After her father has a stroke, Carmen Morales is summoned back to the Kern County home she was kicked out of twelve years before, by the Grandmother who refused to intervene. In the twelve years since she left, she had only kept in touch with her cousin Kelsey, so she crashes on Kelsey’s couch when she arrives in Buttonwillow. After difficult encounters with both Kelsey and Kelsey’s boyfriend Dace, Carmen prepares to see her father. Meanwhile, Katie and Lourdes, her roommates back in Santa Ana, worry about whether she will be alright.

Chapter 3: The Matriarch

I didn’t need the big blue letters on the yellow bridge to tell me I was back in Bakersfield, California. Of course, growing up it had just been “the city,” the commercial and political center of Kern County. Probably 400,000 people lived there now. Having spent the last decade in LA and Orange County, it felt small and provincial in a way it hadn’t when I was young.

Hell, it is provincial. The kind of place that sent an empty suit like Kevin McCarthy to Congress, year after year.

But it had the things you could depend on any American population center to have. The Walmarts and Targets, Best Buys and Dollar Generals, supermarkets, wholesale clubs, Home Depots . . . and, of course, McDonalds, Taco Bell, In-N-Out. Also, critically, Starbucks, where you can reliably get coffee and free WiFi. I headed there first, since I knew I was up too early for visiting hours, but hadn’t wanted to spend any more time than necessary alone in the house with Dace.

Everything I was encountering, from Kels and Dace to the chain stores to the smells of farmland, seemed to trigger memories from childhood. Some were good, like I’d told Kelsey. A few. But others? Yikes. I’d been certain I was trans since I was little, but deeply, deeply closeted. What was even worse, in some ways, was that by high school I was starting to understand I was attracted to guys. The combination wasn’t a recipe for floods of happy memories.

The world was spinning, hurling around me as I desperately tried to keep on my feet, fighting the tears that would make everything a million times worse. “Dance, Puto!” It came out as a sneer, the youth’s face showing contempt as he twirled me around, his hands effortlessly gripping my T-Shirt. I could hear the fabric tearing, and the laughter of his friends, gathered in a circle to watch the sport . . . .

The sound of a car’s horn behind me snapped me out of my waking nightmare. The light was green and I touched the gas, ashamed of the panic that was seizing me. It was half a lifetime ago! Why can’t I just let it all go?

By the time I got to the Starbucks I had calmed down again. I just had to get this done, and get back to my life. My real life. I was done with Buttonwillow, and Bakersfield, and every arid acre of Kern County.

Once I was seated with latte and fruit cup, I pulled out my phone and saw, guiltily, that I had several texts from Lourdes and Katie, wanting to make sure I was okay.

Lourdes: Carmen, are you okay?

Lourdes: Please let us know you arrived safe.

The last message was from just about the time I left Buttonwillow. I typed back,

Made it safe. My cousin put me up.

Lourdes fired back immediately, How is your Padre?

Haven’t seen him yet. I’ll know in an hour. I thought a moment and added, I honest to God hate this place.

Katie chimed in, No shit. Get your sweet, round ass back here!

Keep us posted.

Lourdes added a heart emoji, and I responded with a thumbs up.

The conversation was reassuring in a way – a desperately-needed touch with my own reality. But it also left me wondering what I was supposed to accomplish. What did Abuela expect me to do?

I thought about sending a message to Dwayne, my supervisor, but decided against it for the same reason. Until I knew why Abuela wanted me here, I wasn’t sure what I would tell him. Uncertainty roiled my stomach, causing me to regret the latte. I dropped the half-full cup in the trash on my way out.

“I’m here to see Juan Morales.”

The woman at the welcome desk looked harried. “Uh huh . . . just a minute.” She had a telephone cradled to her ear, generating a tinny but universally recognizable sound.

I caught my fingers drumming against my thigh and willed them to stop, but I couldn’t help thinking to myself, you couldn’t find out where he is while you’re sitting here listening to music on hold?

Finally a voice engaged on the other end of the phone, she provided some directions, and hung up. “Yes, can I help you?”

“Here to see Juan Morales? I think he might be in the ICU.”

She checked something on her computer monitor and said, “Yes, he’s there. Are you family?”

My treacherous brain served up a picture of his face, distorted by shock, rage, and disappointment. I have no daughter. And YOU are not my son! The last thing he’d ever said to me.

“Yes.” It was all the answer I intended to offer, and I ignored the woman’s expectant look.

“All right then,” she said, giving up. She gave me directions to the ICU main desk and let them know I was coming.

The woman at the ICU – I imagine she was a nurse, but what do I know? – gave me a once over and decided it was okay to let me into her domain. “Come with me, please. He’s not conscious yet, but he’s stable.”

“Will I be able to talk to a doctor, after I’ve seen him?”

This time she gave me a harder look. “You are family, yes?” Definitely a nurse.

I nodded.

“We’ll see what we can do. You understand we have rules concerning patient confidentiality.”

