SECOND PRIZE, NONFICTION
Unearthed
ANA PADILLA CASTELLANOS
A hazy summer day in first grade. Dani and I were sitting on the steps of her grandfather’s house. Our mouths and hands dripped mango juice as we swung together on a worn hammock, our bare feet dangling off the edge. In our shirts, we cradled mangoes like babies and threw the large seeds at each other and out into the yard. I dozed off on her lap, my hair fanned out across her stomach, head rising and falling in sync with her breathing. I remember Dani in that sweet glamor of childhood, which is to say it aches when I miss her. Before there was “Ana and Dani,” there was “Rosario and Luisa.” Our moms had stumble-met in their teens: they’d played volleyball together, then forgotten about each other, only to find themselves, years later, living a few houses apart. And so Dani and I were born neighbors. Dani was my pseudo-sister in the sense that I couldn’t recall a time before her. We attended the same kindergarten and wdalked there together, mothers and sisters in tow. Then one day my mom insisted we walk home alone, just the two of us. This was around the time that Dani had started chewing leaves around the playground; she had decided to become a giraffe and walked forever on her tiptoes. During our walk, my mom warned me against copying her. “If
10 | Wallace 2022
Dani jumps off a cliff,” she said, “are you gonna jump too?” That was the “before” of our friendship, glossy and sticky. The transition is foggy now: Dani was there, then wasn’t. Suddenly she was missing from school, from our neighborhood. All I knew was that her family had moved because there were too many stairs in their old house. I knew not to ask too many questions. I also knew that when Dani’s dad, Eduardo, came out in his new wheelchair, I should kiss his unshaven cheek and not be afraid. Sometimes my mom would take me to visit them. On those occasions, Dani and I would chase each other up and down the many ramps they had installed for her father. Like the ivy in her new backyard, we adapted. On the day of her First Communion, we danced in our white dresses and ran around her garden in childhood bliss. We played with our dolls, resting plastic babies on our still-bony hips. The game was always the same: we were mothers to beautiful babies and wives to husbands busy working in abstract, foreign places. One day, however, Dani added new words to our game. “Me violó,” she giggle-whispered as I bottle-fed my baby. “He violated me.” “What?” I asked.
“The father of my baby is not traveling. And he is not my husband,” she said. “He forced me, which means I don’t know who he is.” Looking back, I wish I had asked how she knew about these things, asked why. We were only 9. Now I understand why my mom was scared. We didn’t know it then but our days together were counted; we were at last Peter Panning out of our childhood. A year passed before I saw Dani again. Her mom had opened a clothing boutique in the center of town in her latest attempt to support her husband, children and aging parents. My mom hauled my siblings and me into the family car and over to the boutique to support her. Dani was taller by then, and her lankiness was endearing. This was my friend: the girl I had made a home of before I could appreciate the abstraction of belonging. I had missed her more than I knew. But there was something I didn’t recognize. Dani didn’t quite smile anymore; she’d become cold with awkwardness. When we were looking at ourselves in the mirror, she pulled away from me. “You got fat,” she said, then disappeared into the back of the boutique. I cried the whole ride home. But I cried
