Never Too Real

by Carmen Rita

  “So, tell me, Ma, what happened?”

  “Ay m’ija, I just got sick, that’s all.”

  Magda’s forehead curled up with incredulity. “Ma, you don’t just get sick with cancer. It takes time.”

  Carolina shook her head slightly and sighed, as if she couldn’t be bothered with being anywhere but in the moment, managing the present. It didn’t matter to her, the why or the how. Just the now.

  But Magda continued. “How long did you know you didn’t feel well?”

  “Oh, I don’t know . . . But the doctors are going to see what they can do.” Again, it’s today, or tomorrow, but no looking back for Carolina. The only way for Magda to get a clear picture of what was happening would be to talk to the hospital staff. And her much-estranged family. Difficult.

  Magda pleaded just once more. “Ma, why are you so resigned to this right now? Don’t you want to live?”

  Her mother just cast her eyes down. Her daughter’s gaze was so strong, such a force, just like her father. Her mother chose to win her battles quietly.

  “M’ija, of course, but we’ll just have to see, okay?” She smiled the small, sweet smile she had always used to get her way with her macho, overbearing husband and her headstrong eldest daughter. She’d used it even with one of her other daughter’s teenage boyfriends, coaxing him to walk the dog on the weekends in exchange for some of her famous limonada y pollo asado to bring home to the family. Magda knew she’d lost this fight. She folded.

  “Okay,” she sighed. “How’d you get Papi to call me?”

  “Eh, that was easy. I told him to. He wanted your sisters to do it, but I asked him to. So he did.” Carolina paused. “And how are my little angelitos?”

  Magda brightened at the mention of her children, the next generation, the ones who live once the old ones die. You hope. “They’re good. I asked Albita to swing them back here early.”

  “Ay, no! I don’t want them to see me like this.” Magda’s mother ran her hands down her lap, smoothing out the sheets, then attempting to stroke smooth her undone, thinning hair.

  “Mami, what they care about is you, not how you look. I’ll come by with them tomorrow. And Albita would love to see you, too, is that okay? I think it will help the kids if we’re here as a unit.”

  “Magdalena . . . So efficient!” Carolina teased.

  Mother and daughter chuckled.

  “How long will you need to be here, Ma?”

  “Just a couple of days. I told them if I’m going to die soon, then I want to die at home.”

  “Como?!”

  “What? It’s going to happen anyway and I want to be in my house.”

  Magda knew there was no convincing her mother otherwise. She also knew that asking her questions about her treatment plan was a waste of time. Even with a physician as a husband, her mother didn’t want to know anything when it came to her own health. She was old-fashioned and took orders. They heard muffled sounds near the door.

  “Looks like my time’s up, Ma.” Magda took her mother’s hands again and kissed them gently. “But I need to see you, okay? I’m not going to let them keep me away from you.”

  “No, no, that won’t happen.” She swatted away the notion. They hadn’t kept her away from her daughter in nearly fifteen years. She knew now that her eldest would return the gesture.

  “Yeeees, yes, they’ll try. But no worries, I’m back later tonight.” Magda stood up.

  “Okay, mi amor. Be well.” She leaned to the right to let her daughter kiss her head.

  “And I’m bringing you a full bag of makeup,” Magda scolded.

  “Oh! Yes, yes, por favor, m’ija.” Her mother’s eyes grew large with anticipation—makeup was a welcome distraction from the maelstrom about to hit Magda outside. They blew each other kisses. Magda turned toward the door, her attitude transforming from love to hard concern.

  Carolina’s hospital room had been dim. As Magda entered the hallway, her eyes needed to adjust to make out what family members were still there, waiting for her to leave.

  It was her father, on his cell, and her sister Nica. The grumpy one. The only other bossy, headstrong one in the family besides Magda. Nica had inherited their father’s worst quality, his brash, judgmental demeanor. And she had seemed all too relieved when Magda was forced out of the family, so she could take her place. Nica saw herself as a queen bee—and as everyone knew, there can be only one queen bee.

  “How is she?” Nica asked sharply. “You didn’t get her too upset, did you?”

