Carmen María Montiel - Stolen Identity

The problem was when the drink was a favorite one! Ah… Chicha ! Venezuela’s rice drink. Or… Toddy!

The pitcher was full in the middle of the table. The boys looked at it like beasts watching their prey. Laura, my older sister, so beautiful, skinny, elegant, and the two little girls could not care less about it.

The boys wanted to drink the whole pitcher.

“I will serve everybody,” Perucho said.

“No. I will do it,” David insisted.

“Whoever said first that is the one that is serving!” my mother said.

Perucho started to pour in every glass, just about half way full, but when he got to his, he almost spilled it over the top.

“That is such bad manners,” Mom said. “You don’t do that. I will not allow that at this table. You serve up to two fingers from the top.”

They were always the smart ones.

One night it was time for chicha . I could see the boys’ faces; they were almost jumping at the pitcher.

“Perucho, remember we were told two fingers from the top.”

As David started to serve, Perucho said: “Let’s measure with my fingers!”

My dear and beautiful brother has the fattest fingers in the world. Nobody was complaining, but when it was time for his glass to be filled, he chose the fingers of my sister, María Eugenia, to measure his glass. She has the thinnest fingers of all of us. We were crying of laughter!

“ Perucho, voz si soz vivo! ” David said. (“Perucho, you are a smart ass”).

Those were our fights!

We grew up with the Americans that lived at the oil camps. That was fun for my brothers; they always went to the camps to meet girls.

In my house, my siblings’ friends came to dance, play board games, talk and laugh. Just as it was years later when we, the two little ones, were teenagers, our house was a clubhouse always full of people. My father preferred to have an “open house” where everybody was at home and he knew what we were doing to not knowing where we were. He was a fun-loving dad that all of our friends loved and he was proud of the “Montiel Club,” which is what our friends called our home.

I was so little that I used to walk between my father’s legs every morning on our way to breakfast. I do not know how he managed to walk and not fall, but he did. It was one of the things I hated about growing up, not being able to do that anymore. I could not fit within his legs.

My older sister wore some fun stuff in the ‘70s! The day she graduated from high school everybody that arrived at her party was greeted with a shower from a bucket of water. My God! I have never seen women so mad! The boys, as usual, did not care.

Fake eyelashes were on their cheeks and partial wigs were falling off. I used to look up to my sister. I was five years old when she graduated from high school. She went off to college and moved to Caracas. A hole was in my heart; I missed her so.

She used to fool people, telling them the youngest two of us were her daughters. That lasted for many years. Not anymore! She loved to see the expression on people’s faces when she said with her baby face that she had a daughter.

She was full of energy. I will never forget the day man landed on the moon because of her. She ran all around the house excited, screaming, “Come, come see it!”… “Man on the moon, man on the moon!”

She gathered everybody around the TV set to watch the first steps on the moon. I ran too and watched, but was too little to understand what was going on. I was then four and a half years old. Later in my life I understood. I had watched history in the making. While too little to appreciate what was happening at the time, it has become one of my most valuable memories.

In 1994, as an anchorwoman for Telemundo, I was invited to the dinner celebration for the 25th anniversary of the day man first walked on the moon at the Astrodome in Houston. There, I met astronaut Neil Armstrong! My past became present, and I landed on the moon the moment we shook hands.

Without knowing, I have always been walking in many of mankind’s first steps.

My daughter told me to be careful with my lawyer. I asked her which one because I had a lawyer for every possible specialty. She said my criminal attorney was a friend of her dad’s criminal lawyer.

“Baby, they are all friends,” I told her. “They all know each other. They work together in those courts.”

“This is different, Mami ,” she replied.

Alejandro had hired an attorney known for representing serial killers, murderers and psychopaths, many of them well known in the community, and saving them based on technicalities. However, it was his female associate who handled Alejandro’s case for him, the same woman that year and a half before had told me to get out of that relationship. Is not that a conflict of interest? She should have not been able to represent Alejandro and actively help him destroy his wife. But nobody cared.

What my daughter saw or heard I do not know. But time will prove that something wrong happened. This warning and my suspicion later saved me.

Alejandro had moved to the Four Seasons Hotel when the court ordered him out of the house. Alexandra said his female attorney came there to talk to her. What else Alexandra saw or heard during that time, she never told me. But her warning stayed ever present with me.

In reality, these attorneys should not have represented Alejandro, because they represented both of us before. I was so scared and confused I did not realize it at the time. But my lawyers should have. I told them about it. They should have tried to get his legal team disqualified.

As time passed and I healed, I not only saw things clearer, but also realized how all these attorneys took advantage of me.

I am brushing my hair while looking at the mirror. I am finally able to see myself in it. I am tall enough now. My very excited sister María Eugenia came running to get me because the New Year is almost here. My family is in the living room, Mom, Dad, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. I know them; they are all familiar to me. I did not know what they are talking about, but suddenly everyone starts hugging and kissing each other Happy New Year. They are eating grapes so fast. I do not understand how they can manage to kiss, hug, eat and drink champagne all at the same time. But this is who we are!

I am suddenly awakened from my daydream when I heard that my lawyer was ready for me. But he wanted to see my daughter first.

My lawyers want to talk to my second child because she was the only one of my children on that flight when the incident occurred. Kamee is still wearing her school uniform, which makes her legs look ever so long. I had picked her up at school and headed downtown to my lawyers’ office. She does not like to miss school, not even for ten minutes, so I arranged this meeting for after school. I kept waiting outside.

My mind lately often goes back to the beautiful years of my childhood and teenage time. Suddenly, I remember the day Alberto gave me a ride on his motorcycle.

Caracas is a valley, so beautiful and green with mountains everywhere. The day was clear and blue, a perfect day for a motorcycle ride. There I am holding Alberto’s waist and feeling free, enjoying the view while we were going up the mountain to my house when suddenly I see my dad’s car coming down.

“No! My dad!”

“So what?” Alberto asks.

“He forbids all of us to ride motorcycles.”

“Well, he is leaving.”

“But he saw me and tonight I will hear about it. I am in so much trouble!”

As soon as we stopped in front of my house, my dad was right behind us.

We could hear his car running. I was petrified. Should I get off? My father is already walking up to us.