Free A Cup of Water Under My Bed by Daisy Hernández Page B

to make demands. They accept that we are trapped in cages, bound to this man, this country, these factories. And yet, they teach us to make the cage tolerable. Going to these women is like going to my father, like living with a mousetrap.
    The trap sits in the corner of the kitchen. You love it and you hate it. You hate needing the mousetrap. You hate the idea of finding in its arms a squealing death, a fractured body. And yet, you are relieved to have the mousetrap. You feel a little less fear when you step into the kitchen. You are not at the mercy of creatures scampering along the baseboards behind the stove. You have that contraption of wood and wire as defense. You might step into the world with caution, but nevertheless you are coming and you are going, and at times, you even feel free.
    The nightmares begin around the time I am sixteen or seventeen. If the women who know are right, it is because the dead are sneaking into my dreams at night. They want my time, my attention, the inside of my knees. My mother, however, knows the remedio . She learned it from the santeras , the old Cubans, my father’s padrino , La Viejita María.
    When I am out of my room then, my mother fills a cup with tap water and slides it under my bed near the headboard. She does this without telling me, and when I hear about it days later from an auntie, I run to my room and kneel beside the bed to see if it is true. It is. The cup is short and fat and made of glass, and it is waiting there underneath the bed like a new friend, her hand open and ready to grab whatever silver shards might fall from my dreams.
    At night, I lie on my belly on my bed and lean over the side to stare at the cup. In the half dark, the vasito is a tiny translucent urn. The water is quiet, steady. I glance at my pillow, then move the cup a few centimeters. No one has told me this, but I believe the cup should be directly beneath my head where the pesadillas , and apparently the muertos , crowd in during the night. Satisfied with the cup’s location, I close my eyes and fall asleep.
    The familiar images return: men and women with blurred faces, their bodies darting around the edges of my mind, my own feet running for hours but never letting me escape. In the morning, the alarm clock cries out, and it feels like only an hour or two has passed.
    Everything, however, has changed, because when I slide out of bed and kneel on the cold floor and see the cup, I do feel better. I have some power. I can fill a cup with water and slip it underneath my bed.
    We are a year or more out of high school when my best friend Geralen decides she wants her future read. Tía Chuchi is delighted at the news. She fancies herself an intermediary between the women who officially know and the rest of us, and it is with her that we take Geralen to see Conchita, who lives off of Bergenline Avenue in one of those apartments where the steps shift beneath our feet and make me wonder about public-safety regulations.
    Inside Conchita’s home, the air is cool, a reprieve from the warm streets, and at the window, the curtains billow as a breeze passes through. Conchita ushers us in, waving big arms laden with gold bracelets. I have met her before and I am reminded now that I don’t like her. She reminds me of Juana, who blamed me for what my father did. It’s the way Conchita keeps her back so straight, the way her eyes fasten on us, the quickness of her lips. She reminds me of an exclamation point: arrogant.
    Geralen and I sit on a bed across a table from Conchita. Tía Chuchi perches on the edge of the bed behind us. I am nervous. Geralen came here from the Philippines when she was a girl. She doesn’t speak Spanish, so I am here to interpret for her. Whatever the dead and the angels have to say will come through me, and I am worried that I will choose the wrong words in English.
    On the table is a cup of water large enough to drown a hamster. Conchita closes her eyes. She prays in Spanish and