Winner of First Place in Gooseberry Pie’s First Writing Contest April 2024 (tie)
by Tara Isabel Zambrano
CW: Domestic violence
The thunderstorms came on suddenly that summer night, do you remember? We were lying on the bed as lightning lit up our bodies—neon white like aliens we’d seen in movies and hail began to hit our roof and our windows—tak tak tadaak—each time I felt the blow when my first husband beat me into obedience like a dog—the wedding picture with his semi-pissed off face pinned in my memory. Was God angry with me for leaving him, raining rocks on us, I asked, and you pulled me into your arms, and it hadn’t been long since we’d moved into this house perched on the hillside, weeds in the yard instead of a proper lawn, four notices stuck on the door from the HOA, do you remember the reluctant toilet flush and the dust rotted carpet, the air conditioners with no heartbeat—was the kitchen light broken too? But we couldn’t afford another home in the area even if we sold the names our fathers had left behind and this place was far, far away from my ex, so when you said, it’s a sign that things will get better, I cried so hard our bed rocked like a boat. I know you are taking a chance with me, I managed to say, I am as broken as this house, and you started singing that song the lyrics of which you claimed you could never remember but they came out perfectly and by then the hailstorm had punctured the roof. To distract ourselves we held each other tight and our throats went rough arguing if the size of the hail was closer to a cherry, a jamun or a ber, no, no, you said—they look like—you paused for a moment—like amla, yeah Indian gooseberry and I don’t remember how you came up with that comparison but I went on how I hated amla murabba, amla pickle, amla juice my mother fed me as a source of Vitamin C to keep the flu away and you mentioned feeding dried amla to the limping cat in your street—stories of our childhood inflating on our lips like balloons until the stars glittered like nails holding the muddy awning of sky and a waft of warm air came from the broken window slowly turning the hard balls of ice into water around us.
Tara Isabel Zambrano is a writer of color.
