Soledad

It’s always like that: just when I think I don’t give a shit about what my family thinks, they find a way to drag me back home.

A few weeks ago I receive this urgent phone call from my aunt Gorda.

You have to come home, Soledad, your mother is not doing so good.

Gorda expects a fight from me. She tells people that I was born con la pata caliente, feet burning to be anywhere but here. I say, it’s more like those Travel and Leisure magazines my mother borrowed from the offices she cleaned that did it. When most kids wanted to go to Disney World, I begged to go to Venice so I could ride one of those gondolas. Even my earliest pastel drawings were of pagodas, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and Machu Picchu.

In some ways the travel and leisure fantasy continues because without trying I led my family to believe that I left 164th Street to live in the school dorms, which I kind of described to be more like high-rises, with a view of the East River and really great showers. For two years, they’ve had no idea. Every time I step inside my East Village walk-up on the corner of 6th and A, I feel guilty. Everything about it, the smell of piss, the halls as wide as my hips, the lightbulb in the lobby that flashes on and off like a cheap disco light, reminds me of my deception. But if they knew the truth (and how much I am paying for it), they’d declare me insane and send my uncle Victor to tie me up on the hood of his Camaro and bring me back home, kicking and screaming.

So although I dread it, I switch from the L train to the A and head uptown. For a minute I delude myself into thinking that my family is sitting around my grandmother’s kitchen eagerly awaiting my arrival. When the A train screeches its way up to 59th Street, I feel the little hairs on the back of my neck jump up like antennas. The tourists, the white folks, the kind of people who are too scared to go uptown, get off the train, leaving me behind. Once the train takes off from 59th Street there’s no stopping it. Next stop is Harlem and then Spanish Harlem and then finally Washington Heights.

I’ve learned not to make eye contact on the train. I try to avoid looking at the old lady who is an emaciated version of my grandmother, Doña Sosa, without teeth. Like my grandmother, the old lady wears heavy pressed powder three shades lighter than her skin tone. Just looking at her makeup gives me allergies. I squeeze my bags between my legs, slip the silver necklace with a dangling peace sign inside my dress and double-wrap the strap of my knapsack around my hand. Out of all the things to wear uptown, I wear a tie-dye cotton skirt and strappy sandals. I should’ve at least worn sneakers.

When I first moved downtown and people where I work asked me where I was from, I used to say the Upper West Side, vaguely.

Oh I really love it up there, they said, no doubt picturing Central Park and hordes of yuppified New Yorkers roller blading on a Sunday afternoon, or restaurants with outdoor seating that serve Italian gelato and crepes. I said it for so long that even I forgot that to most people Washington Heights is not even considered Manhattan. It’s more like the Bronx. And because I knew that people associated what they saw on the news with the place I grew up in — a war zone filled with cop killers, killer cops, crack dealers, gang members and lazy welfare mothers — I convinced myself that embroidering the truth about my living on the Upper Upper Upper West Side was my way of keeping nasty stereotypes of Washington Heights out of people’s minds.

But then I said it in front of my roommate, Caramel. She’s a Chicana from Texas running away from the heat. When I told her I was from the Upper West Side, she cringed and looked at me pityingly.

How can you stand it up there? she asked horrified. It’s like gringolandia.

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that exactly, I just knew it was bad. It felt worse than being called a blanquita back home: a sellout, a wannabe white girl. So to calm her down I told her the truth, I’m from Washington Heights. In a loud Texan accent she boomed: Then say it like it is, mujer.

Washington Heights.

As soon as I arrive at 164th Street I’m attacked. I trip on the uneven sidewalk. The air-conditioners spit at me. The smell of onion and cilantro sting my eyes. I start to sneeze, the humidity is thick, sweat beads drip on the small of my back. Hydrants erupt, splashing cold water over the pavement. I know I should turn back while I still can, before anyone in my family sees me, but when potbellied, sockless men and pubescent homeboys call me mami, as if I’ll give them the time of day if they stare at me long enough, I know I must keep moving forward. The last thing I want is to look lost or confused about where I’m going. There are more cops on the streets than fire hydrants. Merengue blares out of car speakers, the Dominican flag drapes in place of curtains on apartment windows, sneakers hang from lampposts, Presidente bottles, pizza boxes and old issues of El Diario burst out of the trash cans on the corner, a side of pernil grills by a building’s basement. A woman in rollers under a floral rayon scarf sticks her heads out the window and rolls her eyes at me and I know she’s just itching to burn a cigarette in my long straight hair, like the girls used to do to me in school when I was a kid.

