The Haunting with a Capital H

Thanksgiving marked the beginning of the Haunting, with a capital H, we called it afterward. When Auntie Ruby declared she wanted to break with tradition, we should have known she had multiple alternatives. Some had been years in the making, we discovered afterward. But a couple of the very unexpected ones probably had surprised her as much as us. With Auntie Ru, we never knew.

All our holidays included Auntie Ru. She might’ve been seventy-something, but her mind functioned somewhere around thirty-something. Over the past three decades living across the street from us, she’d established herself as a colorful member of the community, albeit a sort of tarnished one because of her reputation. Because we lived so close, by unspoken agreement my mom, dad, and I had kept an eye on her since her last husband had passed.

She’d been a child when television took over radio as family entertainment, and she promptly fell into star worship over the actresses of the ’50s and ’60s, Marylin Monroe, in particular. By the time she turned fifteen, the stories went, in honor of Norma Jean, she insisted everyone call her Ruby Jo. She even stopped responding to anyone who used her given name, Rubelda Josephina.

Then came the ’70s, and Auntie Ru embraced the era, turning into a wild child, a free spirit who ran off in her early twenties to ‘see the world.’ Her words, according to my mother. Not much is known about what she did, though postcards came to the family from various states and a few countries over the years before she returned in the early ’90s. She’d already become a widow, a wealthy one, apparently. No longer in search of the freedom and peace of the flower children, she’d embraced the lifestyle of the nouveau riche. A taxi delivered her to our house as the family gathered at the front windows while several stood in the doorway, wondering who the unexpected visitor could be.

A woman emerged, extending her hand to the driver as she exited. She stood on heels high enough to make her five inches taller. A sequined mini dress the color of emeralds shimmered with her every move. Attracting even more attention, her platinum hair coiffed into a Farrah Fawcett feathered cut brought forth more than one gasp or exclamation.

“Es la Ruby,” someone cried as the primos rushed to retrieve her luggage while others took her  by the arms and led her to the house like a celebrity.

“More like prodigal daughter,” my dad had grumbled when I first heard this cuento from my mom. Her grand entrance elicited jaw drops and blinking eyes as the family took in the sight of her. 

“Regal with a touch of disco comes to mind,” my mom mused as she dug up old photos to show me. I agreed. Auntie Ru could very well have been a Hollywood star with her looks. “Every man for miles around called on her when news spread that she’d come home,” my mom said, adding, “and she loved the attention. But sometimes I’d see this look in her eye like she was about to burst into tears, and I knew she carried something heavy inside. She never spoke of it, and I didn’t ask. She never stayed long; she left town again, usually with a new conquest.”

Every few years, the familia welcomed Auntie Ruby home bearing the  surname of another husband who died before his time and left her a widow wealthier than ever before. I found it odd that not one of us met any of her esposos and only heard about them after they’d passed. Over time, her auburn hair dimmed with white strands, replaced in later visits by wigs of various colors—all bright and shiny. Her face bore more wrinkles she couldn’t stop age from forming visible through caked foundation. And she applied rouge so liberally on her cheekbones they looked like red circles on either side of her nose. None of the women could give her makeup advice, though many tried. Claiming it was her signature look, Auntie Ru refused to go with a more subdued application even when the tías thrust women’s magazines at her and showed her how the natural look was in these days.

In any case, the final count of spouses, I think, was sixwith zero children that we knew of, before she came back for good and settled in the house her mother left her. Don’t get me wrong: she was a delight we were privileged to watch over in her años de oro. But there were times when we wondered just how many of those so-called golden years she would reach given her careless lifestyle. She dated often, sometimes not coming home for days. She held her liquor with the best of them and loved to dance until she dropped. She loved when men compared her to Tina Turner.

To the elders’ chagrin and a kind of strange pride in us younger primos at her oblivious, don’t-give-a-damn attitude, some avoided going with her to any public function while us grand nieces and nephews got a kick out of her and often said yes to watch the shows she put on just by being herself. We knew she was the talk of the town for all the wrong reasons, but if anyone dared say anything disparaging about her in front of us, she had an army of defenders, despite that she dressed like la Turner. From the back and at a distance, Auntie Ru looked like a pretty fit 40-year-old, minus the rump. From the front, she looked closer to her age.

