Foundation for Nightmares

BEGINNINGS

Rhythm Is Gonna Get You - Gloria Estefan

The city was alive. The markets were opening, the street lamps were slowly being flicked off as the sun rose over the pointed mountains. This city was a jungle.

Daiyu should have left early that morning. She should have left for the wholesale market before breakfast, definitely before noon. However, Esmeralda had woken up earlier than usual, José was getting his last restful sleep in before staring a run of night shifts, and his mother, Lux, was too ill with the flue to watch Esme. So the errands had had to wait.

It irritated her. Daiyu liked to go shopping for ingredients as the sun was rising, she liked to avoid the Sinaloa crowds and walk through the aisles of produce while the air was still cool and the meat was still fresh. She loved her daughter, Esmeralda grew sweeter and funnier with each year that passed, but mornings were meant to be Daiyu's time, and so she spoon fed Esme cereal as the five year old coloured, with clenched teeth.

They sat at a small folded mahogany dining table, in the corner of the small living room. Upon it lay a thickly crocheted dolly, a pot of artificial fabric flowers and painted bowl filled with fresh fruit. The room was small, but twice the size of the kitchen. The front door leading straight out onto the road was tucked in one corner, along the same wall was a small square window; the outside was lined with black bars and the inside with worn teal curtains. There was a small television sat upon a short wooden stool in the opposite corner with aerial balanced on the top. It was broken but no one had bothered to move it. The couch facing it was made out of corduroy; thick, bumpy, brown corduroy which didn't go well with the teal curtains or the sunburnt orange walls.

It was rough around the edges, but it was home. The small, ground floor, two bedroom apartment in the middle of 74th Street, Culiacan, was the closest Daiyu had ever had to a refuge. It was where she, her husband and her daughter were able to laugh and be warm. It would be a struggle in a couple of months time when the baby growing in her belly was real and in her arms. It would be hard when that baby was walking and Esme was forced to share her own private play space. But they would make it work and be happy.

"Do you know what that is?" Daiyu asked the little girl, pointing at the thick lines of a butterfly she was colouring between. "In mami's language?" Esmeralda frowned deeply as she chewed a large mouthful of avena. The boiled, creamy mixture moved around her small mouth for so long between bites, her mother was sure she was sucking all of the milk and sugar out of the oats before swallowing.

"Hmmmm." Her small hum was filled with thoughtfulness. Her hands gripped the tables edge, and as she pushed her dainty body upwards, her emerald green eyes darted back and forth between the colouring book and the wall. The girl moved from sitting crossed legged to kneeling back on her feet and sighed. "Húdié."

Daiyu smiled and pushed a Esme's bed hair out of her eyes. "Good girl. Can you say...dog?"

This time, Esme's eyes didn't stray from the aged colouring book, but her mind worked much quicker. "Gǒu." Her mother smiled proudly and Esme swapped a blue crayon for a pink one.

"Can you say..." At that moment, the beaded door curtain separating the living room from the hallway to the bedrooms was disturbed by a body stepping through. "Can you say good morning papi?"

The little girl frowned as her lips curved in to a smile. That one was easy but her Papi was not there to accept the greeting, or so she thought. The second her eyes looked up that frown was erased and with outstretched arms and wide eyes she gleamed, "Zǎoshang hǎo Papi!"

The man's attention was caught.

"Zǎoshang hǎo!" José tugged the oversized charcoal sweatshirt over his head and beamed back at his girl as he let the material lazily fall down to cover his bare torso. Her little hands didn't move, they refused to even as he started to cross the few square feet between them with his own arms reached out towards her, "Good morning baby." She squealed as he picked her up and curled her firsts into the thick cotton. As soon as her legs were wrapped around his waist, her bare feet digging into his ribs uncomfortably, he dipped to kiss Daiyu lightly on the temple. "Good morning Mami."