The Exquisite and Immaculate Grace of Carmen Espinoza Read Online Free Page A

stood up with my dishes in hand and rushed to the sink to get them washed before she had a chance to decide she was going to say something, kids or no kids.  
    Her eyes, I could feel the pressure of them on my back as I scrubbed the clots of oatmeal from my bowl so I changed the subject, “The ofrenda,” my voice was strained from the effort of keeping my tears back as I nodded to the decorated table pushed against the wall. “I’ve never seen one…it’s amazing.”  
    The memorial alter to welcome the family’s dead back home sat beneath an arch of the yellow and orange marigolds that Graciana had carried home from the market the day before. On the table, Graciana had laid out her best table cloth and then the whole family had added the fruits and vegetables along with items that, according to mentor Vicky, were meant to represent the four elements. A glass of water for the souls long journey back, a candle, or fire, for each soul memorialized, food from the earth, and papel picado banners for the wind whose intricate cut designs reminded me of the paper snowflakes that kids cut out back home. The heads of sugared skulls and dancing skeletons dressed in bright Mexican outfits with cigarettes hanging out their mouths watched over the offerings.
    Graciana pushed her chair back from the table. “It would have been good for you to help us,” she said as she picked up a box of matches near one of the candles and lit the copal scented incense sticks. As she lit each of the five candles on the table, the woody scent of the incense drifted through the kitchen, its spicy kick burned my nostrils. For weeks now, large parade floats and mountains of marigolds had been collecting and growing throughout Oaxaca in preparation for the Day of the Dead celebrations that began today.  
    Graciana blew out the last match, “Tonight we are holding the vigil at the cemetery, we would like you to come with us Carmen.”
    In the three months since they had taken me into their home, I had made almost zero effort to join their family. Aside from taking meals with them, and then, only when hunger drove me from my room, I had practically shunned their every attempt to include me.
    I finished washing my dish and shut off the water. My wet hands clung to the side of the sink as I wished for some way to silently escape this moment.  
    Graciana was waiting for an answer, but the only answer I wanted to give was no . I didn’t know how to be a real daughter to my own mother, what hope was there of figuring out how to be a fake one?
    “I’m not really feeling all that well,” I said.  
    She didn’t answer me at first and the silence in the room behind me grew like an uncomfortable, pressing balloon. When I couldn’t take it any more, I turned from the sink and saw that Graciana was kneeling before the ofrenda and her lips moved with her silent prayers.    
    Even Graciana wished for Debbie.  
    After a moment more, she stopped, crossed her self, then stood up and faced me.  
    “Carmen,” her voice punctured the silence with its authority. “You are to come with us tonight—God has told me.”  
    I didn’t believe her, but I stared at her feet, brown like my own mother’s, and nodded my head anyway.

    That night, in town, the streets were flooded in festival. On every street it seemed cars were stopped by road blocks and thousands of people migrated to some common location. As we walked down the street, a woman dressed as an angel in bright white satin crossed in front of us. The bottom of her costume was cut into a flowing set of pants designed to accommodate the tall stilts that hoisted her high above the rest of the crowd. Everyone was careful to give her loping gait a wide berth so she didn’t come toppling down on top of them. Her feathered wings stretched high above her head and her face was painted a stark white with her cheeks collapsing under a death mask of black.  
    “The comparsa,” Sergio said.
    Graciana was still