“That girl’s gonna get in trouble, Mamma. I had a dream—”
Papa’s voice is harsh and he coughs when he yells too loud. Mamma must be rubbing his back, Rosa thinks. Maybe she could check, make sure Papa hasn’t hurt his chest, but Mamma doesn’t like it when she knocks on Papa’s door without asking. “You need to be sure of his mood,” Mamma told her. “He’s sick.”
“I’m sick, too,” Rosa replied.
“No, you’re not, Rosa. Don’t say that again. And don’t say that to the neighbours. They don’t understand.”
Rosa can hear Mamma stamping down the hallway. She is crying, too, and Rosa imagines a white handkerchief dangling from her fingers, grey hair hanging out the back of her net.
“Teresa. Get out of there right now!” Mamma knocks vigorously. Rosa lifts her back off the bed to get a look into the hallway. This is certainly “a commotion,” what Mamma said Rosa shouldn’t do outside in front of anyone, that if someone speaks to her she should pretend she can’t speak English and point to the house. Maybe Mamma can’t help making “a commotion”; Rosa sometimes couldn’t help it. Maybe Mamma thinks the bathroom is dirty or the music is too loud.
“Just a minute, Mamma.”
“Right now!”
The music stops. Hands clenched into fists, Mamma turns and thumps down the stairs. Rosa can hear the plug being pulled, the water swirling and burping down the drain, and Teresa getting out of the tub. Soon after, lock unfastened, Teresa emerges in a white terry-cloth robe, black hair frizzed up even though it is wet and should be straight and heavy. Teresa didn’t comb it, Rosa thinks. But she always gave her hair a good combing in the bath or else it hurt the next day and Mamma would need to help her, the way Mamma always combs Rosa’s hair.
“Teresa Maria Campanous!”
“One minute, Mamma! I have to get some clothes on!”
“Ha! Clothes! You better put some clothes on and keep them on —”
“Mamma, I’m coming! Please!”
“If I could walk …” The coughing stops Papa’s sentence.
Teresa halts at Rosa’s door, her face red and prunish. “You go to sleep, Rosa.”
Rosa nods and pulls the covers over her head, imagining herself in a car with guitar and drum music playing, wind from an open window sweeping up her hair. After fifteen minutes, Rosa wants to close her door, but doesn’t want to get up. She hates it when people talk loud, but not loud enough to pass through doors. Then it’s just noise and it hurts to concentrate.
A half hour later, her sister walks by again. “Tera,” she whispers, but Teresa turns off the light in the bathroom and shuffles to her room at the other end of the hall.
Once again, Rosa puts on her brace and steps quietly out her door. She holds on to the walls, past the bathroom, past Papa’s room, to Teresa’s room. Without knocking, she inches the door open with her foot and Teresa, crouched on the floor, shoves some clothes under the bed. Looking up, Teresa sighs, but with a finger against her lips waves to Rosa to come in and quietly shut the door.
“You need those washed, Tera?”
Teresa wipes her eyes and kicks a pant leg farther underneath the bed. “No.”
“I can wash them.”
“No, Rosa. And don’t tell Mamma.” Teresa has slipped back into her bathrobe. Rosa notices how red her legs are and that the yellow sponge from the bathroom in her hand has red blotches on it.
“You cut yourself shaving? You gonna take another bath?”
Teresa doesn’t answer. She gets up, sits on the edge of her bed, and pats the place beside her. Rosa sits down. Rosa likes Teresa’s comforter. It’s pink, like the walls.
“Pretty clothes, Tera. Can I have them, if you’re gonna throw them away?” Rosa likes to get clothes from Teresa. Teresa has store-bought clothes instead of wearing only the dresses Mamma makes.
“No. They’re no good. They’re garbage.”
Rosa gasps, knowing Mamma does not like it when they throw things in the trash.
“Good for rags then, Tera. Good for —”
“Listen, Rosa. This is important,” Teresa stresses, gripping Rosa’s arm. “And you don’t tell Mamma.”
“Okay.”
Rosa concentrates, staring at the pink comforter. There are things Rosa must not tell Mamma. That’s what sisters do, she knows, keep secrets. Rosa waits, but Teresa’s hand starts shaking, and the sash on the white robe grows a spot of pink.
“Oh, Christ.” Teresa pulls off the white robe in front of Rosa, her slim naked body with small, tight breasts and just a triangle of hair between the legs open to Rosa’s eyes, presses the sponge against her thighs, then grabs a large T-shirt from the back of the closet.
“Don’t say that. You’re not allowed to say that. Did Mamma do that to you?”
“No.” Pulling the T-shirt over her head, the hem under her thighs, she sits back on the bed, takes her pillow and lays it over her lap. “An animal did,” she adds, as if to her legs and not to Rosa. Now Rosa starts to shake, imagining the wolf from her picture book, his fangs bared and growling.
“Rosa, some boys are bad. This is our secret.”
“Not the boys you dance with.”
Teresa makes a noise like biting on hard candy. “No, not the boys I dance with, but that’s only where the people are, the teachers.” Rosa nods, holds out her hand to touch Teresa’s legs.
“Don’t touch, it hurts. Listen to me, Rosa. This is a secret.” Rosa really must concentrate. The pink comforter is no help. She bites down on her lip, tasting her own blood, hot and salty.
“Some boys don’t listen when you’re alone with them. Don’t be alone with a boy.”
“You have problems because you’re pretty,” Rosa says, touching her tongue, blotting at the blood with her finger. She and her sister both have dark eyes and hair, but Rosa’s is cut short since she can’t brush the tangles by herself. Rosa’s face is defined by the same long eyebrows and oval face, yet it’s stretched wide, making all her features larger than Teresa’s. Rosa has larger breasts and thighs, too, a version of what Teresa might look like one day in middle age. Only the one leg has never grown into the shape of a woman.
“Oh Rosa, what did you do? Did you bite your tongue? Who told you that?” Teresa frowns, stroking the top of Rosa’s head, blotting at her lip with the sponge.
“I heard Mamma and Papa say it about you. You get problems when you have a pretty girl in a big city. I’m not pretty like you. No problems for me.”
“Rosa, a boy might ask you to go alone with him sometime. You don’t go. You understand?”
Rosa taps her foot. She can’t imagine any boy asking her to go away with him, although there had been the boy who offered to walk her to the