by Unknown
“I’m sorry, Gramma. That really sucks.”
“We’re fine. But I missed my kids. I missed you. So I hit the road.” She laughs, and it sounds convincing to her ears. “Listen, about your dad. He hasn’t been like this for a while, but when he was a kid he used to be very religious. He’d pray all the time, before breakfast, after breakfast, on and on. I had to get rid of his children’s Bible because he’d get all worked up. They’re just stories, I told him, and he’d get even more upset. What if God decides to flood us out again? he says. He won’t, I say. He promised the people. But does a promise from God comfort your dad? No way. Yeah, but what if he changes his mind?”
Angel laughs and then says soberly, “Maybe he was worried because his dad died.”
Yolanda nods. It hurts her how obvious Angel’s need to forgive Amadeo is, hurts her that she, Yolanda, is pushing for this forgiveness, when the girl has every reason to be upset. “Probably he was. Probably he’s always felt something missing.” She fishes in her bag for her wallet, withdraws three hundred-dollar bills, which she slides over. “A little something, hijita. Happy birthday.”
“Whoa. Gramma, this is too much! Thank you!”
Yolanda is cheered by Angel’s smile.
“It’s really nice. Thank you.” But then she says worriedly, “I think this is too much.”
Yolanda leans forward in confidence. “I won big.” It’s remarkable, how easily this happy grandmother act comes to her, even feeling as bad as she does. She plucks a number at random. “Three thousand dollars.”
“Are you joking me?” cries Angel. “Three thousand dollars?”
“I’m glad you’re here, honey. This is your home, too.” She comes around to hug Angel and pats the girl’s stomach. What a wonderful, necessary, joyful distraction she and her new baby will offer. “I’ll give you more when the baby comes.”
Outside, tires crunch as Amadeo’s truck pulls in. “Wope,” says Yolanda, looking to the window. “Your dad’s here.”
Amadeo is in high spirits. “Mom! You’re home!” he cries, hugging her. “What happened to your hair? I didn’t know whose car that was.” He’s shaved and smells of soap and cologne. Both hands are bandaged, the stubby tips of his fingers peeking out of the gauze.
“It’s a rental. You look nice, hijito.”
Amadeo beams. “I just went to Mass. It was great. I’m starving, though, you know, from fasting. You should’ve come, Angel.” He shoots his daughter a pointed look.
“Ha,” she says flatly. Angel holds up her bills. “Look what Gramma gave me. Isn’t that nice?” There’s an edge of cruelty in her steady bland smile.
Amadeo looks to Yolanda in horror. “What’s she going to do with that kind of money?”
Angel grins. “And she’s going to give more to the baby. She won three thousand dollars!”
Yolanda avoids her son’s eyes. “I just thought we could give him a little start,” she says apologetically. Now’s the time for her to give Amadeo a gift, and they both know it, but part of Yolanda stands aside and watches with a kind of gleeful defiance as she busies herself with wiping the counters. The moment stretches and passes.
Amadeo turns away and looks out the window. “You rented a Mustang?”
Yolanda shrugs. “I wanted a convertible. Wanted to see the sights.” She ties up the trash bags, then sets them at Amadeo’s bare feet. “You can take these out for me, honey.”
“I can’t.” Amadeo holds up his bandaged hands. The medical tape is grubby around the edges. “I got the nails on Friday.”
“I heard.” Yolanda pats his cheek, then turns to fit a last glass into the dishwasher. “I’m proud of you, hijito. Bring in my luggage, too, will you? Be a nice chance for you to look at the car.” Yolanda measures detergent, clicks shut the dishwasher.
“I’ve seen a Mustang before.” His tone is hurt.
“How was the procession, hijito?”
His shoulders hunch and he scowls, and Yolanda sees him, as she so often does, as the three-year-old he once was. It pains her to think of him so overgrown and vulnerable.
“It was fine,” he snaps. He makes no move to leave with the garbage bags. Instead he announces piteously, “I’m getting sick.” He clears his throat. “I’m coming down with something. Maybe from the stress of Lent and Calvario and everything.” Amadeo coughs into a bandaged hand. At first it sounds dry and unconvincing, but he tries again, and this time he taps into something.
“Well, then stay away from me,” says Angel. “I don’t want to be doing no labor breathing with snot coming out my nose.”
