April Vazquez Archives | The ManifestStation

Letters to a Lost Child

March 26, 2019

By April Vázquez

June 23^rd

Dear New Baby,

I’m writing this within days of your conception, if it’s worked. We had talked about trying for another child next year, I’d thought in January or so, but something just came over me. It’s exactly like when we tried for Dani: we had a plan (to wait until Daisy was a year old, in July), but I felt something indescribable, in February of all months, and just knew it was time. And it was. Dani came along the first time we tried. Then this month it happened that way again; if anything, I’d been slightly nervous about having THREE little ones. But then boom, I just knew. And I was able to convince your daddy, I suppose because it all worked out so beautifully last time, with healthy little Dani. You’ll come in the spring, March if it worked on the first try. And if not, well, then later, in April or May…

I put my Virgin Mary necklace on again, the one I wore through my previous pregnancies, and I’m going to do a test around July 10^th, the day of Daisy’s birthday party. You’ll be Scarlett Fiona or Saul Francisco, and I think I’ll call you Cisco if you’re a boy. Cisco Houston is one of my heroes. Continue Reading…

Guest Posts, Family, Home

I’m Not from Here

October 23, 2016

By April Vazquez

I can’t tell if my husband’s unmarried cousins are lesbians. Three or four of them put pictures of themselves on Facebook with other girls, faces pressed together, with posts about their undying love. But in this country, where women friends hold hands in public and dance together at parties, I’m not sure what it means.

I’m the only one angry that the house is in a state of perpetual dust and chaos because the builder, Raúl, doesn’t work on Mondays… or other days, sporadically and without notice.

I can’t understand why to get residency here I’m required to provide a letter from the Consulate verifying my citizenship when, at this very moment, the Immigration official making the request is holding my United States passport in his hands.

I can’t make out why my two-year-old’s shoe was stolen within five minutes of falling out of the stroller outside the the park. I know the shoe was stolen because when I went back for it, the lady who sells food there told me she saw another woman pick it up, but what I don’t understand is why, what she thought she could do with it. Or is the impulse not to let anything–anything–go to waste so strong that it extends even to one tiny shoe? Continue Reading…