Free Loteria by Mario Alberto Zambrano

forward and the skillet would clatter.
    Then she’d get mad and be gone. Out the door and in her car. Off somewhere.
    She used to say, forgive and forget, but I don’t think she believed it, because how can you forget about the things you feel?
    Papi’s cabezón . Muy cabezón . He’ll break you in half, and I have a dislocated wrist to prove it. When someone notices my wrist, with the bone sticking out and the lump on top, I tell them, “My dad broke it because I jerked off my primo .” Like that, they know how cabezón he is. You’d think I hate him. But it doesn’t matter; it doesn’t mean I don’t love him.
    One time Estrella talked back to him and he slapped her so hard she was knocked out for two minutes. When she woke up she ran to her friend Angélica’s house down the street with her face all sloppy. And maybe it was too hard, maybe it was too much. But once she was out of the house Papi did to himself what he did to me, like Pedro Infante in Nosotros los pobres . I watched him in the kitchen from the hallway and Don Pedro was on the table. I knew he needed some of it so he’d have the guts. I wanted to tell him he didn’t have to do it. The movie was just a movie and it wasn’t real. But I kept quiet and watched the whole thing, flinching every time he hit his hand against the wall. Once he was done, I went to the freezer and took out a bag of frozen shrimp so he could ice his hand. It was all purple and swollen. I grabbed a kitchen towel and rinsed it with warm water and cleaned the blood from his hand and from the wall. He didn’t say or do anything but keep his head down, embarrassed. “ Cabezón ,” I said. “ Eres muy cabezón , Papi.”
    That night I figured he fought us not because he didn’t love us but because he believed in right and wrong. There were right things and wrong things. And when you did a wrong thing, you got a chingaso . It wasn’t any different when it came to Mom. It wasn’t any different when it came to him.

LA GARZA

    I t was a morning after Papi had beaten her. He was still asleep in his bedroom and so was Estrella, in ours. I should’ve been asleep too, but I’d had some dream that woke me up. I opened my eyes and the sunlight was on my face. I went to the kitchen for some water and there was a loaf of bread on the table with a jar of peanut butter next to it. There wasn’t any coffee. I grabbed a glass and filled it with water when I noticed the garage door open from the kitchen window. I could see Mom’s skinny legs as she was putting something into a suitcase, or some bag.
    I thought it’d be nice to go outside and surprise her, sing something. Estas son las mañanitas . . . sing a serenade even though it wasn’t her birthday. But it was early, so early I saw the sunlight over the kitchen floor. I looked at the clock in the living room. 6:43 a.m. How do I remember? 6:43. I made a pot of coffee because I wanted to go out with a fresh cup, hot, the way she liked. If she were organizing the garage, I’d help her. If she didn’t want to talk, I’d be there to make sure she was okay.
    I folded a kitchen towel four times and grabbed the coffee cup. It was too hot, and hot enough. I filled it to the top and walked out the door, then three steps down and over to where she was, her back turned to me. She was choosing things from the boxes she opened, and I was about to sing when I saw her putting a photo album in a duffel bag filled with jeans and underwear.
    “What are you doing?”
    She turned quickly and I noticed the left side of her mouth was swollen. I’d seen parts of her like that before, but I never knew where they’d be. Not until she turned around. I held out the cup and forgot about the box, or suitcase, or duffel bag, and saw only her face. “You want some ice?”
    When she realized I was staring at her it was like something changed. She pushed the duffel bag, a bag I’d never seen before, against the wall with her legs and started swallowing