From the bowl on the counter, Amadeo fumbles a softening orange. Bracing it against his middle, he manages to remove two sticky chunks of peel, juice dripping into his bandage and his shirt, then glares at the overripe flesh. The too-sweet scent fills the kitchen.
“Help me clean up and I’ll make you both some honey and lemon. We have a lot to do before Valerie and the girls get here.”
Amadeo’s head jerks up. “You invited her?” He tosses the orange back in the bowl. Fruit flies rise in irritation, then settle. “What about a quiet night, just us?”
Yolanda snatches the orange and drops it in the trash. “Of course I invited Valerie. She’s my daughter. She’s your sister. You need to be nice.” As an afterthought, she dumps the rest of the contents of the bowl, too, then looks at each of them sternly. “This place is a mess.”
“We didn’t know when you were getting home,” Amadeo says. “You could’ve called. Things were really busy here. With Good Friday and all. And it’s hard for me to clean and stuff.” He lifts his hands. “Plus, it wasn’t just me making a mess.”
Angel casts him a dirty look across the counter. “I tried to keep it clean, Gramma. I did the dishes literally eight times in a row, but he had to take a turn, too. And I have my program and I’m doing my GED, and Brianna says we got to prioritize—”
“They’re the same thing,” Amadeo interrupts. “The program is for the GED.”
“No, it’s also to learn baby development. Also my back’s been hurting and I’m tired all the time. You know how it is, Gramma.”
They both feel entitled to be here in her home, and it surprises Yolanda that she doesn’t necessarily think they are. “Things have to change around here. By the time this wonderful little baby comes, we are not going to be living like animals.”
They groan, but without conviction. Really, they’re relieved. They’ve been waiting for her, Yolanda realizes, waiting for her to put their lives in order. She will right what’s wrong, referee their contests, soothe their hurts and uncertainties. She’s raised babies before. No one loves these two more than Yolanda does, and she will know how to proceed. She looks into their grouchy, childish faces, and sighs.
Amadeo’s sister apparently doesn’t notice that he isn’t speaking to her and hasn’t since her obnoxious gift last Christmas. When Valerie comes in, her arms filled with bulging shopping bags tearing at the sides, the first thing she does is drop it all and hug him before he can dodge. Still gripping his arms, she steps back and takes Amadeo in. He almost can’t look at her: the absurdly long hair hanging loose, the oversized earrings, her draping black dress, the ambiguously ethnic scarf. And that superior forbearing expression, as if she’s willing to humor him, but only up to a point. “Good to see you, little brother.”
Amadeo nods coolly but she misses it, because she’s already turned to Angel. “Oh my god, Angelica! Let me see you! You’re enormous!”
Angel ducks her head, pleased and a little shy. “Hey, Aunt Val.”
Valerie hugs her, then crosses the living room to switch off the television. Two years ago Valerie got rid of her TV. If she’s not making a big show of ignorance whenever someone mentions The Bachelor or a piece of celebrity gossip, then she’s going on about some project one of the girls has done with the endless stores of time and intellect and creativity endemic to television-free households. “I don’t know how you guys can hear yourselve
s think with that thing going all the time,” she says, dusting off her hands.
Armed with a brand new master’s degree, Valerie is now a counselor in the Albuquerque public school system, and is therefore an expert on everything. She took night and weekend classes for three years, and for three years she swanned around, sighing and rubbing her temples, talking about how overworked she was. “Full-time job, full-time school, full-time single mom.” She tosses around theories and diagnoses, pressing her lips. “Hmm,” she says, nodding knowingly. “Ah-hah.” She has the maddening tendency to read into even the most banal comments. If, for example, Amadeo says that he wanted to kill the lady with the six hundred coupons in front of him at the checkout, Valerie’s eyebrows will pinch in concern. “Are you having urges to hurt other people, Dodo?” Amadeo’s theory—and god knows he’s no school counselor—is that Valerie never got over his birth, which means she’s spent all but five years of her life resentful.
Only three things make Valerie bearable: First, she’s gotten fat and she’s self-conscious about it. Second, she was hit by her ex-husband, which makes her skittish around any displays of masculine strength, so Amadeo need only flex his fist or massage a bicep to disconcert her. Third, her kids are pretty cute.
