While on vacation in South America, sixty-six-year-old Angela finally can let go of her daughter Zoe.

Angela and Emilio fly into Cartagena, Colombia, and stay on the resort premises. The end of an isthmus jet out to Cartagena Bay.

Remote. Secluded.

Surrounded by water on three sides. Waves, foaming white on the edges of the brown sea, warm on Angela’s toes. Palm trees, tiki hut, lead-heavy air. An afternoon thunderstorm is expected to cool the air for the night.  Zoe, their daughter, would have loved this ferocious sun, cloudless sky. Sunglasses, straw hats, shorts, sandals, fried plantains, sancocho with corn and yuca.  But Zoe refuses to join them. Instead, she wants to go camping with Luke. Angela came late to childbearing. Zoe was premature. Angela sets up a ring of fire to protect her since the day she was born.  

The conversations Angela had with Zoe flash through her mind while she looks out to the white sky cupolas over Cartagena Bay, a glistening line where the water meets the horizon.

“It’s Winter Island, Mom, you can google it. There is a lighthouse. We are going to sleep in an authentic Indian teepee. Oh, Mom, so exciting.”

Isn’t it too cold to camp?  isn’t it still wintry in April, Massachusetts, the miserable shady, snowy country?  The dark pelting rain of the New England early spring. Angela is overcome by a strong surge of sorrowful loss.

On the first day of kindergarten. They were at the bus stop with the other moms and children. It was early. Zoe had her white cardigan with the sunflowers. Angela was holding her small hand. When the big yellow bus emerged at the roadside, Zoe wriggled out of her grip, squealed in delight, hopped on that big spaceship bus. Did not look back or say goodbye. Her miniature body, swaying pigtails, pink shorts. Angela could not have it; she drove Zoe everywhere after that morning. Zoe drove herself twelve years later. Not without an effort. The mother and daughter debated over the driving for months.

“Mom, all my friends are driving.  I am only going to school. Yes, I promise, I will not give rides to anyone.”

“You can drive when you go to college!”

“Look, Mom, I didn’t join my friends on school buses, I didn’t go to Girl Scout camping, I didn’t sleep over at other girls’ houses. Mom, listen, I am going to drive to school by myself, and don’t follow me.” Zoe hugged her tight.

Now she did not want to join them for her birthday trip. A trip planned with her in mind. 

***

Mornings are cool in Cartagena. The Old Town stands on her own, has nothing in common with the rest of the peninsula, except for the dome of the blue sky. Briny sea air is imbued with the aroma of grilled meat and lime. Cyber yellow clock tower marks the starting point of the Old Town. The ancient wide wall, two horses gallop abreast, extends out from the clock tower, embraces the Old Town, protecting her for centuries. Five centuries ago, there were pirate ships in disguise, cargo boats heavily laden with gold and silver, African slavers, flags flying high, propelled into the Cartagena harbor.  

Upon entering the wall boundary, a stroll down the narrow streets, patchworks of colors erupt. The vista of red-tiled roof, orange window shades, indigo blue wall, magenta bougainvillea blossoms, lavender balcony flower boxes.

A Palenqueras approaches them, clads in a layered neon pink and lime green dress, in the courtyard of Santa Domingo Iglesia. Her erect neck supports a bright red headpiece containing a wicker basket of bananas, mangos, pineapples. Her golden skin, tight, firm, is oil-shiny in the sun. She displays a big smile, showing her short white teeth.

“Photo?”  Oscillating to show off her skirt and the bin of fruits on her head.

“Please.” Angela goes to stand next to her.

Emilio takes shots of Angela and the Palenqueras from different angles. The Palenqueras is pleased with the five dollars tip. 

“Zoe would have loved having pictures taken with her,” Angela says.

“Zoe is not here,”  Emilio says curtly and gently squeezes her shoulder.  Zoe came after they had given up their futile efforts at conceiving. Angela was thirty-eight.  Zoe was problematic at birth. They prayed for her fervently. Knelt in that intensive care unit by the lake, in front of her incubator, prayed for God to help her grow. Like a transforming mystery, an answered prayer they had thirsted for. She grew, and she bloomed. Large mysterious dark eyes, narrow nose, raven black hair, small like a fairy with wings and a floral crown. How they deluge their awe and attention around her. Like the radiant sun, her warmth and glow sustain Emilio and Angela.  An auspicious trip for her birthday in April every year. Till this year; two decades and eight years. 

They walk in silence; Angela adjusts her straw hat to cover the back of her neck where the sun blares down. 

“Should we have a little lunch?” 

“The concierge recommended Cande restaurant. Let me check the map from the hotel.” Emilio pulls his map out.

The street signs are etched on sophisticated tile works at the street corners. It is challenging to read street names in a foreign language in artistic arrangements. Narrow cobblestone streets, flanked by souvenir shops. The sun rises to the middle of the brilliant white sky. Angela dabs the wetness on her neck with her handkerchief in the early afternoon heat.

“We are lost.” Angela murmurs, lost without Zoe and lost in the heat of Cartagena.

Emilio hails a taxi. Taxi driver takes the map upside-down, looks at it. His impassive eyes tell her the letters mean nothing to him. Angela suspects his illiteracy. He drives by his memory; he knows the grids of the Old Town like the back of his hands. He took them zigzagging through restaurants, plazas, churches, cafes. Then the restaurant sign of Cande appears next to two thick, tall wooden panels, agape. Cold air gushes out. A fort from the colonial time. White linen tablecloths, teal wood tables. A cave with thick stone walls, Heartleaf Philodendron with white buds swathes from the ceiling skylight, clear streams of water trickles behind the green leaves. The maître d recommends Cazrela de Mariscos, crab rice, also an order of fish ceviche as starter. White wine spritzer with lime. Two other grey-haired couples, lean, sitting upright on two other tables.  A restaurant for the golden years. 

