Down Memory Lane ✓

16- Mariana Lopez

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Mariana Lopez

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IF WATER was science, then snow was its art, drifting down like excess dots of paint on a canvas. Locking the trees in a cold embrace and trapping the land beneath them. The earth during winter reminded me of a canvas with footprints as strokes of colorless paint.

My eyes were the reflection of people clad in black jackets, sparse but moving to and fro with breaths of air visible from their mouths as I sat waiting in the café, mulling over the conversation I had with Tony before I had set out.

"What were you doing out so late? Did you get into an argument or something," I asked but was met with silence. I waited a while before I was about to ask again but he beat me to it. His reply was far from the explanation I expected.

"Don't worry Clara, it's nothing. I punched the guy's tooth out didn't I," he said.

I hesitated. "Just... stay out of trouble okay."

"Yeah yeah."

"By the way," I started. "Do you remember what happened before I ate the cake?" I asked.

Aunt Vera's question tugged at me ever since she asked it and I couldn't get my mind wrapped around a possible reason for her asking.

"What cake—oh aunt's cake. I knew she was up to something," he said instead, disregarding my question but I prodded still.

"Really?"

"Yeah. When she arrived, she said she brought it for all of us, but when I tried to take a slice, she scolded me, saying that I should have respect and wait for you, which was bulls**t to me," he said.

I ignored his cursing and focused more on Aunt Vera's actions. Why would she do that?

Tony wasn't allergic to nuts. If she knew there were nuts in the cake, it wouldn't have done anything to him. Perhaps she thought he would have figured that the cake had nuts so she stopped him.

"But that wasn't enough though," he continued. "You weren't around when she came so when Dad wanted to have a bite, she was pretty insistent that we waited for you. Dad didn't care much so he went to do something else. You came down, took a bite, and boom! Reaction. Your skin was breaking out, you couldn't swallow. You know all those stuff. I rushed to get the EpiPen after she admitted there were nuts in the cake. Then you passed out after Dad injected you."

Passed out?

My mind reeled but I tried to remain focused.

"Did anyone else eat out of the cake?"

"Well," he paused to think. "Come to think of it, not really. Jane had only cut out her slice and I didn't want a bite after she scolded me."

So I was the only one who ate out of the cake.

"Don't you remember what happened?" He flashed me a quizzed look.

"I do. It's just a bit fuzzy."

"And what did she say when you met her yesterday?"

"She said she forgot."

He scoffed. "Of course, that's what she'll say, but we don't believe her. Plus, with how she insisted that we waited for you, I'll say she knew fully well what was in the cake and what she was doing."

Had she put something else in the cake other than the nuts? I mean it also wasn't normal for me to pass out during or after an allergic reaction. Tony said Dad had used the EpiPen, which should have helped reduce the symptoms not knock me out.