Si Me Ves Llorar

Image Description: A mother and daughter are in close embrace, their eyes closed and surrounded by a bright aura of green and yellow. They each have dark brown hair mixed in with a variety of colors, greens and purples and reds. 

The sound of her footsteps in the kitchen, crackling like some fire on Christmas Eve. Tip-tap, tip-tap, against the floorboards and the air smells of beans and tortillas and the coveted green sauce for the enchiladas I begged her to make me. Bell peppers, onions, tomatoes.

She said she needed to talk about something important, which scares me. Important things are not often prefaced; they surface in car rides to Abuela’s, or after getting in trouble in class. Stub of a toe: painful and unexpected. 

She’s calling me to the dinner table, and I wonder where my dad is, where my three brothers are. Us being left alone is not something of desire or frequency; cook and clean and clean and cook and stand while you eat but conversations are not something you do, especially not with me. 

Sitting at the dinner table. I trace the outlines of the crusty brown table and point: all sorts of stains on the worn-out wood, aren’t there? Trying desperately to make conversation. Look, here, at the time when so and so did this and that and I burnt myself and cried? Don’t you remember? 

Here, this hollowed out piece of wood is what remains of my childhood, all those times you made me swallow my meals at dinnertime because family doesn’t “waste food.” Sitting down, the Spanish bubbles out of me like a Pavlov dog that’s been trained a little too well. 

“Listen,” she says. My heart stops and I try to listen but all I hear is the blood pounding in my ears. 

“Have you ever –” Hesitation. Strange. 

“Have you –” Again. I’m sitting down and focusing intently on cutting my enchiladas into perfect little rectangles. Trying very hard to avoid her gaze, but the hesitation is strange. Is she alright? Looking up I see tears. Her eyes are red and stained like the windows of the church she forced me to go to, ticking voices like the strike of a clock or the strum of a bass. Stand and sit, sit and stand, get on your knees and pray. Her eyes are red and watery. This sight I’ve only seen once in my life, watching Titanic. But who doesn’t cry watching Titanic? 

I kind of want to reach out my hand to offer some sort of comfort, but that feels strange, we’ve never quite crossed that boundary before. I probably look stupid right now, blankly staring and waiting for her to continue. 

“Have you ever whispered your worries to a lover, told them to start and finish out your life?” 

A pin could drop.

No, the answer is no. I’ve never been in love like that. 

“Neither have I. At least, not to a lover.” Her eyes are so earnest, I could cry. I ask her about my dad, what about him. 

“Your Apa is something different. We’re like business partners, meant to watch over you and your brothers and ensure everything goes smoothly in your life. But I’ve asked you to start and finish out my life. And I know you’re going to college soon and –” Her voice catches, I can feel it rise in cadence, on the edge of her “last straw” voice.

– Her “last straw” voice, always teetering on the edge of a regaño, a scolding. I’m whipped back to the memory of her calloused fingers running through my hair, palm rough and exacting of my scalp. She’s slathering gel on it, demanding me to stay still. She hates when she can pull on my hair and my head pulls back too, my neck floppy and undemanding. As a kid, I could use every bit of focus I had to show her that I could listen, that I had a strong head. I can be strong now. 

“I know that you’re going to college soon and I just wanted to remind you of that. My oldest, my only girl. My life has begun and ended many ways over the course of my life, with each birth of your brothers and each passing of my siblings. The day you were born was the day my life truly began. So I come here, to remind you that it’s your job to finish out my life.” 

My silent mother. How many words like this has she kept locked away in a box? 

A baggie with a Mickey Mouse logo, filled with diet pills and anti-anxiety medication. Maybe it’s a little game: which problem can I fix today? 

Wake up at 5 and go to sleep at 11. Fill up our coffees and give me money for lunch, tell me to pick up my brothers from the school today, remind me to do my homework. I can see all the places you’ve gotten burnt, little scars of red on your tender skin. At night, your fingers ward evil against me, held up to my head, my heart and my shoulders. The father and the son and the holy spirit. 

In my head are remnants of times you’ve yelled at me, chores you’ve reminded me to do. Skipped out on ice skating to babysit my brothers, cooking and cleaning and becoming you. What else is there to become? 

In my heart, I remember the feeling of your torso underneath my arms as I hugged you everyday before class. Being without you felt like a curse, and I still remember the day you surprised me and took me to get ice cream instead of going to school. 

My shoulders and the weights you’ve allowed me to carry. Maybe you’re the voice in the mirror, maybe you’re the reason I can’t seem to crack relationships. Mostly I’d like to make you proud. The weight of the world, the world being your smile.

“What does it mean?” I ask. “To ‘finish out your life’?” 

“I only mean,” she says, “There was once a life I dreamt of living. Being a schoolteacher. Teaching science. I don’t mean to say that you have to be a teacher. I mean to say that my life is a path that I did not choose, except maybe for you. Choose your life, for me. Disregard the opinions or pressures of others. There is only one person living your life.”

Swing sets and frozen yogurt after church. She’d ask me if I wanted to go grocery shopping with her, and I’d whiz down the aisles, searching for my favorite cereals. Relax, she’d say. We have all the time in the world. 

I’d like to respond to her, but what to say? A door opens, and it’s my dad and brothers. The crying stops, like a cork in a drain. A switch is turned off, and my dad asks for dinner. 

Whip, whip, whip, there she is, whipping up dinner for the batch of four. My father’s clothes scattered on the floor, I know she’ll clean them up later. 

“Here,” she says, “Help me wash the dishes.” Wash until your hands are so dry that they bleed. Blood runs down trees. 

Begin and start 

Carry out a life that isn’t my own, 

As you wash the dishes I can see the tears coming down your face, hidden from Apa. 

“Si me ves llorar,” she whispers. “If you see me cry, know I tried not to. It’s better to ignore these kinds of things.”