Mixing the Ingredients

Mamá. Mamá. Where are you?” Rosaura Ríos sticks her head into the living room. Finding it empty, she moves up the hallway, knocks on the door of her mother’s bedroom and opens it. “Mamá? I have to talk with you.” Empty.

She heads into the kitchen. “There you are.”

Her mother is folding clothes at the kitchen table and doesn’t look at her.

Rosaura sits at a kitchen chair and shoves a stack of her son’s underwear aside. “Mamá, Luz said that you told her something bad was going to happen to her if she shows up at the spelling contest.” She folds her arms over clothes still warm from the dryer.

Aura pats her grandson’s folded pants then places them on the chair to the right with the rest of his clothes.

Rosaura sees the gray and black braid falling down the woman’s back, the blue-veined hands, the dark chocolate face, and bites her lip because getting angry with her mother will only make that woman’s silence grow. “Mamá, I’m sure she just misunderstood you. Didn’t she? This is San Antonio, not the wilds.”

Her face is as wrinkled as a crumpled paperbag. Aura snaps the baby’s crib sheet in the air. “No.”

Slender and dark, Rosaura, in her white hospital uniform, grips her hands. “My oldest thinks there’s a curse on her, Mamá. How could you?”

Without looking at her daughter, Aura asks, “How can you let her go?”

AURA:

Holding their hands, I walked each of my children to school on their first day. Their smiles were as shiny as the new sharp pencils and new blank notebooks they carried in their backpacks.

I stood and watched my daughter walk across the ocean of a yard to the glass doors that were jammed with children pushing their way inside. She was so tiny and looked even smaller as she moved away.

I could not swallow around the hardness blocking my throat. My chest pushed to catch a breath against the sadness pressing down on it. My child. My baby. So very fragile. She was not ready. She will be changed forever in that building. Tears filled my eyes. Oh, my little one. How I wished I could take the blows for you.

At the door you turned around and waved. I waved back, but you were already inside. I stood, watching the door for a very long time.

Mamá, she wants to go. She’s thrilled about going. How can you ruin this for her?”

Aura reaches over and yanks a shirt from beneath the elbows of her daughter. Rosaura catches herself from falling forward.

She stares at her mother. “Mamá, you do this all the time to me.”

“Now this is about you?”

Rosaura searches the room with bright yellow walls, the pot of frijoles on the stove scenting the air with spices and childhood memories. The sink and counter are cleaned spotlessly. Her mother’s assistance in keeping the house immaculate and functional is immeasurable. She rejects the thought of what her life would be like if she didn’t have her mother’s support. She knows that she couldn’t hold a full-time night job.

“Isn’t it?” Rosaura gets up, opens a cabinet and reaches for a glass. She pulls a pitcher of tea from the refrigerator. The children think their grandmother is as central to this family as her mother had always been to her own.

ROSAURA:

I awoke with the taste of a bad dream in my mouth. I scratched my stomach underneath my brother’s T-shirt and walked into the kitchen, searching out the starched skirt of my mother’s dress to bury my face in.

My nose noticed first. Nothing cooking. The goosebumps on my arms warned me that it was cold in the house. I padded through the doorway to find the living room just as barren. Down the hallway, in front of my parents’ bedroom, I listened. Sobs.

The door swung open. My father sat on the edge of the bed, stooped over, one arm with his elbow on his thigh, his head in his hand, the other hand hitting the bed in a slow, piston-like rhythm: up and down, up and down. He never saw me.

All day, with tíos and tías running in and out of the house, no one saw me. With the phone ringing and people talking, no one heard me. With the day gone and me still in the T-shirt, no one noticed me. With my mouth closed, filled with questions, no one spoke to me.

I watched. I listened. My stomach growled. I crawled back into bed. My mother was gone.

Rosaura asks, “You want some tea?” Her mother shakes her head. “Please, Mamá explain.” Rosaura sits.

Aura draws back and looks down at her daughter. “Now I have to explain myself for everything.”

Aura cocks her head in a pose that reminds Rosaura of a similar look her oldest daughter, Luz, puts on to feign disbelief. Rosaura sighs. “No. Just why did you tell Luz she was in danger?”

“You won’t like it.” Aura shakes her head, emphasizing the accuracy of her words.

Rosaura slides down in the chair, in a position that earns her daughters a lecture on future slouched spines. “I already don’t like it, so what’s the difference.”