The way I’m figuring it, my time in Washington Heights is like a prison sentence. Once I do the time, I won’t have the guilt trip anymore about moving out. I’m twenty years old. Twenty years old is old enough to live away from home. Apparently not old enough for my aunt Gorda, who’s almost forty and still lives with my grandmother, and Victor, who is about to hit thirty and won’t leave my grandmother’s pampering ways unless someone marries him and takes her place. But anyways, I promised Gorda I’ll give my mother two, maybe three months. If my mother can’t get her shit together in that time then that’s it. I’ve already sacrificed a once-in-a-lifetime apprenticeship with a professor in Spain this summer. Finally I was offered the opportunity to travel far away to Europe, where I could taste grilled champiñones and tortillas españolas, leisurely sit at a café during siesta and drink strong espresso in front of an ancient church. Me and Caramel had it all planned. We were supposed to meet up in Barcelona, where her gypsy tía lives and then escape on a train to Paris following James Baldwin’s footsteps.

Who’s James Baldwin? I asked her.

Oh girl, you have so much to learn, Caramel said in her I’m-five-years-older-than-you-and-know-so-much-more-about-the-world voice.

I tried to tell Gorda that Europe couldn’t wait. But she went on this trip about how I’ve forgotten the importance of familia.

What if you do go to Europe and something happens to your mother? You’ll never be able to live with yourself, Soledad. That I know for sure.

And just when I think I’m going to make it home safe a hard splash of water falls from the sky and hits me in the head. Children begin laughing, circling around me. They’re welcoming me to hell.

Fuck!

Parts of my skirt glues itself to my skin. My sandals turn a deep dark brown. My nipples go erect. I put my hands over them. I drop my bags.

Do you need help?

Leave me alone. Get away from me, please.

This guy wearing a gold rope chain as thick as my wrist holds back a laugh. That makes me hate him instantly.

Chill. It came from the roof. Don’t get mad at me. I’m trying to help.

Fuck off!

I give him the hand and look farther down the block toward my grandmother’s building. I’m almost there. I know that once I find Gorda I will be fine. I breathe in through my nose out through my mouth. Deep breathing is supposed to help. I learned that from my art teacher, who takes a lot of yoga.

That’s some language for a pretty girl.

As if I care about what he thinks. That’s the problem with the guys around here. He thinks because he spends his life in the gym and gets dimples when he smiles that I’m going to listen to anything he has to say. Besides he’s already causing me problems by making the girls wearing big door-knocker earrings, stretch denim jeans, hair slicked back tight into ponytails, popping chewing gum as if they’re sending out Morse code to their homies, stare me up and down. They look like the girls who threatened to beat me up in high school. I really should’ve worn sneakers. I bet my cousin Flaca is among them. Gorda already told me how she can’t get Flaca off the street.

Soledad, you have to advise her, Gorda said as if Flaca would ever listen to me.

I grab my bags and quickly walk away. Wet. I feel a chill; goose bumps emerge all over my legs and arms. I want to slam my duffel on top of the garbage bags. I’ll kill whoever threw that water balloon at me. I’ll make it my summer’s mission. It’s no wonder I avoid this place. It’s always one dreadful thing after the other. If it’s not my mother, it’s the chaos, the noise, the higher pitch in people’s voices. I need earplugs. In the eighteen years I lived with my mother, my family moved in and out of each other’s apartments, trading beds as if they were playing musical chairs. They ran across the street from my grandmother’s apartment to my mother’s apartment, back and forth, forth and back, front doors wide open, revolving, with neighbors and family coming through from D.R. One day I thought I had my own room, the next I day I was sharing my room with three little cousins who belong to Tío So-and-so who just arrived from some campo I hadn’t heard of. But Gorda told me that’s all changed. Once I left the hood my mother closed house, only letting Flaca visit every once in a while. Not having access to my mother’s apartment drove Gorda and my grandmother crazy. The worst thing one can do is to shut them out. It’s like slapping them in the face. And I’m sure they blame me for all that.

