Carmen Morales is a twenty-nine-year-old transwoman who works for an insurance broker in Orange County while attending law school at night. When her padre (Juan) has a stroke that leaves him in a coma, she is summoned back to the Kern County home she was kicked out of eleven years before, by the Grandmother – “Abuela” – who refused to intervene.

After eleven years in which she only had sporadic contact with one cousin – Kelsey, the only family member who knew she was trans – Carmen is suddenly surrounded by them. Old wounds, never addressed, are torn open. But, at the same time, former relationships, cut off without warning, are given an opportunity for healing and rebirth.

Carmen is appointed as temporary conservator for padre, but as a result of the application process she discovers that her mother, who abandoned the family over twenty years before, is living in Denver under a new name, and with a new husband. In Chapter 22, Carmen hears from the grandmother she never met, and she speaks with Abuela about the circumstances of her Mom’s disappearance. Padre, still comatose, begins to weep as Abuela tells the story.

Chapter 23: Love’s Labors

Ximo was a much better swimmer than me. I’d snagged one of the high-tops again and I was catching a little sun as I watched him do laps. His free-style was decent, but he was impressive at the butterfly, and it showcased a set of powerful shoulders. I was amused to see he was attracting attention from a couple girls who were by the side of the pool, dangling their feet in the water, their heads close together as they whispered and tittered.

When he was done he pulled himself out of the pool, his chest heaving from exertion. The girls’ heads turned in unison, like they were in some sort of informal chorus line, as he rose and walked over to my table.

“Looking good, ’mano. Where’d you learn that? You were playing football, last I saw you.”

“Hurt my knee Sophomore year and started swimming for rehab. They had a program where we could use the pool over at Shaftner.” He shrugged. “I decided I liked it better than football.” He fished around the mini-cooler he’d brought and pulled out a Coors.

He hadn’t said much since he showed up, and he sounded distracted. I put a hand on his arm. “Hey . . . you okay?”

He grimaced. “Broke up with Anna last night. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t think I’m prying,” I said carefully. He’d reacted badly the first time I’d asked him about Anna, so I knew I had to watch where I put my feet. “But . . . if you want to talk about it, I’m here for you.”

He flashed a half smile that vanished quickly. “And how weird is that, right? Having a sister to talk to?” He shook his head. “I told Anna I wanted to stop sneaking around. I wanted to have it out with her dad, so we could date. You know, like, really date.”

“How’d she take it?”

“She was just looking to have a good time. And you know, that’s all I’d been looking for too, but suddenly it wasn’t enough. I want . . . .” He paused, thinking, and took a sip of beer before he made a defeated gesture. “Mierda, I don’t know! I want something that matters. Know what I mean?”

I reached higher and massaged his shoulder. “Yeah, I do. I’m sorry, bro.”

“It’s all your fault, you know that?” He smiled to take the sting out of his words. “Filling my head up with crazy talk!”

“I am a troublemaker,” I admitted.

“Fuckin’ A, you are.” He rolled the beer can back and forth, staring at the label as if there was some mystery in the ingredients.

“Pure spring water,” I quoted. “Probably not much else, though.”

“Huh?”

“The beer. You were reading the label.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He grinned, embarrassed. “I was just thinking . . . I’ve been coasting along, ever since school. Living at home. Far as work goes, I drive heavy equipment, so I’ve got to stay sharp. But it’s not exactly deep thinking, you know? Girls . . . it’s been one after another. Easy come, easy go. I’ve had fun, they’ve had fun. That’s it.”

He gave me a sideways look. “Then you show up, out of nowhere. After we – all of us, me included – kicked you to the curb. You’ve got a job. A college degree. You’re going to frickin’ law school, for frick’s sake. You can dance like . . . I don’t even know what. Like something. And suddenly I look at myself in the mirror, and I think, ‘fuck, man! What are you even doing with your life?’”

“You’re only twenty-five, ’mano!”

“You’re only twenty-nine. By the time padre was my age, he was married and had two kids.”

I raised an eyebrow, though my big sunglasses probably hid it. “Given how that worked out for him, maybe not the best example.”