Aura hesitates, then says, “There will be some that will be jealous of her. There will be others that will say things about her. This world,” she swings her hand to suggest everyone outside their home, “does not like it when we step out of our place.”

AURA:

I was a young woman working a job I did not like, but it kept me home with the children in the day. I cooked tortillas at a restaurant until one night the migra came and rounded up all those that looked mexicano. They would not let me show them my birth certificate. They would not let me call home. They took us to Mexico—all expenses paid, they said.

It had taken me a long time to come home. A long time before I saw my angels again.

Rosaura feels astonished by her mother’s attitude. “You saying she shouldn’t do this contest because she might get hurt?”

“Will be hurt.”

Mamá, in this world, the way it’s set up; we have to take risks.”

“I know about these risks you talk of.”

“Oh, Mamá, it’s not like when you were young. Some things are easier. We’re fighting for more rights.”

“So your brain thinks I know nothing of this fight?”

“No.” Rosaura hangs tightly onto the table to avoid falling over the cliff of her mother’s disdain.

“It is not in the history books that your daughters bring home from school, but it was us,” she points to herself, “old Latinas, that picketed the pecan factories and made changes happen.” The skirt in her hand suffers an extra hard tug as Aura reminisces. “Your grandfather was a good man and understood. There were others that did not. They walked away from their wives in shame because the women wore pants to stand on the picket lines.”

Rosaura stares at the woman whose black, felt reservation hat sits on the back of her head and whose unlit brown cigarillo hangs from between pinched lips. The image of the mother she had grown up with. “Mamá, you have to be the most outrageous woman I have ever known. I’ve always been afraid that I couldn’t grow up to be the kind of mother you were to us. To be half as strong as you were. You were always there making sure we were treated right.”

ROSAURA:

I was in third grade and these boys were picking on me and my girlfriends. Alejandro fought them and he had been taken to the principal. My mother showed up and stood in the front office until, finally, the principal escorted her into his office.

We sat there for three thousand centuries before she left his office. Alejandro was permitted back in school the next day.

Aura puts her hands on her hips. “And what thanks did I get for that?”

Rosaura stares wide-eyed. “I’ve always appreciated what you did.”

“Me and the mothers of your wild girlfriends, we showed up everyday at the big houses on the hill. We cleaned them good, to show those people that we are not dirty.” Aura glares from behind lacy underwear. “We fight, too. We fight to be treated with respect. But that is of no importance for you and your wild girlfriends to think about.”

“Of course what you did was important. That’s why it’s just as important to let Luz go to this competition.”

Aura’s hand runs down the length of a sleeve slowly. “It is not the same thing. No, it is not. Luz is too young. She is not prepared for what people will say. Do.”

Rosaura feels a tenderness grow in her heart towards her mother. “Did many people give you a hard time about the things you wanted?” she asks softly.

Aura lays the blouse on a small pile, then reaches for a towel, snapping it in the air with a loud pop. “Such silly talk. The only time people say things to me is when you left with your wild girlfriends to go to that place.” She snatches up the laundry basket and, perching it on one hip, walks to the screen door.

Ay, Mamá, not that again.”

Rosaura observes the slight stoop to her mother’s shoulder as she walks, yet her head is still held queen high. Her mother pushes the screen door open, steps outside, and disappears to the left. Rosaura can hear her opening the dryer.

Within minutes, her mother is back at the table with another load of dried clothes.

Rosaura speaks quietly into the space her mother has tried to forget. “You’ve never forgiven me for going against your wishes.”

“That’s what you say.”

“What else am I supposed to think? We’ve never talked about it. You go stony quiet when I try to bring it up.”

Aura shakes her granddaughter’s blue blouse and lays it on the ironing board.

“See. You go silent on me. I’ve never met anyone that can hold a grudge for as long as you can.”

ROSAURA:

I filled out the art school applications on Manela’s typewriter at her home. I had been accepted at several colleges. With my three girlfriends, I had sneaked away and visited the campuses before Aura had found out.

“You’re not going.”

Mamá, how can you say this?”

“Easy. See me. You are not going.”

I had stomped my feet. “Yes, I am. I’ve already been accepted.”

“And what money are you going to use?”

“I’ve applied for federal aid and filled out forms for a few student loans.”

“I told you not to wear those bell-bottoms in the house.”

“I’m talking about my future, my life and you want me to change my clothes.”

“You don’t see none of those other good Catholic girls wearing those kind of pants. They make you look funny. Fat.”

