Author/Uploaded by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Begin Reading Acknowledgments About the Author Guide Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Begin Reading Acknowledgments Start to Contents Pagebreaks of the Print Version Cover Page iii iv v...
Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Begin Reading Acknowledgments About the Author Guide Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Begin Reading Acknowledgments Start to Contents Pagebreaks of the Print Version Cover Page iii iv v 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 163 165 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 183 184 185 186 187 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 247 248 249 250 251 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 315 316 317 318 319 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 Monstrilio GERARDO SÁMANOCÓRDOVA zando NEW YORK The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Copyright © 2023 by Gerardo Sámano Córdova Zando supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, uploading, or distributing this book or any part of it without permission. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for brief quotations embodied in reviews), please contact [email protected]. Zando zandoprojects.com First Edition: March 2023 Text design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc. Cover design by Alex Merto Cover image: detail from The nightmare by Nicolas Abraham Abildgaard (1743–1809) | Photo © Photo Josse / Bridgeman Images The publisher does not have control over and is not responsible for author or other third-party websites (or their content). Library of Congress Control Number: 2022945255 978-1-63893-036-5 (Hardcover) 978-1-63893-037-2 (ebook) 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Manufactured in the United States of America A Papi, Mami y Pol, You’ve been with me from the very beginning and, for that, I am the luckiest. Her son dies in a child-sized bed, big enough for him but barely enough to hold her and her husband who cling to the edges, folding themselves small so they fit one on each side of him. She savors the constant shifting and squirming needed to keep her in place. Her son was alive and now he isn’t. No thunder, no angels weeping, no cloaked Death, no grace; just his silent body, unbreathing, and the blunt realization that this is it. How dull, she thinks. She could scream, get on her knees, pull out her hair, curse God. Take me, she could plead while beating her chest with her fist. She won’t. She can’t rally the drama she once imagined. In her fantasies—is it too morbid to call them fantasies? She doesn’t think so. In her fantasies, her son died in a shopping mall, one of the big ones in Mexico City, because in a mall there is an audience, and she wanted an audience but thought dying in the street was too sordid. At the mall, her son collapsed, and as she held his little body in her lap, mall-goers surrounded her in hushed awe of her sorrow, unimaginable to all, while she became a Pietà, marble and gorgeous. Tears, fat and clean, slid from her cheeks and pooled on her chin. When she imagined this, she cried along with her kneeling self. And now, nothing. This is the moment—Death!—and not a tear. Perhaps she needs an audience, and her only audience in this room, this bright room, is her whimpering husband, and one whimpering man is no audience. Her husband nuzzles their son in the space the boy’s squat neck allows, as if her husband were the fawn and her son the doe. Her husband squeezes their son with his whole body: arms, legs, head, and chest. He grunts as he squeezes. His breaths are loud against their son’s neck, smelling him hard. She squeezes their son too, tries what her husband tries because he seems to know how to grieve, and she doesn’t. Her husband grabs her upper arm and pulls her toward the middle of the bed, toward their son. It seems her husband figures that if they push themselves hard enough, they might be able to bear him again. I bore him, she thinks. I won’t bear him again. Her husband’s blond hair falls on her son’s face. She sweeps it away with the