Lina Moreno

Seeing her in the car made the women feel safer. You’re more likely to get in the car of a complete stranger if they have a beautiful little girl, with pristine white skin, big blue eyes, and neat blonde curls cascading over her shoulders, strapped in a car seat in the back. Her role in it had started when she was a baby, that was how the prosecutor had presented it; a scheme that had been going on for years. That, Lina couldn’t remember—her as a baby, it was asking her more than most people could give. But they do say that the first memory forms around three or four years old, and yes, one of her first memories was in the back of Dad’s car. She was sitting quietly in the back, catching Dad’s eyes in the rearview mirror and him giving her one of those smiles that people share when there’s a secret to keep. That part of her memory, however, she’d never disclosed. Next to her, a complete stranger, a woman she had never seen before, black hair tied back in a ponytail, green eyes, and freckles over her nose almost as if sprinkled in the same way Mom sprinkled sugar over a batch of fresh cookies. Lina would forever keep in her mind how young and innocent the woman looked; how she’d reached for her hand, held her, and blown raspberries. Next thing she remembered, it was dark, and she was crying in the back of that car, alone. And then, steps getting closer, until she could make Dad’s shape in the dark, shovel in hand, and then the sound of the shovel hitting the trunk before it closed. Dad’s hands were dirty when he rested them over the steering wheel, out of breath, and this time when their eyes met in the rearview mirror, he gave her a half smile and said “That was easy enough, wasn’t it, mamita?”

As she grew up, she was asked to play a more active role in the whole process. By the time she was around seven, her dad would ask her to smile at the girls that would get in the car, play games with them, show them a book, or ask them to help her with homework. Something, whatever, that would keep them distracted long enough for him to take them far enough out of their way that when they realized, it would be too late. Of course, it helped that Lina was such a pretty and obedient child; some would even say she looked like an angel, oblivious to the fact that she was the one in charge of bringing prey to the devil himself.

José María Moreno was charged with thirteen counts of first-degree murder, and a handful more counts of sexual assault. He had been killing young women for close to twenty-six years, well before Lina was even born, between Texas and Louisiana, to the surprise of friends and family. Mom couldn’t take it and she overdosed on pills the same night Dad was arrested. Anti-anxiety medication prescribed to her name, which made people assume she must’ve known. Lina was left alone then, even more alone than she’d already been, more alone than she’d felt for years as Dad walked her out the door and into his car while Mom watched from the kitchen window with a glass of wine in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other; her eyes looking through them, as if into their souls.

“I wake up in cold sweat at times,” Lina said, her eyes fixated on the napkin she had obliterated between her fingers. “I hear their cries, asking me for help. Other times, they curse at me, they tell me I’ll burn in hell. They promise me they’ll find me, that I can’t hide, and that—”

“Lina, Lina,” Dr. Tovar stopped her. “Lina, take a deep breath.”

She didn’t realize that from playing with the napkin she’d gone on to scratch the side of her hand, along her thumb, hard enough that she had drawn blood. All eyes were on her. Great, now she’d have to be pitied by the other weirdos, like Vanessa, whose extreme eating disorder had caused her to chew on her own hair compulsively to the point of being hospitalized to remove balls of hair from her stomach, or Javier, who had rammed a truck into his parents’ house, following orders from alien creatures set on conquering the earth…Those were the people she was surrounded with, all because Dr. Tovar thought it’d be more effective for her treatment plan to have others listen to her pain, and her listen to the pain of others. Relativization she’d called it, but so far Lina couldn’t see any improvement. Actually, it was the opposite: she had never felt this guilty and judged before.

“Is it better?” Dr. Tovar asked, applying pressure on a wet rag she had given Lina.

Lina nodded without saying a word.

“Lisa—“ Yeliz started. She was one of the most reserved, only opening her mouth when it was most needed.

“Lina.” Dr. Tovar corrected.

“Yes, Lina,” she continued, “You have to stop blaming yourself. You were nothing but a kid. You said it yourself, this had been going on even before you were born. Why would you keep blaming yourself like that? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Yeah, instead she should blame that mom of hers. She’s the one who married a serial killer after all.” That was Reuben, a man who had an opinion on everything. “She had to know. How can you live all those years with a psychopath and not know?”

“She was drugged most of the time,” Lina said, pressing on the wound so that the burning of her skin would keep her tears at bay. “She had terrible anxiety attacks.”

Reuben rolled his eyes, and Lina knew exactly what he meant by that.

“My mom thought my dad was raping me and she needed meds to cope,” it was her first time sharing that theory out loud, and she hadn’t expected it would be there, in front of everybody.

“Did she actually tell you that?” Vanessa said, wrapping a strand of her hair around her finger.

“Not like that, no, but it was obvious. The way she’d look at us every time we were leaving…there was something helpless in her eyes, almost regretful.”

“C’mon,” Reuben doubled down. “It was guilt because she knew he was on his way to finding his next prey.”

That word. She hated it.

“She didn’t know!” Lina snapped. “She couldn’t have known! If she had, she would’ve done something.”

“Something like what?” That was Ivonne, one of the quiet ones. “Then if she thought your dad was raping you, why didn’t she do anything for you?”

“Because she didn’t love me,” Lina said, with a conviction that scared her. “But I’m sure that if she suspected someone else was getting hurt, she would’ve done something about it.”

“How can you say that she didn’t love you?” Vanessa said, the string of her hair now dangerously close to her mouth.

“Because she didn’t. She never did. I think she only had me because Dad wanted a child. But other than that, I don’t know, I just never felt it. Not to talk about her Grand Exit.”

The puzzled faces in front of her reminded Lina that she had never used that term with anyone else before.

“By Grand Exit she means her mother’s suicide,” Dr. Tovar said with a certainty that made Lina uncomfortable.

“What does her suicide have to do with anything?” Reuben asked, somewhat irritated. “How does that prove that she didn’t love you?”

“Because if she had, she would’ve killed me first.”