I remembered when after turning sixty she announced she was getting a boob and a butt job.. The family divided on that one. The men egged her on while the women called her loca and pointed out every danger of these procedures at her age. Doctors finally dissuaded her when none of us could. She discovered foam inserts for bras and girdles shortly after and reinvented herself in the image her mind supplied of what voluptuous vixen should be.

“More like senile senior citizen,” my father muttered the first time she came over with her new body. She strutted like a runway model from one room to the other to make sure we noticed, so of course, we could do nothing but voice our approval with whistles and gushing compliments. Not one of us would ever hurt her feelings. By this time, I had seen the look on Auntie Ru’s face my mom had told me about. I think all of us had. None of us wanted to cause her pain. Behind her back, however, some shared their opinions whether we wanted to hear them or not. “Stuck in the ’70s,” they said—in both fashion and mentality. But she owned it, as they say these days. The Auntie Ru everyone knew nurtured her devil-may-care attitude, but those moments when she quieted and turned introspective made us wish she’d confide in one of us at least. What kept her in that time period?

“Why do you let Tía Ru dress in miniskirts,” Prima Anne asked us out of the blue once with a tsking of her tongue and exasperated head shaking after auntie had discovered inserts. Prima had come by to go over the menu for our annual Thanksgiving gathering and had spotted Auntie Ru leaving her house going goodness-knew-where. “Either she’s gonna poke someone in the eye with those cones covering her che-ches or one of those damn fake nalgas is going to fall out of her panties somewhere public, I just know it.”

I covered a loud “ha” with an “achoo” and turned my back to them to tear a piece of paper towel from its holder and pretended to blow my nose.

“Let? Let?” my mom had retorted, throwing her wet estropajo into the dishwater and wringing it viciously. I know my mother, so I pressed the paper to my mouth to stifle another laugh because I absolutely knew she visualized doing the same to her cousin’s neck. “When, may I ask, have you or any one of us stopped that woman from doing anything?” Before prima could speak, mama shut her down cold. “Besides, who are you to criticize her?”

I slunk out and then ran into my room to stifle some pretty loud guffaws into my pillow. I left Prima Anne, in her 50s and maybe 50pounds overweight, slouched at the counter, sipping from a glass of homemade wine and shoving popcorn into her mouth in the middle of the day. Wearing skin-tight, skin-colored leggings and her too-short T that left her body exposed almost as effectively as if she were nude from the waist down, she’d narrowed her eyes at my mother before I made my escape. Loud voices on the other side of the door kept me in bed, headphones blasting until my mom knocked that all was clear.

Auntie Ru came over Thanksgiving Eve. Sporting a tight, thigh-high skirt, knee-high boots, low-cut blouse, and fringed faux leather vest, she saw herself in the hall mirror and did some adjusting. She then stood in the center of the living room. I almost laughed aloud when she turned to face my parents on the couch, and I saw her from the side. Her top half stuck out in front as much as it did in the back below the waist, and I remembered catching my younger cousins once with balloons in their shirts and shorts, imagining how they’d look once they blossomed. I wondered if maybe Auntie Ru had exchanged the foam for inflatables. I fought the urge to take a straight pin and poke those globes just to see if they’d pop or deflate. I’d dug my nails into my palms, hoping pain would replace my sudden to-hell-with-it impulse and give in to the laughter.

But she’s the one who burst into my thoughts and shocked us all when she announced she had plans for Thanksgiving elsewhere.

“Whattaya mean, you’re not having dinner with us. It’s tradition,” my father’d grumbled.

I don’t remember a time when she didn’t spend every holiday with us. I don’t remember her ever asking to be included. Or my parents inviting. That’s the way it was with Auntie Ru.

But we all thanked the heavens she could still live alone. I loved her independence and didn’t look forward to the day she couldn’t do as she pleased anymore. Eavesdropping revealed some of the family wanted to start saving for her hospice while others voted for a nursing home when the time came. Auntie and I’d busted them scheming once together. “I plan to find my own way to depart on my terms,” she told me when we stormed off. I half hoped the family would be more than inconvenienced when her time came. Instead of inheriting her wealth, I rooted for all of us being cut out of her will or whatever. It would serve the buzzards right.

