Whispered Cries
by Gabriel Peña
Claudia blows out the last bit of smoke, feeling a small burn on her swollen cheek. A loud vibration startles her train of thought. The noise is coming from the coffee table. She digs through the bandages and burnt-out cigarette butts. She finds her cell phone; Claudia flinches as the little bit of light disrupts the encapsulated darkness she has grown accustomed to while curled up on the couch.
“Watching the game with the boys,” Mauricio texted. “Be home late.”
Claudia doesn’t know who her no-good man is trying to fool. They both know that he’s going to be with la otra. Not that she cares at this point. Probably for the best he’s spending the night with his mistress or hooker or whatever hole he’s fucking.
Claudia inhales a chunk of air and lets it out as her cheek burns. She hears her children snoring in the other room. Individually, they are pretty quiet in their sleep, but together they make the sounds of a grown man. Claudia is happy to hear them snore; they almost sound like sleeping cubs. The thought almost makes her crack a smile. Her cheek suddenly burns when the ends of her mouth try to form a smile, reminding her why she was relieved to hear the kids soundly asleep in the first place.
She can still hear their crying echoing in the kitchen when their dad swung his backhand at her face. Her eyes drift to the newspaper on the coffee table. The article reads “City Hall Commends Hero Cop” with a picture of Mauricio being given a medal by the mayor.
Claudia’s skin crawls. Looking at the picture feels like looking right at him. His booming voice coerces into her mind. Claudia closes her eyes, trying to drown out the voices, but they bring her back to that moment in the kitchen.
“So, you think you can take them away from me?!?! Otra vez?!”
Mauricio threw her to the floor. His cop buddies had just dropped off Claudia after they caught her with the kids at the bus station. It’s almost as if they had known she would be trying to make a run for it. “Of course, they knew,” she thought to herself. Mauricio probably asked them to help find her. It wouldn’t be the first time they had helped him cover up his horrible behavior.
“You can’t take them from me, perra!” Mauricio yelled at her.
Claudia tried to pick herself back up, but Mauricio rushed forward to her level and pushed her down. Claudia’s body was shaking uncontrollably, tears streaming down her cheeks. He moved his head in almost like he was going to whisper a secret to her.
“If you ever try to leave me again, I am going to show everyone at your pequeño church group the pictures you sent me.” Claudia’s chest palpitated harder than before. She sent him those pictures when she believed Mauricio still loved her, when she still loved him.
“What will they think of you then? I can always say you sent those pictures to my buddy—”
Claudia didn’t let him finish. She spat on his face. Mauricio wiped the spit from his cheek in disbelief, his skin turning red. He swung his backhand at Claudia’s cheek and raised his fists to strike again.
“Stop, Papi! You’re hurting Mami!” a voice called out. The twins came running in from the other room. Claudia couldn’t tell who had spoken; her hands were covering her burning face. She could barely see the twins grasping tightly at their father’s right leg, pulling it with all their tiny might.
“Sueltame, mocoso!” Mauricio yelled. With full force, he swung his fat arm down at them. The one that caught the arm fell flat on the ground, but the one behind him hit his head on the edge of the chair. He let out a painful cry that still vibrates inside Claudia’s ear. Mauricio’s face changed. He ran to the injured boy, blaming him for getting in the way while the boy was sobbing uncontrollably.
Claudia’s tears force her eyes open, the dark surroundings reminding her that her husband isn’t in the room anymore. At least not tonight. But what about the next night? And the night after that? She can’t endure the pain, the abuse any longer. If she’s going to do this, tonight is the perfect night to do so. The boys are in bed. Her scumbag partner is out and about. Nobody to stop her from suffocating her children.
Claudia knows what she has to do but has always been too paralyzed by fear and love to do it. She thinks about how she is going to do it. Claudia does not want to scare the boys, so she has to think of ways to do this quietly. And she does not want to be so loud that it will attract the neighbors’ attention.
Not like she can sneak in a gun. Mauricio likes to stick his nose where it does not belong. He likes to get involved where the challenging of his machismo is in play, but when it comes to taking any real responsibility, he ignores it, Claudia wishing he’d do the same to her and the niños.
