Guilt

The little Spanish girl with wavy black hair and round buttocks started to tell me about her aunt that died last summer. I listened to her,sort of, but my mind wandered to things I had to get done, and bills that had to be paid, and to what to do about dinner.
"The thing about my aunt," said the Spanish girl, "is that before she got sick, she was very beautiful. I remember watching her swim at the city pool in the summer months, all those laps back and forth with her long legs. All the men watched her. This one old man would come there to the pool every morning when we were there. He'd sit in his chair and roll tobacco, I think it was tobacco, into cigarette paper and lick it to get it to stick. He did this while he watched my aunt swim." 
I looked at the girl and smiled. I started to clean the room. I straightened the chairs and desks. She was quiet and must have realized that I only half listened. 
"Can I tell you something that I haven't told anyone before?" she asked me while she followed me around the room.
"What's that? oh, sure, go ahead. I'm listening to you, I just need to clean up a little, but I'm listening go a head." I said. I picked up a literature book and piled it on top of the other books by the window.
"You see, that story that you read to us in class reminded me of something. I never told anyone this, but when my aunt got ill and she was in the bed all day and sick, my cousins and I used to go and visit her, and she used to l want us to stay with her and tell her about the boys we had met, and about going to the beach and dances. Anything really. And in just a few months her beauty was gone. Her swimmers legs that the men had liked so much were nothing but bones; the disease had had its way with her. Maybe she got sick from all that swimming in the public pool or something. I don't know, but she got real sick real fast"
I sat back at my desk and started to pack my bag with books and note books.
"Have you ever had anyone close to you get sick like that?" she said
"What?" I said 
"You know like really ill, sick, cancer or something?"
I saw her now, sitting there in front of me, holding her black winter coat with the fake fur collar, and I realized what she had just asked me.
"yes," I said. " a long time ago."
She smiled. "Then, you kind of know what I am talking about" she said
"So, what I'm trying to tell you, is that that story you read today about the little poor girl in the projects, that was real close to what had happened to me. You see, my aunt was real ill, in bed, and my mother made us go and sit with her and talk to her. And it got so that we didn't want to go, because, well you see, the room smelled. It smelled like pee and poo. I guess it smelled like sickness." She patted the fake fur collar as she talked to me.
"My cousins and I used to try to avoid sitting in there with her. When we were finally able to leave we would...we would make fun of my aunt. Can you imagine that?" Her hand stopped patting the fur and just gripped it now.
"My cousins and me we would imitate her voice and mock her. The sickness had done something to the poor woman's voice and made it nasally and high, and my cousins and I would leave her bedroom and start talking high pitched like her. Then we would laugh and hold our noses to mock the smell." She looked up at me and her eyes glistened.
"You see, I guess I never really thought about it till today, when you read that story to us about that little ghetto girl, and it all kind of hit home to me." She looked away now. " How awful I was to my aunt. If only I could go back to that room, and bring some flowers to her. I'd hold her hand. I would tell her all the stories about the beach and boys that she would want."
We were quiet. I tried to think of something to say.
" I wonder, you know some times, if the dead can hear us, if they can see us, you know?" I don't mean like that movie with the boy who can see the ghosts, but maybe like, like late at night, when I'm in bed and talking lower and praying and thinking of my aunt...I wonder if she can hear me if she can ever know how sorry I am."
She started to pat the collar again.
"I'm sorry for being so melodramatic and sappy. You must think that I am just a silly little teenager."
"Of course you are." I said, and winked at her. She smiled.
"So," she said "If you don't mind me asking, who was it ?"
"Who was what?" I said
"You said that someone close to you had got ill and died like my aunt. I was just wondering who that was. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"No, no, that's OK, if you really want to know, it was my Father."
"Was he sick for a long time?"
"For about a year, and then he died much like the way your aunt had."
"I'm sorry," She said
"That's alright, it was quite some time ago now"
"How long ago?"
I closed my eyes and concentrated. "It was February 5th, 1990." I said " I remember, it was really cold and there was a lot of old snow on the ground."
"Wow, that's a big coincidence." she said
"What is?" I said
"Don't you know?" She said
"Know what?" 
Her hand was still and she smiled at me.
"Today, is February 5th" she said.