As I approach the familiar brick-faced building that houses a courtyard filled with weeds and a dead pine tree I see a crowd. Suddenly in front of my grandmother’s building, the people multiply and my grandmother is parting the crowd, carrying my mother, Olivia, with the strength of a matriarch.

I came too late. I waited too long.

The words run through my head like a mantra.

I came too late. My mother is dead.

Get out of my way.

I shove past the vecinos and vecinas, tugging, pulling, dragging myself through the crowd. Inside my grandmother’s apartment the Christmas ornaments are still up in June. The heavy metal door swings open, the kitchen smells like bacalao, the apartment seems deserted, except for Gorda’s room. I walk down the long dark hallway past the closets and bathroom; past my uncle Victor’s diploma from refrigeration school, which he never used; a cracked mirror (Gorda believes it’s one of the reasons her husband, Raful, left her); a Ziplocked bag filled with Holy Water, to counteract the broken mirror; my grandmother’s collection of quinceañera dolls, (she regrettably never celebrated her fifteenth birthday); my grandfather’s walker and a year’s supply of adult diapers that the government sent to us compliments of Medicaid.

Can it be my mother is dead? Ever since the day my father, Manolo, died, I fantasized about finding my mother dead. I dreamed her in accidents, caught in a shoot-out, slipping in the tub and accidentally stabbing her head with the Jesus on the cross hanging in the bathroom. I thought I was switched at birth, hoping my real mother would one day appear at the door to take me away. I held on to the fact that I don’t look like my mother. Maybe our lips are the same, full and pink. But my hair falls pin straight, my eyes are smaller, shaped like almonds, and my skin is fairer. My mother has the kind of face that when she smiles it makes you want to cry. A lifetime of misery, Gorda calls it. My grandmother, says it’s because my mother, was born on the wrong side of things. Came out feet first, that child. But I know it has everything to do with my father. Before my father came into my mother’s life, I imagine her to be more like me, with a desire to see the world, to try new things. Maybe if she had never met my father she would have been the kind of mother who would have understood why I had to leave home. Maybe I wouldn’t have left in such a hurry.

I remember the day I left perfectly. The early afternoon sun poured over my mother as she leaned her chair back and switched off the over-head fluorescent lights. She had returned from work early. I was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for her.

Those damn lights give me a headache, my mother said, looking at me as if she knew I had a secret that would piss her off. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw her without the deep creases between her brows. She always looked as if she had a headache; preocupada, tired, achy, with dolor.

She poured me a glass of water. I had never refused my mother. Not really. When she gave me something, I would take it to avoid arguing with her. Even if I threw it out later. But that day I wasn’t thirsty. I was bloated with anxiety, fearing what will happen once I opened my mouth. I pushed the water aside. I knew it couldn’t get any worse between us. Days would pass without us saying a word to each other. She would come home from work. I’d start dinner by boiling the water for the rice. And she’d cook while I did my homework, swept the apartment, threw out the trash. Then we ate together at the kitchen table passing a few words between us. I washed the dishes while she set herself up in the living room to do piecework for extra cash as she watched the novelas. For years we lived safely in our rituals. I never confronted her and no matter how our days went we went around each other like repelling magnets.

Drink it, Soledad, she said looking at me as if I was three years old.

I ignored her, looking away.

My mother poured me another glass of water and pushed the glass to the edge of the table without taking her eyes off me. The glass was clear, skinny and long; the sun reflected off the rim. The church bells rang. My fingers were filled with hangnails, more painful than paper cuts. My mother’s hands were smooth, cuticles pushed back, nails painted a dark pink.

