The Misbegotten

I sat next to my step-father later on that night, during dinner. He sat at the end of the table, which placed me to his immediate right. Ramona sat next to me. Beyond her, Leda was sitting, then Sandy and finally little Martín. Across from me sat Katie, then Jolene and Johan, followed by Flavia and Tirza. My mother was at the other end of the table opposite my Dad. Little Lucia was clapping, perched atop her highchair at the corner of the table, between Tirza and my mom.

It was spaghetti night, which in my family was a treat. Though my mother wasn’t Italian, she made the best spaghetti sauce I have ever tasted. And, I’ve tasted it on eleven of the sixteen worlds over the course of three and a half centuries. Not a one could hold a candle to the shining star that was mama’s sauce.

When my mom and the others had returned from the market, the house had been a flurry of activity. We planned the rest of the day, doled out chores and got to it.

Because she would be making twice the amount of food she prepared for dinner, my mom had started early. But with so many female helpers, there were more than enough hands to meet the task. The picking and chopping, the tearing and separating, the simmering and sprinkling were all done to perfection. The girls were like a symphony orchestra – all movement, talking and laughter.

It was then the smells began to waft about the house. They were nothing other than miraculous.

When my step-father walked through the door, the fatigue of working on cars all day seemed to vanish. His bearing straightened, his body seemed to fill. He breathed in deep and let out an explosive exhalation.

“Aaaaah, Spaghetti Night! Alriiiiight!” he exclaimed, peering about with a huge grin on his face.

He stopped then, noticing all the young women working in the kitchen. He stood there gaping like a buffoon at all the tight flesh traipsing about.

My mom had come up to him with a cold beer and a kiss, and led him off to the TV room. He had turned back around a few times as she led him away. He kept mumbling something about the Miss America Pageant¹ cooking dinner for him.

I had laughed.

My step-dad had always been a sucker for a smooth legs and firm breasts. Maybe that’s why we got along so well.

Even down to the first day my mother had introduced him to me. I had liked him. You see, us perverts, gotta stick together!

When my mom had finished talking with him, he had come back into the kitchen. He introduced himself to the girls he didn’t know. He gave both Tirza and Ramona big hugs. For some reason, it was natural to him that two of the girls present, I had dated. The fact they were in the same house, in the same room, was completely sane. Sure, it happened all the time.

Being truthful, it’s my way of saying, he didn’t notice. It was the tits and asses he paid attention to. He was gentlemanly about it, though. He gave me his “raised eyebrow” thingy once when no one was looking.

I chuckled into my hand.

He tasted the sauce and was about to get some bread to sop up even more when my mom saw. Quick, but firm, she bustled him from the kitchen, telling him to shower and change. He left with an innocent look on his face, which made the girls giggle and then he was gone.

Now, we sat around the table, lengthened in the middle by two wooden extensions, so we could all fit. We had to grab four more chairs from around the house, so we’d all have something to sit on. We made it work though and were enjoying each other’s time.

Everyone was talking.

I found myself swallowing a massive forkful of noodles, ground beef and sauce when my step-dad leaned over toward me. He talked behind his hand. “Effy, how is it you know so many beautiful, young girls?”

I smiled, dabbed at the corners of my mouth and drank some cherry soda. “I don’t know, Pop, I guess I just got lucky.”

“Luck has nothing to do with, my boy, not when you’re surrounded by… by…” He was freakin' counting! “…five pretty girls. And the number is actually higher when you count your cousin, Flavia and that dark-haired doll next to Johan.”

“Jolene, Pop. Her name is Jolene,” I supplied.

He waved me off. “I have never seen such a collection of dazzling young girls. They are all different, yes, but by God, beautiful in their own way.”

I had to ask myself if I saw his eyes misting over. I frowned at him, because clearly all the feminine flesh had loosened a few screws in his head. “I guess, I’m like you then. I like pretty females just like you.” I pointed my chin down at my mother.

“Oh my god, that makes nine!” he bellowed, pounding a fist upon the table. The dishes rattled, causing the noise level of conversation to dip.

“What makes nine, Enrique?” asked my mom.

I came close to spitting in my food, able to contain a monstrous guffaw.

My step-father scratched his head with indecision. “Ah, well… Estefan and I were talking and…”

“You better come clean,” I counseled.

“Traitor,” he accused.

I chuffed with glee.

My mom was giving him the Stink Eye.

My Dad spread his hands wide, palms facing outward. “I was just counting how many beautiful women are about this table. I was admiring you girls!” he trumpeted like a herald in a grand hall.

The girls ducked their heads in unison, embarrassed, except Katie.

“You old lecher,” labeled my mother, pointing at him across the ten feet of table between them.

“What? Now, I can’t compliment a pretty lady when I see one?” he asked, clarifying, though it was an act.