The same taxi driver, Enrique, waits outside, takes them back to the hotel. The next day, Enrique is on the hotel’s circular driveway, waiting. Takes them to La Popa Monastery.  The monastery, built during turbulent wartime, perches high on the top of Mount Popa to avoid mobs and disturbances. Angela follows the ascending path of the Stations of the Cross up the winding hillside to the monastery. Enrique drove Emilio slowly behind her. The monastery appears as the front setting of the bird’s eye view of the city. The panorama of colorful metropolis, brown sandy shoreline, distant glittering blue sea. Mountain wind whistles; flags flutters. Mass in the chapel, they go in and sit on the back pew. Enrique comes in, sits with them. 

Dear God, please bless Zoe and Luke on their camping trip. And Zoe, please don’t feel guilty. Amen. Angela prays.

After Mass, she asks the taxi driver to take them to a restaurant where the locals eat. 

“It’s early, I like to take you to an exclusiva jewelry factory that makes the authentica emerald jewelry, and then to lunch,” Enrique says.

The jewelry factory nestles in a quiet neighborhood. Tall stucco walls surround the premise. Enrique uses a call box to open the solid iron gates. Guards with pistols pace in the parking lot and guide them to an empty space. A sales lady ushers them through different workrooms to the back, unlocks a door to an illuminated showroom with emerald necklaces, rings, bracelets, pins, earrings in glass cases. A bracelet intertwined with crystal and emerald; a thin silvery necklace with a delicate trumpet pendant studded with loose emeralds. The sales lady places them side by side on a black velvet board. Angela’s eyes beam, breath shortens, heartbeat treacherously quickens, sweat on her palms. 

A trumpet pendant; a proper necklace for the long neck of my nymph-like child. She will love it. Angela thinks.   

“Luke buys jewelry for her. You get something for yourself.”  Emilio says as if reading her mind. 

“Zoe is making a life with Luke now,” he says in a flat tone to hide his pain.  Cannot help it. She buys both the bracelet and the necklace. The sales lady packages them, pale yellow tissue papers, orange ribbons, in two separate white boxes with “Caribe Jewelry” in green letters. 

  Zoe will love it.         

Back to Old Town to a small restaurant next to Museo Naval del Caribe.  Wide-open doorway. No sign of the restaurant’s name. A restaurant with no name. Menu chalked on a small blackboard offers one dish. Chicken soup of the day, rice, and salad.  The chef and owner, Senora Gloria, a heavy golden-skinned woman with a tomato sauce-stained apron; large curly brown hair puffs out of her white chef hat; croons a hymn to herself.  She comes over and tugs at Angela’s sleeve.

“So, mi amour, what you like? Meat? seafood?” She says with a fawning smile. 

“Seafood,” Angela says, they are by the ocean.  Senora Gloria nods, waddles to the back. She comes out with a colossal red shrimp, the size of her forearm. Small head twitching, long claws wiggling.  She calls it a Cameron, a shrimp. But Angela thinks it a deformed lobster with a shrunken head. 

“How would you like it? With Garlic and butter? They come with rice and salad. Two shrimps for you and two shrimps for your esposo, something to drink?”  She recites her questions while she hums her tune and does not wait for their answers. Then shuffles to the bar and brings them two tall glasses of rum and coke with ice. 

“Give us some fried yuca. Please.” Emilio says.

Angela sipped the icy sweet drink and gazed at the dark clouds swiftly gathered outside the latticed windowpanes, daily afternoon rainstorm.  Sheets of water dumped out of the sky unabashed; thunders shook the rooftop. Lights blinked. Senora Gloria opens the lattices on the windows. Temperature lowers as the pleasant, dewy petrichor rises.  Street vendors clamor in, friends sharing one long table by the bar, order soup of the day. They shake off the water, cackling, conversing, compare their merchandize, bracelets, earrings, bandanas, hair bends; in need of style and imagination.  Orders promptly brought up by a dark, tubby girl with a long braid. Thick stew, chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots; rice and salad.  They eat and laugh heartily.

“A lot of businesses for Senora Gloria, no business for us. Ha.”

They thank God for the blessings of good food, good health, good friends.  A group of light-hearted, sunny-natured street vendors. Inside the ancient wall of the Old Town is their world, outside the thick boundary is the end of their world.     

The “lobsters with small heads” are served. Smell of butter and garlic floods the restaurant.  Street vendors stared at the shrimps.

“Why didn’t you show me the shrimp?”

The server, the dark, tubby girl with long braid.

“Oh, you won’t like it. I know you like chicken. Shrimp is not good for you, so I don’t ask you.” Smiling, rolling her eyes.

 Boisterous glee from the big table keeps the downpour and thunder at bay.  Angela, sweet rum, buttery shrimp, lime rice, doubles over with laughter. Emilio squeezes her hand and smiles. His familiar bony hand, long fingers, large knuckles, soft palm.  Angela tries to imagine Zoe enjoying the shrimp with them, but her indefinite elf-like figure will not conjure up, will not come into focus – like the white vapor created by the downpour dissolving into the emerging sunlight; disperses instantly. The jewelry boxes in her shopping bag bump her leg; Angela thinks she will wear that necklace herself.

A gift to herself from Cartagena.   

– Catherine C. Con

Author’s Note: “Becoming” was a mixture of different experiences, flashbacks, and visions. Then, it was a journey that took the narrator to a different phase of her life. As she moved on to a new stage, she left a part of herself behind and gained new insights that formed her new identity. I like this short story. It shows how we can still evolve, grow, and change at an old age.