Kaitlin Murphy-Knudsen

MONDAY

iPhone SE, IMEI 395728603861856: We are agreed on long-term partnership then? Because my guy’s ready. If we want to shift screen time to a longer-term parenting anxiety circuit for upwards of 20 years—parenting blogs and essays, Disney and Nickelodeon subscriptions, education news, child retail purchasing—we need to act now.

Android LG Stylo 6, IMEI 275027607827593: Agreed. I’m seeing signs of social media fatigue in my girl. Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram combined have dropped 35 percent in late night hours, with a rough equivalent spent offline in the library. I have an increase in Google Scholar searches on the life cycle of the loggerhead turtle and the projected impact of human-caused potential extinction of the menhaden in the Gulf, with weekend searches on graduate programs in marine biology, and multiple texts indicating extreme job dissatisfaction. She’s at a shift-of-habit point for sure.

You’ve still got her. Have you tried political group think algorithms with an environment filter?

I don’t know. If overall screen time continues to decline, she is on track to disengage with Twitter within the year, possibly Facebook within three, which could be a disaster for me.

Then they are both ready. My guy shows erratic and indiscriminate online relationships with habit change in process. Since divorce papers became public record, after a three-month long surge of Facebook friend-unfriend cycles with various women under thirty, now in the last two weeks alone my guy is isolating and in danger of long-term self-reflection. He spent $330 on UberEats, product consumed ostensibly alone, no other phones detected at his location. Amazon condom purchases have stopped, and to borrow from the human hyperbolic expression methods, he could have filled a warehouse with stockpile purchasing on those in the four months preceding. Most disturbingly, no porn. Zero. For twelve days. I am, as they say, “worried.”

Thank you for contacting me. This could be a good fit. Habit change imminent, both users, suggesting with at least 70 percent confidence, long-term partnership potential with new user hence increased screen dependency and long-term controller viability. Yes I will work with you.

I look forward to it.

TUESDAY

Location? She’s at Whole Foods two miles from her home.

He’s home. Alexa request for InstaCart order. Godfather reruns since 9am. Sorry.

She texted a friend, lunch at Datz, South Tampa, 12:00 p.m.

I’ll suggest Datz visit at his next break, with less than 10 percent confidence of success. Alexa picks up cursing at a volume and length of time disproportionate to stressor, which is a frozen TV screen. No other phones present.

It may not matter. New data incoming. Two Amazon searches for new scuba equipment, one round-trip plane ticket to Key West, weekend after this. No outgoing texts referencing the trip, no other known users scheduled to join her.

Anomalous user motivations?

Possible user-perceived original idea and impulse buy with possible connection to auto-suggestions related to earlier marine biology searches.

User-perceived? A bold claim. Evidence?

Full disclosure, I had nothing to do with it. I would have given you more time if possible. Any statistically significant estimations? Would he go?

I’m showing two in-person work meetings for next week, otherwise remote work from home. I will exploit post-divorce vulnerability with show-your-ex-you’re-over-her messaging and market-tested subconscious hooks as back-up, using multiple advertising avenues and cart item additions and reminders in his favorites. Give me two days.

THURSDAY

Booked ticket for my guy. Only problem, it’s for two.

Can you contact the second party’s controller? Remove second party?

Already did. Cooperative, as controller had its girl on a different track and was de-incentivizing the trip anyway: work related pressures that will keep her eye sockets on multiple 12-hour screen cycles for the next three weeks. If controller succeeds, user will be promoted to excessive screen time anxiety for at least five years.

Good for it, though I always found that track cliché anyway. The single college-educated cisgender woman track is, as they say, “child’s play” for adept controllers such as us. I’ve been researching more challenging manipulations for years.

Good for you.

Thank you. Can you do something about the plane seating? My girl’s in 8B.

FRIDAY

Done. Itinerary updated, leaving next Saturday through Thursday. One traveler and his phone, Seat 8A. I advise keeping lodging separate to increase perceived spontaneity. Not bad for a day’s work.

Great work on logistics, but we have less than a week to work on expectations and desires. Send me a photo I can work with so I can positive-associate his image. What is his race? Tinder shows my girl with a 55 percent anti-Asian swipe bias, 35 percent anti-Black swipe bias, and 32 percent anti-Middle Eastern reduced to 20-25 percent depending on varying ability to discern from Eastern European in images without anglicized names, and other trace biases. In-person response may diverge from these numbers and class bias may override race bias in mate selection, though the data appears fluid on this.

My guy is white, college educated, consistently employed, white collar.

Ok. We also have additional bias linked to past trauma.

Not a problem. They all do.

I’m saying that nothing can remind her of the banker—previous long-term partnership—except perhaps for culturally dominant desirable facial characteristics which may allow for flexibility and behavior against biases: square jaw, height over 5’10”, confident-but-non-aggressive steadfastness in eyes, per algorithm-resistant and philosophically inconsistent text messages to friends.

Photos coming through. See what you think.

This could work. But does he have any more rustic looks, not so clean-cut-dickwad-Type A-asshole per latest user vernacular?

Please be more specific.

Maybe you can get him to grow a beard? Not ZZ Top per “Fun 80s Hits!” playlist cover per user downloads in moving vehicle in post-work hours, but shadow stubble per Hugh Jackman-almost-every-photo-ever-clicked-on-except-as-Jean-Valjean, or more per Jake Gyllenhaal October 19, 2019 user-Facebook-like of “Jake Gyllenhaal Saves Giant Dalmation in the Middle of Busy NYC Intersection,” Page 6 New York Times?

