Carmen Morales is a twenty-nine-year-old transwoman who works for an insurance broker in Orange County while attending law school at night. She and her two roommates are celebrating the successful conclusion of her spring semester when she is summoned back to the Kern County home she was kicked out of twelve years before, by the Grandmother – “Abuela” – who refused to intervene. Her father has had a stroke and is in a coma. She spends several days there and reconnects with some members of her extended family – Abuela, her brother Joachim (“Ximo”), her uncle Augustin, her senior aunt Maria, and some of her cousins – Kelsey, Inés, Guadalupe, and Gabriella. None of the interactions are free of strain, but she succeeds in coming to terms with Ximo, Kels and Innie – and even, to a certain degree, with Abuela herself. Abuela convinces a very reluctant Carmen to apply to be temporary conservator for her father.

Returning to Buttonwillow after three days back in Orange County for work, Carmen runs into her old history teacher and learns he had taught her padre as well. Her car breaks down on the way to her motel, and her cousin Jesus helps her. Then she and Kelsey have dinner together.

Chapter 15: The Shadow of the Hawk

Another day.

I was back in padre’s room, regaling him with more stories of the twelve years I’d spent away from Kern County, waiting for Abuela to show up. I had called her the prior evening before going down to the motel pool with Kelsey, but she had apparently been dealing with a migraine, so I’d arranged to meet her at the hospital in the morning.

The thought was jarring, in a way. All the time I was growing up – almost 18 years – I couldn’t remember Abuela being sick. I’m sure she had been, now and then. Who isn’t? But I had no specific memory to back up that intuition. Not one. If she had ever been ill, she’d never let it show. For sure, she’d never let any illness stop her.

“Where was I?” In my wool-gathering, I’d lost the thread of my story.

The comatose man by my side gave me no help, and made no complaint.

“Oh, right. So anyway . . . You can see why I just had to get out of that group house. So I saved up a bit of money. Not much, but enough for a security deposit, maybe first month’s rent. And I saw an ad from a couple of girls, looking for someone to share space in a three-bedroom down in Santa Ana. You have no idea how stressful that was, when I went to see them that first time.”

I could smile at the memory – now. But then? Different story.

“I was shaking – literally shaking – when I walked up the stairs and found the door. I wanted them to see another girl. Nothing else. I wasn’t going to lie to them; I was done with all that. But telling them about being trans – that would come later. First, I wanted them to look at me, and just see . . . me. You know? The person I knew I was.” I gave padre a hard look. “The person you were never able to see.”

I fought down my anger and continued. “I knew I could pass. I’d done it for a year at the shelter, before Fatima caught me. I’m only five-seven, and I’d always had a slight build. I’d gained back a little of the weight I’d lost when I was living on the streets, but I was still super thin. My hair was thick again, and really full, ’cuz I’d learned how to take care of it, and ’cuz of the HRT. My face was feminine enough, especially with a little help from makeup.”

The thought of what padre would say about my HRT and makeup – if only he could speak! – made me smile wickedly and add, “I’d also gotten really good at stuffing my bra in a realistic way, and slipping a little subtle padding on my hips and ass. That helped too.

“All that was good, but you need to understand, for a woman that’s just the start. I spent hours trying to decide what to wear, even though I didn’t exactly have a huge wardrobe. Just enough for work, and a couple things for when I was off. I figured capris were appropriately informal. And they showed off my legs, which are one of my better natural features – just so you know. I agonized between a nice T-shirt and a capped-sleeved cotton top with a pretty pattern. T-shirts are kind of boring, but they say ‘casual’ and maybe ‘fun.’ I didn’t want them to think I was some sort of princess. On the other hand, T-shirts are more androgynous, and I definitely didn’t want that.”

I ran a finger lightly down the thin gold of the chain at my neck. “I didn’t have to think about jewelry. Apart from a set of studs that I’d gotten with my piercing, just before I started work, I didn’t have any. I did have to think about shoes, but for ‘casual’ my choice was only sneakers or a pair of sandals, so, sandals it was.”

