It was a typical Saturday night with their parents elsewhere. The Angeles cousins had broken into factions at their Lolo and Lola’s home, a 1950s-era box perpetually shrouded in fog. Despite the commotion and laughter, Benedicta was bored. Bored with jacks and gin rummy and Monopoly and The Love Boat. Bored with gossip and obscure family lore.

She sighed deeply and extricated herself to sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the picture window. Her move caused only passing concern; she had always occupied an odd, disquieting space within the clan hierarchy. One or two of the older kids flared their nostrils in temporary disapproval, but they left her in peace.

Benedicta peeked through the venetian blinds, and waited for something, for anything. Then, as if her lethargy had conjured him into being, a man emerged slowly from the fog. He was small, round, brown. Older than her father, but younger than her Lolo. His glasses were too big for his face, square-framed, black. He cradled a large, standard brown box in his arms. When he looked up at the house, Benedicta snapped her head back, loathe to be seen. She quickly joined her younger cousins, who were using mahjong tiles as building blocks and screaming every time they tumbled down. Though she knew the man was walking up the stairs and that the doorbell would ring at any moment, she jumped at the sound of it.

Years later, long after their Lolo and Lola had died, no one would be able to recall the details of who he was. Often times these visitors were the second cousin of Lolo’s illegitimate half-brother. Or the acquaintance of an acquaintance who had worked with Lola’s sister at the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company in Manila before the war. There had been several schoolmates of this or that aunt and, once, the niece of the piano teacher who was bayoneted by the Japanese in that terrible Spring of 1944. They took up abode in the extra bedroom and stayed sometimes days, sometimes weeks or months. They were fed and helped in ways that no one mentioned, and then went on to live their lives. They returned periodically to pay their respects, towing children they had named after Lolo and Lola.

But this man — the short, round, brown man — was not that type of visitor.

After serving him a dish of cheese ice cream and chattering in Tagalog with him for an hour, Lola scanned the room to see which of her grandchildren was the least busy. “Benedicta,” she said over the noise. “Please show Tito Raymond to the basement. He’ll be traveling and needs to keep this box here with us.”

Benedicta nodded and stood up. “Romy?” she said to her brother. She stared at him until he looked up from his game. “Will you come with me?”

“But it’s almost my turn, Benny.” He grinned and pointed to the Monopoly money neatly stacked in front of him. Benedicta pressed her lips together and glared at her brother, but then skittered over to his chair, where she forgave him with a gentle bump of her hip. She softened quickly whenever he called her “Benny,” and he knew it.

Benedicta turned back to her task. “I’m sorry, Tito,” she said. “Is your box heavy?”

“Not at all,” he answered.

She led Tito Raymond down the basement stairs, cautioning him as they approached the bottom. They walked fifty paces in companionable silence until they arrived at the storage room. Benedicta pulled the sliding door open and stepped aside, releasing the musty odor of things long hidden. “Uh-oh,” he laughed, “I can’t see!” He playfully held the box in front of his eyes, using it to nudge Benedicta this way and that until they both stood in the small room.

Tito Raymond placed the box on the floor. Benedicta reached up and pulled the chain to turn on the light. He smiled and pulled it again to shut it off.

What is your name again, hija?

Benedicta.

You are so beautiful. You are the most beautiful little girl I have ever seen.

I am?

You are.

Oh. Me?

Yes.

He reached out and pulled her close; she stood still, arms at her side. She felt the soft drumming of his heart and knew, for a moment, what it was to be the most beautiful little girl someone had ever seen. It was like floating in a calm sea.

Then Tito Raymond turned her away and pushed her face to the wall. He slammed her head against it twice until it lolled like a fading flower. He pressed his forearm against the back of her neck. Then her pants were somehow off. Then his free hand was everywhere, his fingers inside her, shoving and ripping over and over again.

He pulled the chain as he left, flooding the room with light. Benedicta made herself as small as she could and listened to the muted clamor of her family upstairs. She heard her Lolo’s heavy footsteps as he walked Tito Raymond out of the house. She heard the front door close.

After awhile the pain between her legs dulled and she pulled herself to kneeling. She picked at the tape on Tito Raymond’s box, scraping under the edges with her nails, until the flaps popped open at last. It was full of dead birds, stuffed and bright-eyed, staring. She stroked their ink black feathers until it seemed they quivered back to life.

And then Benedicta took wing.

From somewhere far away, she heard Romy calling to her. “Bennie?” he said. “Benedicta? Are you there?”

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Copyright 2016 | Editor Tom Farr