We All Pay Our Dues

Sooner or later

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

It’s Sunday and Natalia and I are paying bills on the patio, writing checks and putting them in envelopes.

After her first glass of wine she says, “These envelopes remind me of when I used to go to church. I married my piece of shit ex in Hermosillo, and when I came to the states with him all his slimy relatives were waiting for me, licking their chops, the vultures. I was sad and desperate, I let those assholes take me to that church. Most everyone in Mexico is catholic but this was a Christian church. It’s funny, I thought I was a rebel in Mexico for changing to the Christian church. I thought there was a big difference.

I’d heard it all before, but I still love to hear her talk.

“Anyways, we get to Estados Unidos and it all went down-hill. My ex never went to church but he made me go. A good Christian girl does what her husband says. I never could get pregnant and he blamed me, said I was useless and not a real woman and that I should pray to God to let me get pregnant. All his family said so too, told me that I couldn’t get pregnant because I was a sinner, I was dirty somehow. At church the preacher told us: ‘But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man.’ I couldn’t question my ex or tell him about his cousins who would come over to our apartment…