champagne and celebrate life.
The phone call came just after I’d opened my presents—a book of e. e. cummings poetry and a moonstone ring—just as we were about to cut the cake that said
¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Sophie!
I was holding the knife, in the middle of a sneezing fit, getting my inner elbow snotty, when the phone rang.
Mom answered. She listened a few moments and looked confused. “I’m sorry.
Who
is this?” she asked in a few languages before she ended up back with English.
After she hung up, my sneezing fit had stopped, and the cake was cut and put on plates, the blackberry sherbet melting into pools beside it. Mom said, “Looks like my great-aunt will be coming to live with us.”
“Who?” Juan and I asked at the same time. Mom hadn’t had any contact with her family since she’d run away over fifteen years earlier.
“I don’t know, really. I think she said her name was Rika—or Dika—or Mika or something.”
Juan and I looked at each other and then at Mom.
“She’s Bosnian.” Mom drew out her words, looked out the window, squinting, as if there were a faraway TV screen. “She says she married one of my great uncles in England—met him on a business trip he took to Yugoslavia. They got divorced a few years later. I think I remember her. I think one time she had Christmas supper with us, when I was about your age, Sophie. And we drank bottles of spiced wine and ate loads of cinnamon biscuits together.” She bit her thumbnail and stared at the melting purple sherbet. “But that could have been someone else.”
At first, Mom figured she had only a vague, slippery memory of Dika because of the champagne, but the next day, she felt just as foggy. Over breakfast, she shrugged and said, “Well, whoever she is, relative or not, she’s been through a lot and she needs help.” Over the next few days, Mom wrote letters to INS and filled out forms to say she’d sponsor this Bosnian lady. We searched Mom’s single worn childhood photo album for a picture of Dika, but found nothing that jogged Mom’s memory. In the middle of getting the spare room ready, she suddenly said, “Hey! I think when we were drinking that spiced wine, she told me about her travels. My mum and dad were big worriers, hardly ever left our town. So this lady was refreshing. A free spirit. I think I wanted to be like her, fun and adventurous….” Her voice faded out, lost its confidence. “I think.”
Mom couldn’t call any of her relatives in England to check up on her alleged great-aunt’s story. She had run away from England when she was eighteen with an American guy she met there, a vagrant backpacker who her mother despised. Mom traveled with him to Nepal and Morocco and India, and while they were passing through Tucson on the way to Mexico, she found out she was pregnant with me. They decided to stay in Tucson, at least through the pregnancy. But then my father got busted for dealing acid and took off. Mom decided to raise me alone.
When Dika arrived in the late summer, once the visa papers were in order, all she brought were three bags: one of clothes, one of toiletries, and one of glass, each in its own canvas duffel bag. Bags of newly collected glass filled her closet. Piles of glass were heaped on her dresser, which she’d moved to the center of the room, where it got the most sun. Sometimes I caught glimpses of her in there, sitting in the worn armchair, watching the glass, occasionally holding a piece up to the light, close to her eye. In the prison camp, gazing into her red glass helped her make it through each day. And still, her favorite piece, it seemed, the one closest to her heart, was that original red shard.
What it came down to was this: if she hadn’t forced her way into my life, I wouldn’t be here now, sitting in the fresh morning air by a street of strange artwork, with Pablo sleeping beside me, and Ángel secretly playing with wisps of my hair and sneaking glances at the top of my
The phone call came just after I’d opened my presents—a book of e. e. cummings poetry and a moonstone ring—just as we were about to cut the cake that said
¡Feliz Cumpleaños, Sophie!
I was holding the knife, in the middle of a sneezing fit, getting my inner elbow snotty, when the phone rang.
Mom answered. She listened a few moments and looked confused. “I’m sorry.
Who
is this?” she asked in a few languages before she ended up back with English.
After she hung up, my sneezing fit had stopped, and the cake was cut and put on plates, the blackberry sherbet melting into pools beside it. Mom said, “Looks like my great-aunt will be coming to live with us.”
“Who?” Juan and I asked at the same time. Mom hadn’t had any contact with her family since she’d run away over fifteen years earlier.
“I don’t know, really. I think she said her name was Rika—or Dika—or Mika or something.”
Juan and I looked at each other and then at Mom.
“She’s Bosnian.” Mom drew out her words, looked out the window, squinting, as if there were a faraway TV screen. “She says she married one of my great uncles in England—met him on a business trip he took to Yugoslavia. They got divorced a few years later. I think I remember her. I think one time she had Christmas supper with us, when I was about your age, Sophie. And we drank bottles of spiced wine and ate loads of cinnamon biscuits together.” She bit her thumbnail and stared at the melting purple sherbet. “But that could have been someone else.”
At first, Mom figured she had only a vague, slippery memory of Dika because of the champagne, but the next day, she felt just as foggy. Over breakfast, she shrugged and said, “Well, whoever she is, relative or not, she’s been through a lot and she needs help.” Over the next few days, Mom wrote letters to INS and filled out forms to say she’d sponsor this Bosnian lady. We searched Mom’s single worn childhood photo album for a picture of Dika, but found nothing that jogged Mom’s memory. In the middle of getting the spare room ready, she suddenly said, “Hey! I think when we were drinking that spiced wine, she told me about her travels. My mum and dad were big worriers, hardly ever left our town. So this lady was refreshing. A free spirit. I think I wanted to be like her, fun and adventurous….” Her voice faded out, lost its confidence. “I think.”
Mom couldn’t call any of her relatives in England to check up on her alleged great-aunt’s story. She had run away from England when she was eighteen with an American guy she met there, a vagrant backpacker who her mother despised. Mom traveled with him to Nepal and Morocco and India, and while they were passing through Tucson on the way to Mexico, she found out she was pregnant with me. They decided to stay in Tucson, at least through the pregnancy. But then my father got busted for dealing acid and took off. Mom decided to raise me alone.
When Dika arrived in the late summer, once the visa papers were in order, all she brought were three bags: one of clothes, one of toiletries, and one of glass, each in its own canvas duffel bag. Bags of newly collected glass filled her closet. Piles of glass were heaped on her dresser, which she’d moved to the center of the room, where it got the most sun. Sometimes I caught glimpses of her in there, sitting in the worn armchair, watching the glass, occasionally holding a piece up to the light, close to her eye. In the prison camp, gazing into her red glass helped her make it through each day. And still, her favorite piece, it seemed, the one closest to her heart, was that original red shard.
What it came down to was this: if she hadn’t forced her way into my life, I wouldn’t be here now, sitting in the fresh morning air by a street of strange artwork, with Pablo sleeping beside me, and Ángel secretly playing with wisps of my hair and sneaking glances at the top of my
Similar Books