The door was there. The number matched the ad. The girl I’d talked to on the phone . . . she’d sounded nice. How bad could it be? Surely it would be okay. PLEASE let it be okay!!!

I probably stood in front of the door for five minutes. Then it opened, and a short Chicano girl with soft eyes and a kind expression gave me a gentle smile. “You must be Carmen. Please come in. We don’t bite.”

A voice from inside the apartment shouted, “Hey, hang on! I bite!”

I took a steadying breath, and produced a smile of my own. “Lourdes?”

I looked down at the man in the bed, and shook my head. “It’s all stuff guys wouldn’t spend a minute thinking about, right? I mean, even a cis girl would worry about what to wear, and what kind of impression it would make. But guys? It’s just jeans and a Tee, and don’t worry too much if you don't have time for a shower.”

“Do you miss it?”

I’d been so engrossed in my memories that I hadn’t focused on the sound of slow steps approaching the door, and I jumped to my feet, startled. “Lupe! Don’t do that to me!”

She smiled slightly and pivoted, bringing Abuela in line with the door, before murmuring, “Straight ahead.”

“Good morning, Abuela,” I said, feeling oddly formal.

“No change?”

I knew she didn’t mean me. “None to see, and I spoke with Dr. Chatterji yesterday. That’s her impression as well.”

She grunted an acknowledgment as Lupe guided her to the chair I had vacated. She lowered herself into the chair, using the arms to guide and control her descent. “You are telling him stories?”

“I got the idea from someone you may remember – señor Cortez, the history teacher. When I showed up yesterday, he was reading to padre. He said some coma patients may be aware of their surroundings, even if they can’t respond.”

“I remember him.” Her voice was dry, but then, that was kind of her default setting.

“He remembered you fondly – the ‘formidable mamá Santiago,’ I think he said.”

“He was a fool.”

I bristled at her casual dismissal of a man I admired. But I bit back my hot rebuttal, counted to three in my head, and gave a response that was both short and cold. “I disagree.”

Her head swiveled to where I was standing. “He believed in education for its own sake. Like being stuffed full of knowledge makes you better or something.” She shook her head. “Even though he was some kind of radical, he still thought like a stupid hidalgo.”

“You were happy for his help getting padre into college,” I retorted.

“Happy? I would have been ‘happy’ if Juan had learned that education is the way to get ahead in this country. The only way. Maybe then he would have valued it more.”

I’d had enough. “Sure. Blame señor Cortez. Blame my mother. Blame me, if it makes you feel better. Why not? But you are only fooling yourself if you do. Padre made his own choices.”

“You think I don’t know that?” She shook her head angrily. After a moment, though, she waved a hand tiredly. “Why don’t you two go somewhere for a while? I need some time with my son.”

I shot Lupe a glance.

She grimaced, then shrugged.

“Okay,” I said, unwilling to argue. “We’ll be back in a half hour or so.”

She didn’t bother to reply.

Lupe didn’t say anything until we reached the elevator. “Welcome to the fun part of my life.” It could have sounded bitter; instead, it mostly came off as wry humor.

“I thought Gaby was taking care of her.” The elevator doors opened and I stepped in and aside.

Lupe joined me. “She is. But we spell each other a bit on weekends. She looks after my chavos, and I manage Abuela.”

I pushed the button for the first floor, where I knew there was a small cafe. “How many kids – and, you know, names? Ages? The important stuff.”

“Four.” Her smile was brief – gone almost before it arrived. “Los cuatro demonios. My oldest, Miguel, is nine, Santino is seven. I got a little break before Andrea arrived; she’s four. My youngest, Matías, came just eleven months later.”

Her tone was light enough, but all the hints were there – the “four demons” was humor with a touch of truth; the three year gap between Santino and her daughter was a “break;” the last came “just” eleven months later.

“You must be exhausted.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is.”

We stepped off the elevator and headed for the cafe – called, appropriately enough, “The Atrium,” which was on the other side of the lobby. “It’s just hard for me to wrap my head around it,” I confessed. “Last time I saw you, we were 17, and your parents weren’t even letting you date.”