  “She’s fine,” Magda responded, ignoring the second part of Nica’s question, a trap. Instead her eyes were on her father, anticipating when he’d get off the phone. Magda sniffed at Nica and turned away from her sourness.

  Nica glared at her older sister’s back and entered their mother’s room, leaving Magda and her father alone in the hallway. He looked up at her as he tucked his phone into the pocket of his linen pants.

  “So,” he said, chin in the air.

  “How long did you know she was sick?” Magda’s tone was accusatory.

  “She hasn’t been sick long. This cancer comes on fast.”

  “Bullshit.” Magda was taller than her father by an inch or two and she had no trouble stepping into his personal space, her anger radiating. She hoped her father could feel it searing his skin, burning him as much as it was blistering her.

  “Listen, you . . . you . . .” He couldn’t say it as he pointed at her face, the nasty slur he was looking for. “Don’t you come in here now and cause trouble.”

  “I’m causing trouble? How, Pa, huh? Because my presence offends you so much?”

  “It does offend me. It offends the whole family! Your sick lifestyle.”

  “Sick?!” Magda smirked—she was bemused by his words as they stood in a building filled with people who were actually sick, people so sick they were dying and wouldn’t be on this earth anymore, people like her mother. “Well, too fucking bad, Papi! Guess what? I exist. And I am her daughter, just as much as those three there.” Magda pointed to the hospital room. “I don’t have to be your daughter, but I am hers. And I have every right to be here for her, no matter what you think of me and my sick lifestyle.” Magda hissed that word, hissed it for the poison it tasted of. Like it was such an easy choice to make—the real sickness being hiding who she was for so long and being disowned for it.

  Her father’s face was frozen into a grimace. But he didn’t say a word. He glowered and seemed to be calculating where to take this next.

  Magda took the moment. “Why did you fucking call me anyway? Why didn’t you have one of the girls do it, huh?”

  “Only because your mother asked me to . . .”

  They both paused. Then, both reminded of why they stood where they were, what circumstances had brought them face-to-face, many wrinkles ago, Magda’s father directed his anger at the impotence of them all in that moment, that place, right at his daughter.

  “So what?! So I did—I did call you! I didn’t have to, but I did it for her! And now you come here and get me upset and get her upset and embarrass this family even further . . .” His arms swung madly as sweat beaded on his tanned forehead. Magda’s father’s anger was explosive, always had been. There was a calm, then a storm. If the storm took a while to come, you might think you’d gotten away with something. But no, the storm always came. And hard. However, this time Magda was ready to stay on her feet.

  “And what the fuck did she have to do to get you to call and tell me what was going on? Because you cannot tell me that woman hasn’t been melting away for months and you didn’t notice a thing.”

  He tried talking over her, but her voice was younger, stronger, her passion and rage too old and deep.

  “I bet you didn’t notice! I bet you didn’t notice because you had your head up some puta’s chocha in your office, right?” Gut punch.

  “Like you are no different, eh? Like you can judge me, huh?! Thinking you’re a man, having children with women . . .”


  “You were too busy taking care of yourself and your needs to know your grandkids or love your own daughter!” Magda drove her index finger into her own chest.

  Her father wasn’t moved. “Don’ you fuckin’ talk to me like that, you transsexual!”

  “Oh, that’s a new one! Good one, coming from a doctor! I’m a fucking tranny now!”

  “You are an embarrassment to this family, an embarrassment to me, to your mother, to—”

  By now the nurses were calling security and Nica had reemerged from the room. Inside, Magda’s mother lay crying quietly at the sound of her family fighting, Inez and Diana holding her hands, trying to soothe Carolina against the rumble of her husband speaking so hatefully to their daughter.

  “You know what, you killed her! You killed her!” Magda was now in her father’s face, pointing, nearly chest-bumping him. “You knew she was sick and you didn’t do anything! You couldn’t give a shit, could you, you selfish fuck!”

  She was screaming now, her arms ready to hit something. Her father hollered in return, trying to double his size, raising his arms, shaking his head furiously.

