My second serious boyfriend had been a gangbanger. Maybe I should’ve known this since he only wore red—all the freaking time. But I had been dumb and naive and young in love. I still should’ve been smarter.
“Mija, que te preocupa?”
I lifted my head to my mother walking into the room and pushed my math papers over the photos. What’s the matter? Everything.
“Nothing. Just grading papers.” I gave my mother my winning smile, and her eyes narrowed.
“Hmm. This late?” was all she said, moving to the fridge, not believing a word that had spewed out of my mouth. That was Ana Cruz for you. She always knew when something was up.
“Yeah.” I deflected. “What are you doing up?”
She shrugged. “I was hungry.”
“This late?”
She laughed and then sauntered to the fridge, took out a dozen eggs, and moved to the stove. She gave me her all-knowing once-over and retrieved a frying pan from the cabinet.
My mother’s dark brown hair was pulled up into a bun, and the soft lines in between her eyebrows creased.
“Mija, there have been things bothering you. I’ve asked you about Mike, but you won’t tell me what’s wrong. The fact that we haven’t seen him for a month makes me believe you’ve broken up with him.” She cracked an egg on the pan and turned to face me. It was the first time she’d asked me about him, why he hadn’t been around. “Have you?”
“Yes,” I said with finality that I felt in my gut.
She placed both hands on her hips. “What happened? If you can’t tell me what’s wrong, how am I going to help you?”
Her ratty, old nightgown bunched up at her hips. It was her favorite. Though I bought her new ones every year at Christmas, she still wore the same one my father had given to her years ago.
I tidied up the papers in front of me and stuffed them into my laptop bag. “Mama, I’m twenty-six, a grown woman, so don’t worry about me.”
I blew her a kiss for good measure, and she huffed, speaking in Spanish under her breath.
I twisted my hair between my fingertips, and my heartbeat increased in tempo, the way it did after I spent the night salsa dancing. But yet, here I sat, perfectly still.
“I forgot to grab the mail this morning. I’ll grab it now.”
She knew I was avoiding this dreaded conversation, so I didn’t meet her eyes as I stood and walked straight out the back door in my T-shirt and sweatpants.
If I stayed in my mother’s vicinity long enough, her silence would guilt me into telling her. I practically told her everything going on in my life as it was. She was a single mother, which had forced me to be years beyond my actual age, helping her raise my two younger sisters.
I rounded to the front of the house. My hand rested on our mailbox by the curb, and my eyes went to Mr. Garcia’s house, where I could hear him playing “Bailando.” As I listened, my hips moved of their own accord.
Man, I wanted to get back on the dance floor. My mother always told me I’d been born dancing. Even in the womb, I’d danced. I didn’t doubt her. I’d been on my high school dance team and on the cheer squad for my college’s basketball team. Lately, my days were so busy that the only time I ever got to dance was at the salsa clubs with my girlfriends.
Where I lived wasn’t a shithole, but Elgin wasn’t like the area around Preston Elite Academy in Barrington, where I taught. In that prestigious suburb, three of my houses could fit in one of their McMansions. In our neighborhood, homes were modest, and for a family of four, we lived in a decent house. My two younger sisters had to share a room, but that was the worst of it, except one single bathroom among the four women in the household.
My mother had grown up in Mexico, and we heard stories about three whole families sharing a home smaller than the one we lived in now. This was my mother’s dream, this little house that she worked so hard to afford.
And goodness, it was because of her that I was thankful for everything, happy living here in our sweet home. Though I taught in one of the most prestigious areas in the country, I was grateful for what I had and never needed a life of wealth and privilege.
My mother’s favorite saying pushed through. “A house is made of wood and stone, but family is what makes a home.”
And what we did have was family—not only us, but also a whole slew of extended family.
I trekked back to the house and up the stairs, and as soon as I stepped on the landing, I could smell the scent of eggs and sausage and hear laughter bubbling inside. I guessed the girls were awake this late in the evening.
One might think that being twenty-six, I should get a place of my own. But I was helping my two younger sisters through community college, and I didn’t want to live without my mama. Family meant everything to me.
I stepped in, and Martina and Alma were sitting at the kitchen table, cutting up green peppers for the omelet I assumed they wanted Mama to make.
“Something smells good.” I walked toward my mother by the stove and kissed her cheek.
Her brow was furrowed from earlier, and it ate at my insides. When I entered a house, the first thing I had to do was greet all my relatives, besos all around. If not, I’d get an earful, and even though I was an adult, my mother still frightened me.
She’d lived her life, worrying about raising three girls alone, so there was no time for my drama, and it wasn’t her mess anyway.
“Mama, don’t worry.” I patted her shoulder and joined my sisters at the table, chopping up cilantro while the other two finished the peppers.
The television was off, but now, the faint beats of Latin music played in the background, and my mother’s hips swayed with the music. The roots of her hair were gray, peeking out from the brown, and yet she rocked it, wearing her grays like an armor, a testimony to all the hard work and heartache she’d been through.
My father had left us when I turned ten. I remembered the day because I’d watched him walk out the door and my mother break down in tears.
My mother had been through so much, raising three girls by herself and not getting a dime from my deadbeat father, who had left us and started a new family.
We didn’t talk to him anymore. Well, none of us, except Martina, who had a heart of gold and felt sorry for everybody.
How could you feel sorry for someone who couldn’t be bothered to send a support check once in a while? Yeah, no.
“Alma, you’re home?” I asked. Because she was never home, especially on a Saturday night.
“My date for tonight got moved to tomorrow,” Alma singsonged, pushing up her sleeves.
I wanted to lecture her about boys and needing to place school above them, but hell, I’d been there before. Young and free and dating, where heartbreak was frequent.
“What happened to Carl?” Martina said, chopping the green peppers in front of her.
Alma waved a hand, and a pepper flew off her fingers. “Carl was too boring.” She flicked her long, dark bangs from her face. “You should go out with him.”
I pinched her side just as I’d done when she was younger. “She doesn’t want your leftovers.”
Alma smirked. “I meant, they are so alike that they’d get along.”
I pinched her again.
“I meant …” Alma said, blowing the bangs from her face, addressing Martina, “I just meant that you need to get out more.”