Sun Kissed

1. Forbidden (EDITED)

1. Forbidden

Sofia Aguilar did not pray.

On her knees, hands folded, head bowed. She didn't recognize herself. Whenever she looked up at her mamãe asleep on the bed, she tried to catch glimpses of the resemblance, but that was lost to her too. Mamãe's body was here in Brazil, but her mind was somewhere that Sofi could not reach. These episodes felt like leaving the refrigerator open all night and watching everything inside rot.

Please.

Like her mother's body, Sofi's prayer went sour. What was the point of asking God to bring mãe back if nothing was going to change? Sofi had seen this before. Time would pass. Mãe would regain her senses, but only long enough to reject her daughter. Then she would wrestle with her ailing body until she reached new levels of derangement and eventually unconsciousness.

Sometimes Sofi envied her.

Forgetting the people that you cared about the most meant that you wouldn't feel it when they left this earth. If only Sofi could have borrowed her mother's powers when papai passed away from cancer last year.

For sixteen years, Sofi's life had been uncomplicated, comfortable, normal.

All of that went away the day she got the call.

Sofi answered her phone. Her greeting was cheerful. Innocent. There was a pause and then her father answered in Spanish.

"It's good to hear your voice, Sofi. I know it'll be a while before you have a break, but do you think you can book the next flight?"

Something wasn't right. Pai only spoke in Spanish when something was wrong.

She swallowed. "Did something happen? Did I do something wrong?"

"No sweetie, you didn't. But," he said, "I think I might be dying."

That wound had more than a year to heal, yet it wept like it was fresh. Maybe it was because she had been forced to uproot her entire life in Colombia and relocate to the Amazonas. Maybe it was because she tortured herself by pretending that mãe wouldn't end up exactly like pai.

Mãe's eyelids fluttered. Sofi peered over her knuckles, still clinging to the hope that this time it would be different. This time wouldn't be like staring into the eyes of a stray, diseased dog. There would be maternal warmth. Recognition even.

Mãe opened her mouth. A genuine prayer quickened on Sofi's lips.

The sick woman gurgled, "Quem é você?"

Who are you?

Sofi flinched, but didn't try to correct her. Instead, she plastered on a smile and reached for mãe's hand.

Mãe jerked away. "Onde está meu filho?"

Where is my son?

Sofi's praying hands had curled into fists. That was one of the miraculous things about mãe's condition. She could completely dissolve every memory of one of her children while totally preserving and protecting the existence of the other.

Sofi stood up. "I'll go get him."

She strode out of mãe's room, down the corridor, and into the common room, knowing that she wouldn't find her brother there. Her tia, Maya, occupied the kitchen. She was older than Sofi's mother, and carried herself around the family as one oddly comfortable with its brokenness and estrangement. As if she was born to mediate and soothe.

"She's awake," Sofi said on her way to the door.

Tia craned her neck over the bar counter that divided the kitchen from the common room. "Sofia? Hold on. Where are you going?"

"For a walk."

Sofi didn't mean to slam the door behind her, but it just happened. Like when pai died. And mãe went crazy. And when Sofi and Arturo suddenly drifted apart. Nothing ever came about in degrees. Nothing seemed like it was deserved or asked for. Shit just happened.

Sofi walked.

She had been around the world. Exchange programs to the US and the UK. Family ties in Colombia on her father's side and Brazil on her mother's side. She was modern, cultured.

Here in the Amazonas, however, it felt like a different story.

Here, Sofi was a stranger in a strange land. Her cosmopolitan resume did nothing for her in this primordial hell on earth.

Sofi walked by children playing soccer in the dirt, shanty doorways where poor neighbors lingered and smoked, stray pigs and dogs that ambled along, their curious or purposeful intentions always in flux.

Sofi knew Spanish, English, and some Portuguese, but it didn't count for a damn in a place where the people clung to their obscure, native dialects.

I didn't ask for this. I didn't want this.

Sofi didn't want to go there again. The thought of leaving Colombia and moving three thousand miles to be with a brother who she felt like she hardly knew and a mamãe who didn't know who the hell she was. That was another headache for another day.

Sofi stood alone before a bridge. Stretched over a shallow canal, it was held together mostly by old rope, but reinforced in some sections by industrial wires.

Sofi knew she wasn't supposed to cross the bridge because of what was on the other side. That's where the locals' superstition lived and thrived. Sofi wasn't even supposed to be this close. She wasn't sure why she was drawn to this spot every day since she had arrived. The rain forest was steamy and dark and giant mosquitoes were always buzzing around in there. There was nothing glamorous about getting lost in the big bad jungle.

So then why had she walked here?

Sofi's gaze traveled across the bridge into the very heart of darkness. The parts of her repelled by mãe felt the tug of the forest.

You know it's forbidden.

But she didn't know why.

Go home. Ask tia in the morning.

Sofi turned her back on the green behemoth. She left the bridge behind and passed the children and the dogs and the pigs. She came in through the front door and ignored her tia's passive inquiries. She walked by mãe's room, ignoring her senseless croaking.

Sofi entered the room that wasn't really hers, kicked off her sandals, climbed onto her poor excuse for a mattress, and rested her head on an old jean jacket – her only pillow.

Then she cried. Deeply. Completely.

Until there was nothing left. 

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This chapter is dedicated to LigiaNunes who gave me a lot of great advice on Portuguese terms and usage. Obrigada!

Hey readers!

If you keep reading that means you've decided to join me on this journey through the Amazon. Thanks for coming along and I promise that you will not be disappointed.

Obrigada,

~ Coco