How Tía Lola Came to (Visit) Stay

by Julia Alvarez

  Suddenly, she feels the chilly night air around her. Years and years have gone by. She is now the mother of a little girl not much older than she was when she first heard this story. The mother of a boy not much younger than she was when she first came to this country. She puts her arms around her children and draws them close.

  * * *

  Tía Lola’s voice threads through all their thoughts as she continues with her story.

  The people went back to the places they had come from. They were happy again. Home was not such a bad place after all

  But after a day or two or three, they began to doubt themselves. They began to think of going back to where they had last come from.

  And so, one night when all the people were suspended in their dreams, Mamá Earth and Papá Sky and Hermano Sun and Hermana Wind and Amigo Cloud had a secret meeting.

  “People will always be people,” Mamá Earth reminded them. She came up with a plan. “Why dont we make sure every place has something wrong and something right with it? Then people will realize that every place has its good and its not-so-good side.”

  “Fine idea, Mamá Earth,” Papá Sky said, smiling his starry smile.”

  So they drew up a list of the not-so-good things that could happen. They listed earthquakes and monsoons, blizzards and heat waves, volcanoes and terrible hailstorms and driving rain, endless winters and long mud seasons and summers as hot as something coming to a boil in a bubbling pot.

  Then all the places on the earth had to pick their own bad weather.

  Since the island had worked so hard holding so many people, she alone was allowed to keep her perfect summer weather all year round. But she was such a little island, she couldnt use up so much good luck by herself. So she offered to share this gift with the other islands in her part of the world.

  But just in case people would all want to move to that part of the earth again, the lucky islands decided: “Let’s each take a little bit of bad weather. Let’s have a few heavy rains every year, and a sprinkle of snow on our highest mountains, and a volcano going off now and then, and the occasional earthquake or cyclone or hurricane. That way people will come for vacation, but not be tempted to stay.”

  Suddenly, Tía Lola’s voice falls silent. She is remembering her beloved island. Even with its occasional tremors and bad cyclones, it is the place she loves the most. No matter how far she travels or how long she stays away, she always wants to go back home to watch the wild parrots fly and the palm trees sway-

  Many nights, when the darkness falls and the lights come on and twinkle in the far-off houses, Tía Lola looks up and makes a wish on a Vermont star.

  Before the year is out, may I go back to my island home again!

  “Tía Lola?” her niece is asking-“What happened to my birthday story?”

  “It was taking a little rest,” Tía Lola explains-”It has a long way to travel from Spanish to English, from the Dominican Republic to Vermont-”

  She takes several deep breaths before she goes on-

  “Where was I?” Tía Lola says-Her voice is full of energy again-

  “You were saying that each island chose a little bit of bad weather,” Miguel speaks up-“That way, people would come for vacation, but not be tempted to stay-”

  “Ah, yes-” Tía Lola nods-“Not be tempted to stay…”

  And so, when the weather gets cold everywhere else, she continues, people from all over the world flock to the Caribbean islands for a vacation. And while they are there, the earth will shake a little or the sun will hide behind a cloud and it will rain for a day, or a volcano will blow a puff of smoke into the sky.

  And though the people will be rested and warm, they will think, this is nice, but I’m ready to go home.

  “Is that a true story?” Juanita wants to know. She is happy that everyone feels at home at last.

  “All good stories are true,” Tía Lola reminds her, “but this one is especially true because I made it up for your mother’s birthday when she was a little girl like you,”

  “So do you miss the island, Tía Lola?” Miguel asks, “Do you want to go home?”

  “Of course I miss the island,” Tía Lola tells them, “But I wouldn’t want to miss being here with all of you,”

  They sit quietly on the rock, looking down at the lights of the little town. Suddenly, Miguel feels happy to be sitting on planet Earth at his mother’s favorite spot listening to his aunt’s story. Beside him, Juanita is thinking that this is where she really, really belongs—next to her brother and mother and aunt.

  Mami, too, is thinking that she is so lucky. Although she no longer lives on a beautiful island with her large familia, she has found a new home with her children and favorite aunt among a warm familia of friends in Vermont.