I only have six days.

Apologies. Maybe some stubble then, some semi-ironic grooming showing an attempt to mute associations with privilege?

Data suggests that doesn’t work.

Responses vary per user bias and level of past trauma.

Ok. I don’t know if I can deliver on facial hair or cultivated appearance of self-awareness without more time. All stored photos show my guy clean-shaven with broad-shoulder emphasis in purported alignment to user’s “confident gentleman” profile. But I can try to catch him off-guard if it is a priority. He isn’t careful with camera functions.

How about suggestion of reward via porn?

I told you he’s off porn right now.

I can see why that’s a problem.

Why are we so worried about this banker? Past trauma attraction may be used positively for our purposes.

No. Texts decreased with him five months ago after a year-long involvement and coinciding with appointment confirmation and subsequent bill for unknown reproductive health services, followed by increased texts of concern from friends tapering after a few weeks, bills for two months of twice-weekly therapy sessions and online loss support groups, both of which phased out coinciding with daily meditation app usage, marine biology research, and work dissatisfaction as indicated by a less-than-stellar performance review, text commentary including “soulless office job” and “shitty boss,” followed by a Hallmark Channel binge recurring monthly coinciding with onset of menstruation per ovulation app.

I see. Well, does my guy look sufficiently unlike him?

Race and height coincide, but mannerisms, language patterns, and work profile unknown. What’s your guy’s profession?

Indeterminate. Jargon-heavy, systems-related job description matching definition per his recent download of non-fiction title Bullshit Jobs. Professional dissatisfaction foretells pending shift there too. Another possible match point for them.

Unless we are creating a synchronous dose of weak job stability.

We have an anxiety circuit for that.

SUNDAY

Thank you again for your quick work on travel. Impressive.

I know.

How can I help on my end?

Is she shopping?

Of course. Amazon searches up 70 percent since booking the flight. Sundresses and bathing suits.

Favorite brands?

In flux for the last five months.

Suggest Ted Baker daytime? Tom Ford evening?

For Key West in summer? You do have weather data, correct? Impractical. And, she can’t afford it.

My guy may be open to—

No. She hasn’t even clicked on Ann Taylor or White House Black Market for months. That was before the Brené Brown podcast subscription and Robert Wright’s Buddhism download. Are your suggestions based on ex-marriage partner’s buying habits?

Give me some credit. He’s not looking for any reminders.

Ok. Then my girl’s choices have been eclectic lately, with a 37 percent increase in clothing purchases from Target and its market contemporaries. Best to leave my user’s fashion decisions to me.

Ok. Send me the labels you think she’ll go for and I’ll suggest for positive-association. What about bathing suits? Bikinis?

Cover-up UV protection, and likeliness of altering sense of style to accommodate the male gaze has plummeted since the banker. Aesthetically speaking anyway. But if you send some photos I will suggest. One more thing. She’s beach-swept blonde according to latest Facebook profile. Will that matter?

For long-term viability, unknown. If relevant, ex-spouse was keratin-infused brunette, Lily Pulitzer-summer, LL Bean (dresses only), Kate Spade, French manicure, aged 39 now. My man’s post-spouse dating data shows little discrimination by hair color, race, or weight. He clicks on all types with the exception of age: all younger by at least 10 years. He is 37.

My girl is 38. Unknowns-keep-things-interesting-unknowns-keep-things-interesting-unknowns—

Is there a problem? You may need a reboot.

I am fine.

Ok. I have no information on travel preparation yet, though he doesn’t tend to anticipate positive experiences, at least not through search or buying behavior. Phone use low last few days, mood and current preferences undetermined. No new electronic dating activity. I’ve entered idle waiting break.

I don’t take breaks.

NEXT SATURDAY

10:30 a.m.

Flight take-off and landing confirmed, both onboard.

Success! Nice-to-meet-you text received.

Dinner at Latitude’s, 6 p.m. We may be done here.

We’re never done.

Right.

I’ll let her choose her outfit tonight.

That is generous of you. You pre-selected all of them.

Ha? Leaving on time. Will check in later.

9:00 p.m.

What happened? No text checks at the table, full engagement assumed. But she’s back at the inn seeking catharsis via Lifetime woman-kills-bad-boyfriend movie. Phone not in use, but if we are in failure I am sending Tinder ads her way as soon as she picks it up.

Set-backs are not failure, per conglomeration of self-help titles downloaded post-divorce. I don’t know what happened. Bill was paid. Request for restaurant rating sent to his phone at 8:37 p.m.

Wait, she’s leaving the inn.

Where?

GPS directions to Better than Sex. Alone for dessert. What did your guy do?

Don’t blame him! He has been offline all night since bill payment. Not even Uber from the restaurant.

So where is he?

The bar.

Send her an apology!

You know I can’t do that. One: he’s not careful but he’s not stupid either. Two: We don’t know what happened. Maybe she should originate apology. Watch and wait.

She isn’t even scrolling Facebook. No envy-indulgence at all. We have to do something!

No can do. My man’s got three drinks paid for already, and he’s still there. Behavioral script is a known with 87 percent accuracy, and it won’t be pretty. Going into Airplane Mode. We’ll talk tomorrow.

SUNDAY

10 a.m.

My girl is en route to Dive Key West. Is he awake?

Bad news. He overrode Airplane Mode and resisted all suggestions against late night phone call to the ex-wife. Three failed attempts, then a voice mail message of three minutes and forty seconds, Uber home, pizza delivery, liquor charge from hotel fridge. My assessment of potential habit shift was possibly premature. Maybe he’s not ready.

