The months that followed would have filled me with utter delight if they were not a daily reminder of all that Rosa would never know—a sense of family with Berta and Diego complete with Sunday dinners, a glorious Christmas, and a surprise birthday party for Diego; a way of life full of promise that opened doors I would never have found in Chiapas; and a belief that I was closer to Papá here than I ever could be in Mexico.
I gradually overcame my apprehension to venture out alone and became familiar with the bus lines, traveling to the bakery where I worked three days a week, to the market, and even to adult school for English classes, although Berta insisted on picking me up after dark. I spent every spare moment studying English in my books or by listening to the television, especially the news and the talk shows. I insisted on speaking English to Berta and the others at the bakery, and eventually I began to take orders from customers. But most exciting was when I began to work the cash register. I would compute the totals in my mind and even figure out the change back before checking the machine to see if I was right. And one night, on my way to English class, I walked by a room where a young man was teaching math, and I stood beside the doorway and watched him work a problem on the board. My heart raced with excitement. Perhaps one day, I could take a math class again.
All of this was more than I deserved. That I knew. My penance was not sharing it with Rosa. Every potentially happy moment was accompanied by a jolt of remembrance that pierced my soul. As for Manuel, try as I might, I found myself straining to remember his face, his voice. Only fragments of that short time with him remained— and I feared they would fade as well.
Yet one beautiful morning in May, after seventeen hours of labor, with Berta rubbing my back and cheering me on, I am told that I called for Manuel as Luz finally made her way into the light. Berta says I shouted his name three times, though I do not remember. Nor do I remember that when the doctor said, “It’s a girl,” I responded in Spanish, “Well, of course she is! ¡Idiota!” I only recall the tiny balled fists swinging, the feet kicking, and that furious scream that told me my little Luz de Rosalba was here to fight her way beside me in this dark world.
17
For Love
My favorite time of the day was just after sunrise. Luz, who would be sleeping in bed beside me since her 2:00 a.m. feeding, would stir when the bright rays would begin to light our room. Then I’d carry her to the patio where we would settle into a rocking chair and enjoy the early morning’s cool air. The summer was unbearably hot in the San Fernando Valley, so these quiet mornings, with Berta still at work and Luz groggy with sleep, were a peaceful beginning to each day. The birds would begin their chatter, and I would listen and rock and gaze at my daughter tugging gently at my breast. Soon enough the oppressive heat, Luz’s waking demands, and Berta’s hovering presence would drain my energy and deflate my enthusiasm. But for these few minutes—sometimes close to an hour—I would feel a quiet joy and be grateful for what my life had become.
One such morning in August, in the midst of my reverie, I found myself thinking about the last time I had seen my mother. It would have been about one year before, the morning of that awful fight over Tito. I remembered feeling a tug as she threw those blankets at my feet, as if a taut rope that connected us was strained to its limit. But as she fled through the doorway, her long braid swinging as if waving goodbye, I felt that rope snap so close to my heart that nothing was dragging behind me when I left.
I kissed Luz’s forehead thinking how I would never let her break that tie. I would always make sure that we were connected no matter what differences we had. As if to defy me, she fidgeted and released my breast, wiggling in my arms until a juicy burp settled her and she latched on again. Eyes wide, she gazed up at me as she suckled, and I stroked her cheek with my thumb.
Rosa and I had discussed many times our mother’s lack of affection. Neither of us could recall being rocked in her arms, or tickled, or comforted. She would tug at our hair as she brushed it or tell us to brush each other’s. Any sentence that began with “Alma?” was always followed by some set of instructions of what I was supposed to do—or a scolding for what I neglected. She didn’t abuse us in any way, but neither did she caress us. And while I cannot remember her laughing or singing, neither can I remember her sobbing, for she simply withdrew.
So different from my father.
What was it about her that attracted Papá, especially after Lara? I wished there was someone who could tell me her story, like Berta had told me Lara’s. All I knew was that they’d met at a wedding in Oaxaca in 1980, four years after Lara died: four years of Papá working the fields in California and visiting his son; four years of returning to this little house that held so many memories of Lara.
I don’t even know whose wedding it was that led Papá to return to Mexico. He would have been thirty and Mamá only seventeen. She had come to Oaxaca years before to help an uncle whose wife was ill, but the woman had died earlier that year. Whatever ignited between