“Yeah, fine. But look at AJ. He’s just two years older than me, but it might as well be ten. He’s got a great job – they just made him a shift supervisor, did you know that? And his wife is beautiful, and he’s got three chavos. And I’m doing fuck all!

The hand that wasn’t holding his beer was clenched in frustration. I took it in both of my own. “I get it, Ximo. Really. If it makes you feel any better, I got the same ache, when I looked at AJ and his family. I’m trans, and chances are good that I’ll never have what he’s got, no matter how many fancy degrees I pick up.”

He looked stricken. “You don’t know that!”

“You’re right, I don’t. And I haven’t given up, believe me! But if I measure myself against AJ, I might call myself a failure, just like you’re doing right now. That wouldn’t be fair, and more importantly, it wouldn’t be true. We’ve had our own struggles, just to get where we are.”

He shook his head. “You have, for sure. Not me.”

“An indifferent, alcoholic padre? An absent mother? A brother who constantly embarrassed you when you were in the middle of puberty?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I was there, bro. I remember.”

He looked uncomfortable.

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with deciding you want to change your life. There are better jobs out there than Clean Harbors, I’m sure of it. There are girls – there are women – who are going to be a better fit for you than Anna Aguilar. Go for it! But don’t do it to keep pace with somebody else. Do it for yourself.”

He sat with that for a bit, looking out at the pool and sipping his beer.

I figured I’d probably said enough, and maybe more than I should have. But his mood seemed to lighten, whether from what I’d said, or because he was catching the surreptitious glances he was getting from the young ladies at the side of the pool. Nothing like a little reminder about the huge population of fish in the sea!

When he finished the beer he looked my way and smiled. “Thanks. I guess I needed to talk after all.”

“Fair’s fair. I blubbered all over your shirt two days ago, right in this very spot.”

“Not so bad, having a sibling,” he said, judiciously.

“Doesn’t suck, that’s for sure.” I took my wrap off and rose. “Give me a minute; I need to cool off.”

“Race you!”

He was way faster, but that just meant that I could cannonball him when he came up for air. He laughed, and we splashed each other for a few minutes before we got out and went back to the table. This time, we both grabbed beers.

I took a slow sip. “You drink this stuff? On purpose?”

“Yeah?”

“Pure spring water my ass! More like Rocky Mountain cougar piss.” My tone was scornful – but appropriately so.

“City chica!”

“That’s what Kelsey says.”

He saw how my face fell at the mention of her name, and his own smile faded. “How’s she doing? Any change?”

“No. Innie tried to talk to her yesterday. She’s digging in her heels. Says she has to try to make things work with Dace.”

“Shit. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, me too.” I decided I’d get either angry or weepy if I thought too much more about Kelsey, so I changed the subject. “Gotta catch you up on some things.”

He looked pained. “That’s, like, never a good sign, with you.”

I waggled my fingers. “Hard to say, this time. So, after the hearing yesterday, I went to see padre. I was talking to him, you know, like I’ve been doing. And I mentioned the thing about Uncle Fernando having Momma’s email address. Soon as I said it, his eyes opened.”

“He’s awake?” He had been about to take a drink; instead, his beer hand dropped to the table.

“Not exactly. I mean, his eyes were open, but they weren’t tracking or anything. The nurse came in and did some tests, then the doctor came in as well. He didn’t respond to requests to open or close his eyes, so they said he might or might not be awake. But, I was back there this morning, talking to Abuela. We ended up talking about Momma, and when we did, he started to cry.”

“Dios mio,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You think he’s really alive in there?”

“He’s definitely alive. But I think . . . no, I’ll go further. I’m sure he’s actually conscious, at least some of the time. He can hear what’s being said.”

He thought about that a moment, then shook his head and gave me one of his sideways looks. “So, what were you guys saying about Momma, anyway?”

“I wanted to get the story of why she left,” I said softly. “I had to pry it out of Abuela, but she told me in the end.”

Ximo just stared at me, clearly willing me to tell him.

“She said that Momma and padre were fighting all the time, which is what I remember. I don’t know if you do.”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

“Anyway . . . the tio’s were siding with Momma, and the tia’s didn’t like it. Padre was pretty pissed about it, too. Everyone was fighting with each other, and momma was miserable. So she left.”

