Before We Were Free by Julia Álvarez

on so tight, I’m reminded of the hug she gave Lucinda the day El Jefe’s roses arrived. “I wanted you to have a childhood,” Mami sniffs, wiping her tears.
    I think of reassuring her by telling her that my childhood is over anyway. That I’ve already gotten my period. But the voices outside my window have grown animated. Mr. Washburn and Wimpy have arrived.
    “It’s bad news,” Mr. Washburn is saying. “They’re not going to send any more ingredients for the picnic.”
    “I told you they’d back out on us,” Tío Toni reminds the group.
    “I’m sorry, fellas,” Washburn says. And he really does sound sad. “I’ll deliver what I have on hand in a few days at our drop-off.”
    “Our usual place,” Wimpy confirms.
    Mami looks like the monkey with his hand over his mouth. I don’t know if she’s upset at the news she just heard or at suddenly realizing that I’ve been listening in on the men’s secret meetings for months. She leans over my bed and angles the jalousies open.
“Señores,”
she calls out, “everything can be heard from this room.”
    The gathering goes absolutely silent, and then Papi walks over to the window and peers in over Mami’s shoulder to where I sit on my bed.
    “No wonder” is all he says.
    The men move their meetings back to Tío Toni’s
casita,
even though it isn’t as convenient as the patio with the shortwave nearby in Papi’s study tuned to Radio Swan. Oscar says that Swan is a new station that broadcasts important bulletins by exiles who want to liberate the island. Everyone in the whole country is listening in, even though it’s illegal to do so. I’ve heard the men say that there are dissidents everywhere—even among the armed forces and policemen and cabinet members—just waiting for a signal that El Jefe is out of the way.
    One time I try turning on the shortwave, hoping to hear that we’re free. But I don’t know which knob is for the volume and the radio blares for a minute. Mami hurries in. “What are you doing, Anita? Come along now and help me get the card table out.”
    Mami wants me by her side at all times when I’m not at the Mancinis’. With only Chucha left in the household, I’ve taken over lots of little jobs, including helping out when the canasta group comes over, cleaning ashtrays, refreshing glasses of lemonade.
    “Hey, sweetheart,” Mrs. Washburn calls me over to her side one afternoon. She puts her cards facedown on the table. “Are you going to miss your pal Sam?” Although Mr. Washburn won’t be leaving until late June, Mrs. Washburn has decided she and Sam will join Susie in Washington soon. It’s April, and Sam has already missed too much of the school year. And Susie is proving to be a handful for her poor grandparents.
    Mrs. Washburn puts her arms around me and squeezes hard. “Why haven’t you been coming over to visit? Did you and Sammy have a little squabble?” She winks at Mami. Obviously, they’ve been talking about me. “Maybe you’ll come visit us in Washington?”
    I know I’m being rude, but I can’t come up with the words to answer her.
    “Will you come and visit us sometime?” Mrs. Washburn persists.
    I can feel Mami’s eyes prying the words from deep inside. I try to pull them out myself. But they won’t come. All I can do is shake my head.
    “Young lady,” Mami corrects. No matter how worried she is about me, she still won’t stand for rudeness. “That’s no way to turn down an invitation.”
    But Mrs. Washburn waves Mami’s scolding away. She gives me another tight squeeze. Can’t she see that I’m not a little girl anymore? That I have breasts that hurt when she does that?
    “Thank you, Mrs. Washburn,” my mother coaches.
    “Thank you,” I echo in the small voice I’ve learned for being polite.
    Sam still comes over, but it’s not to visit me anymore. Now it’s to hang over the hood of Tío Toni’s hot rod with Mundín, fixing up the motor. Tío Toni has promised Mundín the car