So, when she replied that “there comes a time when tradition must take a back seat to personal happiness,”

I yelled a “right on, sista” that turned my dad’s frown from her to me.

“I have somewhere else to be mañana,” she declared and said no more.

“At least tell us where and who with,” my mother asked, “so we don’t worry.”

Milking her mystery for all it was worth, Auntie Ru sidled to the door. “No hay cuidado,” she said. “I’ll be in good company. I only came by to see what you think of my outfit.” She twirled in a slow circle, almost lost her balance on her high heels, and beamed at us.

“Nice,” I replied, “But maybe botas con shorter tacones?”

“And a looser, longer dress,” my dad whispered from behind the newspaper he’d picked up shortly after Auntie Ru’s entrance. I heard him wince and knew my mom had done something to his side.

“And don’t go start texting me. I’ll set the phone to silent,” she threatened over her shoulder before shutting the door behind her.

Dad shot daggers at me, and mom wagged her finger my way, “Ay, I told you you should’ve gotten her one of those flip phones for seniors. You created a monster, Olivia.” I don’t think they cared much that I went to bed humming the tune to Monster Mash.

Shortly before ten Thanksgiving morning, I gathered what I needed to make sopapillas and was kneading the masa while my mom stirred the roux for red chile. The purr of a vehicle came close, and we rushed to the window, nearly cracking our heads together to see.

“Damn,” I breathed. My mom elbowed me, but I could tell she was equally impressed. Her eyes practically fell out they were so wide.

A sleek black limousine trimmed in gold. Gold rims, gold door handles. It turned into Auntie Ru’s driveway and stopped at her front door. Part of her house obstructed our view, but soon enough, we heard the engine’s idling grow into a deep purr again. As the car reversed and took off, we saw Auntie Ru in profile, head high, más proud in the passenger seat. She flashed the peace sign our way before the tinted window rose. Hands covered in dough, I didn’t think to clean off and grab my phone to take a picture. They left too fast, anyway.

Mom choked on her own gasp before asking, “Is anyone else getting Tales from the Chicano Crypt vibes?”

“Don’t go there,” my father said, having come up behind us. He grabbed a handful of pecans from the measuring cup I’d readied for a pie and went back to the sofa and the pre-game programming on TV while we cooked.

My mother and her sisters hosted Thanksgiving dinners by planned rotation; this was our year. Around eleven, they and their families arrived, piling out of vehicles, every primo but the youngest carrying a dish through the back door leading to the kitchen. The kids greeted us with handshakes and abrazos as they’d been taughtand rushed back outside to play though the temperature dictated they’d be better off inside. I had cleaned my hands to tell everyone hello and to grab the adults’ coats, hats, and gloves, piling them on my parents’ bed before returning to the cocina. Tía Amelia had taken over my tasks, so I went to the window and watched the kids throwing snowballs. Memories of freezing fingers and toes and cheeks red from the cold, even redder from direct hits, made me shiver, and I hugged myself over my heavy sweater. No matter how brisk the winter winds blew, I knew the primitos felt none of it while they ran and jumped and rolled in the snow living their best young lives at that moment.

Then I thought of Auntie Ru in that funereal limo, realizing she was doing the same, no matter she was ancient. No matter the car had mortuary auction written all over it. Tuning into the conversations around me, I smiled when she became the hot topic.

“You’re kidding,” Tía Virgina shook her head while mixing up her famous Sangria in grandma’s huge punch bowl. “And you guys, what? Just let her leave with a stranger?”

“And I suppose you would’ve restrained her?” Mama laughed. “You know how tía gets when her mind’s made up.”

“But not a single one of you ran out to ask who this person was? Was it a man? Of course it was a man,” she answered herself before returning to her interrogation. “And where’d she meet Señor Estrangero anyway?”

None of us had seen the driver, nor did we know where she’d met the person. She was an adult, after all, and as far as we could tell, still in her right mind most of the time. With questions that didn’t have answers any of us knew, speculations grew worse with so many in the family hooked on true crime shows. The elders, none knowing the full story of Ruby’s past, talked about nothing else the whole meal.