He thought about that for a moment and reached the same conclusion I had. “She helped, didn’t she? Abuela.”

“She told me she knew – that Momma told her, just before she left. But she didn’t help her.”

“Nasty old witch.”

“Not like there were any good answers.” I shrugged. “Something else, though. Momma’s mother reached out to me. Wanted me to help her locate her daughter.”

“Wait, what? Jesus, I just saw you yesterday!”

“I know, right? Anyway, I told her I’d pass along the information if Momma happened to contact me. I didn’t tell her I had Momma’s contact information, or that I’d spoken to her.”

Ximo was looking dazed. “Why not?”

“I’m not really sure,” I said, honestly. “Mostly because it’s clear she’d thrown Momma out after she got pregnant. I wasn’t feeling a whole lot of sympathy.”

“What a fucked-up excuse for a family!” Ximo shook his head, disgusted.

“Yup, both sides. Three generations of FUBAR.”

“Fuck that!” he said fiercely. “TWO generations! No more! You and me, we’re going to fucking do it right!”

I clinked my beer can to his. “Sounds like a plan. . . . And, now that I’ve got you in such a determined mood?”

He gave me a look that was all business. “Yes.”

It wasn’t a question. His tone made it a statement; an answer. But that made no sense. “Huh?”

“I know what you want to talk about. Knew it when you asked me to come over. The witch wants you to be padre’s conservator for however long it takes, and I figured I was safe ’cuz she always gets what she wants. But that judge yesterday was real clear she’ll only appoint you short-term. You want me to do it when your time’s up.”

“And . . . you’re okay with that?” I was expecting an argument!

“Do I want to do it? No. No fucking way. But it’s like what we were talking about earlier. It’s time I grew up.”

~o~O~o~

The evening was spent on paperwork, and early Sunday morning, too. I managed to get access to padre’s mortgage account, which showed me that he had refinanced in 2019 and currently owed around $180,000 on his house. Naturally, he hadn’t taken a 30-year fixed rate mortgage, even though rates had been ridiculously low. No, he’d gone with a 5-year ARM. His monthly payments had just jumped from under $1000 a month to over $1200. Wonderful.

What was far more worrisome, however, is that the money from that transaction had just vanished. It never even hit his checking account. This made me reluctant to conclude that padre had no other assets. Perhaps he had put the money into an IRA account or something, though that made no kind of sense I could think of.

However, there was absolutely no title record of any kind of asset, so I couldn’t see a barrier to applying to have him covered by the MediCal health insurance program. I decided I would just double check my intuition on that with Margaret Cunningham, my office’s expert on state programs, before I filed anything.

I was trying to wrap my head around worker’s comp rules when I got a call from señor Cortez, asking how padre was doing. I filled him in, and was happy to tell him that I thought he’d been completely on the money in guessing that padre was able to hear and understand at least some of what was going on around him. He promised he would try to visit padre more often; I joked that he might try to find something more cheerful to read than a book about fascism.

But as soon as that welcome distraction was over, I dove back into work. The Judge had given us a Friday deadline for filing the petition for appointment of a long-term conservator, and I owed it to Ximo to make his path as easy as possible. I figured the judge might be reassured that Ximo would be able to handle everything if the petition demonstrated significant progress had already been made to get padre’s affairs in order.

As with the prior petition, I knew that a key issue would be whether the family was united. I’d gotten Abuela on board – grudgingly – with having Ximo take over as conservator. I was confident that Uncle Augui and tio Javier would defer to Abuela, and I assumed that Uncle Fernando would be happy with anyone but me.

Unfortunately, that left both Momma, who didn’t want me to contact her, and Uncle Angel, which really meant Aunt Maria.

That was what led me to my senior aunt and uncle’s doorstep at 10:30 on Sunday morning. I wasn’t sure whether they were going to the English-language or Spanish-language masses these days, but I knew 10:30 would work either way.

Uncle Angel opened the door and stepped back, aghast. “What are you doing here???”

“Angel? Who is . . . .” Aunt Maria came into view, and her still-attractive face curdled the instant she saw me. “You dare set foot on our property?”

