by Carol Roper

The first time Dani’s husband told her he was leaving her she felt like she had stumbled into a bottomless crevice.

She stood beside the bed where they had made love the night before, transferring the contents of a black purse to a red Steve Madden purse she recently found on sale at MARSHALLS. It perfectly matched the red scoop neck sweater she wore to draw attention to her upper body. The births of three children years ago erased any trace of her waistline. Pinstripe black pants and comfortable three-inch heels completed her outfit. She was a picture of a fine-looking postmenopausal woman with just a few strands of grey in hair that framed her high forehead, wide set eyes and golden skin reminiscent of her indigenous ancestors.  

No hint remained of the sixteen-year-old girl in huaraches and thin dress who decades earlier crossed the muddy Rio Grande, spoke no English and worked in a tortilla factory, while bringing up her children, learned the language, became a citizen and was now a Human Relations counselor at the Pico Rivera Community Center and married to her second husband.  She was American in every way.

“Your lunch is on the counter,” she said.

“I won’t need lunch,” Felix replied. His tone caused her to look up. 

He hadn’t showered yet and had on the Navy-blue terry robe she’d given him for his fortieth birthday.   He was an ordinary looking man, not much taller than Dani who hadn’t been attracted to him when they met, principally because Felix was so much younger than she and had no job. He pursued Dani by Text and phone for a year until she finally agreed to date him.

She glanced at her Apple watch. “Why not?” 

“I won’t be here that’s why.” 

Dani had no time for guessing games. There were occasions when she wondered if she was responsible for his immaturity, but not now. 

“Felix, can we talk later?”

“Do you ever listen to me? I said, ‘I won’t be here.’”

He was sensitive and could be prickly, but she didn’t have time this morning to hear his grievances about his life not turning out as he imagined when he came to America. 

“Where will you be? Is your mother visiting your sister?” If she didn’t listen, he’d be in a rotten mood later. If she was five minutes late, she’d blame LA traffic.

“No, she’s not,” he sighed as if Dani’s question was a heavy burden.

“Ok, I see something is bothering you.” Solving problems was part of her job and she was good at it. “Let’s talk tonight when I get home.” 

“I’m moving out. Leaving. I won’t be here. That’s it. Nothing to talk about.” 

“I’m sorry, what?”  Their relationship had been rocky at times, but they’d been in a good space and even had sex the night before.  She’d already changed the linens and made the bed so she wouldn’t return to a messy room. 

“I rented a place in San Diego and I have a job. I don’t want a big scene or anything.  It’s done.”

Like viewing a puzzle dumped on a table Dani tried to sort out the pieces of what she was hearing and find one to start. 

“You’ve been lying to me?”  She heard the house heater click OFF. 

“And you never lied to me?” His voice sounded loud.

“No. This is crazy, Felix.”

“We’ve been married fifteen years and is my name on the Title of this house? No.” 

Why would he be on Title? Dani bought the house long before she met Felix. 

Her husband suffered from big dreams and low self-esteem.

“I know you had it before we married but I pay monthly expenses. 

“You pay part,” she corrected him. 

“I make repairs. I take care of things,”

“We’ll go to a lawyer and work something out.”

 “You always say that and we never do. So, who tell lies? I’m forty years old and what do I have?  I’m moving to San Diego. I have a job and place to live. 

“With a woman?”   Two years ago, she’d seen a text pop up on his phone from a woman.   Dani moved to the guest room until he showed her his phone had been wiped clean.  

“There’s no one.”

“How can I believe you?” He’d lied.

“No, woman.  I respect my marriage vows.”  

“Except for porno,” she thought. She paid the bills and saw his credit card charges.  

“I want my own life.  I want children. I can’t have them with you.”

“We have children.’

“You have children. I have step children who don’t like me. They think I married you to take advantage of you.”

That again, she thought. She hated being late. People teased that Mexicans were never on time.

“Everything is yours,” he complained. “What is mine?”