Or used to be. Now that she’s twelve, Lily acts just as superior as her mom. She reads far beyond her grade level, no surprise, given her glasses and frizzy mop of hair. She and her little sister are still standing in the doorway, the screen propped open against their bottoms, staring solemnly at his beer and his bandaged hands, as if they’re afraid to step all the way into the house with Amadeo there. Uncle Amadeo, erratic, mean drunk. He can imagine what Valerie tells them: watch out for Uncle Amadeo, never get in a car with Uncle Amadeo, whatever you do, don’t end up like Uncle Amadeo.
Before he can help himself, he is making a nasty face at them, mouth wide, tongue nearly to his chin. “Rah!” he snarls, raspy and sudden. Lily flinches, then regains her composure and rolls her eyes behind her glasses, but Sarah, the seven-year-old, breaks into a delighted gap-toothed laugh. She’s an adorable child, large-eyed, with a sweet black bob, skinny legs poking out of soccer shorts. Amadeo grins back, his irritation transformed into affection for this niece who is, it seems, still too young to despise him.
“Hijitas! Get in here!” cries Yolanda, and they rush their grandmother, the screen thwacking.
Angel grins at her cousins. “Holy crap, you guys are big!”
“Man,” says Amadeo, slouching against the wall. It’s not easy to grip his beer around his bandage, but he’s managing. “Today really took it out of me. They got me on painkillers and everything.” He holds up his hands, but no one sees. At Mass this morning, several people touched his sleeve with reverence. “You done real good,” Shelby Morales murmured, and he and Amadeo hugged gingerly, each careful of the other’s tender back. Al Martinez rested a gentle hand on Amadeo’s wrist. “God bless, son.”
His performance wasn’t just a performance, but a true crucifixion. How many people can say they’ve done that for God? Though Amadeo will never admit this to a living soul, while the priest droned on about joy and resurrection, he allowed himself to fantasize about being invited to the Vatican. Saint Amadeo. It has a dignified, archaic ring to it.
Maybe his hands are infected. In fact, they probably are. He unwraps the left bandage, which is moist and smelly. So is the wrinkled, pale flesh of his hand. The nail hole itself doesn’t seem too bad, though—just boiled-looking. The holes didn’t even require real stitches, just a kind of paper tape, a tetanus shot, and a prescription for antibiotics. “Keep the wounds clean,” the nurse told him, “and they’ll close right up.”
“That is disgusting,” Angel says. “Don’t do that crap in front of us.”
“How’d it go on Friday, Dodo?” Valerie calls. Cupboard doors open and shut. She’s grazing; she’s got a handful of chips, which she eats swiftly, one by one, her fingers delicate pincers.
“Oh, it went just great,” says Angel aggressively. “Ask him how his hands are.”
“I heard,” says Valerie. “Unbelievable.”
Yolanda glances at Lily and Sarah and says with guarded cheer, “We don’t need to talk about this now. How’s school, girls?”
His mother might have slapped him. “Are you ashamed of me?”
“Of course not, honey, but blood and whatnot, not at dinner. Careful, Valerie. Watch your Points. We’ll eat soon.”
“I’m not doing Points anymore.” Valerie pushes a cookie into her mouth whole.
“I’m an atheist,” brays Lily. “I believe Jesus was a person, but that other stuff just got made up.”
“Oh,” says Yolanda mildly, “let’s not talk like that, either.”
“My question is, what’s the point?” Angel says. “Life doesn’t suck enough?”
Amadeo’s hands, thick in their bandages, don’t fit in his pockets; he can’t think what to do with them. He wishes his uncle were here to explain. They take it seriously coming from Tío Tíve. His mother’s proud of her uncle’s role in the tradition. In Tío Tíve, it’s noble, authentic. He’s heard both his mother and sister bragging to people, usually other women, usually Anglo transplants, people from their great wider worlds of college and the legislature. They brag about it the same way they brag about their Spanish blood, about having been in America for four hundred years, about the fact that they still live in their ancestral village (Valerie’s term). But somehow, in Amadeo, they can’t believe the feeling is genuine. Somehow, in their eyes, his participation tarnishes the tradition, degrades it from the romance of sepia to garish cereal-box color, from true religious conviction to pathology. “I thought you were glad I was in the hermandad.”
“Oh, hijito, I’m very proud of you.”
“It’s cool you’re keeping the tradition alive—I mean, it’s our family history. And community is great.” Valerie eyes his bandages. “Just maybe don’t go overboard. Do you have to do physical therapy or anything?” She shuts the cupboard, then crosses the living room. She settles herself into an armchair, tugging the fabric at her boobs. “I don’t know, I could never believe in a God who wanted me to hurt myself.”
