Grandma’s house was a magical place.
When I’m three years old, for no reason I’m ever given, my father leaves his job as a policeman to move us from the cement-block house, across the country nearer to my mother’s family. With no waiting employment, we live with my maternal grandmother for a year. After a job is secured and I’m guessing the financials are in a better place, we move to an apartment an hour away, and every Saturday I ride the bus with my mother to Grandma’s house.
The drive takes over an hour with stops and traffic, but it is worth the jostling strangers and sitting squished against the window to see a giant donut sign signaling we’re nearly there. On the walk from the bus stop, there’s a small grocer where we sometimes get push-up sticks, a Mexican bakery selling gingerbread pigs, and gang-bangers in souped-up cars my mother hurries past. Turning off the main street, we enter a small neighborhood. There is an alley behind a car repair shop littered with broken bottles, hubcaps, and cigarette butts, and just past it is Grandma’s house. At the curb, there’s a medium-sized tree with the initials of every kid attached to my grandma. Opposite is the yard, barricaded by a gated picket fence, maintained by an uncle or my occasionally sobered-up grandpa. It is an island surrounded by a harsh part of the city, the gardens displacing honking horns, exhaust fumes, and gang insignias.
The gate creaks as it opens, the noise hidden under the barking of Shorty, grandma’s mixed bull terrier. When I see him, I shift sideways just behind my mother to avoid his sharp teeth. The commotion brings Grandma out of the oval-windowed door, her wrinkle worked hands wiping the front of a floured apron. Grandma’s face creases as she threatens Shorty with animal control, which he apparently understands since he retreats back to the porch. Calming, I step away from my mother and rush past rose bushes to fling myself into the soft, doughy woman’s chest. It has been a very long week. She cradles my brother on one side, I on the other, blooming with the smell of roses and bacon grease. I do not look back at my mother, but her unhappiness envelops me anyway. She tosses an instruction in case I’ve forgotten.
“Remember not to get your clothes dirty; we have a long ride home.”
This place is more like home. The swinging kitchen door I have to time perfectly so as not to get smacked on the backside, the bed in the master bedroom that tucks neatly in the wall beneath an attic closet, and the green Formica table where I eat Spaghetti O’s. Most of the day I spend playing with my brother and cousins in the yard. I make bridal bouquets out of puffy hydrangea blossoms, dichondra grass becomes a Matchbox speedway, and the small fruit orchard is a jungle—the kids turning into monkeys avoiding alligators in the swamp below. As we play, Grandma coos to her birds in a converted hen house. Her sing-song mix of Spanish and English floating over the backyard.
“Hola, mis bellas. Pájaro cantante. Cheep-cheep little one, cheep-cheep.”
The birds chirp and stutter-fly; landing on her shoulders, and the top of her head. They are a vibrant, noisy cluster of jewels to her worn housedress.
Cat-walking the edge of a small abalone-encrusted goldfish pond, nearly to the end, I slip on some algae, getting a green stain on my shorts. My stomach clenches into a small fist, knowing my mother will be unhappy. As has become habit, I out myself to her, having learned that waiting until she notices will make the punishment much worse. Sighing heavily, she says what she always says.
“Why can’t you just do as you’re told?”
Not waiting for an answer she continues to describe my failures to Grandma, who doesn’t respond. Then my mother turns to me.
“Go outside and sit on the step. Don’t move from there until it’s time to go.”
Grandma finds me with my chin on my hands, as the other kids run circles around the house. She whispers in my ear.
“Mi hija, go play.”
As she nudges I think of what this will mean. For it will mean something. There will be a price to pay when the wheels of the bus take me away from here. I understand this, as Grandma must too. I leap into the race around the house with the sensation of my mother’s stare from the window until the sun makes shadows across the goldfish pond, and the smell of warming tortillas comes from the kitchen.