Concepcion and the gun
Florence comes home to find her mother with a gun to her head. Florence begins screaming and tries to pry the gun away from her mother’s hands.
Mother Please don’t! Don’t do this.
You need to take the pills that Dr ?? prescribed.
Concepcion was working in the cotton field next to Florence’s house. The workers were on a break and a fight broke out among them. The overseer came to beak it up when Concepcion heard the scream.
She didn’t know what came over her. Perhaps it was some deep impulse like the one that she had when she got on the bus.
She arrived to find Florence crying at her mother’s feet. Florence was praying. Praying to Jesus to save her mother and put down the gun.
Remember this is all told from Rosa’s perspective, handed down from Concepcion.
When Concepcion arrived, they stared at her in shock.
I’m not going back! Screamed her mother. They can’t be helped. They’re no good. I don’t have the strength. And she started sobbing.
Concepcion took one step toward them. She did the only thing she could think of. She opened her lips and softly spoke,
[First line of song]
You leave! Screamed her mother. And she pointed the gun at Concepcion.
Concepcion froze.
Florence was crying as she prayed. She was holding on to the words as if the were her mother’s lifeblood. With each breath she pushed the prayer of??? And sent it to her mother’s spirit hanging above her.
Florence’s mother pointed the gun back at her temple.
She commanded in Spanish, “You take one more step and I’ll do it.”
Concepcion didn’t move, but instead repeated the words she spoke. but this time they came out like a soft afternoon breeze cooling the remnant heat of the day.
Florence’s mother glared at Concepcion. Her anger was fighting (or grappling with) a ferocious feral fear that could not be tamed.
Concepcion opened her lips again and continued to sing. This time with more strength. She sang the song of her people. The suffering they endured and how no amount of it could end their will to live.
[insert song lyrics in Spanish and English here]
Florence’s mother’s eyes continued to lock on to Concepcion as she sang.
[ imagine a movie scene like a duel in a Western. One camera is on Concepcion. While the other is focused in on Florence’s mother’s eyes. The scene ends as a third camera pans away from a Florence holding her weeping mother and slowly taking the gun away from her. A scared Concepcion just standing there as the two go back into the house.]
[Question] How to establish a long term relationship with Concepcion and Florence.
Possibly Concepcion will return to them and ask if his fiancée can help them house. [May not work out because Concepcion should be about 18 years old while Florence is 13.]
Or it simply becomes a story that Concepcion relates to Rosa when she’s older.