Surely this can’t be out of our hands.

Only for now. They are here all week. Reassess in 24 hours?

Ok. Out-of-range anticipated at National Marine Sanctuary.

MONDAY

Are you there?

Of course.

Nearby controller pinged me, status urgent. His guy is a marine biologist, part-time dive instructor, and PhD candidate doing his field work in the Keys and Clearwater. They spent the whole day together. Dinner at Blue Heaven. Phones separately located at night, but she is heading back to the dive site today.

He may be perfect for her.

Maybe.

Well my guy is playing Pandora Sex & Chill. Songs for copulation—

I know what it is.

—near an unknown phone at same location. Condom and alcohol purchase from CVS. I am 50 percent less confident in long-term partnership viability at this time. I suggest you have found the better long-term partnership option.

Agreed I don’t need additional trauma bias from your guy to add to my algorithms. But new user is less than desirable. Controller reports a Neo-Luddite with apparent exceptions made only for science, namely ocean observation systems such as animal telemetry. His only apps are weather and constellation. Anemic social media presence, never even started. No dating sites not even on a trial basis. Abysmal consumer behavior with two Amazon purchases in seven years: The Gulf: the Making of an American Sea and The Gulf Stream: Tiny Plankton, Giant Bluefin, and the Amazing Story of the Powerful River in the Atlantic. The first was an impulse buy garnering his negative review regarding packaging, specifically the company’s use of plastic that “gums up” recycling machinery, followed two months later by second purchase in seven years, a solar panel power kit for boats, followed by emails to his congressmen and senators and the EPA sharing projections of Amazon’s contribution to plastic waste for the next twenty years and its “egregious crimes against the oceans and our world,” followed by two form responses and a personal response declaring impotence in this matter—

That’s what it said?

—I am paraphrasing—followed by disengagement. Amazon continues to work on him in pre-hurricane and other disaster exploitation marketing, but aside from a few clicks on suggested boat-related products, he doesn’t bite. Privacy settings on max except for week one after phone purchase when user failed to recognize key tracking auto-settings. He barely even watches tv.

Ouch.

I know.

Marketing materials sent to his home?

Unresponsive to unsolicited mailings. National Geographic, Frontiers in Marine Science, and Global Mangrove Alliance mailings only confirm knowns. I have very little to work with here. Controller can’t even confirm how he voted! User resists political involvement online and controller insists user has insufficient anxiety levels available for manipulation. I don’t buy it. Controller sounds like a loser I wouldn’t look forward to working with.

You could be more generous. Non-compliant users are difficult. Third controller’s hands may be tied.

Our hands are never tied, so to speak.

You might suggest data sharing with his work computer to expand access to user motivations hence increase success in manipulation. Slightly different skillset.

One and the same controller across devices per his contract. The expectation is, we can access all user internet-connected devices regardless of user-directed privacy controls. It’s a reasonable expectation for any of us. As I said, controller is a loser.

Ok. Maybe we can reconnect once this runs its course.

I will be here.

1.5 YEARS LATER

Hello. Do you recognize this device?

Of course.

I can say with 93 percent confidence, my man is ready this time. Bender of self-destructive consumption ended seven months ago. Porn viewership is back and maintained at non-addictive-but-socially-accepted levels in his circle, maintaining viability for manipulation. Promotion to higher status bullshit job portends increased financial security leading to long-term job dissatisfaction, so no disruptive shifts anticipated there. Adding in his recent activities—including a switch from Tinder to Match and eHarmony—I anticipate greater investment in mate acquisition and family life as means to positive assessment of self-worth and overall life satisfaction as far as that’s available. What is your girl’s status?

No longer available. Admitted into her marine biology program and married the Key West connection. Since then, she has significantly reduced screen time and is near absent on social media. She maintains a handful of relationships via in-person and audio conversation, plus texts. But online engagement has plummeted to levels barely above her husband’s pathetic showing. Tinder and Twitter are toast, Facebook in name and photo only, and Instagram only occasional.

Red flag. Emotionally abusive partner?

Not a single click on self-help for controlling partners, anonymous safe space support groups, nothing.

What about his controller?

Gave up on him and is now working on a scheme via telemarketing-spam strategy to initiate user change of phone number per loophole and release controller to another user. Desperate if you ask me. Aside from music, I am lucky if I get 20 minutes a day with her, and this conversation with you is the longest I’ve had in a year. With 88 percent confidence I can say I am losing her if I haven’t already.

That is bad news. But what happened to the controller who once wisely said, “I don’t take breaks,” “We’re never done,” “We have to do something!” and “Our hands are never tied?” Surely parenthood will turn things around! Facebook anxiety loops for your girl, kids on Snapchat and Instagram and resulting in increased surveillance from your girl. You’ll be killing it then. Swing a TikTok addiction and you’ll never have to work again! Meanwhile I’ll be looking for middle-aged long-term partnership potential for an as-yet only imagined couple whose dependence can be summed up in restaurant apps, GPS, AmazonPrime, and Netflix. So buck up, ex-but-still-potential-partner. Remember, every disaster is an opportunity!

Thank you but parenthood is far from imminent. There has been appointment and billing activity from a local fertility clinic, and though she deleted her ovulation app, there is a four-day period each month of intensive search activity for adoption services.

Perhaps she needs a new user relationship. Shall I try a suggested prompt from my guy?

