mind. Dad is as stubborn as it gets once he’s made his mind about something, but Mom persuaded him to leave it all behind and move to America they did, the entirety of their combined young lives carefully packed and snuggly contained within a second-hand luggage purchased from an acquaintance their only possessions.
“How long do you intend to stay, Mr. and Mrs. Fortaleza?” asked the lady from immigration when they landed in Charlotte Douglas International Airport, “and is this your only baggage?”
“Two weeks” and “yes,” Mom chirped, still uncertain about her high school level English.
“E um milhão de memórias insubstituíveis,” muttered my dad, still crestfallen about leaving his mom and siblings behind, a soft lament for all the irreplaceable memories he had traded for the promise of a steady paycheck.
“Calma, carinho. As memórias não ocupam espaço,” she hissed, a quiet promise that memories don’t take up space, that he could bring every bit of his old life with him.
As far as American Dream stories go, I guess you could say that my parents didn’t quite follow the happy ending script from the movies. Dad was never able to rid himself of the feeling that he had to continuously provide for the well-being of his family even when eventually his siblings had grown old enough to fend for themselves.
What started as a simple job to pay the bills slowly became all my dad could think about. Every time mom tried to talk him into looking at brochures from the local university for architecture courses, my dad would brush her off, saying he was too busy and had little time for silly notions of pursuing an education. Mom did have an inexhaustible source of patience to deal with my father, but even that wasn’t enough to get him out of the deep pool of despair he had created around himself.
As the years went by, Dad either completely forgot about or put aside his dream of becoming an architect, and my mom, now focused solely on helping with paying the bills, also gave up her dream of becoming a fashion designer and started working as a cleaning lady for the more affluent neighbors.
After a couple of years of nonstop work, Mom announced to my father that she was pregnant, again, something that if he thought much of it, his reactions never showed. Nine months later, I was born, which proved to be the pivotal point in their lives when my parents gave up on the American dream.
From busboy, my father became head waitress at the same restaurant, and when my friend’s uncle decided to move to Chapel Hill to open a new restaurant, he didn’t think twice and asked my dad to become the co-owner and his partner for the new business.
The new restaurant turned my dad into an oblivious slave of his choosing. I’ve never seen a man so dedicated to his business. Whereas most people worked hard for something they believed in, I’ve never for a moment believed that my father truly cared about the restaurant or the business itself. I hypothesize that the restaurant became what he used to excuse himself for his lack of enthusiasm or desire to pursue anything better for himself… or us.
Ten years later, my sister Melissa came along, and by then, both of my parents were settled, their lives revolving around the restaurant for my dad and my sister and me for my mother.
I was awoken from my revelry when I heard the loud, clunking sound of my dad’s old Chevrolet pulling up the driveway. I quickly finished washing the last plate, toweled off my hands, and ran to my room before my dad could see me in the kitchen. Today was Friday, which meant that he got paid, and on payday, it was best to avoid my dad at all costs.
Disclaimer: Murder Hornet is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental. All content presented here is the intellectual property of the author, Og Maciel, and may not be reproduced, distributed, or shared in any form or by any means without the author’s prior written consent.