Uncle Angel was already moving to shut the door in my face when I put up a hand. “Stop! Please! I’m not my mother!”

That was sufficiently off-the-wall that Uncle Angel stopped shutting the door. “What?” His eyes flitted to Aunt Maria, who looked equally nonplussed.

“I said, I’m not my mother. I don’t mean to cause any trouble for the family, and I won’t. I just need ten minutes of your time, for your brother’s sake.”

“Who says that’s why we have a problem with you?” Aunt Maria was finding her footing. “You are trouble in your own right!”

I took a steadying breath. “Yes, I understand that. And I’m sorry if I’ve caused problems. But like I said before, I don’t intend to stay, and I want to talk to you both about the easiest way for me to get out of your hair, while still taking care of padre.”

“Easy. You leave, and we handle it.” Aunt Maria folded her arms, looking satisfied.

“No, I’m on the hook, for either thirty days or sixty. But after that, I need to hand the job off. And I want to talk with you about that.”

Uncle Angel gave me a suspicious look, then again looked to Aunt Maria.

She continued to glare. “Five minutes. I’ll give you five minutes – but only if you apologize for insulting us both, when you barged in here last time!”

People sometimes say that the Church “makes” saints, but that’s not right. The Church only recognizes particular individuals who just have to have made the cut. Everyone understands that there are a lot more saints in heaven, and I’ve got mine. In moments like this, I imagine Sister Catalina, on her knees in her little vegetable garden, painstakingly working the weeds out of the ground. Clearing space for healthy growth. Give me patience, madre de mi corazon!

“I apologize,” I said, managing it without even gritting my teeth. “I lost my temper, and I’m sorry.”

She glared some more, then humphed. “Fine. Come in. Five minutes.”

Their house was dark, just like I remembered. During the day, they tended to keep the blinds down to minimize their use of the AC, but they’d always favored dark-colored paints and it made the place gloomy. They practically marched me into the living room and sat on the couch; I took a straight-backed chair facing them.

“Say what you have to say,” Uncle Angel said.

“Okay. I’ve started pulling together padre’s finances and his records, and I’ll be filing applications related to insurance and probably social security disability this week.”

Aunt Maria snorted her opinion of government programs, but I continued without giving her time to expand on the subject. “Workers’ comp looks like a long-shot, unless we can show his stroke was work-related. Ximo’s agreed to take over payment of utilities and incidentals on the house right now, and he’s in a position to split the mortgage, so we’ll have a few months before padre’s money runs out. Long story short, I think I should have his financial situation as stable as it can be before my temporary appointment as conservator is done.”

“You should never have been appointed to begin with,” Aunt Maria grumbled.

I nodded. “I understand you feel that way. But here’s the thing. Once the systems are set up, we’re going to need someone to take over who is closer to padre than I am. Closer physically, of course. But also someone who has a better sense of his likes and dislikes. What might help him recover. That sort of thing.”

“Angel is the oldest,” Aunt Maria said, frowning.

I’d expected her to repeat that argument, and turned my attention to my uncle. “Of course you are – but honestly, would you say that you and padre are close, these days?”

Uncle Angel looked uncomfortable. “Closer than you are, that’s for sure!”

“Yes . . . but not closer than Ximo is.”

“Ximo!” Aunt Maria barked. “He’s a child!”

Damn, bro, I thought to myself. Why does EVERYONE have this reaction? But I didn’t say any of that. “He’s young. We all are, my generation. But you wouldn’t hesitate to trust Francisco, and they’re practically the same age.”

“Francisco is a father of two,” Uncle Angel argued. “That makes you grow up.”

I nodded again, doing my very best to seem reasonable. “Yes, I saw that with AJ, at the picnic. I barely recognized him.” Before they could drop rain from the thunderclouds brought on by my mention of the picnic they’d boycotted, I added, “but that’s actually my point. AJ and Francisco grew up when they took on an adult’s responsibilities. Ximo will, too. He already has – he volunteered to take on the job; I didn’t have to ask him.”

Uncle Angel opened his mouth, then closed it, then looked at his wife, a question in his eyes.