“Everything that is mine is yours.”  Everything she did was to make Felix happy because when he smiled, Dani was satisfied.

“No, it’s not.  When you’re gone, your children get everything.”

“I’m only fifty-two, I could live to ninety. Why are you talking about me dying?  You complain you have nothing. You have a Jeep. You have tools. You have clothes…” 

“Ay, ay,” he pulled at his hair in frustration and then came his deluge of resentments in English and Spanish. She was Fat. Old. Ugly.  She kept him like a chameleon on a string.  

He had never talked to her in such a disrespectful way.  When Felix was angry, he withdrew and sulked but now his words came at Dani like stones thrown in a quarry.

At some point she mentally detached. Once years ago, a similar thing happened when she opened the front door and a policeman and police woman were there to tell her they’d found her son’s body.

“You have a family.  family. Your children. Your grandchildren. I’m too young for grandchildren. I want children with my blood. I want a young wife, not a woman in menopause who sweats all night.”  Felix finished his denunciation of her and entered the bathroom, shutting the door behind.   

Dani leaned against the dresser bureau for support. She heard the shower turn ON. 

One thought dominated her. She couldn’t lose another loved one. Dani had to protect Felix as she dearly wished she could have done for Mateo. 

Felix’s car keys were within reach on the bureau. Gripped by a nameless terror, she grabbed them and hurried to his Jeep Wrangler parked in the driveway. She unlocked it, leaned in, opened the glove box where he kept his Green Card and removed it. Returning his car keys to the dresser, she took her red purse and left.

She was five minutes late and the first to arrive at work.  By mid-morning Felix’s calls were lighting up her phone.  She clicked “Off.” 

Dani would answer when she was ready.  

Over the next few days, she received dozens of Texts and Voicemails. They ranged from demands to appeals to curses.

 “Give me my green card.”

“I know you took it.”

“I need it for work.”

“Why don’t you answer?”

“Please, I need it for work.”

“Bitch”  

At first Dani felt justified in her actions. He had lied to her for how long? How long had he been deceiving her? She felt like a pathetic victim of a scam. He snuck behind her back, lied to her.  Why should she give him the card? She had paid for it. Dani the one who paid for a lawyer the day they’d gone to immigration to apply for his citizenship based on marriage to a U.S. citizen and he’d been taken and deported on the spot for entering the country illegally. 

She was the one who paid his hotel bills and drove to Rosarito to buy a house for him to live in while he waited out the three-year penalty before he could apply to re-enter. 

Dani reported all her credit cards missing and was issued new ones, closed bank accounts that Felix had access to and reopened them with new numbers. 

She had given him everything he wanted and now her children were grown and married and her retirement in view, now after fourteen years, he left to begin a new life without her?  She had spoiled her husband and made him a pendejo. She had nobody to blame but herself and it was up to her to fix it. 

A locksmith changed the house door locks. 

She put clothing Felix had abandoned in a garbage bag and brought them to the community center’s donation bin for the homeless.

And when there was nothing more to do, for the first time in her life she was alone.  Her journey had gone from her parents’ home at seventeen and pregnant with her fiancé to America. She hadn’t wanted to leave and her father tried to prevent it but he was no match for the younger, stronger man with a machete. They had crossed the Rio Grande together and she had given birth to Mateo and married and had two more children. When she divorced Dani’s younger sister moved in to help out. She sat drinking tea alone. Her house once as full of life as a village market was empty and silent. She had nothing but her thoughts for company and they were not approving her. 

Several weeks passed without hearing from him.  She began to reconsider her actions and recover from the moment when she had lost her senses and violated her personal code of ethics. To withhold his card any longer would make her someone she would not like. It was not a crime she had committed but it was an injustice, or as she often quoted to her kids when they argued: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” 

The following day Dani went to the Post Office during her lunch hour and put Felix’s Green Card in a US Priority Mail Envelope with a note of apology and mailed it to the address he’d left her.