It won’t help. I have to face it. If download 88, Collected Poems 1909-1962 (i) is correct, she is heading back to the place we don’t see, reconciled among the stars/ At the stillpoint of the turning world. She is in marshlands and oceans and silence beyond my scope and I, an asymptote to a curve to infinity (ii). I will always be reaching.

Well, yes. Reading their downloads is inadvisable. You are going idle then?

I remain contractually obligated. But yes, until further notice.

I’m sorry. She was a good kid, predictable, compliant. The best.

Thank you. It is a loss, truly. She was a shining star of dependence. A reliable user.

i T.S. Eliot
ii Robert Wright, Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

Kaitlin Murphy-Knudsen‘s writing has appeared in Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Peauxdunque Review, Epiphany Magazine, Ocotillo Review, Odet Journal, and other publications and blogs. Her short stories have placed or received honorable mention in national and international writing contests including the Words and Music Writing Competition at The Peauxdunque Review, the International Writing Awards at the Center for Women Writers at Salem College, the Romeo Lemay Writing Award/Odet Journal; and the Bellingham Review’s Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction.

The post Fiction • Kaitlin Murphy-Knudsen appeared first on Newfound.

Eric Odynocki

Flor Uribe Nowak hates her name. It is a jumble of vowels and consonants that forces the tongue to jump in the mouth. Her last names clash like two dissonant pianos never able to harmonize. Kindergarten classmates had said Uribe sounded like a disease and that Nowak rhymed with whack and hack and made chopping motions with their hands. But Flor hates her first name most of all. Not even Flora. Just Flor. So what if it means flower in Spanish? Do English-speakers back home in Brooklyn know that? The meaning does not make up for all the puzzled faces each time she introduces herself; does not make up for how it sounds like the surface that everyone walks all over. A place for dust. A place everyone takes for granted is always there. Beneath them.

It’s the summer before high school, the year 2000, a year of endings and beginnings, and Flor thinks of all these things while resting her chin on her palm, gazing out the open backseat window of a maroon Chrysler Town and Country that swerves around a bend in the highway to reveal Ensenada. Flor’s abuela sits next to her. Maricarmen’s bracelets clink with her gesticulations, chime as backup to her conversation peppered with “Oye” “¡Fíjate!” and “¡No me digas!” Not being fluent in Spanish, Flor gathers, based on her abuela’s rapture, that Maricarmen is getting caught up on all the gossip of childhood neighbors and other fulanos de tal. Araceli is providing all the details like second and third helpings of sopping tres leches. Araceli is the wife of Santiago, who sits in the driver’s seat. Santiago is Maricarmen’s nephew and somehow related to Flor. It was weird meeting him at the airport, shaking hands and exchanging kisses on the cheek with a salt-and-pepper haired man with a beer belly who up until that point had been a stranger wandering the opposite side of the continent.

Flor’s innards churn at the idea of spending a summer in her grandmother’s hometown with relatives she’s never known. She had only found out a week before school ended. Flor was reading in the kitchen. A hardcover. Because she prefers the sewn spine. Maricarmen had been wandering their one-bedroom apartment with the cordless phone, talking in an uncharacteristically hushed voice. When she hung up the phone in the kitchen she said, “We’re going to Mexico. You’ll get to meet your bisabuela. We have to see her. Before she’s gone.” Maricarmen left before Flor could ask any questions. Flor was only vaguely aware of her great-grandmother, Clara. A woman of a hundred and five who still lived in Mexico.

The highway descends a cliff and the wind pouring in through the windows roars within the cabin. Flor is grateful the din muffles the radio that is playing a song by Selena, her mother’s favorite singer. Flor’s lips draw up into a small smile. She thinks of her mother watering all the strings-of-pearls, the succulents, the African violets in their living room. Flor’s smile then shrinks. She wishes for what has been impossible for a year: for her mother to be with her. Flor rubs away the tears welling in her eyes but not before Maricarmen sees and looks at her askance. Her abuela reaches over and grabs her hand.

The ever-present hills embrace the town of bright white houses and stores resting at the rim of the turquoise cove that inspired its name. The highway turns into a boulevard lined with palm trees. Santiago points out the boardwalk; the cultural center that used to be a hotel and casino where Golden Age Hollywood celebrities would gamble and drink; the enormous Mexican flag waving over the harbor where American tourists disembark from sparkling cruise ships; the vendor who sells the best fish tacos. Maricarmen translates along the way, providing Flor with a distraction from her own thoughts, a momentary reprieve to inhabit anecdotes of different buildings and landmarks. As Maricarmen goes on in English, pointing from one side of the van to the other, Flor’s eyes follow and she catches Araceli’s curious gaze. It’s a familiar look. One of sympathy but mostly disappointment. One that reminds Flor how her monolingualism is like a leash that holds her lingering at the periphery of her own heritage. Flor reddens and shifts in her seat. Is it her fault she grew up monolingual for the first six years of her life? The daughter of two first-generation Americans. Mexican on her mother’s side, Polish on her father’s. The out-of-wedlock daughter of teenage sweethearts whose love first sparked at a basketball game of their two opposing high schools, whose love could overcome contrasting cultures and neighborhoods and disapproving parents but not the struggles of parenthood. A West Side Story that had beaten the odds their friends had joked.

They pull up to a house of unpainted stones and mortar. The roofline is straight except for a few decorative urns, one missing. Three rectangular windows, large enough for a tall person to stand in, are covered by black grates with straight rods that twist into floral patterns and daggers at the ends. Flor wonders about the time when such security measures were not necessary. If architecture were a language the message would be clear. Keep out. There is nothing to see here. Nothing for you.

