Free The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico by Sarah McCoy

I said.
    Mamá nodded. “Palmolive soap. Those stains will come out.”
    But Palmolive soap couldn’t wash everything out, like I wished it could.
    I wouldn’t tell anyone about Delia and Carlos, not because they made me swear, but because I’d never be able to put into words what I’d seen.
    T HE FOLLOWING NIGHT it rained again.
    “How is Santa going to see our barrio?” I asked Papi on our way home from Nochebuena mass.
    “He will.”
    “But won’t he get wet?” All the pictures showed Santa in a topless sleigh.
    “So, he’ll be a wet Santa,” said Papi. We rode in silence the rest of the way.
    That night, I couldn’t sleep. I listened to every creaky palm tree and every lizard slithering through the window slats. I’d seen enough on television to know that bells would be the tip-off when Santa came. I wasn’t listening for him, though, but Carlos. I kept my promise not to tell anyone, but what if Teline hadn’t? She never could keep a secret. And she hadn’t sworn under the mango tree, like I had. So I listened for footsteps, for whispers, for moans that came in the darkness.
    I wasn’t excited for the Navidad , like I thought I’d be. Instead, I worried that Carlos would come. That Santawouldn’t. My mind talked on and on, even when I was too tired to listen anymore. I rolled beneath the bedsheets, the wet heat sticking them to my legs. I sang aguinaldos from mass. I listened to the rain fall and prayed for it to stop before Santa came, then prayed for it to keep on to protect me from Carlos.
    I woke to the sound of cocks crowing. The storm had passed. It was the Navidad , and I hadn’t heard bells or footsteps. I got up, woozy from sleep and tired from not enough.
    Outside in the living room, Papi sat on the couch, reading the morning paper. Mamá crocheted white and blue balls of yarn in her lap.
    “Feliz Navidad,” she said.
    Papi put down the newspaper and stuck out his lips toward the tree. “Looks like Santa made it through the rain.”
    Turrón candies were knotted to the plastic branches of the tree; beneath sat two boxes wrapped in brown paper and tied with red bows. It wasn’t like I expected. Not like the television programs or the pictures of gifts Santa gave the children in the States. To their living rooms he brought live, giant trees strung with lights and popcorn and tinsel, and stuffed endless amounts of shiny presents beneath. I had two brown paper boxes and nougat candy tied with yarn that matched Mamá’s crocheting.
    “Go on. Open them,” Mamá said, putting her needle down and kneeling beside me.
    I pulled a box into my lap. Papi folded his newspaper and held it under his arm.
    “Didn’t Santa bring you presents?” I asked.
    “He only brings children presents. You know that,” said Papi.
    I did know that, but I wondered if Santa would make up for the time he lost skipping over the island when they were kids. I always figured when he found our barrio , there’d be a ton of gifts for me and Papi and Mamá—gifts from all the Navidades before. Or at least one for each of mine he’d missed. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but two?
    I undid the bow of the first box and pulled the paper off in strips. It looked like the same brown paper we wrapped the raw fish and chicken thighs in. Underneath was a shoebox, and inside, a pair of white sandals with one-inch heels. My first pair of pumps. Santa had to be real—Mamá and Papi had said I couldn’t have pumps until I turned a señorita . He’d be the only one to give me what I wished for.
    Each shoe was stuffed with paper that smelled like the glue we used in art class at school. After pulling it out so I could try them on, the whole house smelled sour. I slipped my feet into the pumps and instantly felt older. The room shrank a little—Mamá and Papi too. I remembered how Titi Lola had shuffled through our kitchen just two days before, and I tried to imitate her walk, swaying my hips and taking little click-click