Night at the Fiestas

Content Warning: Both the source text and this section of the guide contain descriptions of alcohol abuse and addiction, domestic violence, attempted suicide, anti-gay bias, gun violence, child abandonment, and murder.

Maria thinks back to early memories of time spent with her cousin, Nemecia. Nemecia came to live with Maria’s family because her own mother could not care for her. Maria recalls that such nontraditional family arrangements were common in her New Mexican community. Nemecia was seven years old when Maria was born, and Maria remembers hearing a story about Nemecia smashing her porcelain doll when she was first introduced to baby Maria. Maria’s father repaired the doll, but the glue darkened along the cracks, and it never looked right again. Maria felt that Nemecia cultivated an air of mystery, and now, she remembers her cousin blackening her eyes with kohl and becoming obsessed with various film stars even though she never saw a movie. Nemecia was also a ravenous eater, but she never gained a pound despite her many midnight trips to the pantry.

Maria also remembers that Nemecia claimed to have killed her grandfather and put her mother into a coma. The young Maria asked her how she had done it and inquired whether or not she had also killed her father. Nemecia explained that her father was, at that time, already absent and that she did not recall the specifics of the event. Nemecia was also disappointed that she had not killed her brother. Wanting to know more of the story, Maria had asked both her mother and her Aunt Paulita for details, but neither woman had been willing to tell her what happened. Because no one actually contradicted Nemecia’s story, the young Maria believed it. She was puzzled, in light of Nemecia’s crimes, that everyone treated her with such kindness and deference. Maria herself knew Nemecia to be emotionally volatile and sometimes cruel, but Maria’s mother had always been glad to have Nemecia as a babysitter and ignored Maria’s complaints about her cousin.

One of Maria’s starkest memories of Nemecia is from the year that she was to have played a key role in the town’s Corpus Christi celebration. Each year, one of the local girls who had recently been confirmed was chosen to wear a snowy white set of angel’s wings and walk at the head of the holy procession. Maria had been chosen on the basis of her recitation skills and was thrilled. However, Maria’s mother decided that Nemecia should lead the procession, citing the fact that this year was her last chance to do so and praising Nemecia’s helpful nature in the household. Maria fumed, and Nemecia, who was not religious, had been manipulative and disingenuous in her admonition to Maria that the procession was about God, not about her. After the procession, Maria lashed out, screaming to her family that Nemecia was a murderer. Shaken, Nemecia had run crying from the room.

After her outburst, Maria was sent to live with her aunt Paulita. She was both furious and heartbroken that her mother had chosen Nemecia over her own daughter and did not understand her father’s explanation that Nemecia had had a difficult upbringing. She asked Paulita to explain what happened to her grandfather, and Paulita, exasperated by Maria’s claim that Nemecia was a murderer, finally explained. Maria’s grandfather had overheard an argument between Nemecia’s mother, Benigna, and her husband and had realized that Benigna was being badly beaten. He had rushed in to try to save his daughter, but because Benigna’s husband was younger, stronger, and very drunk, he killed Benigna’s father with an iron from the fireplace, and Nemecia had witnessed the entire scene.

After Paulita’s explanation, Maria understood Nemecia better and was kinder toward her, like the rest of her family. She realized that her mother did not love Nemecia more but instead loved Nemecia because she was her niece and because her life had been marked by tragedy. Eventually, Nemecia moved to Los Angeles to live with her mother. She changed her name to Norma, got married, and had what seemed like a happy life. Right before her wedding, Maria called Nemecia to ask if she wanted her old doll back. Nemecia claimed not to remember the doll, although Maria couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that Nemecia had a new collection of beautiful, delicate porcelain dolls. They were in pristine condition, undamaged.