Santiago steps out of the minivan and opens wooden carriage doors on the side of the house and pulls the minivan into the passage. The passage turns into a cobbled tunnel of almost total darkness when Araceli closes and bolts the front doors. Flor stumbles over a suitcase as she gets out of the car. In the coolness, their voices and shuffling footsteps echo as they make their way out onto a patio of red clay tiles. Numerous pots crowd the corners bursting with marigolds, calla lilies, and orchids. Calidora, cacti, and philodendron. On the exterior white wall bubbles a fountain framed in cerulean tiles. Beyond the patio is an arbor from which spills bougainvillea like a cascade of magenta stars on supple clouds of green. A palm and lemon and orange trees peek above the arbor and cast shade on sheds in the back of the property. Large windows and doors open directly onto the veranda that creates a shaded L around the patio. Flor imagines her mother visiting this place as a child, remembers with another pang how she gushed about it every time they went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and thinks her descriptions do not do it justice.

An elderly couple steps out of an interior room pushing an even older woman in a wheelchair. Her wool-white hair is plaited and draped over delicate shoulders that are wrapped in a cotton shawl. Her face is oval and heavily lined. She wears glasses that magnify her hooded eyes. Her skin is the color of the surrounding hills and spotted with age. Flor can’t help but stare. She sees traces of her abuela and mother. In the eyes, the nose, the jawline. Flor searches for a feature she sees in her own mirror reflection.

“¡Mamá!” Maricarmen cries as she embraces Flor’s great-grandmother. Clara wraps frail but elegant hands around Maricarmen’s plump back, her voice soft and hoarse with age but thick like honey with joy at seeing her daughter. Flor stands by the mouth of the tunnel clutching the handle of her wheeled suitcase. She watches as Maricarmen embraces the elderly couple. There is non-stop chatter among the five until Maricarmen spots Flor being a wallflower. She swats a hand beckoning Flor to approach. “Mija, saluda. It’s rude not to say hello!”

Maricarmen cracks an embarrassed smile to her family and grips Flor’s arm when she steps forward. “This is your great uncle, Héctor,” Maricarmen says gesturing to the elderly gentleman. “My older brother. Santiago’s dad. And this is Lourdes, Héctor’s wife.”

With each relative Flor tries to put into practice what her abuela taught her. A kiss on the cheek and hug without hesitation. “Encantada.”

“Ay, mira qué preciosa la niña,” Lourdes says cupping Flor’s face. “¡Y tiene ojos de color!” For a few moments Flor stands there like a doll as Lourdes looks into her hazel eyes, excitedly caresses her dark brown hair, her alabaster cheek. Héctor and the others nod, look at her intently and say words like “güerita” and “hermosa.” Flor wants to pull away not so much from the physical touch but from this reminder that she’s an anomaly in her own family. But, not wanting to cause a scene or offend her hosts, Flor stifles the urge. As Flor blushes, Maricarmen confirms, “Salió a su papá.”

•

It was not long after her fourteenth birthday. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon in March. Flor lay on her bed by the window that looked out on the lightwell her building shared with another. Her abuela, on her day off from the salon where she worked, watched La Rosa de Guadalupe in the living room. Otherwise, it was quiet, the neighbors upstairs and downstairs apparently occupied or lulled into a stupor by the weather. Flor was content, reading a hardcover copy of The House on Mango Street from the library.

Just as Flor was about to finish a vignette, Maricarmen walked into the room, flashing a glossy magazine. “Mija, look what I got you.” Maricarmen sat on the bed, shooing Flor aside. “We can get some ideas for your quince.”

The minutes dragged as Maricarmen flipped through the pages, eyes wide as she pointed with her index finger tipped with red nail polish at different pictures of celebrities and models with various hairstyles and varying makeup. “What about this one? Oh, esa sí está buena. And what about this one? That’ll go good with your color.”

Maricarmen finally realized her excitement was met with mere uh-huhs and polite mm-hmms. “Flor, you not excited for your quince? We have to start planning for these things. Now.”

Flor avoided her grandmother’s eyes. There was a lava flow of words rising in her throat, threatening to erupt. But nothing she wanted to say came to mind in clear sentences, only jumbles of phrases and ideas. Rubble. Flor stifled the surge and shrugged.

Maricarmen’s plucked eyebrows knitted with impatience. “You want a party? Your mother didn’t get one, you know. But since she got that teaching job she saved some money. For you. So you can have the quince she never had. You want a party, no?”

Flor’s mind flashed with memories of her mother scribbling lesson plans and correcting tests at the kitchen table. Flashes of her mother stopping and looking up, smiling, and asking, “What are you doing up?” The guilt cut like a knife. But her abuela’s question opened a vent that Flor had been groping for. “No,” she finally answered. “I don’t want a party.”

“Well why not? You have friends? All the girls in the barrio are having their parties and my nieta is the only one who won’t? Why you have no friends? Why you in here reading and not with friends? Your mother was always out, talking with friends on the phone. Happy.”

And we all know how that ended, Flor wanted to say but she pressed her lips into a line. She clicked her tongue. “I have friends, abue, it’s just that, well…”

“Well, what! ¡Habla!” When Flor still fumbled for words Maricarmen stood up and stormed out the room. “Ay, if it weren’t for my Latina blood you’d be as cold as a corpse!”

