In her favorite overstuffed chair she bought for a steal, she'd
tell you, my mother sat reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Cien Años
de Soledad, a book I gave her last time I was in Miami. She hid it
from my father because he says Marquez is nothing but a low-down
communist who vacations in Cuba with Castro's blessings.
I knew my mother loved Marquez, regardless of the
writer's political beliefs. I wanted to show her that I, too, had
developed a taste for good literature, and that I finally understood
why she enjoyed Marquez's magical realism so much. Moreover, I wanted
her to know that the money my father and she were spending on my
college education was a wise investment.
Her plump body looked warm in her lilac robe with the
tiny purplish-blue flowers. God, how did she keep the periwinkles
blooming? I smiled. I used to steal that robe from the back of the
bathroom door when I was ten. My brother Frankie and I flew around the
house in it. I was Superman and he trailed behind as the Boy Wonder.
We hung that same extra large robe between the couch and the coffee
table like a tent, creating our own Peter Pan universe there in our
Coral Gables home.
Frankie and I hid under the terrycloth tent for hours,
pretending to live millions of miles away in a galaxy devoid of
overprotective mothers. Our world was free of mothers who yelled at
their children for bathing pet ferrets in clouds of Mr. Bubble in the
washing machine. It was an uncharted planet where mothers allowed
children to stay up past midnight - without taking showers! It was a
make-believe land where aluminum swords allowed us to intrepidly
conquer the world, ridding it of cheek-pinching Galician grandmothers
and love-struck little girls.
"How is it?" I asked, trying to strike up
conversation before returning to the hokey college town. I rarely got
a moment alone with my mother to talk about us. Not about life or
school or career choices. But a moment to talk about us. Just a moment
when my father, brother and sisters (or cousins we hadn't seen in
years) weren't trying to keep everyone in good spirits.
"It's not the first time I read this," she
reminded me, sipping the tepid café con leche. "But this
time - I don't know - this time it's different," she added
reaching to make sure the yellow silk scarf was still wrapped tight
around her head.
The light seemed dim, too dim to do any reading. But
we didn't mind. It made the room more serene. It kept my father
snoring in the bedroom. The bright colors of day faded into the deep
taupes of night. Just another warm and breezy summer night at home. I
couldn't see the family photos on the mantle, but the echoing memories
of laughter were strong enough to keep us comfortable and cozy.
Carefully following along in the book, she reached for
her pink, round feet, bringing them solace. Throbbing from the
stamping and tramping of that day's grocery shopping at Sedano's
Market, the pulsing soon subsided as she caressed each toe, one by
one. Patient and detailed, she made sure not to give any digit more
love and attention than the other.
As her tender fingers flipped the page, she smiled,
enjoying Marquez's subtle insights. When she smiled her wrinkles
seemed permanently tattooed. She never indulged in the vanity of
trying to hide her sixty years. I wondered which wrinkles were
excavated by her own unrealized dreams left back in Havana. Which of
those folds existed due to the frustration she felt when I dropped out
of Coral Gables High School in my Junior year? That was the year I
decided I wanted to act. I had gotten bit parts on Miami Vice and
other B-films starring Andrew Stevens and Love Boat has-beens. Which
lines were caused by the frustration she experienced questioning her
own parenting skills? Even though I returned to school and was the
first in our family to go to college, the lines were still there,
already mapped on her visage. Distinct as they were, they did not
upstage the soft smooth texture of her Castilian skin, the brilliance
of her smile.
Her eyes caressed each word with reverence. As she
flipped to the next page, her caramel eyes looked up at me,
questioning, while I tried to capture every inch of her being, every
second of her life. She said nothing, but the raised, thinning
eyebrows let me know she was aware she was being studied like some
caged guinea pig at a cancer research lab. I looked deep into her
almond-shaped eyes trying not to give myself away, wondering how she
really felt deep inside that age-old robe.
I have read how sons and daughters kick themselves
because they cannot remember their parents' nuances: the smirks, the
winces, the slight overbite. No way was I going to live with that.
Memories fade. Couldn't trust my brain cells popping at some
phenomenal rate per second. Couldn't rely on keg-distorted,
college-day memories that faded with each passing semester.
I promised myself I would never forget how the saffron
yellowed her fingertips when she made arroz con pollo. Or how
upset she got when my sisters substituted cheap annatto oil instead of
saffron. I couldn't taste the difference. I didn't think she could
either. Somehow she always knew. "You can't substitute
quality," my mother would say. "There is no replacing the
real thing."
