“The narrow gate with its long, loud creak. The fifty-year old mango tree in the front garden, its roots clawing deep into the soil. White-washed walls that need a new coat to cover up streaks of batshit. This is not Angelica’s house anymore, but she remembers its geometry. ”
By Jessica Faleiro
1.
Angelica D’Sa is depressed. She’s the baby of the family. I couldn’t say she’s ever been overlooked, but it’s obvious to us that she’s been like this for a very long time. I first noticed it when she was twenty-two. Roxy says twelve. Mama insists that she was always a quiet child. It’s possible that we’re all right. More likely, we’re all wrong.
Angelica is a kindergarten teacher. I think she hides it well; having children around you can do that sometimes. We make sure to always include her in things.
We move around in Roman Catholic Margao society; this includes an endless list of weddings, christenings, baptisms, birthdays and anniversary celebrations to attend. It’s all part of the social lubricant that keeps things moving in our world. But it’s the leaving-dos that make her most emotional. She’s mostly willing, but occasionally, one of us has to cajole her to dress up and accompany us. The family take it in turns to drive her to these events.
We decided a long time ago that none of it was a burden. She’s always resigned when she enters or exits the car and goes to her flat on the periphery of the city. Mama and I have spare keys, just in case. She made Angelica think it was her idea. Mama is very good at emotional manipulation, when she wants to be.
Our nephews and nieces find Angelica eccentric, even though she’s their go-to person for Uno, Monopoly or chess. She lets them win. She’s good like that. She’s the first person they choose to read aloud to them. She’s the only one of us with the patience to do the voices. I love her sound-effects.
We take it in turns to call her on a daily basis. She responds on family Whatsapp group chats, at the very least, with a heart or a smiley emoji. She seems happiest when sitting by herself at a party, observing what’s going on around her, smiling once in a while. She answers politely, joins in the birthday song, never dances the birdie dance at weddings, though a couple of times I’ve caught her laughing at me flapping my wings at her. But, more often than not, I see her staring into space, or out of a window, with a somber look on her face. Even when surrounded by people, she seems as if she’s caught between worlds, frozen in time.
When Angelica was in her twenties, matchmakers approached Mama. Good family, quiet girl, kindergarten teacher, what was there for them not to like? But, after every meet up, the feedback was the same: “She’s too quiet.” Angelica never showed any interest. In fact, as chaperone for these meet ups, I watched her energy drop if she was put on the spot and had to respond to a strange man asking her questions. This surprised me, because she wasn’t socially awkward, per se. After these encounters, she seemed sadder than before, whenever I dropped her off at her flat. After a while, we stopped trying to adapt her to our world and left her to her own.
My wife is the family’s social event coordinator. I love her for her observational details but she sometimes finds the most arcane meaning in something that seems simple. She has a theory about Angelica that I don’t find amusing at all. She says that the sadder Angelica is, the happier the people around her seem to be. She backs this up with evidence, even when I insist I don’t want to hear her speak about this anymore.
There is the time when my wife has to choose a dress for Angelica to wear to Uncle Mario’s second wedding and we practically drag her to the venue and sit her down at the family table. That is the day Roxy acts very gregariously, even though some are convinced she is drinking more than the lime soda she keeps ordering. It is that gregariousness that gets her noticed by Rosario Pinto, the wealthiest property developer in all of Salcete. Ever since Roxy and Rosario’s wedding the family is invited once a month to their social events where we meet celebrities we’d never meet otherwise. Rosario likes introducing us as his family and we’ve never gotten along with an in-law as well as we do with him. He seems to indulge Roxy’s every whim and is pleased about it. We couldn’t be happier for our sister.
The one time we skip one of Rosario’s parties it is because Angelica has the viral flu that is going round and she doesn’t want anyone else to get it. When we find out she isn’t going, most of the family also cancel their plans, in solidarity, as if it seems pointless to attend the party without her.
Rosario doesn’t feel slighted. In fact, he sends her containers of homemade soup that she can warm up whenever she needs to. He is added to the roster of siblings, cousins, aunties and uncles sending her kanji and medicine, taking her to the doctor for regular check-ups until she is in tip-top shape again. At one of the check-ups, Rosario meets someone in the waiting room who turns out to be a lucrative business contact and amazing business partner.
At Angelica’s fortieth birthday party, our brother Rocco meets principal Janessa, who is new in town, and falls in love for the first time. The entire family teases them about their courtship and at their wedding, Angelica’s name is mentioned in the champagne toast.
The only time she allows us to put her center-stage is at her own birthday party. We celebrate each one, and family members from across Goa congregate to help her blow out her candles. Her school colleagues tell us how much the children love her. It is always a relief to hear this. Family photo albums contain photographic evidence of her laughing and smiling. But, I don’t think she believes that she is loved.
Though I see less of my sister, now that we have a new baby in the house, and my wife has another young one to handle, when the little one is nine months old we see how Angelica coos and coddles her. She’s very protective of our little ones. I wonder if she wishes for her own, but I never feel that energy from her. If anything, she seems resigned to the attention and love she gets. It’s more than some people in this life get. I wonder if she knows how blessed she is.
