Tia

þÿ Hey, Dude? Her brother muted the TV and peered at her from his lounge in the recliner. You hear that?
He plucked a bit of stuffing out of the arm, ashen and fluffy, like cotton. Their cat always clawed at that arm
when it stretched or was bored.

þÿ2 No, she said quickly. And I have a name. Say it: María. He called everyone Dude these days. Her
þÿmother called it a stage ; she called it stupid.

þÿ3 He laughed at her. Sure you do, Dude, sure you do. And you hear it, too, don t you.

þÿ4 She did, but she d never admit it, at least not to him. She listened again for the sound, for the something in
þÿTía s room she wouldn t admit she d heard, like someone walking, dragging one foot, just like Tía used to do.

þÿ5 Tap pause scrape there it was.

6 Tía leans close to her ear, an ancient lady in a floral sweater, with breath full of onions and wrinkles like an
þÿold leather sofa. If you hear them, she whispers in the accent she never could lose, it s too late for you. They
þÿmiss their own children, so they take ours.

þÿ7 Tía leans back and cackles, and then taps María s knee with a short, bony finger. The back of her hand is
þÿscarred, puckered up still from a burn she got while playing too close to a space heater. That could be you,
þÿMariposa, that could be you.
þÿ8 Where s my earbuds? her brother asked out of the blue, just as he d asked every day for two months, from
þÿbefore the day of Tía s funeral. He unmuted the TV. It was a commercial, something about dog food. He muted
it again.

þÿ9 How should I know. She d been grounded for taking them, even though she hadn t done it. Maybe
þÿthey re with everything else like my necklace, and Mama s locket, and Abuela s scarf, everything.

þÿ10 Cause you took em.

þÿ11 No I didn t, you did.

þÿ12 No, you always there! He stood up suddenly, pointing toward the hallway. She heard the chair creak as
þÿhe stood. Tell me you didn t hear that!

þÿ13 She did. Tap pause scrape there was no hiding it.

þÿ14 Tía warned me, he said. She warned me.

þÿ15 She stared at him. She told you?

þÿ16 They come for the kids, he spluttered. Once you hear them, it s too late. They re coming for you.
17 Tía had been so secretive that it never had occurred to María that anyone else might know, let alone her
þÿbrother. What else did she say?

þÿ18 He stood there in front of the recliner, clutching that bit of stuffing in his right hand, frightened. They
þÿmiss their own kids, so they take you. He bent and stuffed the stuffing back into the chair arm, like it would
help.

19 Tía says she forgot something back in the booth. She leaves María standing at the restaurant cash register
while everyone else exits. María watches her hobble back to the table, her left foot dragging, an injury that
þÿnever healed right, something that happened when she and Abuela fell from a truck. They d both bounced off
the tailgate as it carried them away from the orchard where they spent every day sorting good fruit from bad,
but only Tía had been hurt.

20 María watches Tía sidle up to the table, look left and then right, and then reach down.

21 Quickly, she snatches the change Mama left for a tip and shoves it into her pocket. She looks left and then
right again. She reaches out, and then, in one well-practiced motion, snatches all of the sugar packets from the
tray on the table. She shoves them into her pocket, too. Then she hobbles back.

þÿ22 Got it, she tells María, everything. She pokes María s shoulder with a younger finger, Everything I
þÿforgot, right? María nods obediently.
23 She looked away from her brother and down at the coffee table. She lifted a finger and began tracing the
stains on its surface, one dark ring on another. It was a junky old thing, the table, but its surface bore the long
history of her family in cups and glasses and bowls, each one slapped down without a coaster or mat, creating
an interconnected set of stains by which someone, tracing them all backward, might, after a long enough look,
discover the very first spill.

þÿ24 Her brother turned toward her. What are you doing?

25 I made that one, María thought, touching a stain. And he made that one, and Mama made that one, and
Abuela, maybe, she made that one. And Tía made that one.

þÿ26 María, her brother interrupted her, sounding even more urgent.

þÿ27 She looked up, hardly having begun to connect the stains, and glared at him. Tía was crazy. Why would
þÿthey want us? What would they want us for?

þÿ28 For everything, he said. For nothing, I don t know. Something.

þÿ29 Okay then, she said, standing. Fine.

þÿ30 You first, he said.

31 She bumped past him, afraid, yet somehow, perhaps because of his cowardice, having the strength to find
out what was what. They walked down the hallway, between the frayed edges of carpet that poked up like
þÿwithered grass along the baseboards. Tía s room was at the end, behind a closed door, untouched since the last
þÿtime they d seen her.

þÿ32 They reached her door and stood listening for a few seconds. She grabbed her brother s hand, surprising
þÿthem both. Together? she said.

33 He nodded, without saying a word.

þÿ34 They pushed the door open. The room was dark and now dusty, but the air was fresh. Tía s window was
þÿopen four or five inches, propped up with a stick. She d always slept that way, with the window open.

þÿ35 Tía sits next to her in the back seat, waiting for her mother to return with the groceries. Mariposa, she
þÿsays, roll down your window. María shrugs. If you don t, Tía explains, I ll lose my breath. Tía pauses,
þÿwatching as she turns the handle to roll the window down, an effort because she s still young and her hands are
so small, and then Tía inhales deeply.

þÿ36 Ah, she says, good air. Not like inside a boxcar. María already knows the story, but Tía tells it again.
þÿIt s about how Tía and Abuela, after they fled the orchard, had made their way here in a boxcar, hiding behind
burlap bags full of flour, how some had broken open during loading, and about how the hot air and the flour
dust had made it so that neither of them could ever sit or sleep without a window open nearby.

