“Too busy?” Her large eyes opened wider. “Too busy to learn about the greatest obstacle in your life, the one blocking the path to all those dreams you always had?”
“I still have my dreams. It’s all I have these days, really.” He placed the container in a bag and slid it across the counter.
“Ask your mother,” La Señora Villarreal implored him. “She has to know something. That’s the only reason I mentioned it to you back then, because you were together and I thought she would help you with it. We all come from the same lands, you know? From Caja Pinta, way back to when our ancestors landed there on the ships from Spain. Ask her to point you in the right direction. It’s the only way you’ll ever turn all this around. You can’t just wait for that girl’s husband to die and then expect her to run right back into your arms, Fulgencio. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s never that easy, at least not for people like us.”
She reached into her purse to pull out her Medicaid card, but he waved it off. “No, Señora Villarreal. Save your Medicaid in case you need something else this month. You’ve given me more than enough tonight.”
After she left, Fulgencio sat for a while contemplating her words and staring at the phone. He picked up the receiver and then placed it back in its cradle a couple of times. Then he finally dialed his mother’s number.
“¿Bueno?” she answered after a couple of rings. He could hear food sizzling on a pan in the background.
“Mamá?”
“Sí, m’ijo.”
“Remember La Señora Villarreal?”
“Yes.”
“Remember that day in Lopez Supermarket years ago? Remember what she said? Something about a maldición?”
A long pause followed. And then Ninfa del Rosario responded tentatively, “Yes?”
“What can you tell me about that? I saw her just now, and she said I needed to ask you so I could fix it.”
“Ay Dios, esta gente de rancho. Fulgencio, we didn’t move to America so that we could still believe in such things. The past is the past. And the sooner you leave it behind you, the sooner you’ll start enjoying life here in the present. Forget about that. La Señora Villarreal is a gitana. One of her ancestors intermarried with one of ours at some point along the line, but she is stuck in the old ways and superstitions. Let her believe what she needs to believe. You’re a man of science now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in yerbas y maldiciónes. And you know I talk to people that have left this world all the time. I see them. They’re real. So why shouldn’t I believe that some sort of curse could be affecting me or our family? Remember when I was a kid and I’d come running to you in the middle of the night? I would hear these strange words, these chants. Remember that? Remember how angry I would get, how violent? Remember how jealous and possessive I was, so much so I left Carolina without even asking her with whom she was dancing that Christmas Eve? Maybe this maldición La Señora Villarreal speaks of has something to do with all that.”
“Hijo mio. You’re a man. And you’re both a Ramirez and a Cisneros. It’s no surprise that you’ve been the way you are. All of you machos are imposibles. I’m sure you’d like to blame your troubles on something else, something you can pay some curandera or bruja to dispel. And if it makes you feel better, go right on ahead. But don’t drag me into your backward quest for answers to all that’s gone wrong in your life in the past. My father abandoned me. He left me nothing. He lost everything we had. And some people said the reason my mother died in childbirth was because he was so horrible to her that she did not have the will to go on living. Your brothers have all amounted to nothing. Little David pues ni se diga. And you, well, I’m thankful for your help, but we both know you’ve been miserable for a very long time. So with all that suffering, and all that failure, I’ve had enough. I don’t want excuses about why it’s been that way. I just want to move on.”
“So, who should I ask? Do you know something and you’re just not telling me?” Fulgencio pressed.
She sighed, “Look, m’ijo. People out on the ranches, when I was a girl growing up, they always talked about it. Some said they saw a woman standing by the river. I never did. And they spoke of an old curse, la maldición de Caja Pinta. But frankly, there were countless stories and none of them ever made any sense to me, so I tuned them out. If you say you talk to dead people, then go ask that grandfather of yours that’s now your roommate. He’s the one you should be talking to, don’t you think?”
“He doesn’t say much. He just sits there and plays cards and drinks.”
“Well I’m glad to see he hasn’t changed,” she quipped.
“C’mon, help me out here, Mamá. Give me a break.”
“I’m sorry, son. That’s all I really know. And, well, there is one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, they used to say that the Cisneros men would be unable to hold on to love unless the maldición was broken.”
Fulgencio nearly fumbled the phone. “What?”
“That’s all I know,” Ninfa del Rosario Cisneros asserted.
“How could you not tell me this sooner?”
“Because I don’t believe it.”
“But you mess around with herbs and spells yourself! How can you not believe it?” Fulgencio ran his hands through his hair in exasperation.
“Curing a cold or helping someone with their rheumatism is one thing,” she explained. “Dabbling in black magic is another. I don’t do that.”
“Well, don’t you think my brothers and I deserved to know about this maldición?”
“No, not really. I considered it when you were kids. I even spoke to El Padre Juan Bacalao about it, asked him if I should tell you. He said I shouldn’t. He said that none of that old Santeria belongs in the Christian world.”
“Of course he would say that, Mamá. He’s got to stick to his script. But if the Padre can make a miracle on the altar every time he celebrates Mass, then why couldn’t a bruja put a curse on someone?”
“I don’t know. Looking back at how everything has turned out for you and your brothers, maybe I was wrong to ignore the curse, but at the time, I didn’t wish to burden you with unnecessary doubts about something that you could do nothing about.”
“Well, we’ll see about that!” Fulgencio declared, a bitter taste creeping into his mouth. “For whatever it’s worth, Mamá. Thank you for finally telling me what you know.”