For once, she seemed at a loss for words. Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t know if I believe it. Why not leave it to Angel to take care of?”

I could think of a bunch of reasons, but most of them would make my relatives incandescent with rage. There was one argument, though, that would appeal to their very traditional values, and I didn’t hesitate to use it. “Because he is padre’s son. It is his job to do. His duty.”

They looked at me, then they looked at each other. Uncle Angel surprised me by being the one to speak. “If it had been my padre, I would not have let anyone else do the job.”

Aunt Maria frowned, then looked at me. “If we agree to this, you will go, yes?”

“After I’ve fulfilled my duties as conservator, yes. Understand, I will come back to see padre, unless he tells me not to. And there are others here, too, that I want to stay in touch with. But my home, my work, and my school are all down south. That’s where I’ll be.”

She sat back and refolded her arms, looking at me like she was trying to see through to whatever machinations my fertile brain was cooking up. But she evidently couldn’t find a good reason to object. “Alright. Fine. We won’t stand in his way.”

I looked at Uncle Angel, and he nodded his agreement. I rose. “Then I won’t take any more of your time. We’ll file the application by the end of the week, and I expect the court will appoint another investigator.”

They both stood as well, and began shepherding me in the direction of the door. When we got there, Aunt Maria said, “Don’t think this means we approve of you. I don’t want to see you at our door again.”

I nodded a final time. “Understood. For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry about that. But I respect your decision.”

I got back in my car and drove away, wishing desperately that I could take a shower.

~o~O~o~

She stalked across the dry dust of the deserted baseball field, looking at me but avoiding my eyes. When she reached the bleachers where I was sitting – when had they added bleachers? – she lowered herself down beside me and looked out over the field. “Fine. I came. Happy?”

I didn’t answer for a long time. Not until she looked over at me.

“No, I’m worried. We all are. You know that.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.” Kels returned her attention to the baseball field. “Look, I know what you’re going to say. You’ve already said it. You saw a lot of abuse victims, and it’s a big trigger for you. But I told you before, that’s not me.”

I reached out and squeezed her shoulder; the muscles were so tense it made me wince. “That’s not why I wanted to see you.”

She snorted. “Yeah, right. You and Innie both, coming at me. Get it through your heads – I’m not a victim. I’m not a little girl. Things will work out with Dace, or they won’t. I’m willing to take the risk.”

I squeezed again. “I understand.”

She waited for me to say more, but I had no intention of doing that. It’s not her mind that needs convincing.

The silence didn’t bother me, but it bothered her. “So, if you aren’t going to get in my grill about Dace, why did you want to see me?”

“Because you’re my friend.”

She shrugged off my hand and turned to glare at me. “Don’t BS me!”

“I’m not. I think Dace is a mistake; you know that. But I’m still your friend, whether you stay with him or not.”

“Who said you aren’t?” She looked away again.

“You did. When you closed that garage door in my face.”

She flinched. “Hey, I didn’t mean it that way.”

I didn’t respond.

“I just didn’t want to get a lecture, okay?”

I thought about responding to that sally, but decided I didn’t have anything valuable to say.

After the silence stretched for a while longer, she turned and looked at me. “Okay, fine. That was a dick move on my part. Sorry.”

“No hay bronca.”

She looked back at the field and brooded for a few minutes more, before exploding. “Fuck! Would you fucking say something?”

“You missed a good picnic?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “You’re a complete bitch, you know that? You did not ask me to come sit outside in 110 degree weather to admire the fucking baseball field!”

“You’re right, I didn’t. I called you, so that you’d know I’m here for you. I’m here if anything happens, or if nothing happens. I don’t want you to think you need to avoid me, or avoid Innie.”

“Fine. Okay. Got it.” She went back to glowering at the field. Then she gave kind of a half shrug and said, “Did tia Consola try to do an exorcism on you?”

Finally! I smiled. “No. We actually had a pretty good conversation.”

“You are so shitting me.”

“I’m not. I mean, she doesn’t approve of my transition. But she made it clear that I’m still family, and that matters to her.” And hopefully you’ll see the parallel without my having to rub your stubborn Morales nose in it.

