uncles understood the transformation that came over her: Juli was the firstborn, the protected one. If he could be taken away from her, then nothing in the world was safe. Something in the fabric of her universe was torn beyond repair.
Her husband’s Parkinson’s disease had been steadily claiming moreand more of him for a long time. By the time my father died, Gallego’s speech was fading, and within a few months he was completely bedridden, another reason Abuelita rarely left the house. My mother went every week on her day off from the hospital to bathe him and help change the sheets. Perhaps my grandmother was mourning prospectively for her husband too, the sadness heaving back and forth between Papi and Gallego like a trapped wave. When Gallego died a few years later, she would move to the seniors’ home at Castle Hill within days. In the same way that my mother refused to go back into the old apartment after my father died, Abuelita couldn’t bear to be in that space where memories and emptiness collided. And so we did the
rosario
for Gallego in a brand-new, subsidized senior citizens’ home.
THINGS HAD CHANGED at school, too. My fourth-grade teacher, Sister Maria Rosalie, made an effort to be kinder, and I enjoyed an unofficial respite from reprimand from April, when Papi died, until summer vacation. Not coincidentally, by the time fifth grade started, school had become for the first time something to look forward to. Until then, I had been struggling to figure out what was going on, especially since my return from being in the hospital. Now suddenly lessons seemed easier. It certainly didn’t hurt that I had spent the entire summer vacation with my nose in a book, hiding from my mother’s gloom, but there was another reason too. It was around that time that my mother made an effort to speak some English at home.
As early as kindergarten, Mami once told me, a teacher had sent a letter home saying that we should speak English in the house. But that was easier said than done. My mother’s English was accented and sometimes faltering, though she could manage well enough at the hospital, even working an occasional weekend shift on the telephone switchboard. At home, however, she felt awkward speaking in front of Papi in a language that he didn’t know well.
I don’t know if my father spoke any English at all. Perhaps he was too shy to speak it badly in front of us. I’m guessing he would have picked up a few phrases to get through his days at the factory, though I never actually heard him say a word. I know that Abuelita couldn’tmanage in English, because my mother interpreted for her whenever she had to deal with officialdom. I doubt her daughters knew more than a few words, or else they would have been helping Abuelita themselves. I can’t even begin to imagine Titi Gloria carrying on in English the way she does in Spanish. Some things just don’t translate. In any case, our family life was conducted entirely in Spanish.
It sounded odd when my mother first started speaking English at home, addressing Junior and me as if she were talking to a doctor at the hospital. But as soon as she found the words to scold us, it began to seem natural enough. In time I hardly noticed which language we were speaking. Still, as easily as Junior and I shifted gears into English with the flexibility of youth, at the age of thirty-six my mother could not have steered that change without a mighty effort. Only her devotion to our education could have supplied such a force of will. “You’ve got to get your education! It’s the only way to get ahead in the world.” That was her constant refrain, and I could no more get it out of my head than a commercial I’d heard a thousand times.
One day the doorbell rang, and my mother opened the door to a man carrying two big briefcases. It wasn’t the man who made the rounds of the projects selling insurance. It wasn’t the old man who came to collect two dollars every Saturday
Her husband’s Parkinson’s disease had been steadily claiming moreand more of him for a long time. By the time my father died, Gallego’s speech was fading, and within a few months he was completely bedridden, another reason Abuelita rarely left the house. My mother went every week on her day off from the hospital to bathe him and help change the sheets. Perhaps my grandmother was mourning prospectively for her husband too, the sadness heaving back and forth between Papi and Gallego like a trapped wave. When Gallego died a few years later, she would move to the seniors’ home at Castle Hill within days. In the same way that my mother refused to go back into the old apartment after my father died, Abuelita couldn’t bear to be in that space where memories and emptiness collided. And so we did the
rosario
for Gallego in a brand-new, subsidized senior citizens’ home.
THINGS HAD CHANGED at school, too. My fourth-grade teacher, Sister Maria Rosalie, made an effort to be kinder, and I enjoyed an unofficial respite from reprimand from April, when Papi died, until summer vacation. Not coincidentally, by the time fifth grade started, school had become for the first time something to look forward to. Until then, I had been struggling to figure out what was going on, especially since my return from being in the hospital. Now suddenly lessons seemed easier. It certainly didn’t hurt that I had spent the entire summer vacation with my nose in a book, hiding from my mother’s gloom, but there was another reason too. It was around that time that my mother made an effort to speak some English at home.
As early as kindergarten, Mami once told me, a teacher had sent a letter home saying that we should speak English in the house. But that was easier said than done. My mother’s English was accented and sometimes faltering, though she could manage well enough at the hospital, even working an occasional weekend shift on the telephone switchboard. At home, however, she felt awkward speaking in front of Papi in a language that he didn’t know well.
I don’t know if my father spoke any English at all. Perhaps he was too shy to speak it badly in front of us. I’m guessing he would have picked up a few phrases to get through his days at the factory, though I never actually heard him say a word. I know that Abuelita couldn’tmanage in English, because my mother interpreted for her whenever she had to deal with officialdom. I doubt her daughters knew more than a few words, or else they would have been helping Abuelita themselves. I can’t even begin to imagine Titi Gloria carrying on in English the way she does in Spanish. Some things just don’t translate. In any case, our family life was conducted entirely in Spanish.
It sounded odd when my mother first started speaking English at home, addressing Junior and me as if she were talking to a doctor at the hospital. But as soon as she found the words to scold us, it began to seem natural enough. In time I hardly noticed which language we were speaking. Still, as easily as Junior and I shifted gears into English with the flexibility of youth, at the age of thirty-six my mother could not have steered that change without a mighty effort. Only her devotion to our education could have supplied such a force of will. “You’ve got to get your education! It’s the only way to get ahead in the world.” That was her constant refrain, and I could no more get it out of my head than a commercial I’d heard a thousand times.
One day the doorbell rang, and my mother opened the door to a man carrying two big briefcases. It wasn’t the man who made the rounds of the projects selling insurance. It wasn’t the old man who came to collect two dollars every Saturday
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