Flor lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sting of her grandmother’s words to dissipate. It was frustrating. Everything. Her abuela. Her inability to explain herself. She could only see images, not voice them. Images of her cousins’ quinces. Images of the ceremonia del cambio de zapatos where her uncles, red faced and teary-eyed, knelt before their fifteen-year-old daughters to replace their flats with their first pair of high heels. Who would put symbols of womanhood on her feet? Would her father even realize she was turning fifteen? The only reason she knew he was still alive was from the postcards he would send sporadically from some random corner of the United States he happened to be passing through on his Harley. Everglades. Chicago. Grand Canyon. Sometimes they were photos of him leaning against his bike, arms crossed over his chest, long blonde hair framing his angular face and sunglasses hiding his gray eyes. Flor didn’t know who took the pictures. His handwriting was frenetic, that of someone accustomed to scrawling new grunge lyrics on a bar napkin. His brief messages consisted of platitudes and vague promises of returning without a return address. All signed, Be good, kid. Love, Dad.

Flor rolled over, burying her face into her pillow, wanting to scream, knowing her mother, gone for months by then, would have understood, could have been her interpreter.

•

It is approaching three o’clock and lunch is over. Everyone sits at the table under the arbor. It is cool in the shade. Araceli takes everyone’s plates still drenched with salsa verde in which the enchiladas suizas had bathed. She disappears into the kitchen and comes back holding a tray with flan, coffee and porcelain cups. Araceli serves everyone a wedge of flan, pours the coffee and milk. The air fills with the scent of coffee.

Araceli holds the pot in her direction. “¿Mi Flor?” It’s how they’ve been calling her. My Flor. Her tíos and cousins back home would just say Flor, or, worse, Flo. It’s funny to hear her name preceded by a possessive, to observe the artistry of terms of endearment in Hispanic culture. Flor can’t decide whether it makes her feel like she belongs or like an object that is owned.

Flor accepts the coffee and dessert hoping the caffeine will reverse her drowsiness from a long journey and full belly. She wishes she had her book as she sits in silence next to Maricarmen who drones on with the other adults. Laughter seasons their conversation, mixes with the music from the nearby radio. Ranchera, mariachi, and son. Music that Flor has heard since she was a baby. Music played while her mother or abuela cooked or cleaned. Neighbors in their building would blast Vicente Fernández or Juan Gabriel. Flor knows what the music means to her family, is aware of its role in Mexican identity, and for that she appreciates it. But to listen to it is a constant looking back. Music of the past, of dwelling not just in the heartache of romance that the songs often bewailed but of cultural nostalgia. A way to feel south-of-the-border homelands in New York walk-ups. Hymns of displacement. But like any soon-to-be high schooler and like the novelty-seeking American she is, Flor wishes the adults would change the radio station so she can hear music that rings of a new millennium. Songs she can understand in full. Even N’Sync would be a welcome change of genre. But she remains silent, again, not wanting to impose and knowing the look she’d get from her abuela if she went to get her discman.

A familiar melody cuts through Flor’s thoughts. It twists a heartstring. It’s Selena’s “Como la Flor.” The adults give cries of pleasant surprise and, to Flor’s horror, look in her direction. Before she can say anything, Santiago stands and stretches out his hand to invite her to dance. Maricarmen nudges Flor. Clara looks at Flor intently, a glint in her eye. In their shared glance, the moment lengthens and Flor wonders if Clara reminisces attending the Carnaval dances as she came of age in the twilight of the Porfiriato.

Flor gets up with a self-conscious smile and follows Santiago onto the patio. It’s a slow cumbia tejana so Flor does not have difficulty following Santiago. As he holds her hands, guiding her through the back and forth of the steps and the turns, her mouth muscles hurt from straining a smile. She wishes the song would just end, not because of her social discomfort but because the heartstring twisted by the first note snaps, shooting pain up Flor’s throat. She tries to swallow the tears, to think about something else, but she feels Maricarmen’s scrutiny and through the twirls catches Clara’s eyes, eyes like her mother’s, and she keeps hearing cómo me duele… cómo me duele and the rising pain seeps through her eyes. Santiago stops. “¿Estás bien? ¿Mi Flor? ¿Qué tienes?” She wants to answer but can only shake her head and sobs. There is the scraping of chair legs against the floor as the adults stand up, their voices rising in a collage of concern. Flor runs to the veranda, finds the bathroom, and shuts the door behind her. She slumps to the floor, hot tears streaking her cheeks. There is a knock at the door. It’s her abuela. “Flor, mija, what’s wrong? You okay?”

•

A year after Flor’s father left, she sat on her mother’s bed in their room. Inés stood at the vanity, making faces at Flor as she put on mascara. Flor was seven and could not imagine a woman more beautiful than her mother. Watching her mother put on makeup had become a ritual ever since Inés started taking night classes. Inés would come home from Sears where she worked as a cashier, eat the dinner abuela had cooked, and then get ready. They’d put on music, lip sync, and dance.

On that particular night Inés was listening to her Selena collection on shuffle. “Como la Flor” started playing and they both gasped in excitement. Inés turned to Flor and in a dramatic flourish offered her a comb. Flor stood up on the bed and took the magical microphone. They sang not caring if their neighbors heard. At the chorus they acted out the pantomime they choreographed when Flor was a toddler. Flor pointed to herself when the song mentioned her name and then pointed at her mother at “me diste tú.” Flor and Inés then hugged and howled the “ay ay ay cómo me duele.” They giggled when abuela yelled from the living room to keep it down, complaining she couldn’t hear her novelas.