She snorted. “Innie must have resorted to water boarding.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think tia’s piety’s a weapon, the way it is with Aunt Maria.”

“Huh. Never thought of it that way.” She gave me another look. “Did you get in touch with your mom?”

I nodded. “Thanks to you, yes.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Kels?” I waited until she met my eyes before saying, “I’m really, really sorry you had to go through that.”

“Yeah, I know,” she sighed. “Tell me it was worthwhile.”

“With the information you got from your papí, I was able to track down a telephone number and call her. She signed off on the petition, so we were able to get the conservatorship approved Friday.”

“Whoa, wait. You talked to her? What did she say?”

“Mostly, that she had her own life and didn’t want to hear from me again.”

“Fuck! Seriously???” Her face went red with anger and disbelief.

I shrugged. “I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else. If she’d wanted to contact us, she knew where to find us. Or at least, where to find Ximo.”

“You know, I always felt like I missed out, with my mom dying so young. I don’t even remember her.” She shook her head. “But I’d rather be me than you, with that kind of a mom.”

“Ximo said the same thing. But she was there for us when we were little; I guess that’s something.”

“You say so. Fuck, I’m sorry, Carmen. That must just suck.”

“I had better days, for sure.”

“But you got that thing done? With the court?”

“Yeah. Been doing paperwork all weekend.”

“Better you than me.” She stood. “C’mon, girl. Let’s get a Frosty Freeze.”

I smiled and sang the jingle. “If you fall and scrape your knees . . . ?”

“Nothing helps like Frosty Freeze!” She reached down a hand, and hauled me up.

We started walking down to Front Street, and she reached over and rubbed my back. “So, what’s the drill, anyway? What paperwork do you need to do?”

I gave her a rundown of what I’d been doing and what I’d found, as we headed west on Front Street and made our way to “downtown” Buttonwillow’s one and only source of fast food. I’d pretty much finished my summary when we got our shakes and grabbed a seat at one of the plastic-topped picnic tables.

The tin roof over the eating area provided some much-needed shade, but it also created an oven effect, and there wasn’t much of a breeze. My double-chocolate shake tasted perfect.

Kelsey was mulling over the big question mark I’d been left with after reviewing padre’s finances. “So he pulls something like $150 k out of home equity in a refi, and it just disappears?”

“Near as I can tell. I mean, obviously, it went somewhere. I’ve just got no paper trail. I didn’t see anything about it when I went through all of padre’s papers a couple weeks back.”

She sucked hard on her strawberry shake, to all appearances deep in thought. “And you said this was in 2019?”

“Yeah. Why? Was there some big crisis then? Something with Abuela, maybe?”

“With Abuela? Nah.” She gnawed on her cheek, thinking. “But . . . that is when papí got busted for armed robbery.”

“You think there’s a connection?”

She blew into her straw a couple times, clearing a chuck of fruit that had wedged there. “Maybe? I know he made full restitution as part of his plea deal, but . . . I’d just assumed he gave back what he’d grabbed from the bank.”

“How much was it?”

She shook her head. “No idea. I don’t know that I ever knew. A lot, anyway. He’d gotten into debt with some shady loan shark, financing some investment scheme that went south. It’s why he lost the house.”

I worked on my shake while I thought about what she’d told me. Then I shrugged. “Hopefully, it won’t matter. Unless someone official tells me I need to get proof of where that mortgage money went, I think all I need to say is that he doesn’t have it now. For sure, I’m not going to ask you to get more information from your papí!”

“Thanks for that.” She smiled, sadly. “But seriously. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s not your fault papí played the pendejo.”

“A lot of things seem to be happening because I’m here, making trouble. Even if, in some cosmic sense, it’s never ‘my fault.’”

“‘Cosmic!’ Jesus, you’re such a geek!”

We finished our shakes and dumped the cups. When we stepped back into the sunlight, she said, “Look. I gotta get back.” She sounded a little apologetic.

“Yeah, I need to hit the road. I should be back next weekend, though.” I touched her arm lightly. “Are we good?”

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“You know I’m here for you, right? Call any time.”

“I know.”

We said our goodbyes, and she walked away. Her shadow stretched back toward me, even as she went back to Dace.

— To be continued

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