Smothering the children in their sleep, while not the way she wished, was the best idea she’s had. It is better this way, she thinks, than to have the children grow up in this hell. It would be unbearable.
Claudia tells herself that they are better off not living in this life than having to grow up with that monster they call a padre. Claudia had tried to convince herself to give the kids to her mother or to social services, at least. Then she could drown herself in the river. But Mauricio would just find a way to steal the kids back; he has connections to help him do so. Claudia wouldn’t be there to protect them anymore, and they’d be stuck in this life with him.
She has no choice, she has to do it. It may be painful to hear the smothered gasps of her twins, but at least she will hear her niños one last time... That thought is what gives her the strength to push onward to the twins’ room. Claudia feels her bones tense up as the air grows colder. Every hair on the back of her neck is flaring up. Her heart screams at her to turn back and run, forgetting she ever thought of such a dreadful thing. But she will no longer stand by and let this suffering go on any longer.
Claudia doesn’t notice that the kids have stopped snoring. She slowly creaks open the door; chills crawl in her skin as she submerges her body in the dark room. She stops all of a sudden. In the darkness, Claudia’s eyes can make out the shapes of her niños, facing in the opposite direction, but in the middle of the twin beds sits a large figure, slowly caressing her twin’s heads.
Claudia can’t move. She wants to scream for help, to yell at that shadow to get away from her babies. Yet her throat is frozen in place alongside the rest of her body. Every hair on her body is standing up. She can barely feel the slow breaths coming out of her mouth.
Her eyes adjust to the darkness. What she first thought was the cold air of her breath she realizes is the floor enshrouded in a white mist. This third shadow doesn’t need darkness or fog to obscure its face; it has a veil that covers it just fine. The veil is so long that Claudia can barely tell that this figure is wearing a slender dress.
“Mis niños used to sleep just like this.” A feminine whisper quietly echoes in the room, as she takes turns brushing the hair of each child. The movement is gentle, as if the shadow wants to be careful not to wake them. “Snoring quietly as they escape to their dreamland. They looked so peaceful even when their life wasn’t...”
Claudia starts slowly to regain movement in her body. Her lips tremble as the veiled figure’s words slowly crawl through her ear. What is now clearly the shadow of a woman standing up, floating around the bed closest to the door, slowly approaches Claudia.
“It was easy to throw them into the water. It was easy to hold them as their last breath left their tiny bodies. It was easy to spare them this horrible life. But there was no escaping the terrors that came after. I was so sure that we would be happy in the hereafter, but I never saw mis niños again.”
Claudia feels a rush of cold through her body as the veiled figure places her bony hand on her shoulder. Every single bone in Claudia’s body wants to run and yet she can’t.
“You are so ready to escape from the suffering of this life, but you have no idea what will be waiting for you in the next. Ni idea...” The veiled woman’s voice trembles as she almost struggles to say those last words. “Por favor... no hagas lo fácil. It is never easy... for them. And it will never be easy for you afterwards. There is always another way, but it can never be this way. You will cry for eternity, as I do.”
The veiled woman walks past her. Too afraid to turn around, Claudia’s eyes shutter in tears. A sudden gasp comes out of her mouth. She tries to control it, but the sobs overtake her. She sinks to the floor, failing to control her wailing.
The white mist disappears when the phantom leaves. The twins lift their bodies from the bed. Rubbing their eyes, bewildered, one of them ask “¿Mami, que paso?”
The veiled woman phases through the walls and leaves to the wintry air of the night. The streets are empty, with only faint flickers coming out of the streetlights. There is no one around to hear Claudia wailing, no one but the phantom. The veiled woman turns her head, knowing all too well the pain Claudia is going through.
The sobbing brings her back to that horrible day in the water. The consequences of that dreadful day haunt her for eternity. Water leaks out of her veil. The mist clears out as each tiny drop falls, and the mist reforms once the droplet hits the floor. La Llorona looks back at the house and, crying, she whispers, “Ay mis hijos...”
Copyright © 2025 by Gabriel Peña