Oh, I certainly understood all that. I guess I’d need to be more forthcoming if I wanted to get any useful information. “I’m his daughter,” I explained as we approached an open door.

Inside the open door, standing beside a hospital bed that held a shrunken figure in an oxygen mask, was a woman in black, showing some strands of silver in hair she would certainly never deign to color. Older, maybe a bit thinner. Still beautiful, naturally. But she always hid it well, with her severe dress – never anything but black – and even more severe facial expressions. That much hadn’t changed.

The blue water sparkled in the bright summer sunlight as the chavos laughed and splashed. School was out and Uncle Angel was at the grill, surrounded as usual by the padres, beer, and loud opinions. His oldest child hadn’t joined us outside yet. New to her curves if not to her beauty, she’d doubtless intended a grand entrance of sorts. Perhaps she’d hoped that the presence of so many family members would give her cover, or at least delay any negative reaction.

She should have known better. Her mother, garbed head-to-toe in an unseasonable black cotton dress, leapt up from where she sat with her sisters-in-law, spitting fire from her dark eyes. “Lupe! That bathing suit is a scandal! Go and change at once!”

The woman in black had overheard my comment to the nurse, for the thunderclouds were already piling high and dark on her face by the time we came into view. “Juan has no daughter.” She made the last word sound like a curse.

“Aunt Maria.”

“Don’t call me that! You are no relative of mine,” she snarled. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said, sounding anything but. “This is an ICU. We can’t have you both arguing here.”

I said, “I’m not arguing,” just as my Aunt said, “Then get that thing out of here!”

I stared at my aunt and my Morales blood ran hot – blood which she’d married, but didn’t share. “I am Juan Morales’ oldest child, whether my uncle’s wife likes it or not.” And I’m not the frightened stick of a boy you remember!

“Juan threw you out like the bad trash you are.” Waving abruptly at the silent, motionless figure in the bed, she spat, “You must be so pleased. Did you come to gloat?”

“That’s enough!” the nurse snapped. “Both of you! One more word, and you’re out of here!”

Aunt Maria folded her arms stubbornly. “You can’t make me leave! I’m family!”

“You want to try me?” The nurse’s eyes flashed. “I’ll have security march you off in handcuffs!”

Eager as I was to be gone, I didn’t want to give my pious Aunt the satisfaction of having me ejected, even if she got kicked out, too. Time to try to defuse the situation. “Really, it’ll be alright. If you can just give me a minute . . . .”

Aunt Maria cut me off. “You have no place here. Who even told you?”

“I did.”

The dry, unyielding voice of command came from behind me. I spun to find Abuela there, her dark, bony hand clenched around the biceps of a heavyset woman about my age, who . . . Jesus! Lupe?!

But I only spared my cousin a glance; as always, my grandmother drew eyeballs like a five-car pile-up. She was thinner than ever, casting her cheekbones into even higher relief, and highlighting the sharpness of her cleaver-like nose. Her dark eyes ignored me altogether.

Aunt Maria wasn’t done . . . yet. “Suegra, no! This . . . person doesn’t belong here!”

“Enough, woman!” Abuela barked.

“Listen, all of you,” the nurse said. “This is NOT happening, here, understand? I want every one of you out of here, right now!”

“No.” Abuela did not raise her voice or even turn her head. “There will be no more discussion. Maria, go home. Now.”

Aunt Maria opened her mouth to say something, but one look at Abuela’s face stopped her. She closed it with a snap, took a deep breath through her nasal passages, and said, “Yes, Suegra. But, how will you get home?”

“Carlos will see to it. Or Lupe will.” Abuela’s voice was dismissive.

I stood aside so my senior aunt could pass, feeling the heat of her scathing glance as she did. Lupe brought Abuela to the room’s only chair.

I looked at the nurse. “We’ll behave. Really.”

“I hear one raised voice – just one – and all of you are going to be permanently banned. Got it?”

“There will be no trouble,” Abuela said, her voice – as usual – evincing no doubt and permitting no debate.

The nurse had apparently encountered her kind before. She gave a satisfied nod and departed, leaving me with Abuela, Lupe, and whatever was left of Padre.

Moving closer to the bed, I looked down at the man who had first raised and then disowned me.

His large frame seemed shrunken, and heavy veins corded the sun-darkened hands that lay by his sides and on top of the blanket, one limp, the other clenched in an involuntary claw. The left side of his face, at least what was visible through the oxygen mask, was pinched. Dirty gray hair that had still been all black that last time I’d seen him, twelve years ago. I have no daughter!

Abuela’s face was turned to him as well, but she spoke to me. “You are here. Good. You need to take care of this. Of him.” Her face and voice displayed no give, no tenderness. She could have been discussing the need to fix a leaky roof.

But that was her way. I wouldn’t presume she felt nothing, seeing her youngest son like this. “What have the doctors told you?”

She wouldn’t look at me. “Not much. He’s ‘stable.’ They’re doing ‘tests.’”

