Sage wraps an arm through mine, and she helps me to the door. Sky keeps it open for us, and she follows behind when we’re through.
The gallery is a wide-open single room, a square made up of white-as-snow walls. There is a pale blue marble desk in a corner—where I guess transactions are made—but besides that, there are only staged pieces of art and the posters and papers explaining them.
I walk by one wall hanging titledThe Lightning Brujaand feel my entire body tingle with apprehension and anger at once.
Vivette Coretta first encountered the sculptures as a result of lightning hitting beach sand in Southern California. The heat of the lightning strike melts the sand into finely textured glass and sand forms. Coretta was enchanted with what she calls “the magic of ocean storms” and began to chase the storms along the beach shores all over the Americas, discovering hundreds of sculptures along the way. “It’s a gift,” laughs Coretta when asked about how she seems to always be in the right place at the right time. “It’s my gift.”
“Oh my God,” Sage whispers as she reads behind me. “Iliterallycan’t believe her.” Her voice constricts and I don’t have to turn around to know that tears stream down her face. “She’s not eventryingto hide the theft.”
I glance around at the sculptures themselves. The fulgurites, as one sign declares their official name to be, balance atop plain white stands, made of what looks like glittering quartz and beach sand melded together. Their shape reminds me of an amalgamation of undersea coral and little, pencil-sized lightning, frozen in form. They are beautiful and haunted and messy.
“Teal.” I turn to Sky, who stands in front of a door labeledFOR EMPLOYEES ONLY. She gestures to where the blue line leads—under the white-painted wood of the door and onward to the other side. “She’s in there.”
I’m frozen, as still in time as the beautiful and cold sculptures—the result of my stolen gift, my stolen soul piece—all around me.
Sky raises her eyebrows. “Do you need me to open the door?”
I nod immediately.
Sky doesn’t hesitate. She throws open the door, and as soon as someone inside says, “Excuse me, this is a private—” Sky throws open her hands and says, “Cora! Do you remember me? It’s Sky, your youngest daughter!”
32
I know that Sky doesn’tcare about meeting Mama, about hearing what she has to say. Sky has never known her, not really, so she doesn’t have that sort of hole in her heart. What she’s doing is creating an opportunity for me and Sage to gather our bearings and come inside.
The room is similar in taste to the gallery—made up of white porcelain furniture, white walls, two desks pushed up against the only wall with windows facing the walkway of downtown, where between the redbrick buildings across the street the ocean peeks through, right now becoming as dark as indigo while the sun sets.
I’m guessing the director or curator or whoever—a white woman with auburn hair and a confused look on her face—sits behind the desk, and leaning against one of its corners…is Mama.
The blue line stops right at her feet, so there is no question it’s her. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Of all the thoughts fluttering in my mind like a thousand dandelion seeds, the one that settles first is:She looks different from us and exactly like us at the same time.
We sisters don’t look exactly alike, thanks to our different fathers, but we each inherited something from her—our skin, the color of dark gold, our sharp bone structure, recognizable even on our differently shaped faces. And I guess we each got her smirk—because she smirks at us now, and it feels very familiar, a look I’ve seen on both Sage and Sky and maybe even in the mirror, when I’ve had a productive and vindictive day.
Her hair looks dyed to be dark, thanks to the hint of white roots, and lines decorate her skin, mainly crow’s feet at her eyes (Sky must’ve gotten her crinkly smile from her). She’s about my height with Sage’s curvy body, adorned in a black suit I’m surprised to see her wearing, because it looks slick and expensive and something her mother, Sonya, would approve of. And she and Amá Sonya, from the stories Nadia tells, never did get along.
I’m not sure what I expected to feel, laying eyes on my mother for the first time in over two decades, but for some reason, right now, it’s a whole lot of nothing. Like my emotions have vacated the premises because of the intense stress of the moment.
“I didn’t know you had a daughter, Viv,” the lady behind the desk says, and the way she saysViv, like she’s super good friends with Mama, makes me snap.
“We’re all her daughters,” I tell the woman. “She abandoned us when we were babies, and her name isn’t Vivienne. It’s Cora Flores-Gonzalez, or at least it was about twenty-five years ago.”
My mother’s expression sharpens when I speak, and the woman—Harriet, I can see her name tag now—looks even more confused, with hurt beginning to color her features. I wonder how long they’ve been friends. How long she thought she knew this woman—this faker—in front of her.
“Harriet, would you mind giving me a minute with my—” Mama coughs. “My daughters?”
Harriet nods and stands, not sparing any of us a glance on the way out.
As soon as the door shuts behind her, I glare at Mama. “I want it back.”
Mama crosses her arms and raises an eyebrow. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s scary how much that statement sounds like Amá Sonya.
“Cut the crap, Cora,” Sky says, and I blink—I’ve never heard her sound this mean and demanding before. “Weallknow what she’s talking about.”
Mama’s eyes sheen. “It’s been over twenty years…and this is the welcome I get from my own children?”
Now Sky narrows her eyes. “You’ve been in town for how long now? And so far all you’ve done is made damn well sure we couldn’t find you.” Sky scrunches her nose. “You were expecting a welcome-back party for that?”
“I’ve had to work,” Mama wails. “I was going to come to youeventually—”
