{"id":3029,"date":"2018-09-18T12:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=3029"},"modified":"2018-09-18T12:00:56","modified_gmt":"2018-09-18T12:00:56","slug":"orchidaceae","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/orchidaceae\/","title":{"rendered":"Orchidaceae"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2014Orchidaceae<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was the way he tended to the orchids that let me know papi still held love inside him. The way he gently held thin branches between thumb and index finger, the way he cusped newly bloomed flowers in the palm of his hand, how he clipped slowly and with care, the fear of irreparable damage plain in his eyes. It\u2019s the only thing he did with care anymore. Nothing else in life seemed to be permanent or irreparable.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

II\u2014Bulbophyllum<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I tried not to let myself cry in front of him, a difficult task for one as young as I was. Children crave company when in misery. Wanting an audience while you cry seems to be something we just eventually outgrow. \u00a0The few times I couldn\u2019t help crying in his presence, his face went sharp, all lines and angles, and he said the same thing, \u201cA llorar pa\u2019l cuarto,\u201d Go<\/em> cry in your room<\/em>. This must have been the seed which turned into the weeds that still hold me in solitude whenever I\u2019m feeling blue.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

At least the man practiced what he preached. There was a night during those days right after it happened in which I stumbled out of bed, my small bladder tight and bursting, only to hear muffled whimpers and moans coming from his room. What a sad, terrible sound that was.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

III\u2014Epidendrum<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Papi\u2019s garden was all colors, bright and blinding; all scents, flamboyant and proud; all life, all hope. Papi\u2019s garden was everything he was not.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

IV\u2014Dendrobium<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The house on my walk to school. The<\/em> house, as papi and I referred to it. As if the \u201cthe\u201d had some kind of accent mark. Th\u00e9<\/em> house with the garden, with the Rotchschild’s orchids and the Saffron crocus. Papi always believed they had a Shenzhen Nongke orchid hidden in there somewhere, a plant so expensive he assured me multiple times was worth more than our house. He could not afford any of the plants in that garden because keeping me around wasn\u2019t cheap. He looked at those flowers with longing. I looked at them with disdain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

V\u2014Terrestrial Pulmonate Gastropod Molluscs<\/em> or Papi\u2019s Tiny Nemesis<\/strong><\/p>\n

It frightened me how easily he stepped on snails, how hard he stomped on them, how he swiveled on his heel from side to side, an act of dominance\u2014unnecessary and cruel, seeing that you could crush a snail with the palm of your hand. Once, I suggested moving the snails, collecting and transferring them somewhere else, and in an attempt to sound cunning\u2014hard, maybe\u2014I even suggested transferring them to our neighbor\u2019s backyard. Papi didn\u2019t like our neighbor, he said the neighbor hugged his kids too much, that he was a little too nice, if you know what I mean<\/em>. I never knew what he meant, but I would always nod silently, trying to imagine what it would feel like to be hugged too much<\/em>. Surprisingly, he agreed to my plan, he said, \u201cVamos, trat\u00e9moslo,\u201d Let\u2019s try it out.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was the hardest I\u2019d ever worked in the garden. I wanted to collect and save as many snails as I could and as quickly as possible. I feared papi would change his mind. I plucked snails like grapes from the vine, one by one, delicately and efficiently. After about an hour or two my hands were caked in mud, my face brown\u2014browner than usual\u2014with dirt. I was proud of the haul. I felt like a hero.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are an adult, as I am now, you can see where this is all going, you\u2014same as I\u2014have experienced enough, seen enough in life to know that people don\u2019t change just like that, that parents are sometimes harder than they need to be, even when they believe they mean well, when they believe they are teaching lessons.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I cried myself to sleep that night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VI\u2014Pleurothallis<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Some days I wished I was a snail, able to disappear within myself at any moment. Papi would have hated knowing that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

VII\u2014An orchid with no light will grow, but not bloom.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe it was the snail thing, how I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about how easily they cracked and popped beneath my feet, how the sound lingered in my head like a song of death. Maybe it was the fact that mom and I used to pick out snails from that very garden and race them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I pulled those orchids from the ground like they were bad weeds. I pulled hard, with determination. Some of them I pulled using both hands, the way I had to pull on the lawnmower\u2019s chord to get it started. I ruined the orchids, but only the orchids, because we both knew those were the ones my mother loved the most.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I was done I ran straight to my room. I got in bed as I was, covered in dirt and mud, covered in sweat and an overwhelming pain my young body had never felt before. A llorar pa\u2019l cuarto.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Papi still held love inside him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3030,"template":"","categories":[9,48,49],"tags":[6,267,797,37,798,799,800],"class_list":["post-3029","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-fiction","category-literary-features","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-fathers-and-sons","tag-gardening","tag-hispanic-heritage-month","tag-joseph-santaella-vidal","tag-orchidaceae","tag-snails"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nOrchidaceae - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/orchidaceae\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Orchidaceae - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Papi still held love inside him.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/orchidaceae\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2018\/09\/Santaella-Vidal-Joseph-pic-H.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"671\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"436\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/orchidaceae\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/orchidaceae\/\",\"name\":\"Orchidaceae - 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