“Last time I saw you,” she countered, “You were the embarrassing nerdy cousin.”

I added what she’d been careful to leave out. “The one who was also, as far as anyone knew, male.”

She nodded. “Yeah, though . . . I’ll be honest, no-one was real impressed with your male-ness.”

“My cousin, the Queen of Central Valley High.” I smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure I was an embarrassment!”

She touched my arm. “For what it’s worth . . . I’m sorry. I was a bitch, back then.”

As we walked into the cafe I guided her to a booth and made her sit. “I’ll get it. What would you like?”

“Something sweet. I don’t care.” She wagged a finger at me. “I know what you’re thinking – I don’t need it!”

“I was not!”

“Well, whatever. But if they’ve got something like a caramel frappaccino with whipped cream, I’ll take it.”

I went to the counter and ordered, remaining until the barista had done her thing. Just the sound of the sugary concoction Lupe wanted had pushed me towards a plain coffee with a little skim milk. I wasn’t usually that fastidious. I brought the drinks back and sat.

Lupe looked at my spartan version of coffee and smiled sadly. “We should switch. I know it. I need to lose sixty pounds, and you could take all of them without any problem.”

“For whatever it’s worth,” I said, pausing to blow on my drink, “I strongly recommend against starvation diets.” A tiny sip told me it was still too hot. “Never mind about all that. You’re married, you have four kids. Gaby mentioned that you work in a day care during the week. So . . . How are you?”

“Tired, mostly.” She took a longish sip from her drink, eying me thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Can I tell you something?”

I nodded, feeling a bit apprehensive.

“When I saw you last week, after all these years . . . when I saw your face? I thought to myself, ‘that’s someone who’s been through a lot.’ It’s what I see, when I look in the mirror.” She closed her eyes, as if in pain. “It’s why I eat and eat. Why I’m wearing pinche size eighteen or whatever it is today.”

I was surprised to find my heart going out to her. It’s not that I hadn’t liked her when we were in middle school and high school. Not exactly. She’d just belonged to a whole different social order. “Hey,” I said softly. I put my hands on the table.

She opened her eyes and looked down at my upturned palms, weighing the invitation; her expression blended memories, questions, and all the hesitations both tend to generate. But after a moment, she sighed and placed her hands in mine.

I said, “I know we didn’t have a great relationship, back when. I thought you were just a stuck-up high school queen. But you know what really floored me, when I saw you last week?”

“That I look like a blimp?”

“Not that, no. It’s that you called me by my name, even when your mother was condemning me to hell. When you looked at me, I saw compassion, not disgust. And I realized that I was the real bitch, because I’d misjudged you all along.”

“No, you didn’t.” She squeezed my hands, released them, and sighed. “I was a stuck-up high school queen. I did look down on you for being different. If I’d had any idea you were trans, I would have been as much of a turd about it as anyone. But . . . Yeah. That’s not who I am, anymore.”

It felt like she wanted to talk, so I simply asked, “What happened?”

“Life, I guess.” Then she shook her head. “Well . . . that sounds like shit just happened, and that’s not how it was. You remember Andy Whitethorn?”

“Since I was forced to attend pep rallies and cheer on our mighty football team, I certainly remember the quarterback.”

She giggled. “I never thought of it like that. Of course, pep rallies were always like star appearances for the cheerleaders.”

“It’s what everyone watched, anyway. Even the girls – though in their case, it was jealousy.”

“Which was it, for you?” Before I could respond, she said, “Nevermind. Forget I asked that.”

“No hay bronca.” I smiled. “For the record, yes, I was jealous. Now . . . Andy?”

She grinned sheepishly, then turned serious. “I crushed on him so hard . . . and he felt the same way. But my parents wouldn’t let me date. Wouldn’t let me go to homecoming, or prom. mamá said they were just ‘invitations to sin.’”

I nodded sympathetically, not wanting to provide my own opinion of Aunt Maria in any sort of detail. Nor did I want to mention that I hadn’t gotten any of those “invitations” either!

