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I watched her neat figure walk away as her hips swayed along with her. I looked down at our daughter Rosalia who I've been raising for the last six months while she's been gone.
In jail.
The last thing I remember is her getting handcuffed up against the cop car mouthing, "I love you". It still hurts, to say the least, but she did what she had to do. Did what everyone dreaded doing. Did what no one else was willing to do.
For us... for her... for me... for our daughter. She sacrificed, kept, skurried, cried, wept for hours, loved, and protected. He did this. He made her do this. He damaged her.
She gave Rosalia a squeeze on her hand along with kisses on her soft cheek and said she loved me before walking back. Back to that hell hole.
I replay that timid moment over and over again. Her standing on the porch of his house, bloody hands, bloody shirt, blood-stained face, hands held up in the air like she was on a roller coaster. Her white shoes now reflected in dirt stains, blood, and mulch from the front lawn where the cops stood pointing guns directly at her.
The cops speaking on the walkie talkies, radios. Whatever you call those shits. The neighbors that stood watching, some on the front stoops of their porches, and some just standing on their plain porches, doorframes, or sidewalks.
The walk of guilt and remorse filled up throughout her body as she walked down the front porch stairs.
"Is mom gonna be okay?" asked Rosa speaking now to my mother who was rocking back and forth in the white rocking chair that Monse used when Rosa first came home from the hospital.
"She won't eat the bottle," I said irritated as she cried in my arms. "Let me see her," she walked over to me and gently grabbed her from me. She instantly stopped crying at her touch. Rosa has always shown favoritism towards her.
Monse sat in the rocking chair and cradled her. She adjusted the feeding pillow under her and she latched onto her right breast.
That will always be my favorite memory.
I still have the polaroid pictures I had taken that very moment. We have a few photo albums full of them. We'll look through that a bit later.
"Your mommy's a very smart young lady... she's gonna be great," Mom finished off from Rosa's question earlier and gave her a kiss on the head. There was a subtle loud knocking on the front door, you know, almost like a banging, but not banging?
I stood up and clutched my gun that was neatly tucked in my waistband as I made my way toward the front door.
"I'm sure it's just Maria," Mom said. "You don't know who anybody is in this town anymore," I shook my head and steadily opened the door. She was wrong, it was Selena. I stepped aside and she walked in eyeing me up and down giving a sad smile.
"Hey, Ms. Finnie," I smiled back at her. "You don't have to keep calling me that," she laughed and pulled me into a hug. She pulled away from the hug and began to acknowledge Rosa. She held out her arms and she came running like it was Santa Claus with a whole bunch of presents.
I began to make my way up the stairs on the creaky carpet to Monse and I's room. I pulled out the polaroid albums of ours sitting on the bed.
The first picture in there was taken by our moms. We were lying on the queen-size mattress on the floor with no bed frame. Monse was shirtless in just her underwear no bra, no nothing. Her forearm covered her nipples and my arm was wrapped around her small body and I was just in my basketball shorts no shirt either.
We were both smiling with our teeth and holding up the deuces.
PC. 2 was the same except her hand was on my cheek and we were kissing. That was the day I got her pregnant.
PC. 3 was the same too except I was holding her really close like so close if you tried grabbing her you couldn't. Her head was buried in my shoulder and I was kissing the top of her head.
PC. 4 was at Christmas when she was 15 and I was 16.
We were wearing matching pajamas which were red and black plaid and my arm was wrapped around her. She had her arms wrapped and across one of her legs and the other leg was down.
PC. 5 was at the gender reveal. She had a blue and pink cupcake in her hand so did I. We both had icing on our faces and you could tell we were laughing cause of the look on our faces.
PC. 6 was also at the gender reveal. We still had icing on our faces and we were feeding each other cupcakes.
PC. 7 was of our first argument. Our first and only argument. She was yelling at me with her finger pointed at me and my arms were spread out as if I was confused. PC. 8 was of me holding her up in the air smiling. She was bending herself like a rainbow.
PC. 9 she was being held up on my shoulder smiling. PC. 10 was of us dancing and she was popping her butt. One arm out one arm bent in, her back arched and I was behind her as her butt was perfectly positioned on me.
PC. 11 was of us in bed. I was hovering over top up her and she had her arms wrapped around my neck kissing me. The crazy thing is... Our moms didn't even know what was happening under there.
She's coming home in a year... that's too long. I put the photo albums back. I took a deep breath and grabbed my phone. I went to the videos of Monse and me and tapped on the first one I had seen.
The first video was being recorded by Monse. We were lying in bed naked joking around. "Baby, do you looooove me?" She asked in the video and I turned on my side to face her. "Of courseeee, you're the only one that I love," I kissed her lips and she began kissing me back.
We were basically making out and that's when she stopped recording.
Video N. 2. We were walking out of the tattoo shop I was the one recording this time. "Show 'em your tattoo baby," I moved the camera upward so that she could show it. She scrunched up her nose in a cute way and we showed our matching tats.
It said "Monsar" In cursive on the bottom of our wrists.
Video N.3. Monse is wearing a pink and blue jumpsuit, I was wearing a pink shirt with blue jeans. Our family was counting down from ten and on one we popped the poppers and pink smoke came out. Monse jumped on me as I spun her around.
Video N. 4. Was a recording of Monse with our hands on her pregnant stomach. She was about six months in and you could see Rosa moving around as I was moving my hand on the parts where she was moving.