Her breathing, shallow as it was, required no
mechanical assistance. The doctor gave her an oxygen tank and rubber
mask for more comfort. But she would not hear of it. She wasn't
offended, though. Mamá knew the doctor had to do his job, but she
refused to bring an oxygen tank into her house. It would disrupt
things. In her own casual, but adamant, tone of voice she simply said
no.
"It'll make things easier," Dr. Aguila
promised. "There's nothing wrong with . . ."
"No, thank you," she politely protested.
"Take it home, Millie," the doctor insisted.
"No, thank you. I won't be needing it," she
reaffirmed as if turning down a box of cookies from a door-to-door
girl scout. "Why don't you save that for someone who will use
it?"
How she remained stoic and tall, I didn't know. Why
didn't she scream and cry? As relieved as I would be to hear her shout
at God or even at herself for not intercepting this deadly invader in
time, she simply carried this like she had carried every other
obstacle in life: defiantly strong and stalwartly silent. It wasn't
easy having a tragic heroine for a mother.
I didn't see the point of carrying all that courage to
the grave. I'd never go like that. What was the point of leaving this
Earth so gallantly for only five minutes' praise during Thursday's picadillo?
"Wasn't she so heroic?" I could hear my aunt
now.
"You know she never even winced. She just left
peacefully," my father would note.
"Can you please pass the potatoes?" someone
would ask and the conversation would turn to some other current event
having to do with the state of Cuba and how lucky and smart we all
were to have left the island when the rest of the white, middle-class
Cubans did.
"To hell with heroism, Mamá!" I wanted to
scream. "Leave this planet shrieking and kicking. Roar your way
out of here so no one ever forgets you existed!" How many purple
hearts are sitting in attics around the country, locked in impermeable
velvet boxes with moldy silk linings, covered with rodent dung and
cobwebs? I'm sure those heroes were remembered once, too. Too
Falstaffesque, I know.
Instead of telling her what I wanted to say, I sat
there motionless, watching her yawn. Short and sweet, almost just a
gasp. Peaceful and content. Allowing Marquez to rest until their next
rendezvous, until their next exchange of wits, she closed Cien
Años de Soledad, placing the novel on the etched brown table she
had bought years ago in Panama right before I was born.
"I have to get up quite early tomorrow," she
confessed. "I promised your sisters that I'd make the stuffed
pork chops they love so much, and I forgot the mangos. Where has my
mind been? How could I have forgotten the mangos?" she laughed to
herself, tugging the yellow scarf in place.
How could you have forgotten the mangos? She was
withering away in front of my eyes, and all she could think of was
that stupid mango dressing for my sisters who insisted on substituting
cheaper, readily available ingredients anyway?
by Pablo Ruiz Picasso
Woman Seated In An Armchair (1923) |
"Use peaches or something else," I told her.
"I can pick some key limes or tamarind from the backyard.
They probably won't even notice."
"I'll notice," she interjected. "If I use
something else they wouldn't be my pork chops, would they?"
she giggled.
She rose slowly from the chair, her oversized robe falling
past her feet. I would not make the mistake of helping her up. A
costly mistake my brother once tried. I pretended to brainstorm
a new project for school as she moved toward me. Under the
rippling folds of her periwinkle robe she seemed to glide, an
angel come to earth. |
She kissed my forehead, and I felt the warmth of her
lips pressed against me. God, I prayed, don't let me forget the warmth
of her lips, that look on her face. What could I do years from now to
remember her pale face in the shadows, the aura of Shalimar that
always surrounded her, the caramelized plantains she fried with
roasted garlic (the ones that always made my stomach hurt)?
In a heartbeat, oh, how I would have traded my future
career, my degree, my haystack-fringed college town, my UM-FSU
tickets, yes, and even my soul for just a few more days with her. Just
one more moment.
I needed to tell her not to give in, to stay with me
and our family. If only I had the power to take that robe and kidnap
my mother, take her to the adolescent land of make-believe my brother
and I created years ago. If only she could stay with me, cozy under
that terrycloth sky with the periwinkle stars, everything would be all
right. If only time would stand still for even a millisecond instead
of dashing through space at a phenomenal speed.
"Mamá," was all I could murmur, the
ever-present knot pounding in my throat.
"Yes, my love?" she tugged at my chin.
"I love you."
"And, oh, how I love you," she said, gliding
into the room where my father continued snoring.
The ray of light blanketed the empty chair where my
mother valiantly read Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Specks of dust whirled
in the light, an ambivalent fandango in the dark. Oblivious to my
pain, to the premature sense of loss that howled in my soul, the
specks danced and danced in a world of light and shadow.
Dedicated to M. Milagrosa Martínez-López
(1930-1992)