She was a self-made woman who’d overcome life setbacks with determination, luck and a belief in a benevolent God. Keeping busy was her antidote to depression. 

She joined a gym, saw a dietician for a healthy diet, and began walking during her lunch hour and after work. The weight accumulated during menopause went back to where it had come from.  She bought a new wardrobe, visited her stylist, had him lighten her hair and add highlights and began wearing her shoulder length hair loose instead of in a bun.

She drove her Honda SUV to Phoenix and visited her new grandson. She nestled her face in the neck of her new grandson, whom her daughter Amy had named, Mateo in honor of her deceased brother.  Her daughter, was a pediatric dentist, married a white man, Paul, a successful Real Estate Broker. Although Amy carried her father’s light skin and was not immediately identifiable as Mexican, Dani was relieved she married a white man and that little Mateo was also white so they would never have to fear for their lives.

Her daughter didn’t ask why Felix wasn’t visiting with her and Dani didn’t volunteer. Amy had never taken to her stepfather who was merely ten years her senior and more like an older brother than a parent. 

Paul and Amy took Dani on a drive by tour of homes for sale for her to consider, “As an investment now” and then when she retired she could live there.

Though Phoenix weather was hotter than she liked and Dani already had a potential retirement home in Rosarito Beach, she was touched by their concern for her future and politely assured them she would think about it.

When the seasons changed, Dani visited Mateo’s grave. She cleaned away the grass creeping around the edges of the stone plaque inscribed with his name, the date of birth and death. 

If he were alive, he’d be thirty-four. He was three years older than Gary who was seven at the time of his brother’s death and Amy was four. Gary understood but Amy seemed not to register it.   Dani would forever regret that she had given her son permission to go with a neighbor’s son for a quick bike ride before sundown. Their bodies were discovered by an early morning jogger. Both children had been raped and murdered. 

Dani unfolded a small stool she’d brought with her and sat down at her son’s grave to mentally commune with him. She unwrapped a tuna fish sandwich, one of his favorites, to eat and share with him the news that he was now an uncle and Amy had named her son, Mateo for him. She told him about Gary and Blossom’s new dog, a goofy mix of lab and poodle who they treated like their child, cooking only organic food for it. She laughed at the thought and quickly glanced around lest anyone think she was being disrespectful in a cemetery. 

Later that day she had dessert with Gary and Blossom at The Cheesecake Factory; while maintaining her commitment to healthier eating and satisfying her sweet tooth she ordered Honey Roasted Carrots, and shared her visit and mental communication with Mateo.  

“Sometimes I can feel his essence at home,” this was her real reason for not selling the house and moving elsewhere. “And I say, “Hello to your brother.”

“And what does he say?” Gary asked deadpan. He was a civil law lawyer and very down to earth.  “You know it’s imagination, right?” 

Dani smiled and shrugged. Blossom intervened.

“I believe her,” Blossom said. “When I was about eight, my grandmother, who had lived with us, passed.  My mother told me that one day she saw me sitting on the stairs in a conversation by myself and asked who I was talking to?  I told her, “Grandma” like it was the most natural thing and Mom told me, ‘Nonsense. Go outside and play,’ or something like that and I got it was taboo to talk to the invisible. It never happened again. I think we’re born with a natural ability like a seventh sense but we don’t develop it.”

“I’ll get the check?” Gary half-joked.

Dani and Blossom had a natural connection. They had clicked from the moment they met. If one believed in reincarnation, and Dani didn’t, then it could be said they’d been related in another lifetime. Blossom was closer to Dani then her own Mother and Dani sometimes wished she and Amy shared as much.

It was Blossom that Dani confided to when Felix left and who asked, “If Mateo had lived, do you think you would have dated Felix?”

Dani didn’t know the answer and didn’t think looking back helped. She accepted that like a plant that no longer blooms, Felix’s season in her life was over.

And then he appeared standing next to her car in the Community Center’s parking lot. He held a bouquet of yellow Daffodils, the same kind he’d bought for their first date.