“You guys know she’s on the hunt for husband numero siete?” Prima Amelia asked with a matter-of-fact confidence only mitoteros can pull off when they end up believing the gossip they tell.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” my mom scolded. “You say that to her face when she comes back.”

“I’d pay to watch that,” my nephew still in high school declared and then before our eyes shriveled into his chair tomato red when he realized he’d said it out loud—loud and clear.

His dad threw him that look only parents can master, reprimand delivered with a raised brow and a scowl. Unable to bear the table of accusatory or amused faces, he squirmed until someone started theorizing again. The plática went on until and through the clean-up and after dinner drinks. Late afternoon passed with us all lying about more stuffed than the turkey had been.

Departures started an hour before dusk since some familia lived miles away, but between new conversations starting while everyone gathered leftovers and bundled up the youngest kids, another 45 minutes passed. Finally, bidding adiós with abrazos and buenas noches all around, familia left in a caravan of red taillights as we waved from the portal. Thankful for another Thanksgiving, my parents and I answered the call of our beds.

The folks must’ve slept like the dead. I, on the other hand, woke with a start when a bright illumination hit me right in the eyelids. My first thought was “fire,” and I leapt up and ran to my window where lights shone somewhere in the front of Tía Ru’s house. Those high beams from the limo made it seem as though dawn had broken. Oh, good, I thought, auntie’s home. And then I went back to bed, able to sleep more deeply without worrying where she was.

In the morning, loud voices at the front of the house woke me, and as I reached the doorway to the living room, I heard my Tío Solomon.

“She’s not there,” he said with a kind of desperation in his voice. “Prima Ruby no está en casa.”

“Relax,” my father told him. “Remember she didn’t come home on her birthday and stayed gone for two days?”

“Yeah, but that time she texted and let a few of us know she’d gone to ’Burque with a friend. No one’s heard from her this time.”

“She’s gotta be home,” I interrupted. “I heard the limo and saw the lights in the middle of the night when she got back.”

“Pero, no,” my tío shook his head, his expression perplexed.

“Pero que si,” I replied as I poured my first cup of coffee. “I know what I saw. Heck, I even got up…”

“Vamos a ver,” my dad interrupted, ushering his big brother back out the kitchen door even as tío grumbled how could this be?

I went to shower and dress. The front door slammed. “Olivia,” my dad yelled while I brushed my teeth. “When did you say you saw those lights?” His voice came closer as his steps brought him to my bathroom door. I spat into the sink and spoke from behind a washcloth. My tío peered over my dad’s shoulder. The estropajo swallowed my gasp of relief that I still wore PJs.

“I didn’t check, but I figured it was late or very early in the morning,” I answered. He strode back to the living room, tío and I following.

“No está,” he told my mother who’d been washing dishes. “Her purse and that fluffy jacket she wears aren’t there, so I don’t think she got home last night at all.”

“Well, then why did I hear that car?”

“You only heard it once before,” tío reasoned.

“I saw it.”

“How do you know it was the same one?” Dad countered. “How many of those can there be? And in auntie’s driveway, hmmm?” I turned and went back to the bathroom, locking the door behind me. No matter how certain I was, no one else saw or heard it but me. Someone would always doubt me. I remembered then to check my “findfamily” app and frowned. She must’ve turned it off on her end.

All our texts went unanswered, and we filled her voicemail fast. The family decided to wait a day before reporting her missing. In the meantime, every uncle, aunt, and primo cruised the town and surrounding countryside with a vigilant eye for that blasted limousine or any sighting of Tía Ru.

The Haunting made its way into our lives that day.

The family filed a police report. All the tíos and tías trooped down to the station and demanded an APB for the mysterious limousine. Of course, procedure dictated a waiting period for a missing person report. Everyone knew Auntie Ru, knew her lifestyle and her occasional disappearances, but they promised to file a Silver Alert after 24 hours and issued an order to patrols to keep their eyes peeled for the car in the meantime.

That’s when strange things started. The first surprise came when a drone found the limo. Stranger still, covered with tumble weeds and trash, it had lain at the bottom of a deep ravine about 30 miles southeast of town for a long time. Rust covered the once sleek, now crumpled paint job. But there was no driver, no remains anywhere when authorities were lowered to the bottom for a closer inspection.

