The titis were sitting on a plastic-covered sectional couch in the large, bright, many-windowed living room with French doors, whose centerpiece was the huge wooden Philco TV/Hi-Fi/radio console my mother won in a St. Lucy’s church lottery back in Spanish Harlem almost fifteen years before.
“Didn’t you think Lucy looked better last week though? Didn’t you? I mean, she was talking again,” Titi Dulce said.
Titi Dulce was the youngest sister and the one who looked most like my mother: petite and shapely, with pale skin and almost-black hair. Dulce, who was about to turn twenty-one, had just gotten married and had just suffered her first miscarriage. She would play with me and give me extra hugs every time she came over, which was never often enough.
“I had Pastor Ramirez lead an intercession for Lucy last night. We don’t want her to come home too soon again. Remember what happened last time.”
That was Titi Carmen, the second oldest, the jamona. At just twenty-five she already appeared postmenopausal. She would never get married; her thick legs and squinty eyes would ensure that—as well as the oily black hair that ran rampant up her legs, down her arms, between her pancake breasts and occasionally sprouted from her brown double chin. She, like my abuelita, was very, very religious. It was good for her.
“Well, what are we going to do about Michele?” Titi Ofelia repeated.
Titi Ofelia was twenty-three, tall, slim, and too quick, with skin the color of a double cup of café con leche and a personality with a kick to match. Every other week she smoked a different brand of cigarettes, every other month she dyed her hair a different color, every couple of years she had a new husband. I’m sure if she was your friend, she was delightful to be around. Only, I wasn’t her friend.
“I told you what she told Mami. As if our father would ever do such a thing. Who taught Michele how to lie like that? You know who: Lucy. That princesa of a sister of ours. Always fixing herself up as if she was the queen of Spain. Pretending she’s not a tregieña—I don’t care how blanquita she thinks she is…”
“Stop it, Ofelia,” Dulce said. “And stop waving that cigarette at me. They smell like caca.”
“Good, then maybe for once I can smoke a whole pack by myself. Anyway, if you ask me that’s what got our sister locked up. Lies. And Michele is going to turn out just the same if we don’t teach her. Next time, I’m going to put some Tabasco on her tongue and no one is…”
“Cállate, both of you. Dios mio, she is here!” Titi Carmen warned.
My pencil had rolled to the end of the couch. The three of them turned around as I scrambled to retrieve it, and the conversation stopped.
“Michele! Niñita! What are you doing?” Titi Dulce asked.
“Oh look, she’s drawing dos gatititos. Very nice, Michele. Very nice!” Titi Carmen affirmed.
“Drawing. Lying. Neither one will ever get her anywhere. Mija, why don’t you go finish that in your room and let us talk, eh? Good girl.”
Titi Ofelia didn’t wait for an answer. She turned her back and they all continued speaking again—in Spanish. It was the mystery language grown-ups used for celebrations, lost tempers, and secrets. And since my mother and father had always only spoken English to Kevin and me, that meant I wouldn’t find out when my mother was coming home, or what “being white” was, or most important, what I had been lying about. I couldn’t think of anything, except the time I sneaked soap into the frying pan when Titi Ofelia was cooking and blamed it on a giant. But that had been a whole month ago.
I quietly, very quietly, left the living room and wandered down the long, dark hall past the kitchen and bathroom, the framed pictures of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Jesus to the bedrooms; there were always two separate bedrooms for abuelita and Papa Julio for as long as I could remember. There was the bedroom I shared with abuelita, Papa Julio’s room, and the back bedroom, where my brother Kevin was. He was kept in that room almost all the time abuelita wasn’t home. And abuelita wasn’t home a lot.
In the morning, she went out carrying containers of sopa de pollo and arroz y habichuelas to that other hospital where my great-grandmother was. In the afternoon, she’d put on her long-sleeved white blouse and dark purple skirt and go to church. Sometimes, she left after breakfast and didn’t come home until it was time to cook for Papa Julio before he left for work.
I wasn’t allowed to go into that back bedroom when abuelita wasn’t there. There couldn’t be noise in the daytime because Papa Julio worked nights and needed his sleep. There couldn’t be any noise at all or he’d be very, very angry. I’d been told this many times, but I was five years old. I wanted to play with my brother.
I opened the door. Even though it was afternoon, the room was in shadow and the Venetian blinds were drawn. Kevin was standing in his playpen, holding its rail, jumping and gurgling. He was then two years old. He talked in sentences when we arrived at my grandmother’s, but without my mother with him and with him being kept mostly in isolation, he had reverted to baby talk. He also didn’t walk very well anymore either, and I couldn’t chase him like I used to. One of Papa Julio’s belts lay next to Kevin’s bare feet. There was always a belt in the playpen.
I closed the door and we played until the door opened. I felt Papa Julio’s large hand swing me by my ponytail and push me between him and the wall.
“I told you not to come in here. I told you I would punish you if I caught you. You are a bad girl, bad girl, bad girl, mala, malissima, just like your mother…”
He pressed me against him while he reached for the belt in the playpen. He pulled down my pants and spanked me with one hand like he usually did, but this time he rubbed the other against my behind and pipi. He didn’t always do both. Sometimes he would just yell, but not this time. I didn’t cry. I never did. I didn’t have to. Kevin did the crying for both of us.
“You say nothing,” Papa Julio said. “Just like your mother.”
Then as quickly as it began, it was over. Both his hands retracted, and he pulled my pants back up and pushed me out of the room. I could still hear Kevin crying as the door closed. Papa Julio didn’t look at or speak to me as he went back into his room.
I continued walking through the long hall back to the living room. Carmen and Ofelia had left; Dulce was still sitting on the couch and was now talking on the telephone. I tried to snuggle up to her, but then she heard Kevin, hung up, and left me to check on him. Everything would be okay for now. Dulce loved babies and Papa Julio wouldn’t punish her.
When the apartment was quiet again, I went back to the only thing I could control—my drawing. It was the one thing that hadn’t abandoned or betrayed me, and if something wasn’t right, I could erase it and start over. I knew if only I kept trying I could get that yarn to come out right. The kittens would make my mother so happy that she would get well and come home.
I worked at the yarn until I erased a hole through the paper bag. The drawing was ruined. I went to crumple it, but the kittens looked too happy to give up. I smoothed out the bag and picked up my pencil. I had to keep trying.
7
IGLESIA CON POLLO
The very first time I was sure I was going to hell, I was five years old and sitting with my abuelita and Titi Carmen in church. It wasn’t just any church; it was an Iglesia Pentecostal, one of the storefront churches that are part of every Latin neighborhood. It wasn’t just any storefront either. It was on the second floor above a vivero, a live poultry butcher, one of the few left in Washington Heights.
My abuelita had been going to this church for years. In a neighborhood with an iglesia on every other block, she felt it was special, and