“You don’t see their mothers wearing an old Indian hat either.”

“Rosaura, no talking like that in this house.”

“You don’t allow anything in this house. I’m eighteen. I can do what I want.”

“Not when you’re living in this home of mine.”

“That’s easy. Consider me gone.”

I moved out and rented a place with Manela Cuellar and Marieta Ortiz, my best girlfriends. College had been fun and hard. The male teachers had told me that there was no market for Mexican folk art. I should learn how to paint real art—If I could learn how to paint like a man, that is. The government cut the budget and the money ran out. I was working a full-time job as a waitress when I met my husband.

Aura accuses her daughter, “You have never valued the old ways. You and your wild girlfriends talk about revolution. Talk about changing the world. You forget the importance of tradition. Tradition has its place in a home.”

“Not if tradition means letting the man dictate what I can and can’t do.”

“See, you do not listen. You talk before I am finished and never let me say what I am trying to…”

“I do not. I always hear you out…”

Aura holds the baby diaper half-folded against her chest and stares at her lovely daughter.

Rosaura sits back, smiling. “Oops.”

Aura holds back a smile.

Rosaura takes a sip of her tea. “Okay, I’ll shut up till you’re finished.” Aura raises an eyebrow. “I promise.” Rosaura crosses her heart. “And hope to die.”

AURA:

This one has always been the one that could make me smile.

When she was first born, we weren’t sure if she was going to live. Her father had two jobs so it had been left up to me to save the sweet child’s life. I went for many days without sleep. There was no doctor that we could go to; only certain doctors would treat mexicanos. The curandera used all of her knowledge to help my little one stay alive. She was helpful. But still it seemed that God was calling his littlest angel back to him. I vowed that I would never cut her hair if she got well.

Una amiga cleaned the house of a white woman who was a nurse. She risked her job to ask the woman if she could come and see my child. The woman did. She gave medicine, visited often, and Rosaura was able to suck at my breast. This woman, who rarely spoke to her housecleaner, saved my daughter.

“I have nothing to say.” Aura clamps her mouth shut.

“See. That’s what you always do.” Rosaura waves her hands in the air. “First you accuse me of interrupting you; when I try to stop, you back off.”

Aura is all innocence. “I do nothing.”

“Exactly. You do nothing. You’ve done nothing with your life. But always, you are trying to stop others from doing something with their lives.”

Aura perks up, surprise on her face. “How can you say that? Your brother Alejandro is teaching. He lived here when he went to college. Your sister has a nice job. I watch her children after school.”

Ay, a secretary. Where they think it’s an accomplishment if she can open the door without hitting her nose.” Rosaura shakes her head. “Secretaries are considered dummies.”

“Everyday she dresses up nice for work and she doesn’t have to clean another’s toilet. She is a success.”

“Right.” Rosaura rubs her forehead. “Then there’s me.”

“Always you put the words in me.”

Mamá, when people ask you what I do, what do you tell them?” Rosaura waves her hand in the air.

“That you work hard and are good with your children.”

“What about my art?” Rosaura stares, reaching for her mother’s understanding.

Aura shrugs. “These people want to know nothing about how you play.”

“You don’t understand me.” Rosaura takes a long drink from her glass, swallowing the hope that her mother will someday understand her desire to create art.

ROSAURA:

I was ten and riding on the back of one of my cousins. The other cousins watched. They started teasing me, making fun of how small I was. Then they told me that the migra would come and get my mother again. I got scared, but I wouldn’t cry. They kept it up.

I was angry—angry that my happiness was all wrapped up in you and you could be taken from me so easily. I was your angel, you said. But this angel could wake up in the morning to find that her mother had been spirited away to another country.

I did what anger dictated. I leaned forward and bit into the soft flesh of my cousin’s shoulder. He yelled and screamed. My cousins tried to pull me off, but I gritted my teeth and became part of his flesh.

You, my father, and his father came running out of the house. The whiny Alfonso had gone running into the house, yelling that I was killing his brother. You pulled me off the boy and held me as my father took chiles off the bush near the back door, mashed them between his fingers and rubbed them on my lips.

You held the garden hose over my mouth as I tried to soak out the burn. You asked why I had done it. But I didn’t know how to tell you. I needed to be close to you, and you pushed me away. If I wanted to act like a bad girl you had no place on your lap for me.