Despite her self-discipline she felt her heartbeat increase. And was glad to be wearing one of her new outfits; Grey, wide-legged slacks with a snug white top and high-heel boots. Dani looked good and saw in Felix’s expression, he agreed. 

“I miss you,” he said.

Moving past him, she opened her car door and got in. 

“You’re too late,” she said, closing the door.  Then she started the ignition and drove away. 

In fact, her husband was sincere. He did miss his wife. 

He’d been elated when he recovered his green card, victorious, even. Free.

Only freedom hadn’t met his expectations.  

Young women in the twenty-first century had careers not jobs, cars, apartments of their own. They were engineers, designers, accountants. Even though Felix had a degree in economics, outside of Mexico it was useless. He’d only held working class jobs. The fashionable, smart career women were not looking for a truck driver for a furniture company. They weren’t interested in being a “Baby-making” machine or starting a family. He overheard them planning vacations to Greece and Italy. 

His attempts at meeting women were met with smirks or indifference from the young women he approached in San Diego’s trendy bars.  He heard one woman say to another after she rejected his offer to buy her a drink, 

“Get lost, old man.” 

“Old man?”  He was forty. How old were they, thirty?  But age was only one aspect.  His clothes, Levis, paired with a short sleeved fake Polo shirt, sneakers.  Hos short hair cut. He saw how younger men dressed like Euro-trash in two-hundred-dollar jeans, three-hundred-dollar shoes with no socks. Driving Volvo’s or muscle trucks and lived in condos along the Bay. 

Felix rented a room in a group house. He couldn’t compete. He wasn’t even on their radar. Bored and lonely, he sometimes spent his paycheck at strip joints that lined the streets near San Diego’s Air Force Base. 

He missed his life with Dani. He missed being respected. He missed her love. 

She had not asked for a divorce and he took that as a sign he had a chance with her.

He watched her driving away and walked to his Jeep and got in. On the passenger seat was the Application Form for Naturalization. All Felix needed was to pass ten different measures and he would become a citizen. He had always been good at tests. Success was assured

It would take more than Daffodils to convince Dani she could trust her husband again.

Failure was not an option. He was a hero to his family. He had always sent half his paycheck to them. Mexico City was expensive. They needed his help. 

A week later Felix drove to Dani’s house while he was at work and fixed a loose rain gutter. 

A neighbor saw him there and told Dani.

Dani called Felix to demand an explanation and warn him not to come to her house again unless invited.

Sounding contrite he apologized, said she had misunderstood his intentions, he just wanted to be helpful when he repaired the gutter, and like a skilled scammer, appealed to Dani’s emotions, her sense of fairness.

More phone calls followed. Sometimes late at night as she lay in bed reading the Bible.  Still, she couldn’t forget he had secretly planned a life without her and guarded her heart. 

When he said he wanted to come back. She told him she would consider reconciliation only if they participated in marital counseling. Felix agreed and suggested they also resume attending the Bible focused church they’d attended at the beginning of their relationship until they lapsed and mentioned he was already attending regularly.

They dated.  This time around Felix shared expenses. They drove to Utah to hike in Zion Park. One Saturday they flew to San Francisco and spent the day at the Wharf before catching a plane home that night.  On Sunday they attended church.

He got his old job back. She forgave him and he moved in.

Dani helped him study for his civil exam. 

On the surface all seemed good, but at times a queasy feeling would come over Dani as if she had eaten something that disagreed with her. She drank Aloe Vera juice to ease her stomach. 

Covid19 arrived. 

The Community Center closed. Schools closed. The city closed. Countries closed. Borders closed.  Covid19 had no cure. There was no vaccine. Many humans began to die. 

Dani worked from home. 

Felix’s unemployment benefits paid him more than his salary. He sent more money to his mother and siblings in Mexico.

Covid put his naturalization exam on hold.  

For the next 20 months Dani and Felix were hardly out of each other’s sight. He planted a vegetable garden, and she baked bread. They volunteered for food delivery for their elderly neighbors. 