þÿ37 They stepped into Tía s room. The bed was still neatly made, and the dresser, with its cracked mirror and
þÿfading black-and-white photo of Abuela tucked into a corner, looked exactly as it always had. Tía s floral
sweater lay on the arm of the chair, next to the window where she always sat on dark days when she needed to
be alone.

þÿ38 See anything? she asked. Her brother shook his head, taking a few hesitant steps further into the room.

þÿ39 Hang on, he said. He pointed at Tía s nightstand, the one with the brass lamp and the yellowing shade.
þÿ Where s the box?

þÿ40 Her brother is crying in Tía s lap, and Tía is rocking him, telling him that everything is fine. María s
playing on the floor with a few blocks, stacking them and then knocking them down. Finally, Tía gets up and,
carrying him, limps down the hall into her room. A few minutes later, she limps back, now carrying a small
wooden box. She sits again, holding both her brother and the box in her lap. She watches as Tía opens it.

þÿ41 This, Tía tells her brother, who s far too young to understand, holds everything that matters. He quiets,
þÿthough María s not at all sure why. Tía unfolds a bit of burlap, lifts a pocket watch on a chain. It s broken, but
þÿshe tells him, My brother s. Then she lifts a wooden toy, carved into the shape of a train. My boy s, she
says. And she continues cataloguing the small items in the box, lifting them, identifying who owned what once,
and placing them back inside. When Tía finishes, her brother is sound asleep.

þÿ42 She looked across the bed at the nightstand: Tía s memory box was indeed gone. Find it, she said. It s
þÿeverything that matters.

þÿ43 They took a few steps alongside the bed. Tap pause scrape. They froze, suddenly again seizing each
other by the hand. For a few moments they stood this way, and then together they leaned forward, looking
beyond the foot of the bed.

þÿ44 The cat lay crouched on the wooden floor, as if mousing, batting at something. Tap pause scrape. It
stopped, looked up at them, crazy-eyed, and leapt to the windowsill. It ducked, slinking under the frame, and
darted out and away.

þÿ45 Oh, Dude, her brother said as they quickly released each other s hands, that cat had you so spooked!

þÿ46 I have a name, she muttered, stepping past him, walking to the far side of the bed. On the floor, Tía s
box lay on its side, spilled open. María bent, lifted it, and placed it carefully on the bedspread.

þÿ47 Her brother walked around to where she stood, and they began gathering up Tía s belongings, together
placing them back inside the box.

þÿ48 Stupid cat, she said. She leaned down, grabbed something, and stood upright, surprised. She held out his
þÿearbuds. Check it.

þÿ49 He took them from her, tangled into the muddle the cat had created. Huh, he told her.

þÿ50 I told you, she said. It wasn t me. She leaned down again, lifted something else from the floor, and
þÿheld it dangling in her fingers. Her silver necklace and Mama s locket, their chains tangled into a mess.
þÿ51 Well, he laughed at her, I told you I didn t take em. Stupid cat, he agreed.

52 They closed the box and looked at each other politely.

þÿ53 You know, she wondered aloud, considering how objects might be moved from one place to another and
þÿthrough a closed door, I kind of doubt that the cat found the earbuds and dragged them all the way around to
þÿthe back of the house.

þÿ54 He nodded slowly. And I kind of doubt that it dragged that necklace and locket all the way around,
þÿjumped up to that window, and then carried them into this room.

þÿ55 María swallowed, her mouth feeling dry. Yeah, that d be a weird thing for a cat to do.

þÿ56 Yeah, he frowned. Don t say it, he told her, though they both were thinking it. It wasn t Tía.

57 Still, they both knew. They looked at the box on the bed. He sighed.

58 María leaned forward and opened the box and dropped the necklace and locket inside. Her brother leaned
next to her and dropped in the earbuds and then closed the box.
þÿ59 Ruined anyway, he shrugged.

þÿ60 Yeah, she nodded, ruined anyway.

61 She lifted the box back to the nightstand.The next day, Maria woke up and went downstairs to go eat.
There was her brother eating while Mama was making scrambled eggs. While she slept, she had a dream about
Tia. Tia was telling her they was next. This kept her up for some time until she finally fell asleep, somehow.

''Good morning, dude'', he said while eating his breakfast

She sighs. "How many times do I have to tell you? I have a name. Dude'' she tries to mock him.

"Hey Maria, stop mocking your brother'' Mama says serving a plate of Maria's food.

''Thanks Mama" she says while giving up. She eats.

After they finish eating, Maria tells her brother, "I had a dream that Tia told me we were next. I don't think we
should have entered that room... ,"

Her brother chuckles at this and says, "You really believe that? Everyone has nightmares. YOu are just acting
like a little kid.''

She sighs, "Whatever. Maybe it was just a dream."

In the middle of the night her brother wakes up running to Maria's room. "I had the same dream! Is real! Is real''
He was shaking, and he was pretty nervous about it.

''See! I am right.'' She whispered, "What do we do now?"

"Well... in the dream I had Tia said that the stuff didn't belong to her. Maybe we have to turn the stuff in..." He
thinks out loud

"Okay! Lets go-" Maria shouts, "I am sorry''

They sneak in to the room, and they turn in all the things to their original places.

''Okay... that was scary. Mama and Papa almost wake up but is fine" Maria's brother says in relief.

"Yeah"

þÿThis is how the two siblings solved the mystery of what did Tap pause scrape-.