I needed to put down a marker, though I expected she wouldn’t take it well. “Abuela, I came because you asked. But I can’t stay. I have work, and school. My life isn’t here.”

Her hand waved dismissively. “Not important. Your father needs you.”

“If he knew I was in the room, he would order me to leave.”

Her expression hardened, and she said softly, “Do you hear that, Juan? Do you want Carlos to leave?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but she beat me to it. “I say you stay. I don’t hear him objecting.”

“My name is Carmen. And your son was the one who told me he had no daughter.”

“You aren’t talking to him now. You are talking to me!”

I couldn’t help myself. Whatever her worries, she had to own her part in what had happened. “You didn’t stop him! You let him kick me out!”

“It was his decision to make. He is your father!”

“Fine, then.” I shook my head angrily. “He made it. He decided he didn’t want the job anymore, not me. And since you say he’s the decision maker, we’re done. Finished. I’ve got a life to lead.”

“My son can’t breathe without a machine!”

“I can’t do anything about that!” But I stomped down on my feelings, recognizing that she had other things on her mind. It wasn’t the time to resolve what was between us. “All I can do is sit here, like all the rest of you, and hope he gets better. That won’t do any good, and I’ll lose my job.”

The anger in her face was palpable; I felt an almost uncontrollable desire to step back. “You can do more. You must. These people, with their forms, and their questions. I don’t know what to tell them.”

“Abuela, you are surrounded by your family.” My voice betrayed my exasperation. “By his family – the ones he hasn’t rejected!” I thought of my brother, already well on his way to being a manly man at 14 when I left. “Dios! Why isn’t Joaquim here? Why don’t you ask him? Or my Uncles? Why me?”

“Silencio!” she barked, still keeping her face resolutely turned away from me. “I don’t have time for your self-pity. Your uncles are farmers; your brother works at the landfill. You were the one with the brains, just like your father. Always so smart with the books, both of you. Figure it out!”

I was lost. “Figure what out?”

“What’s this job you keep talking about?”

“Huh?”

“Your job, that’s supposed to be so important. Kelsey told me, when she stopped being stupid.”

“I work for an insurance broker.” The light dawned. “He’s . . . wait. Padre worked full time at Kern Cotton. He has to have insurance?”

“I don’t know!”

“Abuela, he has to,” I said again. “It’s just a question of looking it up.”

“There was nothing in his wallet. Joaquim doesn’t know. No one knows.”

I took a deep breath. So THAT’S what this is all about. “All right. I can help with that, I think. But if I’m going to talk to these people . . . the doctors, the staff . . . I’m guessing he doesn’t have a durable power of attorney.”

“Big words.” It was almost a sneer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Patience, Carmen! “You have to tell them that I’m Juan Morales’ daughter. You. His mother. You have to tell them, so they can talk to me about his medical condition without breaking the law.”

“You are Juan’s child.” Her voice was bloodless. Clinical.

“I’m his daughter, damn it!” I couldn’t hold my anger back any longer. “Look at me!”

She set her jaw, clenching it so hard I was surprised the bones didn’t crack. She managed to grind out, “I can’t.”

“You won’t.” It was all I could do to pitch my voice low enough that we didn’t bring the nurse back with a battalion of hospital security guards.

She shook her head, but still refused to look my direction.

“You won’t see me, because you refuse to see me! I’m nothing to you!”

“Carmen.” Lupe’s interjection stopped me cold, because she’d said nothing up to this point, and because she had, at least, given me my name. Her velvety voice was so familiar, except for the overtones of sadness and exhaustion that had never been there in her glory days as the high school trophy all the bucks fought over.

I looked at her . . . really looked, seeing past the strain, and all of the excess fat that was so out of place. Seeing the girl I remembered, but finding compassion in her eyes that I’d never associated with her before.

“She’s blind.”

My eyes just about burned a path back to Abuela as she sat, her face averted, looking like a wasp whose nest had been kicked over. Somehow, I managed not to gasp. She’s not THAT old! Mid-seventies? Right? Seventy-seven, tops!

It shouldn’t have been a surprise, though. I had an image of her, years before, bending over her sewing, straining to see the seams she was working on. These things happen, I told myself.

It shouldn’t have mattered either, but it shook me to the core. Abuela never, ever, showed any weakness. No wonder she’s pissed. Ten years ago, maybe even five, she would have just handled this. Like she had handled everything else, for herself and for the family.

The silence stretched out. Abuela said nothing, and Lupe just looked at me, waiting.

“Abuela,” I said finally. “I’m sorry —”

“Enough! We will not discuss these things further. Not my sight. Not your ‘life.’ You need to help my son.” Her face was flint.

My eyes burned and my head throbbed and my throat ached. Twelve years. I spent twelve fricking years pulling myself out of the dark alley where they’d kicked me. I’d built a life worth living, where I could be myself and not apologize for it. And still, after all this time, she could silence me effortlessly and reduce me to tears.

“Sí, Abuela.”

– To be continued

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