Drink it, she said again. She poured another glass of water and another. The glasses stood next to each other like soldiers on a front line. I wouldn’t drink from them. My mother got up and lost herself in the living room closet. I wanted the closet to swallow my mother, lock her up into oblivion. But she returned to the kitchen with boxes filled with old drinking glasses. She poured water into each glass, one by one.

Coño maldita niña! Why won’t you drink it? Why won’t you take a glass of water from me, Soledad?

I tried not to look at her. My heart was pounding, my throat ached from holding back any sign of emotion. And every time I saw her I lost my conviction.

What’s wrong with you?

My mother kept yelling at me as I touched the rims of the glass with my fingertips. I had never seen her fight me like this before. She must’ve known I was leaving. The glasses howled like hungry dogs as my sweaty hands caressed the rims. One by one I smoothed my fingertips over the water-filled glasses and they started to sing, drowning out my mother’s scream.

Drink the maldita water, she begged. A glass of water, that’s all, Soledad. Can’t you see, I’m trying to do something nice for you? When are you going to forgive me? When?

The music from the glasses reached soprano highs that cut through the soft news radio reporting that another kid got shot from a stray bullet not too far from us.

Coño! Listen to me, Soledad!

She swept the glasses off the table with her arms, flinging them up into the air. I hunched over and covered my eyes. Glass ricocheted off my ears. I had to remind myself that I had already found an affordable room to rent in the East Village. That I was going to a place far away from my mother, from Washington Heights. As I felt drops of water fling over my hair, I had to remind myself that I was an artist, lucky to be selected from thousands of artists to attend Cooper Union. She continued screaming and I covered my ears. I ducked my head between my legs, and tried to remember the admission director’s calm voice. The same pleasant voice that found me a job at an art gallery, the same pleasant voice that congratulated me for being accepted as an art student with a full scholarship and having so much talent.

My mother reached her hands out to me over the table. Her shirt sleeves were swimming in the puddles on the plastic tablecloth. The water dripped on my toes, no longer numb, just cold. I couldn’t let her touch me. I was surprised to see she hadn’t combed her hair. It was frizzy, up in a ponytail, on top of her head. Her mascara bled around her eyes, but she wasn’t crying. Her eyes were like wet marbles. I slipped my feet into wooden clogs and walked over the glass, pushed some toward the walls with the sides of my shoes.

I had taken off the gold hoops my mother gave me when I was born and placed them on the kitchen table. Stuffed with paint, clothes, brushes, sketchbooks and some towels I stole from my mother’s bathroom, my bags waited for me by the door for a quick exit.

Don’t you turn your back on me, my mother screamed, using all the air in her lungs.

Watch me, I said. That day I planned never to return.

Now just seeing my family sausaged in Gorda’s small room makes me hotter and sweatier. They remind me of my crowded paintings; no matter how big I stretch the canvas, I never have enough room for all my ideas. My art teacher says I have an interesting relationship to clutter.

My family is like clutter in many ways. They gather in piles, hard to get rid of no matter how much I try. Sage, cloves, frankincense burn on coal by the window. Gorda is still wearing a housedress, spongy pink rollers half done in her hair. She’s lighting candles around my mother, whose hipbones push from inside her dress.

The blue candles are to keep you close to home, the yellow to drive away the sadness, the purple are so you’ll never forget and the white are so you’ll sleep in peace. Gorda recites prayers over my mother as my grandmother, watches over her. Uncle Victor paces. My grandfather, Don Fernando, flexes every weak muscle in his body to push the button on the motorized wheelchair so he can inch closer to the bed. His wrinkles are deeper since the last time I saw him. My mother has lost weight. Her palms face up as if she’s waiting for an offering. And when Gorda puts fresh herb in them to encourage her lifelines to take a turn for the better, my mother’s fingers open like flowers ready to die.

I’ve arrived too late.

My head spins. I hear a loud ringing in my ear. My mother’s lying on Gorda’s bed, lifeless.