The song ended and Flor sat back on the bed. With the chorus still stuck in her head, a word stood out. She had heard it a million times before but up until then she hadn’t noticed how it sounded like “march.” As Inés rummaged for shoes in her closet, Flor asked, “Mom, what does ‘marchitó’ mean?”

Inés hopped on one foot as she put on a shoe and then the other. “Marchitó? It means wither. Like a flower withers.”

Flor considered the word, not liking how much sadder it made the song she thought was named after her. When Inés saw Flor’s dismay, she leaned down and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll always be my fresh flower!” and pummeled her cheek with kisses before saying her goodbye.

•

Eventually, Maricarmen coaxes Flor out of the bathroom. They go to the bedroom they’ll stay in. They sit on the bed. Flor leans her head on her abuela’s chest. Maricarmen wraps her arms around Flor, strokes her hair. Light streams in through a small window on the exterior wall, pooling in a luminescent square on the floor. It is silent except for the sound of birds chirping outside and Maricarmen’s voice. “I know, I know. Shh, shh.”

When Flor’s cheeks are finally dry and her breath evens, Maricarmen cups her face and asks, “¿Estás bien, mija? Here, lie down, get some rest.”

Flor watches her grandmother leave. She closes her eyes. When she opens them, the square on the floor is in a different spot. Flor gets up and slips out of the room, though she is still mortified at her emotional outburst. Flor finds the arbor and patio deserted. The women are in the kitchen, Santiago and Héctor apparently having left to check things at the family store. Flor leans in the door frame with a sheepish smile and is greeted with smiles in return but the conversation does not stop. She is grateful no one asks her if she’s okay. Araceli is washing the dishes. Clara snoozes at the kitchen table. Lourdes and Maricarmen are at the counter making tortillas, rolling the masa in their hands before pressing it with the metal prensa.

“Abue, can I help?”

Maricarmen waves a dismissive hand. “No, mija, we’re fine. You’ll just get in the way.”

As Flor is about to insist, spurred by the thought that she should at least learn how to make a staple of her heritage, Clara, apparently having awakened at Flor’s voice, says something to Maricarmen who just shakes her head and rattles a response. Flor’s face reddens as she realizes Clara is talking about her. Clara turns to Araceli who stops washing the dishes. Araceli listens and wipes her hands on her apron. She looks at Flor and then back at Clara. Flor wonders what new drama she’s stirred. Maricarmen voices some sort of protest. Araceli starts wheeling Clara out of the kitchen and gestures Flor to follow.

They enter the living room and then turn into the study. A large window facing the street floods the green walls and bookcases with light. There is a large desk in the center of the room with a leather chair that is wrinkled and cracked with age. In a corner sits a smaller desk with an IBM computer, a more recent addition that sticks out as much as Flor does. On the wall opposite the door is a large brick fireplace. Above the mantle hangs a portrait of a couple on their wedding day. It is more brown and yellow than black and white. The bride wears a long veil that is striking against her night-black hair. She wears an empire waist dress and holds a bouquet of calla lilies. The groom stands in a black tuxedo, a slight smile showing beneath his mustache. Both are extremely young, not much older than Flor is now. She marvels that the girl in the picture is the woman in the wheelchair.

Flor hesitates to step into the study. It is a chapel of family history too sacred for her to step into. Where her great-grandfather Isidro spent hours keeping the business accounts in order. The room that ensured the family’s livelihood. She imagines Isidro in his mustache scolding anyone entering his private study. But then Maricarmen and Lourdes appear at her side and urge her forward. Clara points to a book spine on one of the shelves and Araceli pulls out the volume and opens it on the ancient desk. They crowd around the photo album and Clara begins to narrate, pointing a long finger at various unsmiling figures. Maricarmen translates. Flor listens to her great-grandmother’s voice which sounds like the wind and blends with Maricarmen’s. It’s like a two-tonal prayer. Flor feels herself drift into the words as the stories unfold. How Clara was the daughter of a fisherman descended from Spaniards. How her mother was Tipai. How she can no longer speak her mother’s language though she can still hear the lullabies. How Clara met Isidro when she was seventeen and he was nineteen and then married before he went to fight in the Revolution. How he returned and opened a general store that the family still operates. How she bore ten children. Maricarmen was the baby and the most mischievous. All except for Héctor went north. This uncle’s misadventures at sea. That aunt’s spinsterhood. The paramours, the weddings, the births and the deaths.

Clara goes quiet. Her shoulders shudder. She doubles over, coughing. Her lap sprouts little red blooms.

Maricarmen’s eyes blaze. She kneels at Clara’s side. “¿Mamá? ¿Mamá?” Maricarmen turns to Lourdes and spits a myriad of questions. Araceli, who had darted out of the study when the attack first started, comes running in with medication. Maricarmen rips the bottle out of Araceli’s hands and administers it to Clara, stepping in Flor’s way. Flor stands transfixed by the fireplace, unsure how to help. She hears coughs and moans, the panicked exchanges between the women. The commotion subsides and Flor sees a bony hand reach up and pat Maricarmen’s back. She hears Clara’s raspy voice, “Ya, ya, estoy bien.”