When I drop by to visit, I hear her sometimes on the phone, laughing or commiserating before she says, “Rafael is here, I have to go now. I’ll call you back later.” I wonder if she does.
We know she stopped watching the news and reading news headlines years ago. We avoid talking about politics and religion around her. We keep our tone optimistic and upbeat, even when discussing global events or sports losses. She’s the only one my Mama never speaks to about her finds in the morning’s obituary. We don’t pick her up for funerals that don’t belong to our family, unless she asks us to. Mama says there’s always enough loss to go around. One less person at a celebration of death won’t be missed.
The therapist friend I take her to can’t prescribe anti-anxiety treatment for someone who doesn’t seem to have any diagnosable anxiety disorder. “If she’s depressed, she’s the highest functioning depressive I’ve ever met,” the counsellor tells me. Her prescription is a pet, so I get her a foster kitten from one of the whatsapp groups I’m on. It’s a six-week-old rescue, vaccinated and vocal. I watch Angelica bond with it the way she bonds with our children, in an emotionally detached manner that adapts to their needs. The kitten crawls over her and seeks her warmth. Angelica lets the kitten be whatever it needs to be. She doesn’t run after it, or fuss over it. She doesn’t seek its attention or love. Something changes in her expression, she seems baleful and absent-minded. It’s as if the kitten is distracting her from her sadness, so she needs to double down to hold onto it.
I watch her stroking the little black and white furball on her lap when this happens. I see her expression change and hear a whoop of joy in the other room where my wife and Roxy are gossiping during our visit. I cock my head to one side and watch Angelica’s eyes drift out her window.
2.
The narrow gate with its long, loud creak. The fifty-year old mango tree in the front garden, its roots clawing deep into the soil. White-washed walls that need a new coat to cover up streaks of batshit. This is not Angelica’s house anymore, but she remembers its geometry.
She walks past the living room full of plastic-covered, teak furniture, feels the eyes of her ancestor’s portraits following her down the corridor and enters the kitchen. She sits and stares at the shiny silver kettle across from her, next to the window.
Ever since Mama decided to sell the house, Angelica has hesitated visiting it to say goodbye. She suddenly decides that today is the day. She enters it in secret. It’s been so long since anyone has been there that Mama and Rafael have forgotten that she has a key.
The monsoon evening light is too bright. She blinks thrice and feels her left eye start to water. She runs an index finger along the slightly dusty table and thinks of the word Fluid. She loves this word. It reminds her of Liquid. The subtle extravagance of Liquid makes her heart quicken, just a little bit. She loves that Fluid brought her here. She takes a deep breath and inhales all the degrees of must that have carefully accumulated in the corners of this room. She adjusts her body to accommodate something, pays attention to her diaphragm, regulates its movement. Fluid. Liquid. Flow. Through the stillness around her, she hears a coucal’s throaty, deliberate call and the sound of water flowing through the pipes. She knows where the leaks are. Even now, she can hear the drip beating a permanent stain into the blue-tiled bathroom floor.
Another deep breath, eyes shut and a door opens in the recesses of her mind. Angelica tries to stop her from entering, but she’s used to getting her way. Fluid. Liquid. Flow. She tries to escape. Water. Plumbing. Blue tiles. She looks at the stain carefully in her mind’s eye. It’s rust-coloured edges form a tepid sun in the middle of her universe. It works. She doesn’t raise her head when she hears Mama’s voice whispering in her left ear: ‘A cup of honey tea will make you feel better. It’s all in your head. Forget about it.’
She thinks about making herself a cup of tea but then remembers the water filter is broken, the cupboards are empty. The kettle’s sheen is out of place here. Lying under the must is the wafer-thin stench of disinfectant. She doesn’t want to imagine who tried to erase the evidence of life in this house. They’d need more than domestic chemicals.
She doesn’t raise her head when rain starts to pitter-patter against the firmly shut kitchen window. Or when she hears a slow drip starting to form somewhere behind her. Or when her need for something hot, strong and sweet deepens.
She notices the chipped orange coffee mug in the shadows near the kettle, and a hollow forms in the pit of her stomach. She gets up, walks over to the window and scans the sky for the gathering deluge. Something further unsettles her spirit. She stares at her reflection in the window and sees Rafael’s fourteen-year-old face, staring back at her, an index finger on his lips.
Jessica Faleiro is a published travel writer, novelist and short story writer with an MA in Creative Writing from Kingston University, UK. Her work has been published in various anthologies, journals and magazines including Asia Literary Review, Forbes, Indian Quarterly, Himal Southasian, and Mascara Literary Review. Her debut novel Afterlife: Ghost stories from Goa (2012) was followed by The Delicate Balance of Little Lives (2018). Her work has been anthologised in The Greatest Goan Stories Ever Told (2022) and 100 Indian stories: A Feast of Remarkable Short Fiction from the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries (2025), both published by Aleph Book Company.
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