The morning news reported the vehicle had disappeared along with the owner decades earlier. The paper reprinted an old article dated November 30, 1971. Cesar Jesus Montecristo had vanished on Thanksgiving night after having dinner with a young woman whose identity was never known. The search between his home and town resulted in nothing, not even a sighting. The limo would’ve stood out prominently no matter where it turned up. But it never had. And neither did Señor Montecristo. Beside his grainy black and white photograph was a rudimentary sketch of the woman’s face. It was hard to say in fact it was Auntie Ru, but the restaurant staff had described her as a bit brash, risqué in both manner and dress.

I turned the paper over to my parents. Left it to them to tell the rest of the family how and whenever they wished. I had already gotten enough flack from having seen the car return to Auntie Ru’s without returning Auntie Ru.

I purposely skipped the family meeting. Familia was easier to deal with one at a time when I could see into their eyes whether they believed me or were ready to commit me to the asilo like they’d been prepared to send Ruby to the nursing home. I avoided by staying in my room those who would bring negativity to my day. Nor did I have to respond to texts or calls either. What did they want me to say I hadn’t said already? I had the same questions about the car and the driver and any connection to Auntie Ru.

So, when the next strange thing happened before Christmas, I almost kept it to myself. Glancing over to her house as I said my prayers, I saw the lights go on one at a time in auntie’s three rooms. Before I could grab my phone or yell for my folks, the luces flickered a bit like fireflies, no pattern to them, and vanished. I shared what I’d seen only with my parents. I had no desire to hear more scoffing from the family.

The bravest of the tíos y primos (and/or the most skeptical to prove me wrong) took turns watching Auntie Ru’s house from vehicles the following night and saw for themselves I hadn’t lied. All of us agreed it was the damnedest thing. The family called in reinforcements—curanderos, priests, mediums—but the three wise men’s efforts were futile. Something haunted that house. The Haunting haunted us openly. There could be no doubt someone played tricks on us, but it wasn’t any of us. No one wanted to move into her house, so there it sat like a squat sapo across the street.

The most terrified relatives refused to come to our house again since we were too close for their comfort. But they circled like the buzzards they were, determined not to tell outsiders about the Haunting so they could put the house and property up for sale. Too late though, primos y primas, compadres y concuñas, y todos had already told everyone. No realtor would touch the project; no one wanted to enter the casa. But I did. I went through everything in search of anything. I came home with a box I’d found in the back of auntie’s closet. Among photo albums, prayer cards from the many funerals she’d attended in her lifetime, and more personal possessions, I found her diary. It enabled me to piece some information together about her past while leaving more questions I didn’t think would ever be answered if she didn’t come home. Because of what auntie had revealed, I rooted for her wherever she was. The Haunting had worked as she’d planned. No one would buy the house. No one would inherit any wealth from her. “Teach los zopilotes right,” she’d written.

After I’d read the little book from cover to cover, I handed it to my mom. A photograph fell out of the journal when she opened it, just as it had when I’d done the same. It landed upside down, so she read the message there first while I reread it again. Auntie Ru had written, “My one true love. I will never stop waiting for you to come back to me.” It was dated 1971. She flipped it over. That sleek, black limousine my parents and I had seen with our own ojos stood out against a gorgeous red sunset. Light from where the photo was taken illuminated the car and the tall, burly man who posed against it. Handsome devil, I thought. I flipped a few pages and found the same newspaper article I’d read online. But this one had yellowed with age and faded in the creases over the years and the number of times Auntie Ru must have read it.

“So, Auntie Ru was the mystery woman,” I said. “He must’ve been her first love.”

“No wonder she seemed stuck in the ’70s. She left her heart back there, and though she tried to find love again, marrying every man who asked, I don’t think she ever cared for them the same,” my mom mused.

“Then he vanished,” I added, “He had some sort of accident that Thanksgiving night or took off later.”

“Could they have had a lover’s quarrel?”

“Aww, I hope not. But she looked so damn sad sometimes. She was good at wearing a mask of the ditzy, happy-go-lucky great aunt. My heart ached when I saw that expression.”

My mom squeezed my arm and then picked up her phone. “We have to tell the others. Ruby’s the one doing the haunting.”