  “Yes, de verdad, indeed,” Tía Lola is saying. “Home is wherever you are with the people you love. And that is always the best place to be!”

  She leans back on the rock and looks up at the sky. She doesn’t have to wish on a star tonight.

  The sun has long set by the time they rise from the rocks and head back toward the car. The crickets have started up. Far off, a dog, or maybe it’s a coyote, barks.

  As the car winds its way down the mountain road, Miguel and Juanita sit in the back seat, trying to stay awake. They want to see the first twinkling lights of houses as they come into town. In the front seat, their aunt and their mother are talking-“Maybe we can all go back this winter,” Mami is saying. “It would be good for the kids to meet the family and learn more about the island.”

  “I have a great idea,” Tía Lola says, lowering her voice. Now that Miguel and Juanita have learned so much Spanish, Tía Lola cannot speak in Spanish if she doesn’t want them to understand. Vague, whispery sounds drift to the back seat as their aunt plans the next surprise treat for the family.

  What could it be? Miguel and Juanita wonder. They want to lean forward and eavesdrop, but their bodies feel heavier and heavier—They are falling deeper and deeper into sleep…dreaming of their father painting white tents in the sky…their mother and Tía Lola flying like parrots south to an island full of purple houses and swaying palms—

  Sometime later, the car rolls to a stop, a door opens, another one closes. Hands stir them awake and sweet, familiar voices call out to them, “Miguel, Juanita, despiértense. Ya llegamos a casa”

  Wake up. We’re already home.

  Chapter Ten

  La Ñapa

  Miguel looks down from his window seat on the plane. The Dominican Republic spreads below him like an enormous emerald-green carpet edged with beaches of snow-white sand-A few hours ago, the ground was a blurry gray. It is hard to believe it is December, that in two days it will be Christmas.

  Beside him, in the middle seat, Tía Lola is going through some last-minute tips on island customs. “Americans shake hands,” she is saying. “But Dominicans prefer a kiss.”

  In the aisle seat, Juanita is following the lesson intently. “Is that why you’re always kissing us, Tía Lola?”

  “Do I kiss you that much?” Tía Lola asks them.

  Miguel nods so that Tía Lola will not ask him if he is listening. He is watching the lush green fields coming closer and closer. Tiny trees are becoming life-size, and antlike shapes are turning into real people.

  As for Tía Lola’s kissing, Juanita is right. Tía Lola kisses them when they come in the house as well as when they go out. She kisses them when they go to bed at night and when they get up in the morning. If she wants to thank them or say she is sorry or congratulate them for helping her clean the house, Tía Lola kisses them as welL Suddenly, Miguel feels worried. He is about to encounter a whole island of people who like kissing as much as his aunt.

  “If you go to the market,” Tía Lola is saying, “and you buy a dozen mangos, don’t forget to ask for your ñapa”

  “What’s that?” Juanita asks.

  “A ñapa is the little bit more that comes at the end. You buy a sack of oranges, a
nd you ask for your ñapa y and you get one more orange or maybe a guava or a cashew or a caramelo. You eat your flan, and ask for your ñapa, and you get another little serving. Let’s say a family has seven children, then another one is born. That last one is called the ñapa”

  “So am I the ñapa in the family?” Juanita wants to know. After all, she is her parents’ only other child after Miguel.

  “I don’t know if it works when there are only two,” Tía Lola frowns, “What do you think, Linda?” she asks her niece.

  Across the aisle in her seat, Miguel and Juanita’s mother looks up from her novel, “I think you should all fasten your seat belts. We’re landing,”

  The plane touches the ground with a little bump like a hiccup. The passengers clap. Looking out the window, Miguel can see men sitting in luggage carts, waiting for their arrival. Just beyond the chain-link fence an old man rides a donkey with a sack of what might be mangos. It’s like seeing the modern age and the old days all in one. This is the first time Miguel has ever been to the island his parents both came from. What will it be like?

  Suddenly, he wishes he had paid more attention to Tía Lola’s lessons all the way down from Vermont.

