Family Gatherings

by Heather D. Frankland


He pays the extra sol 1.50 to take up the two seats in the combi bus—bony fingers of wire stick through the cushions; his knees cram against their skeletons. He places a big bouquet over his lap—carnations, day lilies, roses, and maybe an iris or two. Other passengers hold newspapers tightly; ink rubs off on their thumbs as if they’d just given their prints at the nearest police station.

It’s rare that someone takes up two seats. It’s rare that someone pays to take up two seats. Women sit with multiple bags on their laps, multiple children, and sometimes live chicken between their feet.

The flowers he has are lovely, but with windows barely cracked—it’s nauseating. I massage my stomach.

He’s young, and he’s holding what looks like a sort of ice chest.

He’s young. I try to calculate his age, look for stubble.

He wears long sleeves in this heat.

Polished shoes.

The Styrofoam ice chest sits on his lap, and over it lay the flowers.

And only through barely understanding the conversation between he and a viejita—listening to the words slick in this heat do I know that inside the ice chest is his child.

Ice chest given out by the hospital. A dark ice chest. Styrofoam. I imagine a silver cross detailed in its center. Hospitals handing out ice chests like carryout containers. Tiny forms inside. Fitted in, eyes closed, eyelashes on the skin.

Who was your midwife?

María.

That’s why. She’s always killing babies.

No, she’s not at fault. She told us to go to the hospital, said something wasn’t right. She delivered our other three without a problem. Something wasn’t right. That’s all. Something wasn’t right.

Your wife?

In the hospital.

People sell bottled water, pop, candy, bread, cheap jewelry, saint cards, popular lyrics, watches, and popsicles outside—contaminated water for 5 cents. The man gets out to buy something for his other children, tells the woman to watch this child. The woman shoos people away from the half-vacant seat.

The ice chest reminds me of 4^th of Julys, of my uncle pulling out a cold beer or a cold Pepsi—perspiration clinging to the can.

The man is young. No stubble. Long-sleeved shirt. Shiny shoes with dust on the bottoms. I wear flip-flops, shorts, and a tank top—sweat drools down my back.

My friend’s baby laughs on her lap, grabs hair, and I want to hold the baby but the flowers are nauseating, and I know that they are for covering. Cockroaches hide in the bouquet. At night they will climb out and just look like shadows cascading across the combi walls.

He climbs back in, places the child on his lap even though he has two seats. He borrows a neighbor’s La Hora paper and sleeps for the rest of the journey until,
Stop at the corner.

Styrofoam squeaks. The kids rush to see their sibling and stop when they notice the ice chest. The youngest girl has long matted hair; her sticky hands brush dust out of her eyes. She looks solemn in her responsibility to carry the flowers, one third of her body’s length.

We all watch them walking away: three children and a father, four children and a father. I wonder if it was a boy or girl in that ice chest, if their skin was brown or pale, if you could see the blue veins in the head, if its eyes opened once and were the color of muddied blue. I imagine a sandy hill, two slates of wood nailed together, old paint from the last political campaign, a date and an hour, and flowers—soon to be eaten by wandering goats.  


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"Family Gatherings" was first published in ROAR, A Journal of Literary Arts By Women, in the Winter Issue of 2012.

Heather D. Frankland holds an MFA and an MPH from New Mexico State University. She was a Peace Corps and Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Peru and Panama. She has been published in Sweet Lit, Flying Island Journal, ROAR, Claudius Speaks, Sin Fronteras Press, and others. Heather has a deep-rooted passion for literature, advocacy, culture, feminism, and literature of place as well as displacement. She currently lives in Silver City, NM.