“When I had my Quinceañera, they wouldn’t even let me invite him. You know why?”

“Because he was a human male and you were crushing on him?”

“No.” She took an angry gulp from her coffee. “They wouldn’t let me date in high school, but they weren’t stupid. They know what the Quinceañera’s all about. But they only wanted me looking at ‘good’ boys. Boys from ‘traditional families.’”

I had been at Lupe’s Quinceañera, of course; all the family were always invited. Lupe had been an absolute vision in silk, lace and taffeta; naturally, she’d been surrounded by every eligible wey within sixty miles (and more than a few who definitely weren’t eligible). But . . . no question, the gathering had a certain cultural uniformity to it. “Andy was pretty Anglo,” I commented.

“He was a good guy, Carmen! He was handsome, and tall, and really, really, nice. Never pushy. Never tried to . . . well, you know. Even when I wanted him too! ’Cuz he knew I’d be in trouble.” All these years later, the raw pain in her voice was still acute. “But he was white, and he was Protestant. So he wasn’t good enough.”

She sniffed, then gave me an apologetic look before dabbing her eyes. “Sorry!”

“It’s okay,” I assured her.

“After graduation, he wanted to elope. And stupid me, I said ‘no.’ I wanted all the bells and whistles, you know? My padre walking me down the aisle – the kneeling pillows, the lasso, Las Arras Matrimoniales – all of it.” She shook her head. “¡Qué idiota fuí!, right? I thought we could convince padre – that he would see how much we loved each other. How good we’d both been, all through high school.”

Naturally, their “plan” worked about as well as any adolescent scheme. Her parents hadn’t understood at all; they’d grounded her and convinced her that she didn’t know her own heart. Pretty soon she found herself married off to one of those “nice, traditional boys,” in a big wedding that had all the bells and whistles . . . and none of the joy.

Luis was, by her own description, a decent man. Hard-working, even-tempered. Not given to drinking, gambling, drugs. He wanted his home to be clean, peaceful, quiet, and unstressful . . . and, at the very same time, stuffed to the ceiling with children. Reconciling those conflicting desires fell to Lupe.

Once she got going, Lupe was surprisingly – even shockingly – open with me. Maybe it was precisely because we hadn’t seen each other in so long. But she trusted me with things I would be reluctant to share with my closest friends. For instance, she said that after all the restraint her parents had imposed and all the lectures about “saving herself for her husband,” she’d found sex to be a complete nothingburger. She confessed, “I don’t even get it.”

Luis, on the other hand, was apparently more than happy to have sex whether she was a size two or a size twenty. He was “attentive,” and after all he wanted his chavos. But at some point all the work of keeping fit and trim just seemed like a waste to her. “I might as well have a frappaccino. It’s not like I’ve got time to work out, anyhow.”

As we were dropping our to-go cups in the trash, she said, “Back in high school, I thought I was somebody. And I thought life would be like that, forever. Loco, right?” She shook her head. “Now, I’m on my feet for sixteen, eighteen hours every day, and it feels like there’s no stop to it. I love my babies. I really do. I could never leave them. I couldn’t do what your mamá did to you and Ximo. But I have to tell you, there are some days . . . I can at least understand it.”

I didn’t know quite what to say to that. But I told her that she should take some time for herself, and I would deal with Abuela and make sure she got back to her house. “Don’t you be rushing back to spell Gaby!”

“Okay, I won’t,” she laughed. Unexpectedly, she gave me a big hug and even a kiss on the cheek. “Sorry to dump all that on you. I guess I really needed to talk!”

Her steps seemed a little lighter as she left. Mine, on the other hand, were slower. She’d given me a lot to think about.

~o~O~o~

Abuela, unsurprisingly, was right where I had left her. She sat, motionless, her head bowed, to all appearances deep in thought. Again I was struck by her stillness. It was so unlike the woman I remembered.

