Fish Out of Agua:. Michele Carlo
he was a child.
Lucy saw there was another person besides Daisy who could make her laugh. She also saw that he had paid for the cab, argued with the driver when they were thrown out, and walked them both home without complaining or asking for anything in return. It was the first time a man had ever taken care of her so unselfishly, and by the time Rudy left her on her stoop with just a handshake and a “See you soon?” Lucy was in love.
Initially, neither one of their families was pleased about the relationship. Neither my mother nor my father was their parents’ favorite child, and they both knew this. Grandma Izzy, a city person, thought my mother’s family, coming from a small town in the mountains, were jibaros. But my mother’s perfectly put together outfits; perfect manners; and soft, perfectly pitched voice—she was a “Jackie O” well before Jacqueline Bouvier ever met John F. Kennedy—won over Grandma Izzy’s heart. She had to admit that my mother was a lady, and therefore almost too good for her son.
Papa Julio, the same man who had almost forced my mother to drop out of high school, didn’t like it that my dad hadn’t gone to school past ninth grade. But my father liked having money in his pocket and quit school to work anywhere. He sold beer at the Polo Grounds until he was fired for being underage; he made bread at an Italian bakery until he was fired for being Puerto Rican; and then he got his driver’s license and got a job driving a forklift, which he kept.
When my father came to my mother’s family’s apartment to watch TV, he would “accidentally” leave change in the sofa cushions for Ofelia and Dulce to find. He even tried to fix the teenage Carmen up with his younger brother Papo, (which sadly didn’t take). Eventually his charm and genuine goodwill touched my mother’s family the way it had my mother, and Grandma Mari was glad her oldest daughter would finally be taken care of.
So Lucy took a chance and said yes for the second time in her life. She did love my father, but she also married him to get out of the house, which was not as cynical then as it would be today. In those days, in that culture, you needed a man in order to leave home. You needed to be rescued.
My father, who was sure from the first time he set eyes on my mother, married her in part because she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He also thought she’d give him the love and recognition he didn’t get from his family.
They both wanted their lives together to be completely different from the way they had been when they were growing up. Their children would definitely have American names, and they would grow up speaking only English. There would be no societal stigma of bilingualism. No difficulty in school because of switching from one language to another at the age of six. No being teased or left back. There would be no language or any other cultural barrier. Nothing would keep their children from having the life they both felt they were denied. Rudy and Lucy would figuratively and literally keep my brother Kevin and me as far away from the finca, the fogón, and El Barrio as they could get.
5
LA MUÑECA
Mija,
Amor,
Mi muñeca,
I love you. I love you with all my heart. I love you so much it hurts for me to write this to you. Even though I know you cannot read this yet, because you have just begun the escuela, still, I write this to you because I love you.
I write to you because these are the things I cannot tell you. It is very complicada, mija, and you cannot understand. Not now. Maybe not ever. But I am writing this anyway because at least you will know that I did try to explain and maybe that will make a difference someday. Maybe it will make some things better for you.
You, mi amor, are the only colorada in nuestra familia. You have the pecas of my mother of husband and the same big eyes that are questions, always questions for which there can never be an answer. And every time I look at you, I see the face, the skin, the eyes of Beltran, mi esposo verdad, the only man I loved. Will ever love. I also see him always, in your mother. And perhaps that is why I cannot. I did not. I have not.
Yes, Papa Julio is not your grandfather. But you will probably never meet Beltran; he was lost to us, to your mother and me many years ago. But Papa Julio is a good man, an honest man, a hard-working man. He brought your mother and me to this country so we could have a better life. Because we were sola. We owe him a lot. We owe him our lives. But I must also say the truth, Papa Julio is not the padre of your mother, and maybe that is part of why she is not feeling well now.
She is not well, mija. Your mother is not well and she has to go to the doctor. She has to live with the doctors so they can make her be well, and that is why you and your brother are coming here to live with Papa Julio and me but you don’t have to be afraid, in the name of ¡Gloria Jesus! you will not have to be afraid.
Life is complicado. So complicado. When you are older, you will see that life is hard for a woman. So hard. And you will see why certain things had to be a certain way. But now, you will be safe. I am your abuelita. I will watch you. I will protect you. I will do for you what I did not, could not do for your mother. And if you cannot forgive me, I hope you can at least understand.
No puedo escribir mas ahora. He is coming. Mija, yo te promeso, I will watch over you and project you. You are my muñecita, mi amor; I look at you and I remember.
Guárdenos, El Señor. Salmos 23, 27, 91, 121
Grandma Mari
6
LA VERGÜENZA Y LAS SINVERGÜENZAS
(The Shame and the Shameless)
There was never any explanation from Grandma Mari then or ever. It probably would not have made a difference if there had been.
I was five years old and lying on my stomach under a window and behind the couch in my grandmother’s living room. I was drawing. Quietly. Very quietly. I had learned very quickly to be quiet in that apartment. If I wasn’t, punishment—smacks, cocotazos, a whip from a belt snaking through my clothes, or, sometimes, against my bare bottom—would be swift and hard.
I would never be punished like that from my grandmother. Never from my abuelita who I knew adored me. And not from any of my titis either, not even from Titi Ofelia, whose sharp eyes, sharp chin, and even sharper tongue I instinctually kept far away from. It was my grandmother’s husband I had to watch out for, Papa Julio. The man who told me never to call him abuelo, Grandfather, because although he was married to my abuelita, he was not my grandfather.
My mother was in a hospital. Today the illness she had then, postpartum depression, is recognized and treated with kindness, support groups, and patience and elicits empathy and sympathy from families and strangers. It’s something one can recover from, or use as an excuse to get away with murder. In 1965, though, it was treated with seclusion, observation and medication. And it caused whispers and speculation everywhere your name was mentioned. It was considered a weakness, a character flaw, and a secret shame that would follow and define you for the rest of your days.
I remember the apartment was cold. My mother had been gone this time just a little over a week, but it felt like I had hardly seen her that year at all. I was copying a pair of kittens from an engraved copper plate onto a brown paper bag. My mother handmade the plate for me as a birthday gift, and even though my birthday had long passed, I had just received it the day before.
The two kittens were playing with a ball of yarn. I could easily draw the kittens, but no matter how many times I erased and started over, I could just not get the twists and turns in the yarn to come out right. I was going to give the finished drawing to my mother and wanted it to be perfect. As I struggled, familiar voices interrupted my concentration.
“The problem with Michele is…our sister brought her up to be white,” Titi Ofelia said.
This wasn’t the first time I had overheard a remark like that from my sanctuary behind the couch. My drawings and my Colorforms and my Barbies had helped me find out that my mother had twice been taken away to a hospital and that my father couldn’t take care of my mother, my brother and me by