Aura looks down at her daughter. “Maybe if I knew I would not get blamed for everything that went wrong in your life, it would be easier for me to talk with you. I did the best I could. No one can ask for more.” Aura walks to the ironing board, licks her finger and tests the iron.

Rosaura’s eyes grow big. “When did I ever ask for more? My brothers were the ones to get anything. Everything was for them. My sister and I lived in hand-me-downs while they sported new shirts and pants all the time.”

“They had things to do. All you wanted to do was smear yourself with the paints.” Aura spreads a shirt on the ironing board and sprays the sleeve with a bottle of water.

“And that was doing nothing?”

“Tell me how this art helps pay the bills. You are so lucky you have a husband that puts up with you.”

“Puts up with me! He’s lucky he’s got me.”

“Always you were the one with the head that could get stuck in a doorway.” Aura leans forward. “You have always talked about how bad it was for you, but you never think how it could be for someone else in this family.”

AURA:

My husband had taken Alejandro to the bathroom. He couldn’t wait until we got home. That one could never wait for anything in his life. You and your sister had your noses pressed against the window, looking at a doll. She was tall, with blue eyes and blond ringlets. You were busy staring at the doll, so you did not notice the paint set above your head. The box sat on its side on a shelf with a picture of all the colors that were inside. Paint brushes, thin ones and thick ones, were lined up in the picture. My fingers itched to feel the brush in my hand, the paint flowing through my fingers.

You and your sister cried. You whimpered all the way home. You had the hiccups bad from sobbing so much. You screamed that I didn’t know how bad you wanted that doll.

Rosaura perches on the edge of her chair. “Oh, I guess you’re going to tell me that my saint of a sister had it worse than me and I’m the one that always complains.”

Aura grins. “You are the one here talking ¿qué no?

Rosaura leans forward, shortening the distance between herself and her mother. “Mamá, that’s not fair. I have tried hard to please you all my life, but nothing I do makes you happy. You’ve had a complaint about everything I’ve done. You found something wrong with whatever I did.” Rosaura drops back into the chair.

“Is it so bad wanting your daughter to be the best that she can be?” Aura moves the iron down the length of the cloth.

“How about accepting your daughter for who she is?”

ROSAURA:

The Texas sun had melted the sky a pale blue, scorching everything underneath. Pregnant. I felt the heat wave worst. My hair hung to below my waist and my back was wet with sweat. Every time I brushed my hair back, I left it streaked with paint. Finally I tied my hair at my neck, but when I leaned over, my hair fell forward and dipped into the paint. I wanted to cry. Screaming would be better. Instead I reached for the phone.

“Marieta. Get over here right now. I can’t fit behind a steering wheel and you’re taking me to the beauty shop.”

While we were at the beauty shop, a baseballsized hailstorm hit the city. Marieta took it as an omen from heaven for what was going to happen when I sneaked back into the house.

My children didn’t notice. My husband studied me, puzzled, then shook his head and continued eating supper. My mother touched the ends of my hair just below my ears and walked out. She missed supper. We didn’t speak to each other for a week.

Aura takes the cigarillo out of her mouth. “What about a daughter accepting her mother for who she is? You have not been happy with me for a long time now.”

Rosaura stirs uneasily in her chair. “Mamá, that’s not true. It was you that gave me the courage to go on to college.”

“Then I’m sorry about that.” She pops the cigarillo back into her mouth.

“See, that’s what I mean. When it’s something you want me to do, everything is fine. But when it’s something I want to do, I am wrong.”

“No, not wrong. Misplaced maybe.”

“Misplaced? How?”

“You are a mother. You have a family to take care of. They are your responsibility. If you wanted to paint and become rich in New York or like that, then you should have kept your knees together.” Aura slips the shirt onto a hanger and hooks it on the doorjamb.

Mamá, you just don’t understand. All you have ever had in your life is being a mother. It’s all you have ever wanted to do. You just don’t know what it feels like to have this passion building up inside of you, exploding through your fingers. I have to paint. Sometimes I feel like I’ll die if I don’t paint.” Rosaura holds her hands in front of her, reaching for understanding.

Aura points to herself and shakes her head. “You think this old woman has never had this passion you talk about?”

Ay, Mamá, I know we are your passion. You love us more than life. But this is something different. I know it isn’t your fault. In your time, women weren’t at liberty to be anything but mothers. Nowadays, things are different. Women can have careers and still be good mothers.”

“So you understand why I had no passion in my life.” Aura’s voice softens.

