Page 35 of Morena
1984.
Everystoryhastostart somewhere, and mine started right here, in Barcelona. A city that always smelled of sea salt and diesel fumes. I lived with my parents and younger sister in a cramped apartment on Montechata Street. Dad was the only one working. We didn’t have much, but we had enough. Enough to keep the lights on, enough to keep food on the table, enough to dream.
That summer, I took a job helping my mother’s childhood friend clean her house. She paid me in cash, and every coin I tucked away felt like a step closer to something larger than these narrow streets. I dreamed of finishing nursing school, of working in a hospital, maybe even traveling abroad one day to heal others. But more than anything, I wanted out, to seeEurope, to breathe in other cities, to live a life that didn’t feel so small.
Because here, I never blended in. I was different, and everyone saw it. On our block, kids laughed at how my hair curled tighter than anyone else’s in the family, at how my skin was darker, how I didn’t quite belong on this street. My sister never had to go through that. She was one of them. One of the voices mocking me, one of the hands throwing rocks, one of the mouths spitting names that left bruises deep in my mind.
Words hurt. They cut, and the wounds scar. They follow you with every step, burning fresh each time. And when those words come from someone who shares your blood, they burn even deeper. Family is not something we can choose; we are born into it. But we can choose who we become. My sister never chose kindness. At sixteen, she chose cruelty.
I made my way to the house on Montechata Street, one of those old buildings that seemed tired and worn on the outside but held a quiet beauty within. For all its cracks and peeling paint, I loved being part of it, because inside those walls, I could pretend I belonged.
My mother’s friend’s name was Carmen. She once worked in a circus as a dancer, but she gave it up when she married a wealthy man. He died only two years later and left her a widow. She had loved him so deeply that even after death, he remained her only one. The way she spoke of him made me believe in fairytales, in those stories of happily ever after that stretch beyond the grave.
When I entered her house, she was already dressed in her favorite red dress, her lips painted the same shade, and she was ready to step out to the farmers’ market. She always brought me daisies from there, and they were my favorite flowers.
“Doña Carmen,” I called as I opened the door.Amante Bandidoby Miguel Bosé spilled through the room, and she was dancing, waving a fan brush in her hand.
“Hola,1mi vida,“ she sang, spinning toward me. “You look gorgeous today.”
“Gracias,” I muttered, cheeks warming. “Going to the market already?”
“Sí,” she said, blinking dramatically and pausing in front of me. “But first, Miguel.” She chuckled with a sigh. “¡Qué hermoso es!”2
I giggled as I shut the door. “Doña Carmen!”
3“Ay, querida, a woman can dream, can’t she?” She laughed and then moved toward the kitchen, holding out a fresh bouquet of daisies. “One day, I’ll take you with me to Italy, and we’ll find you a handsome Italian man.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not ready to be in love.”
“I know.” She pressed the daisies into my hands, her voice softening. Then she cupped my chin, and her eyes grew glassy with tears as she whispered, “But you deserve all the love in the world,mi vida.”
Some said she could see the future, and somehow she was always gentle with me, looking at me with tears in her eyes as if she already knew my end would be painful.
She sat down and wrapped her hands around a cup of coffee, rolling it between her palms. Then she pointed to two thin lines on her palm, smacked her lips, and said, “You see this? That means my life is boring.”
I laughed. “We both know that is not true.”
She rose and pressed her hand to my shoulder. A sudden knock came at the door, and she hurried to answer it.
It was Lucía, her oldest friend. They had worked together in Italy back in 1960, and now their houses sat next to one another. Lucía spread her arms and pulled Carmen towards her, cupping her jaw as she looked at her.
“If I did not love you, I would curse you for being late,” Lucía said, laughing into her face.
“Hola, Doña Lucía,” I said.
“Hola, Morena,” she replied. “I swear you are getting more beautiful by the day.”
I smiled and bit my lip. When another woman told you you were beautiful, it felt different, somehow more genuine than when a man said it.
They waved at me as they closed the door, and I turned back to begin cleaning. The same song still played on repeat, and I climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms.
There were only two rooms on the second floor, Carmen’s and a guest room, and each had its own bathroom. I went into Carmen’s first since she rarely had visitors. The first thing I did was open the window on the right. From where I stood, I saw a man in his mid-twenties at the neighboring window, smoking a cigarette. When he noticed me, he nodded, but I did not nod back.
As he flicked the cigarette butt toward the grass, I called out, “Hey,pendejo, you could burn us all down.”
“Tranquila4, morena, it was already out,” he said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes and turned away.