Soledad! My grandmother says it as if she’d been calling me all day. Now everything is starting to make sense, she says, grabbing my arms, squeezing to feel how thin I am.

Sense?

I was praying for you to come.

Gorda grabs me, smiling from ear to ear, exposing the small gap between her two front teeth.

Soledad, we think your mother’s resolving some things in her sleep.

The way my family stares at me, so happy to see me, as if this wasn’t some kind of tragedy, is horrifying. They think my coming back is going to help her. I walk over to my mother lying peacefully and nudge her. She doesn’t react. I pinch her hands and nothing.

Is she breathing?

Something similar happened to this woman on TV. She didn’t wake up for three years, Gorda says, almost delighted she has more gossip to share with the world. Gorda runs her hands through my hair, frowning at the way it falls flat. No life, she says, as if it’s my fault. Gorda picks my hair up from around my neck and lumps it on the top of my head, fanning herself hysterically with the Awake magazine that the Jehovah’s Witnesses tuck under the door on Saturdays.

It’s been too long since I’ve seen you, Soledad. Too long.

Qué paso? I ask as I try to remember to breathe through my nose, out my mouth.

Soledad, you should’ve seen your mother with las tetas afuera, wearing a tiger-print nightgown, her left nipple exposed. My grandmother, whispers when she says tetas and continues saying how when she got to my mother’s bedroom the comforter was pushed to the edge of the bed, the window blinds were closed tight, the mirror over the dresser was fogged up. Pobre Olivia, she says.

How long has she been like this? Did she hurt herself?

No mi’ja. She’s just sleeping. We found out from the lady who works with her that she hasn’t gone to works for days. She just stopped going and last night her lights were on all night. So we started to worry.

Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?

Estas loca, they’re like mechanics, they mess you up a little, so you have to go back and they can make more money. Nothing good comes out of people making a living on the sick.

That’s what they’re there for, Abuela, to help, to fix things. You just can’t keep her here like this.

And why not? What do you know about these things?

I have succeeded in getting my grandmother’s attention, but I don’t have answers for her. Not yet anyways.

This is something only we can help. I was the one who found her and I know what I saw, my grandmother says assertively.

What did you see, Mamá? Gorda asks as she lays her hands on my mother’s feet, pokes at them as if she’s trying to tickle her back to life.

Many things. A mother knows when a daughter is in trouble. I called her and the phone just ring. So I knocked on her door till my knuckles hurt and when Olivia didn’t answer the door, I knew something was wrong. Lately she’s been very private and doesn’t always want to let me in, but she always yells through the intercom to signal she’s alive. Ay Soledad, I was so worried. I asked the neighbors if I could use the fire escape to break into her apartment.

And then what? Gorda asks.

I was afraid to step on the floor, the floor seemed fragile, every step made a loud creak, she says.

What did you do?

I walked into Olivia’s room and all the saints had their back to her.

San Miguel wasn’t watching over her? Gorda asks.

Not even San Miguel, my grandmother says, he was looking straight at the radiator. And you know what else, Olivia’s clock was blinking eleven, eleven. As if to record the moment it all happened. And today is the eleventh. And Olivia’s birthday is 11/11 and it was at eleven that Soledad walked into this house after being gone for twenty-two months, and half of that is eleven, she says, and narrows her eyes.

I’ve been away from home even longer; I mean except for the required holiday visits it’s been over two years. But I figure, why kill the excitement that comes with coincidences in life? What they need to understand is that maybe my mother might be critically ill, that they’re wasting time, but of course they’re not rational. Leaving my mother’s welfare up to my sixty-five-year-old grandmother, whose head is in the campo and whose heart is in love with Americanisms, is crazy. My grandmother is split between ideas, countries, her dreams and what’s real.

. . . and we live on 164th Street and if you add those three numbers you get eleven, my grandmother continues while Gorda nods, faithfully agreeing with the lunacy.

Abuelo, can you please do something.

Out of all people my grandfather can put some sense into them if he wanted to. Even in his weak state he still commands more with a snort than anyone else. But my grandfather, who hardly ever says a word because words make him cough so much that one