his wispy hairs. The thought of getting a diploma gives me tingles; it’s the next step toward my dream. With a diploma, I’d be able to enter the colegio . The sewing school part, though, makes my stomach queasy. Maybe I can just take the diploma and then refuse to go to sewing school, or run away if I have to.
I blow on Andrecito’s neck, cooling him off, and wonder why the Doctorita is bringing up school now. Then I realize: she’s afraid I’ll run away to my parents. She wants to give me a reason to stay with her family. This annoys me a little, that she thinks she can manipulate me. At the same time, it touches me that she cares enough that she’s scared to lose me. It gives me a backward kind of power.
In the midafternoon, when the sun is high overhead—the earth’s equator close to the ball of burning fire, just like the diagram in Understanding Our Universe —we turn onto the dirt road to Yana Urku.
Nothing has changed. The giant blue sky, the fields of potatoes and corn, the white houses with red tile roofs, the rocky canyons, the mountains towering overhead. Quichua words come back to me in tiny pieces that smell like wood smoke and people sweating in fields and rain-soaked wool. Urku —mountain. Api —soup. Kiya —moon. The words float by, flecks of ash, seeds on the breeze, remnants of another life that hasn’t quite vanished. I try to snatch at the words, hold them in my hand and remember their textures, feel their shapes on my tongue.
Mariana, Niño Carlitos’s mother, emerges from the house to greet us and fuss over her grandchildren. Jumbled memories return—Mariana stealing the sweetest choclos from our cornfield, Mariana scolding indigenous workers, Mariana and Alfonso sitting with my parents and Niño Carlitos and the Doctorita the first time I met them. As Mariana hugs Andrecito, I notice the graying hair wound tightly at the back of her head, and remember what we used to call her: misha copetona. Mestiza with the ridiculous bun.
After she hugs the boys, she greets me with forced warmth. “Virginia! My, you’re looking beautiful. What a lovely young lady.” Her words seemed sugarcoated, hiding dark intentions, and as she ushers us inside, I feel a chill. Is she also being nice to me so that I won’t take this opportunity to run back to my parents?
A little while later I’m watching the boys play with sticks in a patch of grass at the edge of the driveway, when Mariana approaches me. “Virginia, I want you to leave Romelia and Carlitos and come to work for my daughter in Quito.” When she says the Doctorita’s name, her lip curls, as though she’s tasted something rotten. I remember that Mariana doesn’t like the Doctorita, that she’s often told her son his wife is too fat, too dark-skinned, too bossy—far from the slim, fair, gentle wife he deserves. “Well? What do you say, Virginia?”
I stare at the profile of her giant bun and shrug, thinking it best to keep my mouth shut.
She goes on. “Quito is a big, beautiful city, so much prettier than those boondocks where you live now. And my daughter needs a maid desperately. She’s an angel. She’ll treat you well.” She looks at me expectantly. When I stay silent, she says, “Think about it,” and goes inside.
Of course I won’t go. I don’t trust a word she says. Still, I can’t help considering it. Later, as I’m cleaning up after dinner with the maids I mention Mariana’s offer. They exchange looks. “Go to Quito, Virginia,” they urge. “The Doctorita beats you and treats you terribly. How could you want to stay with her?” They push and push so much I realize Mariana must have told them to convince me to go.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, and step outside into the cool dusk, thick with the scent of fresh earth and cows. I feel all mixed up, the way soil must feel after the oxen come through, plowing it, turning it inside out, getting it ready for planting. And when a seed is dropped in, it can
I blow on Andrecito’s neck, cooling him off, and wonder why the Doctorita is bringing up school now. Then I realize: she’s afraid I’ll run away to my parents. She wants to give me a reason to stay with her family. This annoys me a little, that she thinks she can manipulate me. At the same time, it touches me that she cares enough that she’s scared to lose me. It gives me a backward kind of power.
In the midafternoon, when the sun is high overhead—the earth’s equator close to the ball of burning fire, just like the diagram in Understanding Our Universe —we turn onto the dirt road to Yana Urku.
Nothing has changed. The giant blue sky, the fields of potatoes and corn, the white houses with red tile roofs, the rocky canyons, the mountains towering overhead. Quichua words come back to me in tiny pieces that smell like wood smoke and people sweating in fields and rain-soaked wool. Urku —mountain. Api —soup. Kiya —moon. The words float by, flecks of ash, seeds on the breeze, remnants of another life that hasn’t quite vanished. I try to snatch at the words, hold them in my hand and remember their textures, feel their shapes on my tongue.
Mariana, Niño Carlitos’s mother, emerges from the house to greet us and fuss over her grandchildren. Jumbled memories return—Mariana stealing the sweetest choclos from our cornfield, Mariana scolding indigenous workers, Mariana and Alfonso sitting with my parents and Niño Carlitos and the Doctorita the first time I met them. As Mariana hugs Andrecito, I notice the graying hair wound tightly at the back of her head, and remember what we used to call her: misha copetona. Mestiza with the ridiculous bun.
After she hugs the boys, she greets me with forced warmth. “Virginia! My, you’re looking beautiful. What a lovely young lady.” Her words seemed sugarcoated, hiding dark intentions, and as she ushers us inside, I feel a chill. Is she also being nice to me so that I won’t take this opportunity to run back to my parents?
A little while later I’m watching the boys play with sticks in a patch of grass at the edge of the driveway, when Mariana approaches me. “Virginia, I want you to leave Romelia and Carlitos and come to work for my daughter in Quito.” When she says the Doctorita’s name, her lip curls, as though she’s tasted something rotten. I remember that Mariana doesn’t like the Doctorita, that she’s often told her son his wife is too fat, too dark-skinned, too bossy—far from the slim, fair, gentle wife he deserves. “Well? What do you say, Virginia?”
I stare at the profile of her giant bun and shrug, thinking it best to keep my mouth shut.
She goes on. “Quito is a big, beautiful city, so much prettier than those boondocks where you live now. And my daughter needs a maid desperately. She’s an angel. She’ll treat you well.” She looks at me expectantly. When I stay silent, she says, “Think about it,” and goes inside.
Of course I won’t go. I don’t trust a word she says. Still, I can’t help considering it. Later, as I’m cleaning up after dinner with the maids I mention Mariana’s offer. They exchange looks. “Go to Quito, Virginia,” they urge. “The Doctorita beats you and treats you terribly. How could you want to stay with her?” They push and push so much I realize Mariana must have told them to convince me to go.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, and step outside into the cool dusk, thick with the scent of fresh earth and cows. I feel all mixed up, the way soil must feel after the oxen come through, plowing it, turning it inside out, getting it ready for planting. And when a seed is dropped in, it can
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