How Tía Lola Ended Up Starting Over by Julia Álvarez

laughing in front of them.
    “Margaret Soucy,” the colonel scolds. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”
    “Just a harmless seasonal joke.” The woman is still laughing, a hee-haw laugh that makes Miguel think of a donkey. “But I had no idea when I called that this would be your B&B, Uncle Charlie.”
Uncle
Charlie?! Colonel Charlebois didn’t say anything about being related to Margaret Soucy.
    “First off, there’s nothing harmless about giving an old man a heart attack. And second of all, this isn’t my B&B, but Tía Lola’s here, along with her friends.”
    Poor Tía Lola still has her hand on her heart, trying to calm herself after her fright.
“Bienvenida,”
she manages again, but this welcome is a lot less bouncy than her first one.
    “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Margaret Soucy pumps each of their hands so forcefully, Miguel can feel his whole body shaking. When she gets to Colonel Charlebois, she throws her arms around him. In her big, puffy parka, she could be mistaken for a gorilla from the back, dressed up as a human being.
    Despite his initial scare, the colonel seems truly delighted to see her. It’s not every day that a famous native daughter returns for a visit. “What’s it been, over ten years?”
    “Good question.” Margaret Soucy looks off as if the answer were a wildebeest grazing in the distance. Was it before her MacArthur genius grant or after her book on child brides? “Oh, whatever.” She dismisses these achievements with a wave of her hand. “I’m just so glad to see you, Uncle Charlie. I was sure by now you’d be six feet under.” What a thing to say to the old man!
    Essie has been searching for a resemblance between their tall, boisterous guest and the stooped old man. Nothing matches up. “So, are you guys really related?”
    “Only in temperament,” Margaret Soucy says, hee-hawing all over again. When she laughs, her upper lip peels back, exposing her prominent teeth. It must take her twice the amount of time of a normal person to brush them.
    After a cup of ginger tea, Miguel and Essie escort their guest upstairs to her tropical bedroom. “I’ll be right at home!” she exclaims, and launches into one of her amazingAmazonian adventures. This woman has not known a boring moment in her adult life, Miguel can see that. It’s a full twenty minutes before there’s a break for Miguel to hand over the note from Henny.
    “And what’s this?” Margaret Soucy asks, intrigued. For a moment, Miguel can see the curiosity that has made this woman a successful anthropologist. It’s as if he has handed over a bone from the first human being. “Mmm,” she keeps saying, as if savoring the contents of the note. Recalling how the colonel mentioned that Margaret Soucy once lived among cannibals, Miguel wonders if Margaret Soucy has ever eaten a human being herself. Maybe when he gets to know her better, he can ask her.
    When Margaret finally looks up, she seems surprised to find Miguel and Essie still standing before her. “I think it’s time to say
oyasumi
,
allin tuta
, and
gudnaet
—that’s Japanese, Quechuan, and Solomon Island pidgin for ‘good night.’ May you live to see the morning light,” she adds eerily. The next moment, she’s laughing her toothy hee-haw laughter again. “That’s how the Itabo say good night. By the way, either of you youngsters interested in a used gorilla mask?”
    Of course, Essie snatches it up. As the two children exit the room, Margaret Soucy calls after them, “You children sleep tight.” And then Miguel could swear he hears her add, “Don’t let the cannibals bite!”

    Miguel spends the night running away from cannibals in his dreams. Next thing he knows, Essie is shaking him awake. Last night before turning in, they agreed to meetdownstairs in the backyard by a quarter to seven. Just in time to hide and spy on the secret meeting between aunt and niece.
    “Come on, Miguel! I already hear her in the