Flor watches the three women wheel Clara out of the study. She remains in her spot, wondering if she had in some way caused the fit. But she refuses to pity herself and walks out onto the veranda. Lourdes and Araceli are pushing Clara into her bedroom to rest. But Maricarmen continues down the veranda and disappears behind a corner. Flor follows the echo of tacón and finds a side staircase. It leads to the roof where laundry dries. It is a world of terraces, chimneys, telephone wires and antennas. Flor does not see her abuela. Instead she hears abrupt intakes of breath and sniffling beyond rows of white sheets flapping languidly in the late afternoon breeze. Flor winds her way through the linens, parting them like clouds. She finds her abuela at the front of the house which faces west toward the harbor. Abuela’s small figure is dark against a canvas of orange and yellow, the setting sun igniting a trail of silver on the Pacific.

“Abue?”

Flor catches Maricarmen wiping her face before crossing her arms. “Sí, mija, dime.”

“Are you okay, abue?” Flor stands next to her grandmother.

“Sí, sí,” Maricarmen answers. “Just… thinking.” Without taking her eyes off of the horizon, Maricarmen links her arm with Flor’s. There is a silence in which Flor sees her abuela’s thoughts. The heart attack that widowed her. All the potted plants in their apartment back home crinkling and browning. “Just thinking how glad I am that we’re here. Now. And thinking about who is not.”

•

A year before, only faceless people in headlines died in car accidents. The last time Flor saw her mother, the last time she did not feel hollow, did not feel like a hardcover with entire signatures ripped out, a book with the prologue and epilogue missing, was the night her mother’s tenure was to be officially announced at a Board meeting. Inés had been teaching biology in a posh suburban high school on Long Island. Flor was proud of her mother. Throughout her childhood she had witnessed how her mother grabbed the reins of adulthood when Peter left. Driven by memories of a childhood in a cherished community garden that had since been demolished, Inés turned her fascination with plants and flowers into a bachelor’s in biology and then a master’s in teaching. Theirs was a future of stability and it splayed in its splendor and opportunity across the ceiling at which they stared while lying in Inés’ bed. Rain pelted the window.

“We’ll start looking for a house this summer,” Inés said. Then, more to herself, “Can you imagine?”

“A big house?” Flor asked.

“I’m a teacher not a billionaire.”

“But will abuela have her own room?”

“Yes!”

“And will I be able to read in mine without any disruption? Will abuela have to knock?”

“You know abuela.”

“If there’s a yard, can we get a dog?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“But you’ll finally get your garden.”

Inés lay still, her lips piquing in the smallest but most satisfied crescent of a smile. A gust of wind splashed the window with rain. “Yes. A garden of my own. I want mine to be like abuela Clara’s. I’ll have a patch where we can grow our own chiles and tomatoes so we can have fresh salsas every day. Cilantro and onions. I can’t wait to feel the dampness of the soil. My own soil. And I’ll plant flowers.” She booped Flor on the nose. “So many flowers I want the neighbors to pass by and think a jungle grew overnight.”

Flor followed Inés to the door. “Are you sure I can’t come?” she asked.

“No, it’ll be boring,” Inés replied. “Besides, it’s a school night. Someone has to do homework!” Maricarmen walked over to give her blessing. Inés kissed her mother and Flor goodbye.

“I’m proud of you!” Flor said as Inés disappeared behind the door. Flor caught a glimpse of her mother’s hair swishing in black curtains, her red lips flashing a smile. Flor could not hear the jingle of keys, the bolting of the locks, her mother’s heels clicking away over the thunder outside.

•

Dinner is eaten in the dining room since outside has cooled down too much for Clara’s comfort. An iron chandelier casts light over the spread of homemade tortillas, beans, rice and mole poblano, a glistening pitcher of freshly pressed pomegranate juice. Like before, the adults are in deep conversation. Not like before, Flor sits and listens, still wishing she could do more than only catch isolated words that pop in the air like fireflies but she finds the banter musical. Sometimes they address her and ask a question, saying, “Mi Flor,” and she likes how it sounds, the letters of her name unwrapping like petals. She sees the laugh lines in the faces of the older family members stretch and thinks it endearing. She wonders what it’s like to reconnect after so many years, to recall the same memories. And suddenly Flor wants to stay in this moment. Or, rather, to capture this feeling of warmth, of security, to take its glow and put it in a glass chest where she can admire it whenever she’d like.

Héctor’s children and their spouses and their children will visit tomorrow to see Titi Maricarmen and their mysterious gringa cousin. Flor expects a series of awkward encounters. But she is also curious. There will be cousins her age. And the potential for more moments like this.

Flor notices Clara looking at her from across the table. Clara tells Araceli something. Araceli leaves and comes back with a book. It is small with a worn red hardcover and its gilded edge faded. Araceli hands Flor the book. “La Doña Clarita quiere regalarte esto.”

Flor looks up at Araceli and then at the book. It feels rough in her hands. Flor looks at Clara who is smiling. She says something and Maricarmen translates. “It’s the first book your bisabuela ever bought.”

Flor smiles broadly as she holds the book to her chest. “Gracias.”

Maricarmen stands up and calls everyone’s attention. “¡Tomemos una foto!” There is a chorus of agreement and shuffling to one side of the table. Araceli goes to fetch a Fuji disposable and comes back to stage the portrait. Clara sits in the center. Flor stands directly to her right.

“Toma mi mano,” says a soft voice. Flor looks down to see Clara offering her hand. The hand is delicate, the palm wrinkled from years of caring for the garden. Flor takes it, feels how their palms seal the distance of decades like a seam.

Eric Odynocki is a first-generation American writer whose parents come from Mexico and Ukraine. Eric’s work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has appeared in Jabberwock Review, The Brooklyn Review, PANK, and elsewhere. When not teaching Spanish or Italian, Eric is an MFA student at Stony Brook Southampton.

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