Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

Author:Patricia Engel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

Elena found a job mopping and cleaning bathrooms in a restaurant a few towns over. The owner was young, spoke Spanish learned while surfing in Nicaragua, and was pleasant except that he didn’t pay Elena for her first month on the job, saying it was customary to work for free during the “trial period.” She asked the guys in the kitchen if this was true, but they wouldn’t say. One month without income indebted her to many others. With a loan from Carla she was able to pay for the basement in the Sandy Hill house and Lety, who cooked meals for residents who contributed to the grocery bills, let Elena and the kids eat on credit.

That night: white-breath cold, shop windows scalloped in frost, the town tinseled for the holidays. The restaurant closed to the public for a private party. At the end of the shift, after Elena did her final wiping-downs and pushed her buckets into the supply closet, she gathered her things from her locker and heard the boss call her from his office. She held her coat and handbag against her stomach and followed his voice. Before she could ask if something was wrong he shut the door behind her, closed the space between them, swishing his tongue in her mouth. She tasted alcohol, moved back, but he swept the coat and bag from her hands and pushed her against the wall. He spoke in English she didn’t understand, lifting her shirt, tugging her bra so the strap carved into her shoulder and her breasts fell out. He pinched and bit as she pushed him away, sailed her shirt over her head blinding her, angled her to the desk, pants at her knees, and tore into her from behind. Elena. Small, birdlike, as Mauro used to say, who brought three children into the world, shocked into pain far beyond the flesh.

Grunting until his final spasms. She still cannot say how much time passed. Minutes maybe, but she was already gone, soul departed, searching for remnants of who she’d been just minutes before. When he removed himself from her, she felt him cover her back with her coat. She pulled up her pants, her stretched underwear. She managed to ask why.

Without meeting her eyes he said, “I don’t know. I’m not usually attracted to mothers.”

She walked to the bus stop, scalp burning from where he pulled, propped onto her hip the whole ride because it hurt too much to sit, weeping into her sleeve. The next morning, when she went to pick up the children from Toya’s, she told her what happened as plainly as she could. Toya had been in the United States much longer, and Elena hoped she’d have some advice or wisdom. She heard her own voice as if it belonged to someone else. Toya walked to her stove, turned the heat on under the kettle, and leaned against the counter.

“Amiga, I’m sorry to say these things happen all the time. Try to forget it.

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