She Dropped Dead on the Way to Work

Week 36
The woman who wouldn’t get in the elevator, who requested to be reassigned to some other location because she couldn't handle 92 flights in an elevator, whom Xiomara blew off (we all heard she blew her off, accused her of being a malingerer, full of shit) dropped dead on her way to the building, by the fountain, yesterday morning.

It turns out she lived not far from me but I didn’t know until the death notice got emailed. She lived alone. She had a phobia about elevators, a phobia about the train, so she only traveled on the express bus.
I’m writing today on my lunch break, in a café. I’ve graduated to my laptop. A woman is arranging logistics for a visit from her father, too loudly, the way people speak over cellphones. Why is that?

Mayor G’s aide got indicted for perjury on the Island war draft investigation. (She’s Chinese and said she’s going to Vegas and I’m thinking, stereotypically, gambling addiction.) There’s no solid reporting on what kind of deal got cut so that this particular aide takes the fall. Alto a la impunidad. Xiomara killed that woman, kind of killed her, or really killed her, not believing she couldn’t be on elevator for an entire 92 flights.

I saw Xiomara in the lobby today. Again, she signaled me with her body not to come near her, not to give her a big kiss hello. I could rat out her past. But I wouldn’t. I have lines I don’t cross. Those of us who have lines we don’t cross make lots of space for the line jumpers. Like Xiomara. Like Adolfo.

I just remembered my dream. I woke up sobbing. I was sobbing in the dream. In the dream I found an old blanket. I unfolded it and discovered I had used it when Machi was a baby to make him blanket sleepers. The sleepers I had used for patterns were sewn into the blanket and there were cut out baby body shapes in the places where I had cut out sleepers out of the thick fleecy white blanket. I longed for Machi’s infancy. I didn’t know how much I long to have those moments again, to hold his body against my chest, to feel him sleeping, his full baby weight on my chest, heart to heart.
Or I long for Machi now, in the present. He called me yesterday but the connection was bad and I could barely hear him, half his words disappeared, I was afraid to ask him what he’d said and irritate him and have him hang up altogether. I think he said he’s found a job, in a restaurant. I think he said, “Ma, I killed a rat last night.” I asked him how he killed it and he said, I think he said, “With a machete.”
Nobody in my team wanted to go to the dead woman’s wake. She didn’t know anyone. She had no relationships. Who arranged the wake? I found out from Teresa, X secretary, that it turned out the woman had a son. Only Teresa went from the office. There was only the son, Teresa and a neighbor. There’s just a tin of ashes left.

So why is it a surprise that I believe there’s nothing but marcando left for me, marcando moments between now and being dead.