“Yeah. But you realize why, right? So the buzzards will eat sh—”

“Including us, but what the hell. Knowing she’s still messing with all of us isn’t as scary as I thought it would be. She may not be a friendly ghost or a malevolent spirit, but she’s Auntie Ruby. And she’s getting her way all the way to the end of whatever’s coming.”

The chill down my back should’ve warned me we wouldn’t be prepared. Not even close.

During the second family meeting at our house, I listened to the barrage of questions pelting my parents and avoided those aimed at me until I had enough. I went to my room, locked the door, and plugged myself into my favorite music until I fell asleep.

After we shared our discovery about Auntie Ru’s past, the family got the idea that maybe someone would make an offer on the property without the house. The razing would begin right after Christmas.

“Someone should go inside and see if there’s anything of value first,” a tío suggested.

“We have,” I told them. Mom and I had gone into the house once more after I had that first time but found nothing of value. Unless she had a secret cache somewhere, the casa held nothing anyone wanted. But every family has buzzards, and they made themselves known, hovering, and landing when the carcass cooled. And though no body had been found to date, most of them assumed she’d met her end sometime after the fateful night of her disappearance. Coincidence, that’s all it was, the family said. Her lover had vanished on or around the same holiday, so what?

But getting rid of the house proved difficult. The city had to issue a permit and since a designated time had to pass before they could provide one, several years passed. And the infamous lights continued to flash in the house from time to time at random. The scavengers showed themselves more openly as their appetites for the leavings made them more aggressive. A few hired a lawyer and eventually lost more than they hoped to gain.

One cusco in particular got downright nasty one day close to the planned demolition, and I knew I shouldn’t have, but I found satisfaction at his comeuppance.

“You’re messing with us, prima,” my cousin Raul told me, dead serious. “I’ll bet you’re the one who goes over and turns on the lights. You want that house for yourself, don’t you? You always were Auntie Ruby’s favorita, la consentida.”

We’d grown up together, more like siblings. So it hurt that his hunger for money made him so hateful.

“All that BS about a Haunting with a capital H—you just don’t want any of us going inside for a keepsake or two. That’s why you set up those luces. Prolly on a timer. I’m gonna go look for myself.” He stalked off and almost broke the screen door on his way out.

“You go do that,” I shouted at his back.

Not long after, the squeal of his tires spinning in his haste to pull out of her driveway sent us running to the front window. He never spoke of what happened in Auntie Ru’s casa, but he never came back to our house. I saw him in church that Sunday; his hair had grown completely white. He’d just turned twenty-four.

The Haunting had turned from amusing to scary, so the family finally hired a friend to

tear the house down. In the end, the buzzards took nothing. Auntie Ru left nothing but her prized mementos of no value to anyone else and a house no one wanted. Just as she’d planned. Mom and I had read her wishes in the last pages of her diary where she’d left a letter to me:

“Dear Olivia,” she’d written. “Over the past weeks, I’ve known my end is near. I’ve chosen to leave this world for the next my own way. Don’t grieve for me, hita. I’ve found my Prince Charming, my one true love, again. He’s come back for me, and I’m going willingly.” She’d added a PS that I’m sure gave her a hoot just as it did for us when we read, “I’ll make sure to haunt my place as best I can, so los golosos won’t get a penny. I’m sorry that means you won’t either, but you got the best of me anyway. You got my amistad like no one else in the family deserved for loving me for me. I trust you to return my engagement ring to my finger and make sure I’m buried with it when the time comes. I knew your primo Rudy had his eye on it, or I would never have taken it off. I don’t doubt he’d have ripped my finger off my corpse for it. He ripped my house apart looking for it.” Sure enough, we found the ring sealed in a small envelope at the very bottom of the box.

“Hers is the saddest love story ever,” my mother said, reaching for the ruby set in a circle of diamonds. “She always wore this, remember?”

“She never wore others either, not one of her many wedding rings.”

“I hope we find her one day,” I told her. “I really want her to have this back.”

#

We found her during the razing. Mummified in a root cellar which had been sealed since God only knew when. No coroner—there had been several due to the mystery—found answers to any questions, not even cause of death. Stranger still was that a broad-shouldered male skeleton had been foundbeneath her, his arms wrapped around her form. No realtor wanted to touch the property after that. The lot stands empty to this day.