  “Stop it! Stop it, both of you!” Nica wedged herself between them. “Get out, Magda! Get out!”

  A tense, sad-looking security officer stood nearby with a hand on his baton, ready to step in if needed. A burly nurse had his hands on his hips, scowling at these two adults airing soiled laundry in a building full of people with their own sorrows and pain.

  “That’s enough!” he said. “You two need to get out now.”

  They both stopped abruptly. Magda’s father centered himself, tugged at his dress shirt, and walked out—a prominent local doctor couldn’t afford too much drama in a hospital. He left his daughter wound-up and huffing. Magda paced, running her hands through the long top layers of her hair as if stroking her brain, her mind, to soothe it. The bear of a nurse approached Nica.

  “Hon, she’s got to leave, mm-kay? Like now, or this officer will escort her out.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Nica patted his arm.

  He raised an eyebrow skeptically as she walked toward Magda.

  “You need to leave, Mags.” Her sister was relishing this moment a bit too much, Magda felt.

  “Fine. Fine.”

  But Nica wasn’t done. “Did you really think you could just come in here and blow things up like that? That mom didn’t hear the whole thing? The both of you are just awful.”

  Magda paused, her face showing real care as it dawned on her what her mother had just heard. She felt culpable all of a sudden, nauseated. She had so easily let her anger get the best of her. Magda might even have given her father what he wanted, played into his hand. He liked seeing reactions to his actions, enjoyed moving people around like chess pieces, pulling strings. Feeling happy today? Let me remind you of that bad grade you got last week, or that second piece of cake you ate that will go right to your hips. Feeling bad today? Let me help you feel worse.

  “I would be around if he let me and you know that,” Magda sighed.

  “He’s never going to accept you and how you live,” Nica responded.

  “Yeah, and I guess you all go along for the ride, right?”

  Nica paused. She didn’t have a good answer. At least an answer that made her proud. Her favorite emotion.

  “Magda, all Dad has is Mom. Yeah, he has the practice, the other women, but he’s just an old-fashioned macho and when she goes, he goes. You should have just kept your cool. You’re not the only one hurting here.” With that, Nica didn’t care to hear a retort, so she turned brusquely and headed back into their mother’s room.

  Magda wanted to go in and apologize to her mother. And complain. And rage. But she knew that now was not the time. Magda was like a walking ghost of her younger self—she had scales of resentment and layers of bile to rid herself of before she could see her mother again. It wouldn’t all be gone in a day, but she could at least try to get a grip on it.

  As she squinted to squeeze out the last tears, wiping them roughly away with her hands, she felt relieved to see at the end of the hall her nieces and nephews followed by their parents, all coming to see Abuelita. Magda got up off the hallway chair and headed in the other direction so the little ones who had barely, if ever, seen their other tía wouldn’t see her this way. With broad strides she worked to build distance between their sounds of wonder at being in a hospital and her internal gloom.

  As Magda stepped into the elevator, she realized something for the first time: If she hated her father, then she hated parts of herself. Like his temper and his strident tendencies. His way of turning a blind eye to things he didn’t like or understand. His philandering. His drinking. When they fought in the hall, Magda realized that they must have looked like mirror images of each other, one just a few inches shorter and older. Mirror images.

  There was a bar Magda liked down the road, at a hotel she knew all too well. She jingled her keys in her hand and thought: Just one drink. And maybe one pretty lady. That’s all.

  Chapter 14

  “Jesus Christ, I needed this so bad.” Luz’s curls looked wilted, like thirsty hydrangeas. She reclined almost fully in the restaurant booth, her head tipped back for a few seconds while the lanky server brought her a generously filled wineglass.

  Gabi took her in. She loved Luz dearly and deeply admired her chutzpah, not to mention her doting, involved husband. But both married mamas found themselves together tonight for an urgent infusion of sistah amiga support.

  “Okay. First, salud . . .” Gabi began. Luz raised her eyebrows, curious as to what her friend could be toasting to at this moment. “. . . to family: new and old.”

  “Ha!” Luz brightened. “Salud to that.”

