Abuelita’s living room. Who knows how it got there, but it was a scene, I’m assuming in hindsight, from the French Revolution, a broad staircase leading from a public square up into a stately building, with a balcony where several elegant figures formed a cluster, including a woman—Marie Antoinette?—with a pale blue dress and imposing hair. In the street below, many other people approached, more poorly dressed, but my eye was drawn to an old man on the lower steps, shabbily clad, leaning one-legged on a cane, his back to the viewer. I knew nothing of the history, the social and political background that informed the painting, but I understood thata message was somehow intended when the artist contrived to place this man front and center. I spent a lot of time wondering about him and trying to imagine his face. But that was as far as I could get.
“ SONIA , we’re going to visit your grandfather. My father.” This got my attention. My mother had never so much as mentioned his existence before. When I questioned her, she answered in a voice that sounded as if she were reading aloud from the small print on the back of a package of medicine. “I don’t know the man. He left when I was born. I haven’t seen him since then. But Tío Mayo and Titi Aurora want me to come with them to the hospital to see him, and they say you should come too.” The unknown grandfather was not the whole mystery. I usually knew what Mami was thinking from the flash in her voice, the speed of her smile, as rare as it was then, the telltale arch of her brows. This woman speaking with such flat indifference was not the mother I knew.
Tío Mayo led us to the bed at the far end of the room, by the window. As we walked the length of the ward, I hardly saw the patients in the other beds, so intently was I focused on my mother and our looming destination. Nothing was going to slip by me, though I had no idea what to expect or even what I should be wondering about. Would she greet him with a kiss? How do you relate to a father you don’t know?
He had Mami’s light eyes. Framed by the white of his hair, the white mustache, the white of the sheets, their sea-green color seemed even lighter, bluer, more startling. He was a handsome man but gaunt. His arms were just sticks poking from the sleeves of the hospital gown. A thousand questions ran through my head, but I didn’t dare speak any of them out loud: Why did you leave Mami behind? Who are you? Do you have a wife? Do you have other kids? Where have you been living?
I climbed onto the chair and watched. My mother walked up to the bed and stood looking down at the old man. In an ice-cold voice she said, “
Yo soy Celina
.” That was it. He didn’t say anything to her. He didn’t ask how her life had been, what it was now. There were no tears, no revelations.
Titi Aurora led me by the hand to the bedside and introduced me. I got barely a nod from him. I retreated, climbed back onto the chair, andwatched as Titi Aurora chattered about nothing and fluffed his pillows. Tío Mayo was there and not there, talking to the nurses, taking care of business. But in all this nothing, I understood something: that my mother had been wounded as deeply as a human being could be.
I have carried the memory of that day as a grave caution. There was a terrible permanence to the state that my mother and her father had reached. My mother’s pain would never heal, the ice between them would never thaw, because they would never find a way to acknowledge it. Without acknowledgment and communication, forgiveness was beyond reach. Eventually, I would recognize the long shadow of this abandonment in my own feelings toward my mother, and I would determine not to repeat what I had seen. The closeness that I share now with my mother is deeply felt, but we learned it slowly and with effort, and for fear of the alternative.
Five
I T WAS IN April of the year that I turned nine. I was heading straight home after school
“ SONIA , we’re going to visit your grandfather. My father.” This got my attention. My mother had never so much as mentioned his existence before. When I questioned her, she answered in a voice that sounded as if she were reading aloud from the small print on the back of a package of medicine. “I don’t know the man. He left when I was born. I haven’t seen him since then. But Tío Mayo and Titi Aurora want me to come with them to the hospital to see him, and they say you should come too.” The unknown grandfather was not the whole mystery. I usually knew what Mami was thinking from the flash in her voice, the speed of her smile, as rare as it was then, the telltale arch of her brows. This woman speaking with such flat indifference was not the mother I knew.
Tío Mayo led us to the bed at the far end of the room, by the window. As we walked the length of the ward, I hardly saw the patients in the other beds, so intently was I focused on my mother and our looming destination. Nothing was going to slip by me, though I had no idea what to expect or even what I should be wondering about. Would she greet him with a kiss? How do you relate to a father you don’t know?
He had Mami’s light eyes. Framed by the white of his hair, the white mustache, the white of the sheets, their sea-green color seemed even lighter, bluer, more startling. He was a handsome man but gaunt. His arms were just sticks poking from the sleeves of the hospital gown. A thousand questions ran through my head, but I didn’t dare speak any of them out loud: Why did you leave Mami behind? Who are you? Do you have a wife? Do you have other kids? Where have you been living?
I climbed onto the chair and watched. My mother walked up to the bed and stood looking down at the old man. In an ice-cold voice she said, “
Yo soy Celina
.” That was it. He didn’t say anything to her. He didn’t ask how her life had been, what it was now. There were no tears, no revelations.
Titi Aurora led me by the hand to the bedside and introduced me. I got barely a nod from him. I retreated, climbed back onto the chair, andwatched as Titi Aurora chattered about nothing and fluffed his pillows. Tío Mayo was there and not there, talking to the nurses, taking care of business. But in all this nothing, I understood something: that my mother had been wounded as deeply as a human being could be.
I have carried the memory of that day as a grave caution. There was a terrible permanence to the state that my mother and her father had reached. My mother’s pain would never heal, the ice between them would never thaw, because they would never find a way to acknowledge it. Without acknowledgment and communication, forgiveness was beyond reach. Eventually, I would recognize the long shadow of this abandonment in my own feelings toward my mother, and I would determine not to repeat what I had seen. The closeness that I share now with my mother is deeply felt, but we learned it slowly and with effort, and for fear of the alternative.
Five
I T WAS IN April of the year that I turned nine. I was heading straight home after school
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