Her eyes swept the room and spotted us; fresh meat. “Carlos. Kelsey. You need to go upstairs and help pack up the twins’ room. Clothes first — use the laundry baskets. And no wasting space — fold everything!”

Emilina, eleven to our nine, piped up. “I can help, Abuela.”

“No; I need you to help your madre and tia Maria in the kitchen.”

“But—“

“Go, child! There is no time for arguing!”

Uncle Augui stepped through the front door of the big house — the one tio Javier and tia Juana needed to vacate when it became clear that his disability payments wouldn’t begin to cover his lost wages. “The truck’s running, mamá. We’re ready.”

“Bueno. Juan’s out back. Have him help you with the living room furniture.”

“Sí, mamá.”

Kelsey and I made our way upstairs, listening to the sounds of organized chaos all around us. She squeezed my shoulder. “At least we didn’t get Innie’s job.”

“Yeah.” I was trying to keep myself from crying. Mom and little Domingo had vanished a year earlier, and I was beginning to understand at a deep level that life was always uncertain. Things that seemed established were tentative; things that appeared strong were fragile. Like tio Javi, always the strongest of the brothers. I shook when I remembered how he looked in that hospital bed. Shattered. Pale, like an Anglo.

We got to work; Abuela insisted on results. We could hear her downstairs; it seemed like she was everywhere all at once. Everyone came to her for directions.

There was a spike of noise coming from the room down the hall which tio Javier’s older two, Alejandro and Jesus, shared. Innie had been tasked with keeping the little ones occupied, but even backed by Abuela’s authority she couldn’t handle seven. “AJ! Get back here!”

Kels sprang for the door but she was too late to stop Alejandro from making a break for the stairs.

“No! No! I won’t!” He was screaming — shrieking, even. “I want mamá NOW!”

But he was blocked from charging down the stairs by Abuela, who was coming up. She grabbed both of his arms and pinned him. “Stop!”

“I want mamá!”

She saw Kels and me in the doorway. “The twin’s room will wait. You both need to help Inés.” Looking down at the flailing eight-year old, she said, “Stop thrashing. Now.” Her voice was calm — almost frighteningly calm.

He froze.

“Alejandro, right now, your Papa needs your mamá, and she needs all of us. You are her eldest. She needs you most of all.”

He sniffed “Sí, ’buela.”

“Can you help Inés look after Joanna and your brothers?”

“Sí.”

“Good.” She released his arms. “Go with Kelsey and Carlos now.” Raising her voice, she called downstairs, “Fernando? You need to start with the big bedroom. I’ll pack up for the twins.”

“Sí, sí, mamá.”

Kels was leading AJ back to the other room, but I lingered for a moment.

“¿Abuela?”

She paused and looked at me. “¿Qué?”

“Todo va estar bien?”

“Las cosas serán bien si las hacemos bien. No hay otra manera.”

Things will be okay if we make them okay – that was definitely the Abuela I remembered. It’s what made her silence and stillness in the face of padre’s stroke so difficult to process. But while her methods had changed, the important thing hadn’t; not really.

She was still making things happen.

I pulled up the chair from the monitor area and sat. “I told Lupe I’d bring you home when you’re ready.”

She nodded, but otherwise didn’t respond.

I decided I didn’t need to fill the silence. I was more than happy for some time to gather my thoughts, so I closed my eyes and proceeded to try.

After five minutes or so, she said, “Do you really think he can hear what we are saying?”

“I doubt it.” I didn’t bother opening my eyes.

“But you tell him stories anyway?”

“Why not? I might be wrong.” I wasn’t going to mention my thought that I might never get another chance.

“You want him to know,” she asserted.

“I guess so. As you keep reminding me, he’s my padre, so he should know. He should want to know.”

“You think so? I never heard from my padre after we moved here. He gave me a blessing when I left. Said he would keep me in his daily prayers. I didn’t expect more.”

She didn’t mention it, but her experience with her husband could not have improved her general view of what to expect of padres. Of the five sons she had given Domingo Morales, one was in prison and another had been horribly injured. Now her youngest was in a coma from which he seemed unlikely to recover. Domingo, who’d returned to Oaxaca when my padre was an infant, knew none of it.

