Los Dolores,

My mother and stepfather went to Florida yesterday.
Before leaving she asked me to go check on the Old Lady
once or twice while they're away, enticing me with leftovers
in the fridge. Since I had to pass by their development
on my way home from work today I figured I'd swing by.

No one answered the phone when I called ahead to see
if my grandmother's caretaker needed milk for the two of them.
I contemplated buying a half-gallon anyway, but didn't.

When I got there I saw why no one had answered the phone.
The woman who tends to the Old Lady was out back on
the patio talking to her friend. She introduced us and
I was surprised to hear him say "How are you?" as we shook hands--
me avoiding eye contact, him avoiding a firm grip.

In my broken Spanish and her broken English we established
that they did not need milk or bread or any other staples
and that Grandma was upstairs in her room. About-faced
and trudged through the living room with my workboots on
not caring about the carpet since my mother was all the way down
the Eastern Seaboard, far out of harm's way.

I knocked on her open door and greeted her with the formal salutation
small Hispanic children are trained to say to their elders upon greeting
and parting, a word I believe roughly translated means "God bless you."
She turned from the window where she had been looking down
at my previous engagement, shining her big dentures at me
and spreading her arms so wide in preparation for a grateful hug
her pastel striped blouse spread wide like a sail and the sun shone through it.
I hugged her gingerly but with feeling, a feat necessary
with those eighty and older
easily accomplished by the patting of the back to show emphasis
without enough strength to hurt frail bones.
I tried to keep our chests from touching since I was still covered
in white concrete dust from work.

"Hello, how are you?" was the anticipated first question
that bought me some time while I quickly ran a scan of
my hazy memory for a proper response in Spanish.
"I'm good, I've been working today." It felt more like the beginning
of an eighth-grade oral test than a conversation with a woman
responsible for my existence. Not being fluent enough to do more than understand
some of the language is one of the few things I'll never forgive my mother for;
she should've continued to teach me as I grew older. As a baby I spoke both
but the inconvenience drove her to give up on the process
and I'm now no better off at expressing myself than your typical
junior high student, especially with past-tense verbs.

I knew it'd only be more awkward from there on in. "Yeah? On a Saturday?
You're a good boy." My limited vocabulary made me curl my toes in my boots
as I spat out the next words for the sake of saying something coherent:
"Yeah, I've been trabajando como un hombre fuerte," laughing in my head
at how tacky that sounded as I flexed a bicep and hoped she didn't laugh
at her grandson for saying he'd been "working like a strong man"
with a straight face.

She didn't. Her face lit up and I interjected with what I knew she wanted to hear next
since this script never changes much. "Mom said there's food for me to take home."
The sense of urgency that took over her wrinkled face proved that she was definitely
a mother of three obsessed with feeding her offspring. "Yes, take it and eat it
and be healthy and strong!" Good advice, and more simple words I could handle.

I went on to tell her to have her caretaker dial the phone for her
if she needed anything, milk or eggs or fresh fruit, and she smiled again
saying that she had asked my mother to leave my number with them
in case of just such an emergency. I already knew that fact because
upon walking through the kitchen earlier I saw my number on a Post-it Note
next to the Spanish phonetic spelling of my name that my grandma used to
write on birthday card envelopes and the like: Maico.

Her appreciation for my sense of duty was evident when she went off on
a rant too fast with emotion for me to decipher, but I got the basic idea.
The part at the end of her speech said that she calls me her son
because she always thought of me as her "real" son since she spent
so much time with me as I grew up. Out of about ten grand- and great-grandkids
I was the one she spent the most time with, something I value.

Grinning a stubbled countenance of contentment I said goodbye
with that same silly word I've been brainwashed into saying
and edged my way towards the stairs. She spread her arms wide again
and embraced me with full force. "No, be careful, I'm dirty from work!"
I warned her, but she only held me tighter. "You're my son, and even
when you think you're dirty, I still think you're clean and pure."

Clean and pure. The words rang out. Sometimes I forget that
in some eyes I still am and always will be.
That's worth all the potential bread and milk and egg deliveries in the world.

Clean and pure.
I squeezed tighter, too.
To hell with that fake back-pat hug.
Love like that is worth brushing some concrete dust off a pastel-striped blouse.




Currently reading:
"Open All Night" by Charles Bukowski.