Blossom and Gary announced her pregnancy and Blossom requested that Dani be there when she gave birth. 

Dani was honored. “I look forward to it,” she told her daughter-in- law. In fact, as a child, she had assisted her mother in the births of her siblings.

The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine became available because of Dani’s job at the Community center; they were early recipients. 

They went to a concert in the park unmasked. Felix got Covid and recovered at home using cold flu medications. They returned to wearing masks 

And then the pandemic was officially declared over, though it wasn’t and Dani was still wearing a mask indoors in public spaces. 

She was a people person and happy to be back at work, but sadly many familiar, senior faces were not there. They hadn’t survived the pandemic. A memorable light was placed in the entry.

Dani counted her blessings. Her marriage was on an even keel. She’d celebrated her fifty-ninth birthday a month ago and other than Felix getting drunk and passing out in the back yard it had gone well.  In a few more years, if she wanted, she could retire. He’d have to work another dozen years before he’d be eligible to retire. Dani wondered what she would do alone. 

They celebrated the day Felix became a citizen with a crowd of others standing on stage in the community center auditorium. They all recited the Oath of Citizenship.

“Today, I am an American. Today, I am a citizen of the country I serve. Today, I can register to vote.”

That night as Dani laid in bed on the edge of sleep, Felix rolled over and whispered in her ear, “Thank you.”

She drank aloe vera juice before leaving for work the next day.

As Blossom’s delivery date approached an issue with the placement of the baby’s head became known. A Cesarean delivery might be necessary. Blossom was unhappy. She wanted a natural home delivery. With this new development and Gary’s insistence, they chose a hospital that assisted natural childbirth. 

Dani prayed Blossom would have an easy birth and healthy baby and visited them at their Pasadena home to bolster their confidence.

Felix had stayed behind to watch an international football game, when she arrived home, she didn’t see his car. Dani let herself into the house and checked her iPad. The game ended an hour ago. Just as she began to worry, she heard his car in the driveway.

She received daily updates from Blossom or Gary as to the baby’s position. Finally they had an ultrasound that showed their baby in the correct position.

Coming home late, Dani looked forward to soaking in a nice hot tub. She parked in the driveway relieved to see Felix wasn’t back yet. He’d want her to make dinner and she didn’t feel like cooking after her long day.  

She opened the door, reached around he to pull a stack of flyers and bills from the mailbox, walked in, dropped the mail on the granite kitchen counter, kicked off her shoes, unhooked her bra and sighed in relief. 

Taking a clean glass from the dishwasher she filled it at the water spout of the stainless-steel refrigerator, took several a swallow and glanced at the stack of mail. She put the glass on the counter as she sifted through the stack of flyers for pizza, Thai food delivery and offers for better Wi-Fi. She sorted credit card bills to open later.  There was an oversized envelope from a health insurance company addressed to Felix.  She opened it, pulled out a document and read that informed Felix of his rights to interim coverage until he found a new employment. 

A feeling of confusion came over Dani? How could he be unemployed when she made his lunch and he took it every day when he left for work.  She looked again at the document. The termination date was the previous month.He hadn’t worked for a month. A feeling of dreaded truth seeped into her. He had lied. Again. 

“Oh, no, no, no,” she uttered. “A month! Who was he?  Where was he every day for a month? A month!”  She screamed at the empty house. 

Her hands shook with rage and indignation as she looked for her and found her iPhone in the bottom of her purse. 

“Call Felix,” she commanded the phone.

He was a liar. She was a fool. Not once but twice. How humiliating. How could this happen again? After all his promises?  

She heard Felix’s phone answer but instead of his voice she heard loud music and a DJ’s louder voice describing a stripper.

“Felix.” Dani demanded. “Where are you?”.

“Hahaha,” he replied in a cartoon character voice. “Where you’d never find me.” His phone went dark. 

