Family Lore

In an interview with Ona, Flor explains that prior to her pregnancy, life felt like a disembodied experience because her dreams of death were a constant. However, growing new life (Ona) grounded her.

Matilde, the eldest of the Marte sisters, receives a call from sister Pastora—who says she saw Matilde’s husband, Rafa, with a pregnant woman at a CVS. Matilde recalls past calls about Rafa and his affairs, but this call is the first involving a pregnant mistress. Unable to answer Pastora, she remembers how she and Rafa met: He was singing, and she was dancing at a discoteca (club) in the Dominican Republic. The night of Matilde’s wedding, Pastora’s husband, Manuelito, drove her and Rafa to the hotel where she worked for their honeymoon. However, Rafa left her to party, to assert dominance in their marriage. Humiliated, she went to their rented room alone, and when he returned hours later, she consented to sex. They were never able to have children, but Matilde resolved to be happy despite this and Rafa’s infidelity. In the present, Pastora insists they talk about her marriage, but Matilde deflects and goes to her dancing class.

As she gets off the phone with Matilde, Pastora frets over her marriage, Flor’s wake, and the return of her daughter Yadira “Yadi” Marte de Polanco’s boyfriend Anthony “Ant” Morales. She is most concerned about Flor, with whom she shares a special bond, as they are the sisters with the most powerful magic: She herself is a truth hearer (lie detector). Pastora reflects on being deemed a troublemaker by her mother, Mamá Silvia. She often felt unwanted, as Silvia blamed her for her later miscarriages (likely due to postpartum depression). She recalls initially disliking New York, but adapted and bluntly convinced a clothing store owner to hire her. In the present, Pastora’s husband Manuelito is leaving to be by his dying mother’s side, and she accompanies him to the airport.

Yadi walks home with groceries but drops some of them when she sees childhood love Ant sitting on her stoop. She hasn’t seen him in 18 years, due to his incarceration, and he both is and isn’t the boy she grew up with. As he greets her, she feels the beginning of a panic attack. Yadi invites him into her parents’ home, and he notices Matilde’s ingredients. She explains she will be making food for Flor’s wake, while silently struggling to reconcile Ant’s presence and her residual anger towards him. As she begins to cook, he offers to assist and mentions working in the prison’s kitchen. The admission highlights the gulf between them, and Yadi doesn’t feel ready to bridge it. She recalls how they met: She initially hated New York and wanted to return to Santo Domingo (in the Dominican Republic) after three days. Yadi met Ant when she decided to wait outside for one of her parents to bring her to the airport, and decided she loved him more than Santo Domingo and would stay until they could go together. In the present, he says despite her lack of contact for the last 18 years, he’s not going to ask her to explain herself.

Matilde arrives at her dance class in a local school cafeteria. Her teacher is sick and asked his son, baseball player Kelvyn, to take over the class. As the younger man enters, she feels an instant attraction to him, which he seems to reciprocate. Matilde revels in Kelvyn’s music, but when his phone dies, she offers her own playlist; he compliments her taste. Attempting to deter further interest, she mentions her husband Rafa.

Pastora takes the bus after dropping off her husband Manuelito at the airport, and considers Ona’s recent questions about the Marte sisters’ past. She recalls her childhood, when she was tasked with bringing the head priest’s vestment to Doña Yokasta Santana’s house before her grandmother, Abuela Eugenia, and Nun Aunt were to visit. Mamá Silvia became estranged from her family after marrying an unapproved man, Susano, so this visit after years of separation was important: Flor’s gift was to be assessed for admittance to a convent, and perhaps sainthood. When Pastora arrived at Doña Yokasta’s house, she was greeted by one of her sons. He took the head priest’s vestment and invited her into his fancy house. While on the balcony, he kissed her—but with her gift, she saw through his lies and refused him. In the present, Pastora contemplates how her gift has helped her make sales in the clothing store where she works, but it is also exhausting. She gets off the bus and walks the rest of the way home.

Ona remembers holding her mother Flor’s hand when they went to evening English classes. Flor would never let go despite Ona assuring her that she wasn’t scared; it was then when she realized Flor was scared. In the present, Ona reckons with her mother’s inevitable death. She muses on her family’s magic, and how hers is an “alpha vagina”—the ability to affect people by controlling the taste, smell, and feel of her vagina. She contrasts her gift with her mother’s, whose gift is never deliberate. Flor can sometimes see non-deaths, which is why she insisted Ona wear a dark red blouse during her third citizenship exam. As Ona waited for her to finish, she met her husband Jeremiah, whose favorite color is dark red. They began to date, and she collected degrees in anthropology with a specific interest in the Dominican Republic. When they began to try for children, tumors were found in her uterus.