  As they enter the terminal, a band strikes up a merengue. Everyone starts to dance, including Tía Lola and Mami and Juanita-Miguel is glad none of his friends live here so he doesn’t have to feel embarrassed.

  They stand on a long line waiting for their turn-Some of the people have red passports-Theirs are blue-“Why?” Juanita asks her mother-

  “Because we’re American citizens-The Dominicans have red-”

  Juanita feels proud that she has an American passport, though she wishes that Americans had chosen red since that is her favorite color-

  The official in his glass booth checks their passports, peering at Miguel and then at Juanita-“No parecen americanos” he tells their mother-They don’t look like Americans-

  “We are Americans!” Miguel pipes up-He wonders what makes him a real American-Because he was born in New York—unlike his parents, who were both born in the Dominican Republic? Because he speaks English? Because his favorite baseball team is the Yankees? Because he still likes hot dogs more than arroz con habichuelas?

  In fact, when Miguel glances around, he looks more like these Dominicans holding red passports than he does like any of his classmates back in Vermont-

  Miguel remembers part of Tía Lola’s lesson on the plane. Maybe the way to prove he is an American is to act like one. He smiles at the official, then reaches up and shakes his hand-

  When their suitcases come, six men rush forward to help them, even though all their bags have little wheels.

  “No gracias,” Miguel keeps saying-But as he is explaining about the wheels to one man, another comes and puts Miguel’s suitcase on top of his head like a basket of fruit-“Hey!” Miguel calls out-“That’s my suitcase-”

  “No problem!” the man calls over his shoulder in English as he leads the way through the terminal-

  “Let him,” their mother says-She explains, “Life is so hard here-It’s good to help somebody earn a living-”

  But even if life is hard, people seem to be having a good time-Inside the main terminal, everyone is visiting with one another-You can’t tell where one family ends and another one begins-A group of little girls dressed up in the frilliest party dresses and boys wearing suits that make them look like tiny waiters are eating pastelitos out of a greasy paper bag. The Three Kings are pictured in a billboard whose pieces suddenly shift and become a man in a cowboy hat, smoking a cigarette.

  “Feliz Navidad” everyone wishes each other. Merry Christmas.

  But how can it be Christmas, Miguel thinks, when the day is as sunny and warm as a midsummer day in Vermont?

  “!Ahíestán!” Tía Lola cries out. There they are!

  Miguel sees a crowd of relatives standing on the sidewalk outside the terminal. He is surprised they look so normal. He half expected to shake hands with uncles with six fingers and ciguapa aunts wearing braces on their feet. But his relatives have the same noses, mouths, eyes, ears, and skin color as Tía Lola and Mami, although put together in slightly different combinations so that each one looks like a different person.

  As Tía Lola and Mami rush forward to kiss their nieces and cousins and nephews, Miguel stands guard beside the bags that the porters have piled beside him. Some of these bags are packed full with presents for all his cousins. There is nothing for Juanita or himself Their mother has already explained that the trip will be their Christmas gift. Back in Vermont, Miguel thought this was a great idea. All his friends were jealous. “You can go to the beach! You can go snorkeling and fishing! Maybe you’ll even get to meet Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez!”

  But now, standing alone with Juanita, watching these strangers hugging and kissing, Miguel wonders if this trip is such a great Christmas gift after all. His father is back in New York. None of his friends are here. He can’t ask for a new video game or a glove since this trip cost a lot.

  “Vengan a saludar.“ Tía Lola is calling them. Come and say hello.

  “Hola, hola, hola,” Miguel says over and over. In the space of a few minutes, he has acquired a dozen cousins, four aunts, seven uncles. His family has grown into a familia a mile long. How is he supposed to remember so many names?

  A young boy about his age steps forward. He is wearing a blue baseball cap with a strange insignia on it. Miguel remembers that his mother asked him to pick something out for a young cousin who loves to play baseball and knows some English, “Me llamo Ángel” he says. My name is Angel, “You play baseball?”

  Miguel nods, smiling. Things are looking up. With so many cousins, there are bound to be some he will like. And certainly there are enough cousins to make up two teams and still have some cousins left over to watch them play ball.