God doesn’t want it, Amadeo longs to explain. It’s something you want to do for God, if you care enough. He’d like to argue with Valerie, but knows that she, with her college degrees and intro religious studies classes, can out-argue him. “No one’s telling you to believe nothing,” he says. A familiar sense of drowning helplessness fills him, and he kicks a stack of catalogs waiting to be recycled. They slide smoothly across the carpet.
For Christmas Valerie gave Amadeo a hardback book called Mastering Ares: Breaking Free from the Prison of Male Rage. This is why he isn’t speaking to her. The cover—fiery splashes of red and orange—features the naked, muscled god of war looming over an exploding volcano and looking pissed, with a little smiling cartoon man in a business suit stepping out of a doorway in his chest. “The author is very well-regarded,” Valerie told him primly, as he sat there turning the thing in his hand. Thanks to that book, Amadeo has discovered new depths of male rage. He will never forgive his sister, ever.
“Yeah, that’s not a great present,” his mother conceded when Amadeo cornered her in the kitchen. Amadeo had, for a moment, felt vindicated, until she paused, hands motionless in the dishwater, and ventured, “It’s maybe worth thinking about, though.” That was a terrible night, that Christmas Eve, and Amadeo is glad Angel wasn’t there. He only hopes Valerie hasn’t told her about it.
Now, they’ve all turned their attention smoothly away from him so as not, he supposes, to set him off.
From the kitchen doorway, he watches his sister and daughter on the couch uneasily. The house is itself once again—vacuumed, table extended and set with a plastic lace tablecloth, femininity reasserting itself. He wishes things were right between him and Angel; it makes him nervous to have no one on his side. Angel and Valerie laugh.
“Oh!” Valerie leaps u
p. “I brought you some stuff.” She drags the bags across the carpet. “It’s from when Lily and Sarah were babies, but you know babies, they grow so fast they never wear anything out.”
“That’s really nice!” Angel looks truly touched, her smile slow and big and clear. Amadeo is surprised to find that he’s envious; why did it never occur to him to buy her baby things?
Valerie starts dumping the bags on the living room floor, and the females converge on the pile like zombies, rendered powerless in the presence of tiny pants.
“And,” says Valerie, “I found Sarah’s old car seat in the garage.”
Angel kneels beside the bounty. In spite of himself, Amadeo leans over the breakfast bar to watch. Stained onesies and shorts, misshapen little T-shirts, individual peanut-sized socks floating around everywhere. When she speaks, Angel’s voice is muted. “Thanks, Aunt Val.”
“This stuff was mine?” asks Sarah, digging. She sticks a fist out of the neck of a yellow smocked shirt and waggles it like a head. “Hello!” she squeaks. “I am a shirt mouse!” She turns to her mom. “Hey. What if I want to keep it?”
Lily is the only one not interested in the mound of stuff. She has tucked herself into a corner of the couch under a crocheted afghan where she’s been scowling into the pages of a fat young adult novel. Now, though, she withdraws her thumbnail from her mouth and informs her sister, “Actually, most of it was mine. So.”
Middle school isn’t easy for Lily. Last year there was a scandal when she reported several classmates for sexual harassment to the president of the school board. The boys had, it seemed, been rating the girls, with separate scores for body, face, and overall fuckability. (“What was Lily’s score?” Amadeo made the mistake of asking, and his mother just narrowed her eyes at him.) The firestorm ended, predictably, with Lily’s complete ostracism from the seventh grade. She was featured on the evening news in a segment called “KAQB Celebrates Kids Who Can,” and the family gathered to watch as Lily explained with unnerving monotonic eloquence to a reporter that a middle school that isn’t safe for one girl isn’t safe for anyone. If Lily had been cuter or less self-righteous or less articulate, she might have come through the ordeal all right. But as it was, she cut a singularly unsympathetic figure, a pint-sized nag pushing her glasses up her nose, and it hurt Amadeo to think of his sister allowing his niece to expose herself like that. When, at the commercial, he suggested that maybe Lily shouldn’t have gotten involved, Valerie turned on him. “This is why I fought tooth and nail for full custody and a lifetime restraining order.” She jabbed a finger at Lily, who sat hunched against the armrest. “She’s growing up to be a powerful woman, and I’m proud of that,” Valerie declared, and Lily, powerful woman, picked miserably at the thicket of her eyebrow.