  Both swigged down their wine like water, comfortable enough together to follow their gulps with heads bowed as if in prayer. A “Gracias a Dios” for the dulling, soothing effects of this powerfully calming substance.

  “I just don’t know, Gabs . . .” Luz started off. Following the revelation of Luz’s newfound sister and father, one of the first calls she made was to Gabi, the rock-solid therapist friend. Her steel-trap of a mouth helped, too. Luz wasn’t ready to share this news of her newly discovered convict father and his rather “urban” teenager, who was now her sister.

  Gabi leaned in. “Tell me: What’s happened since yesterday?” She quickly changed her priorities. “But wait . . . first, first, and most importantly, how are you doing?”

  “G, I absolutely don’t know how to feel. I haven’t done much but cry and rage like a banshee to poor Chris . . . and then fend off texts from my desperate brother who’s going nuts in this position.” Luz paused for another swig. “I’m beating myself up at being so, so angry at my parents, my mother, even my father! I mean, dad, dad-father . . . the man who raised me!” She threw her head into both hands and let out a moan.

  “Hon.” Gabi put her right hand onto Luz’s left forearm. “It’s a lot to take in. A lot. Give yourself a bit of time. Anger is a very natural response to all this. Shit, it’s a LOT.”

  “Is it, though? Is it a lot? Does it change anything?!” Luz’s azure eyes flared. “I’ve never been angry like this at my mother or my father, for anything, annn-yyy-thing.” She drew out the word with her fingertips in a gesture handed down from her mother. Then she leaned back and reined it in. “This completely on-fire, pissed-off feeling is so foreign to me, yet, it’s like . . . my life’s been a lie—who I am is a lie. My identity! I’m fucking pissed!”

  “Hon, I hear you, I hear you. But please remember, you are the sum of a lifetime’s worth of experiences, and nothing, no one, can alter that. No one can change who you’ve been for over thirty years.”

  “But it’s not like I’m starting off being the daughter of a gangster to winning the lotto in life and being the daughter of an Ivy League brother—it’s the opposite! It’s switched. I’m going backward.” Luz’s eyes shifted from lit by ire to heavy with hurt.

  �
��Luzita. You are not going anywhere. What you’re describing, it’s textbook loss aversion. We hate to lose what we already have and you have something truly great in your family and your father—the one who raised you—coming from a very prominent and historic family that you’re proud of... Nuthin’ wrong with that. But they’re not lost. You’ve just added to the . . . uh . . . rainbow of your life’s story.” Gabi turned playful for a moment, joking about her own hippieness.

  Luz rolled her eyes. “Yes, a fucking rainbow! So what am I now? A full-blooded Dominican with no African-American legacy—I mean, you know Dominicans don’t want to admit they’re black, right?”

  “Yeah, we share that one.”

  As their salads arrived and they oohed and aahed in thanks at the generous amounts of pancetta on their frisée, they continued to talk it through and Luz started to come down off her tight perch, the wine and soothing pork fat taking their effect. Gabi kept her advice to a minimum, instead letting Luz process and release as much as possible before she stepped in.

  “Gabs, I don’t know who to be mad at first . . . I mean, everyone lied, my mother, my father—dad—but, but, besides the lying, I don’t know what I’m really angry about.”

  “Well, what are you angry about?”

  Luz set her fork down. “I’m scared.”

  “Scared.”

  “Yeah, really scared.” Luz’s eyes started to well up.

  “Can you tell me more about that?”

  “Gabs . . .” Luz was very tentative. “I can tell you this because you won’t judge me, right?”

  “No, Luz. I don’t judge you.”

  Luz sighed. “I’ve spent my whole life being able to enjoy a very cushy life. An admittedly lucky life. I haven’t been a statistic—the huge numbers of us who have family in jail, fathers incarcerated, brothers—and now I’ve not only joined those rolls, but I have a surly, hip-hop teen who needs a mom, and a dad, and . . . and she’s my sister. When it comes to my life, my family’s life, she might as well have been dropped from Mars.... Don’t judge me.”