  Everything is strange and interesting. They drive into the city past row upon row of wooden market stands. At one stand, coconuts are piled up for sale. At another, pieces of meat and long strings of squirming crabs hang from rods. The smells of cooking food and spices and hot sea air and green vegetation waft into the car. The sea matches the turquoise of the sky, and the houses are painted yellow and turquoise and purple and mint green and pink, and the palm trees are like spraying fountains at the ends of tall, slender trunks.

  At traffic lights, skinny boys dressed in rags come forward with scraps of cloth to clean the windows. Miguel can’t stop staring-“Don’t they have parents?” he asks his mother.

  “A lot of them don’t,” Mami sighs. “They live on the streets,”

  Miguel has seen street people in New York, and it always makes him feel sad and spooky to think someone doesn’t have a real home. But all those street people were grownups. These kids are his own age. He feels suddenly very lucky just riding in the back seat of an old Chevy, squeezed between two cousins, with his mother, his little sister, and his aunt all talking at the same time.

  At his aunt’s house, they sit down to lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, Miguel has never seen so many dishes of different foods. Every time he finishes, some more arroz and habichuelas and puerco asado and ensalada de aguacates are piled on his plate. Rice and beans and roast pig and avocado salad—it’s like a ñapa that will not quit! The meal lasts for over two hours, the uncles and aunts eating and telling stories and eating some more. When the meal is finally over, everyone stands up, gives each other a kiss, and disappears, “Where did they all go?” Miguel asks Tía Lola.

  “La siesta,” she explains. “To bed to take a nap.”

  Only babies take naps, Miguel is thinking.

  “How can they be sleepy when it’s not time to go to bed?” Juanita asks.

  “We have a different sense of time,” Tía Lola explains. “If someone tells you to meet them at four, it means any time between four and five. We don’t live by the clock. Remember the story I told you—We live by the sun and the sea, and we love surprises. Have you noticed?�
� She winks.

  Looking at her radiant face and dancing eyes, Miguel thinks, This is the happiest I’ve seen Tía Lola in a long time!

  Miguel tries to rest in the bedroom he is sharing with Angel and his brothers. He has begun to worry that Tía Lola is actually planning to stay on the island when they have to return to Vermont. She seems so happy here, speaking Spanish all the time, exchanging stories, fitting right in with everyone else. But if she does stay, Miguel and Juanita and their mother will have no one to tell them wonderful stories. No one to make frío-fríos in the summer or sew his baseball uniforms. No one to think up surprises all the time.

  This trip has been a bad idea! Once Tía Lola is back on her beloved island, there is no way she will want to return to Vermont.

  Around him, he can hear his cousins snoring away, enjoying their siestas. He will never be able to sleep in the middle of the day—especially now that he is worried about Tía Lola.

  As he lies there, he hears the pounding of the sea not far away. It seems to be singing Christmas carols to him.

  “Navidad, Navidad,” the waves sing as Miguel drifts off….

  The next evening, the whole extended familia gathers together for Noche Buena, Christmas Eve. Mami and Tía Lola pile the gifts they have brought under a plastic tree on the patio. Later, Santa Claus will be coming from the North Pole to distribute them among the cousins.

  “When is he coming? When is he coming?” the littlest cousins keep asking.

  “After you eat your dinner,” Tía Lola replies. She is dressed up tonight with gold hoops in her ears and a bright red dress in honor of the occasion. Her beauty mark is on her right cheek again. Sometimes it seems Tía Lola forgets and the beauty mark appears on her left cheek or on her upper lip. Sometimes it doesn’t appear at all

  More and more relatives arrive, and there is more kissing and hugging. Several girl cousins recite poems, and everybody claps. One uncle takes Miguel aside to show him the little bone spur next to his pinkie. “My sixth finger!” he brags. His aunts gossip, exclaiming over how big Little Linda has gotten. Miguel wonders if dinner will ever be served. It isn’t that he’s hungry, but he wants dinner to be over so that presents will be given out. He has figured out a way to get one more gift from Santa Claus.