Les Gargouilles and Other Stories

The Girl At the Top of the Stairs

Papa was stupid.

That was all I could think of as I lay in bed thinking of what people were saying about him now that he was dead and buried. And the woman who had been in the car with him buried, too, in a funeral that was less grand, though none of us knew who she was. Just some random woman maybe, though I heard whisperings that she was his mistress. For all dads had their mistresses. Wasn't that that how the world worked?

I rolled onto my belly, letting my back cool off as sweat had soaked the sheets beneath me while I slept. I had been napping when the overhead fan simply stopped working, though downstairs, I could hear the ceiling fan running. Outside, the neighbor's dog barked at something though I didn't get up to look out the window for I only stared at the fan, unmoving, as it hung from the ceiling.

Just another quirk of this two-bedroom apartment we had moved into since papa was killed in that stupid accident, with appliances switching off and on, and things being moved around - something we attributed to papa not realizing he was already dead, and as he always did when he was alive, moving things around where he felt they'd look much better. I wondered what he thought of our current furniture, all of them donated by relatives who'd taken pity on us, the old family heirlooms papa loved now gone to wealthier relatives. I wondered how he found us, how he'd made his way to this crappy apartment that never got any sunlight.

Mama had found the place through a friend of a friend though we could no longer remember who. It was only a few blocks from our closest relatives, and it was cheap - very cheap. It was also available the at such short notice and that was what mattered, for the bank was quick to kick us out and sell the house.

And so we moved into the apartment that was much smaller than what we were used to, ignoring the worried stares of the neighbors who shut their doors and peered at us through their windows, their hands to their mouths. And each time we caught their gaze, they'd look up at the second story window, before looking away. Sometimes they made the sign of the cross.  But we didn't mind - we'd long gotten used to the pity.

While my brothers shared one room, my sisters and I shared the one with the largest closet to accommodate all our clothes and toys, for girls always had more clothes than boys anyway. The closet doors were even mirrored, which gave our bedroom the illusion of being much larger. Mama didn't have a room of her own, choosing to sleep on the couch downstairs. Maybe one day, she said, she would sleep in a bedroom again, but not yet. Not when papa was still lying in state in a closed casket at the funeral home.

Papa had gone out that fateful night, not planning on returning till the following morning like he always did after another one of their many arguments. And like the rest of their arguments, it was always about some woman, one of the many he'd met while playing poker at the casino. He simply could not get his hands off them, just as they couldn't get their hands off his money.

But that morning, he didn't return, and by afternoon, we heard the news long after everyone else did. One of my aunts had been the one brave enough to go to the morgue to identify him, as no one else dared to do it, not even mama - not with her high blood pressure.

He'd been speeding along the darkened roads, they said, and the swerved along a tight bend, wrapping around a balete tree, a form of a ficus that grew abundantly along the countryside. Papa and the woman did not survive, but the stories still being told of how their bodies were found still thrived around town, brought to life with the many versions that now clouded the truth - whatever the truth was. I could not listen to them, not about papa, no matter what a bastard he'd been to us.

That was two weeks ago, and each morning since then, they'd say hello and ask us how our night went, whether we slept well or had bad dreams. They all wanted to know if we were all okay.