But I was right about this. I was. “I didn’t say that he would want to know. Only that he should.”

“Sometimes, it would be a mercy not to know the details of our children’s lives.” Her voice was bitter.

“Maybe,” I conceded, keeping my tone even. “But if it would hurt him to find out that I survived – however I managed it – then I’m not sure why I should be merciful.”

She sat with that for a bit. Eventually I heard her stir, and opened my eyes to see her settling back into the chair. When she was comfortable, she said, “Well. Go ahead.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Finish your story. Maybe I should hear it, too.”

That . . . really didn’t sound like something I wanted to do. “I thought you and I weren’t going to talk about my life,” I countered.

She brushed that aside. “I did not want to hear excuses for why you won’t help your padre. I still don’t. But this?” she challenged. “You are just entertaining him, yes?”

“Educating.”

“And you think I would not profit from your ‘education’?” When I didn’t answer, she turned her head to face me. “I am your abuela. Shouldn’t I know, too?”

“Maybe. But do you want to?” If she could fight with my words, I could fight with hers. “Isn’t this one of those circumstances when not knowing would be a ‘mercy’ for you?”

“So now you want to show me mercy? The old woman who wouldn’t lift a finger to save you?” She laughed, soft and dry. “Try again.”

“Fine.” The truth hurt, but there was no point trying to hide it from the pinche witch. “I am not going to spill my guts out, just to have you mock me. How’s that?”

“And so you share your story with someone who can’t speak – and probably can’t hear.” She smiled slightly. “Alright. A truth for a truth. I’m not sure I want to hear your story. I doubt I’ll understand it. But you should still tell me.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Why?”

“Because you succeeded where your padre failed. I want to understand it.”

“I ‘succeeded’? Just because I got a degree, and padre worked in the fields?”

“No!” She heard the anger in my voice and understood it immediately. “Angel works in the fields. Augustin works in the fields. Javier was a mechanic. All of them . . . they all succeeded. They found their place. Where they fit.”

She patted the bed beside her. “Juan, though . . . he never did. When he was young, everything came easily to him — school, sports, friends. He could do anything. Could have done anything. You had his brains, but as far as I could tell, you were soft. Weak.” She shrugged. “I was wrong.”

Abuela’s almost casual admission left me speechless. In all the years I had known her, she had never admitted to either error or doubt.

She wasn’t finished. “For him, I did everything a madre could do – so much, that some of your tios felt slighted. When he left, I had no reason to think he would fail. For you, though? I stood by, and allowed him to push you away. When you left, you had no prospects for success. But he came back defeated, and never got up again. You didn’t.”

“I came back a basket case!”

“Don’t be a tonta. If you were a ‘basket case,’ I would not have asked for your help. You have scars. I can’t see them, but I hear them in every word you speak. Bueno. So do I. So does everyone. Adults learn how to deal with them, and Juan never grew up.”

It occurred to me, with all the sudden shock of a thunderclap, that I was having an adult conversation with Abuela. That she was treating me like I mattered. I had no idea why; I wasn’t sure whether I’d heard her treat anyone that way. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

And so, however reluctantly, however haltingly, I found myself telling my story yet again. Abuela said very little, mostly letting me go on without interruption. When she asked a question, it was because I was glossing over something important. She didn’t flinch from hearing about my time on the street, even when I told her about stealing food and clothes, or going crazy.

For some reason, I was reluctant to tell Abuela much about Sister Catalina. Maybe those memories were too private, or too sacred. Maybe it still hurt too much. But she pulled the story out of me, and it was one of the few things I related that genuinely surprised her. When I asked why, she said, “I’m from Oaxaca. You can believe in the Trinity, and still see the church is a den of thieves.”

I left out a lot of detail. There were plenty of stories that I would blush to tell Abuela, though alone with padre – while he remained comatose! – I might still share them. Even my summary took over an hour. At the end, I suppose I expected something like a judgment.