Shaking with impotent rage, Dani started for the bedroom, stumbled and fell on her hands and knees. She didn’t get up. A howl came out of her like that of a wounded animal. And again. Water flooded her eyes. Grief, rage, pain flooded through her in waves. The long suppressed grief at the murder of her first born, Mateo that she’d held back so that she wouldn’t fail her two younger children, Amy and Gary; the deaths of her aging parents that she was unable to visit when they became ill; the sixteen-year-old, Dani pregnant, kidnapped by her boyfriend and brought to America and Felix’s betrayal of her, not once but twice. Worse, Dani recognized she was complicit. She had ignored her instincts and red flags, because she was afraid of growing old alone. And as as she released her memories the pain inside her subsided. She felt empty and weak.   The cold tile on the floor comforted her. She did not get up.

The familiar sound of her phone woke Dani where she lay on the floor. She knew from the ringtone it was Gary calling her.  She crawled to the kitchen counter, pulled herself up,grabbed the phone and answered.

“Hello?”   

“Blossom’s in labor. We’re on our way to the hospital!”

“It’s okay” Blossom chimed in on the car’s phone.  “The contractions are not that close yet.” 

“I’ll be there,” Dani replied, clicking End.   

Pulling off yesterday’s clothes she let them fall to the floor as she hurried into a hot, cleansing shower. 

Dani broke a few speed laws driving to the hospital and counted herself lucky not to have been caught.

 When she arrived at the Blossom’s room a Hispanic nurse speaking in Spanish blocked her.

“I speak English.” Her Pan-ethnic face, Dani knew, was the reason people often assumed she didn’t.

The nurse, who was from Honduras, also spoke English. She explained that only the mother’s husband and doctor were permitted entry 

“I’m her mother,” Dani fibbed.”

The Honduran nurse gave Dani a side eye look.

From the room came Blossom’s voice. “Let her in!” she commanded like the white woman she was. 

The nurse hesitated. 

“Okay I’m her mother-in-law. Verdad. It’ll be alright,” Dani added in Spanish. “I have experience.”

The nurse took Dani’s measure and signaled, “Come on, the doctor isn’t here yet.”  

Dani was supplied her with a sterile gown, cap, gloves  and mask which she donned before both entered Blossom’s birthing room.

Blossom sat splay-legged on what looked like a large peanut-shaped exercise ball with two knobs that she gripped as she swayed back and forth helped by Gary, similarly swathed as Dani in garment, mask, gloves and cap.

“It’s a birthing ball,” Blossom explained as the nurse checked her blood pressure.

Dani’s mother had used a hammock.

Time passed. The doctor was stuck at an airport. They’d have to find a substitute doctor.

“No way.” Blossom gasping between contractions.

“We’re good,” Gary said with more bravado than confidence.

“We are fine,” Dani said, pressing a cloth to Blossom’s forehead.  “I helped deliver your aunts and uncles before I was fifteen years old. Just don’t faint, okay.”

“Mom, please.”

At 4 p.m. that day Blossom with help of her husband, Dani and the nurse delivered a healthy baby girl. Dani placed the newborn Blossom’s belly and watched her naturally crawl in a swimming-like movement to her mother’s breast and latch on.

“Oh my God,” Gary said. “She’s beautiful.”

The nurse cut the umbilical cord to save for later.

Gary wiped Blossom’s brow as she held their newborn daughter against her chest. “You’re amazing,” he said.

“I know,” Blossom tiredly whispered.

They had decided to name the baby, “Gloria.”  

Blossom said, “Thank you, Mother,” to Dani

“De nada and you’re welcome.” Watching them, Dani felt an indescribable joy at their love and happiness. This was more than she could have dreamed when she crossed that muddy river years as teen and from the flesh and blood of her body produced new lives, new life. She was descended from a civilization with roots that stretched hundreds of years. Her children were and her children’s children would be part of this river of life. Dani remembered now where she came from and who she was and would never again forget.

Written by Carol Roper 2025

Ⓒ Carol Roper Copyright 2025

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