“You can complement me any time, Uncle,” said Katie. She patted him on the arm when he lowered them back to the table.

“You see, why can’t you be more like Katie here, just acknowledge your beauty. Be glad someone noticed,” he intoned with a mock scowl.

“You can complement me too,” echoed Ramona with the wicked gleam she liked to use on my step-dad.

It melted him every time.

“Oh, you girls are incorrigible! It’ll only encourage him, you know,” warned my mom, wagging a finger at both of them.

Katie and Ramona were both smiling from ear to ear.

The other girls watched the by-play with nervous smiles, not sure what to make of it.

The phone rang, loud and harsh.

Me and the girls I’d spent the early afternoon with, froze in place.

Jacob’s warning!

I stood as my step-dad made his way to the phone we had in the foyer. It was the closest handset. I followed him.

The table behind me had gone silent. The tension bleeding from me and three girls was palatable enough. The rest inadvertently reacted to it – wordless communication via body language.

From the foyer I could hear: “Hello, the Ernando residence?”

A pause…

“Oh hi, Augustina, how are you?”

It was my grandmother on my mom’s side of the family.

“We were just having dinner.”

A pause…

“That’s okay, we’ll always make time for you.”

A pause… was stretching longer than those coming before it.

“Christ Almighty, are you serious? Ah-ha, but that’s horrible. When did this happen?”

A pause…

I could hear chairs moving behind me as I began to walk to the foyer.

Everyone else was following.

“But why, it doesn’t make any sense?”

I was racing toward the phone now.

“Every one of them, but -,” my step-father was saying.

I pulled the phone line from the wall as if it were a mortal enemy.

Pop stared at me like I’d pulled out my cock and was waving it back and forth at him. “Estefan, what the hell is wrong with you?!?” he demanded.

“You can’t use the phone, Pop,” I replied in even tones.

“Why, son, why would you do that?” he asked as he put the useless receiver back in its cradle.

I pointed to the girls behind me. “You see them?”

He nodded, though his brow stormed with incredulity.

“Why do you think they are here?” I queried.

“Estefan, you don’t take that tone with your step -.”

“Stay out of this, mom!” I said much too loud. It sounded bad, even in my ears.

“What’s this about, son?” wondered my step-dad. He might have been many things, but one thing I remember most about him was he was the smartest man I’ve ever met. He could make huge deductive leaps with only the slightest of clues. He should’ve been a Detective.

“Why do you think they are here?” I repeated the question.

“I don’t know. You’re mom said something about kids moving from place to place. I guess tonight was our turn,” he answered with a nonchalant shrug.

“What did Grandma ‘Gusta say?”

His brow furled, trying to find the connection. “She said…” He gazed back to my mother. “She said Trina had called her frantic, saying they arrested Renee and her kids and took them away.”

I felt my jaw hit the floor.

My mom, my older siblings, Tirza and Ramona gasped with horrified shock. They knew of whom he was talking about.

Trina was my grandmother on my biological father’s side of the family. Well, to put a feather on it, she was his step-mother. Renee was her daughter, my aunt. Her children were my cousins, and each of them was Jacob’s siblings. Jacob’s family was gone, taken by the NIA!

I knew they were dead. And there wasn’t a damned thing I, or anyone else, could do about it. My cousins Eric and Valerie were dead. My aunt Renee was dead.

Poor Jacob, like Tirza and Jolene, he too had lost his whole family.

I was weeping before I knew what I was doing. When Katie and Ramona came to hug me, I didn’t know I was crying so loud. How long we stayed as such, I cannot tell you. All I recall is being thoroughly exhausted when I finally stopped. I’d somehow made it to the TV Room. We all had, in fact. Flavia was still crying as were the little ones. They were so frightened by our emotional outburst, they didn’t know better than to weep right along with us.

“Effy?”

“Yes, Pop.” My voice was raw and my throat burned like hell.

“Why are your friends with us tonight?” He was reclining in his chair, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t looking at me, but his powerful mind never stopped and was working overtime now.

“They’re in hiding, Dad.”

“I figured.”

It was a long, horrendous night. I was so grateful for my girls. Each of them took turns holding me while I slept. Even Tirza came onto my bed and cradled my head in her lap, humming hymns she’d learned in church.

For the first time, those hokie tunes comforted me. I turned on my side, nestling my nose into her belly, smelling her sweet scent. I hugged her around the lower part of her waist, where her buttocks began to flare.

She didn’t move or squirm. She stroked my head, ran her nails behind my ears, humming, never stopping.

I slept.

In my dreams, I kept seeing the slaughtering Jacob’s family – my auntie, my cousins. Formless, faceless figures kept throwing them into a mulching machine again and again, and again.

{ ¹Miss America Pageant: a one-time, long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. The winner of the national pageant is awarded the title of "Miss America" for one year. }