The tumor ripped through his vertebrae one night after years of torment. It had bulged over the years, developing faster with every passing sin. The darkness must have weighed on him. Or maybe it didn’t.  

I imagine it: eagle eye vision looking deep into the soul of his mutation. The tumor, a full circle response to the silence bred in our family, divided and morphed, eating away at the normalcy. Nobody talks about it, and nobody is allowed to acknowledge the pain.  

My sorrow lingered in my vertebrae too. It didn’t rip through my column as it had his, it didn’t break one night under the weight of disease. No, my column undulates in pain; my emotions feeding the tumor of my abuse deep in my spine. One day, it is dormant, quiet, and sheepish like a child waiting for the next big surprise.

Other times it flares painfully to the surface. It yells out in a fury towards my own generations and painfully declares itself to the looks of astonishment on my husband’s face. So many years later, his pain still resides in me. He is dead now, and I am not allowed to mourn.

I used to draw pictures of body parts. It was a deliberate scribble. It amazed me. My sagging “W” could be a pair of tits or a big round ass. I was four. My mother found my secret one sunny day. She held the drawings in her hand, and she looked at me disappointed. I cowered. My mother was a frightful sight when angered– and shit– the woman was angry all the time. “¿Qué estás haciendo?” the words, not a yell, but a cavernous howl. I was whipped that day for what he did to me. “Sin vergüenza,” I was told… his shameful acts were meant to be my burden. I couldn’t tell then, and I couldn’t tell now.