America's Dream by Esmeralda Santiago Page B

chicken. She rises in the dark, stumbles to the door, switches on the light. The sudden brightness makes her eyes water, and she has to rub away the swelling, the gritty texture of salty tears on skin. She brushes her hair, blows her nose, tugs her wrinkled clothes around her body, smoothing the skirt at the hips, stretching the top so that it doesn’t pull across her breasts. She turns out the light before opening the door.
    Correa is lying on the couch, watching television. He looks up when she comes out, evaluates her as if she were new in town. Then he turns his attention back to whatever he’s watching. She goes to the kitchen, and Ester comes out of her room, eyes clouded with liquor and some unmentionable pain that, try as she might, doesn’t go away.
    “There’s rice and beans. I’ll fry you up a drumstick if you like.” “That’s all right. This is fine.” América serves herself white
    rice, tops it with a ladleful of kidney beans.
    “At least let me heat it for you.” Ester tries to take the plate from América’s hand.
    “It’s all right. 1’11 eat it like this.” “It’s going to make you sick.” “I’m fine, Mami. Leave me alone.”
    Ester backs up, lets América go by, waits until she sits at the table.
    “Do you want something to drink?” “Is there any coffee?”
    “I’ll make some.” She goes back to the kitchen, and América hears her puttering around.
    She chews slowly and deliberately, as if each morsel contains some precious nutrient that must be savored, rolled around the tongue several times before swallowing or it will not have its

    curative effects. She stares straight ahead, her back to the kitchen. To her left, across the room, Correa is stretched out on the couch he bought, his couch, he reminds them if they ask him to move. She looks at the glass-fronted cupboard on the opposite wall, at the vajilla Correa gave her for her twenty-fifth birthday, fifty-two pieces of matching cups and saucers, plates and bowls, a covered soup urn. She only uses it on special occasions, because it’s too delicate for every day.
    Ester sets the steaming cup of black coffee in front of her. She brings another cup, creamed and sweetened, to Correa, who sits up, takes it, his eyes on the television, sips from it, not once ac- knowledging the hand that made and served it. Ester returns to the kitchen and comes back with a can of beer in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. She sits across from América, blocking her view of the beautiful vajilla in the cupboard, and lights a cigarette, eyes on her daughter. América avoids looking at her. Of the fifty-two-piece vajilla, only a cup and saucer have broken. It happened one Three Kings’ Day when Correa hired a group of musicians to serenade her. She foolishly took out her best to serve them coffee and sweet rice with coconut. The man who played the cuatro accidentally dropped both cup and saucer filled with fresh coffee on the tile floor. ’There were many apologies. She saved the pieces with the intention of putting them together with Krazy Glue, but the pieces never fit.
    “Did Rosalinda eat anything?” she asks Ester.
    “No, she didn’t want to eat.” Ester looks at her resentfully. She sips her beer, sets it down on the table, drags on her cigarette, sets it down on the ashtray, sips her coffee. “Do you want me to fry you up a leg?”
    “No, I’m fine.”
    “You shouldn’t eat cold food like that. It’ll give you gas.”
    América gets up, scraping the chair against the tiles. She takes her plate to the sink, washes it, and sets it to dry on the rack. It looks like Correa will be spending the night. She dries her hands on the dishcloth hanging from the refrigerator handle, returns to the table to finish her coffee, her eyes on the incomplete vajilla, a gift from Correa.

    Later, she lies in bed face up in the dark, dressed in a cotton nightgown she made herself. It’s pale blue, with thin ribbons around the neckline and