She didn’t oblige, naturally. “So . . . this law degree. You will get it, when?”

“Three more semesters, I hope. A year and a half.”

“And then you will be an abogada?”

“I’ll have to pass a big test first. It takes three days.”

“You will pass.”

“Almost half the people who take it don’t,” I warned. The California Bar Exam was one of the many things that kept me up at night – though I did try to use my insomnia to squeeze in some extra hours of study. The possibility that I might fail, after working for years to get my degree, was terrifying.

“You will pass,” she repeated, with certainty I wished I could share. Seizing the arms of the chair, she rose to her feet. “Come. It’s time to leave.”

I led her down to the lobby and out to where I’d parked the Kia. She was silent on the drive, apparently deep in thought.

I was trying to thread together the two very different conversations I’d had that day. Tentatively, I said, “I had a good talk with Lupe.”

She grunted an acknowledgement, giving me no help.

I tried again. “She’s finding it hard, with the four chavos.”

“Angel and Maria spoiled that one, and she was too pretty for her own good.” She shook her head. “Life hit her hard, and she had to grow up fast. Maybe too fast.”

“I’ve been thinking about something she said. . . . How she could never leave her babies, like my mother did. But she could at least understand it.”

“Your mother wasn’t hard to understand.” Her voice was even more dry than usual.

“You didn’t run away. And you had even less help that Lupe does – or than my mother did.”

She snorted. “I grew up dirt-poor and Domingo did not marry me for my looks. I wasn’t raised on lies about ‘love’ and ‘romance.’ My madre told me that life was work and work was hard, so I wasn’t surprised like Lupe or Kathy.”

We lapsed back into silence until we were in Buttonwillow proper. As we turned down Abuela’s street, I said, “There’s something that hasn’t changed – Sunday in June, and Uncle Angel and Aunt Maria are having a pool party.”

“Are they?” She sounded surprisingly interested.

“Couple extra cars at their house,” I confirmed.

She spoke abruptly. “Describe them.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious.”

“Umm . . . a small blue car . . . an old red pickup . . . a big white van?”

She was nodding. “Stop the car.”

I pulled over, curious. “What is it?”

“I think mi hijo forgot to invite me to his party,” she said, amused. “But that’s alright. I will surprise him.”

“Okay, Abuela . . . what’s going on?”

“When you are blind, people often think that you are both deaf and stupid, too. Your cousin Gaby often makes this mistake.”

Her non sequitur left me floundering. “Huh?”

“Just walk me to the back. It will be clear enough when we get there.”

I did what she asked, all the while trying to work out what was going on. She must have overheard Gaby talking to someone – almost certainly Aunt Maria – about something.

I could hear their voices as we walked down the concrete path that went along the side of the house. Animated voices. Contentious voices.

And I recognized every single one of them.

All sound ceased the instant we came around the corner, and seven sets of guilty – or at least surprised – eyes turned to see us. With a nudge of her bony hand, Abuela kept us moving, right up to the sitting area by the pool. She barely needed my guidance, stopping right at the correct spot and staring at the plastic faux-Adironack chair my senior uncle occupied. “Well, Angel? No welcome for your madre?” Her head turned a fraction to the left. “No kiss of greeting, Maria?” She continued the pivot. “Augustin? Javi? Daughters? Are you not glad to see me?”

She urged me forward into the silence, moving directly toward the seat occupied by Angel and Maria’s son Francisco, the only member of my generation present.

Seeing the direction of her progress, he vacated the seat quick as a jackrabbit who’s seen the shadow of a hawk.

I helped her into the chair. It was plastic, but unlike the Adirondack it allowed her to sit firmly upright. Her thin fingers curled around the ends of the arm rests, giving the impression of a queen holding court.

“So you want to discuss Juan’s conservatorship? Bueno. By all means, share your opinions. Don’t hold back. Say what you are thinking.” Her unseeing eyes turned hard as she unerringly directed them to the seat where Aunt Maria was frozen in place.

“Say it now. Say it to my face! . . . And to Carmen’s.”

— To be continued

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