AURA:

The kitchen was clean. Lunches were set up for the morning rush out the door to school. Laundry was folded and put away. My husband’s clothes were pressed and ready for the next morning’s job. In their bedrooms, my sons wrestled with their blankets in their sleep. I straightened the blanket on one son, and on the other, I tucked his foot back under the sheet. My daughters were sleeping, hugging stuffed bears tightly in their arms. I removed the flashlight from under the covers where Rosaura had been reading. I smoothed the blankets and stroked the cheek of my littlest rebel.

The doors were locked. The children were asleep. My husband slept soundly. All was quiet in the house. I crept up to the linen closet and reached behind the towels and pulled out a sketch pad. The charcoal were stubs; I was hardly able to hold them in my fingers. I almost had enough saved to buy another box. I sat down and sketched.

Sometimes the neighbor’s rooster would let me know that I had been drawing all night.

I hid the sketch pad and the box of charcoal in the linen closet before the family rose. Again I could face the day after letting the passions flow from my fingertips.

Rosaura spreads her hands open. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Women of your generation had more restrictions put on them than women of today have. Everybody knows that.”

“So does this make it easier for you now?”

“No. Not easier.”

“Better then.”

“Not exactly.”

“How come this career is so important if it makes your life even harder?”

“Not harder.”

“You blame me for not understanding and you cannot even explain what you do.”

Mamá, you’re not letting me say what I mean.”

Aura sets the iron down, folds her arms and stares at her daughter. “So go ahead and explain. I’m listening.”

“Oh, yeah, I can tell you’re real receptive to what I have to say.”

“I have ears. I’ll listen. You want more, prove it to me.”

Rosaura sighs. “These days, women want more. They want to prove themselves as good as anyone else. It’s the challenge, I guess you could say. To have something to show for themselves at the end of their lives.”

“And children are not enough?” Aura looks as if any answer will be the wrong answer.

“No, Mamá, children are gifts, on loan to us to take care of for a while. They have their own lives to live and, as their parents, it’s our job to raise them to leave us.” Rosaura plants both feet on the floor, centering her thinking.

“Then you forget about them?” Aura reaches for a hanger.

“Of course not. Children are worthwhile, but what I’m talking about is something no one else can take credit for except myself. Something of my own. Something like the spelling bee.”

“This wasp means the same thing for Luz?”

“Bee, Mamá. Spelling bee.” Rosaura taps her thighs with her hands. “Yes, it’s important. Very important.”

“Can you tell how?”

“It will give her a sense of directing her own life.” Rosaura holds one hand in the other to add weight to her words.

“She doesn’t know which way to go? Tell her to look at the stars.”

Mamá, this competition will teach her that she can go for anything she wants. It’s not even the winning or losing. It’s the showing up that counts.”

“I remember saying to you those same words.”

“When? I don’t remember.” Rosaura looks puzzled.

Aura smiles. “I think sometimes you and I have different memories of the same thing.”

ROSAURA:

“It’s really very simple.”

“If it is so simple then why do you have to use so many words?”

“Because you keep interrupting me.”

“First you say I don’t talk enough, now you say I talk too much. Which one is it?”

Mamá, this boy likes me. He wants to take me to a dance. It’s a really important dance. The best dance of the whole year. It’s like everyone in the whole school will be there. Anybody who doesn’t show up will be an outcast for the rest of the school year.” I gulped for air. “Manela and Marieta are going. Even Helen’s got a date. And no one is going with their brother. Why do I have go with Alejandro and his date?”

I waited for a response. None came. I stomped my foot. “Mamá, why do I have to go with Alejandro?” Still no answer. “Mamá, have you been paying attention to me?” I touched her arm.

She looked up from her sewing. “I do not interrupt.”

“All right. I can never have anything I want. Everything has to be your way. Cool. I will live with you forever because I’m going to die an old maid. No one will ever want to marry me. Ever.” I slammed the door to my bedroom hard. Then I opened the door and slammed it shut again to make my point.

Rosaura chuckles. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Sometimes I think I grew up in another house than the one you remember.”

AURA:

I was sitting with my sewing when you had come home from school. Alejandro had just told you that you would be going on a double date with him to the school dance.

“It’s really very simple.”

“If it is so simple then why do you have to use so many words?”

“Because you keep interrupting me.”

“First you say I not talk enough, now you say I talk too much. Which is the one it is?”

I watched how you got so excited when you talked. “Mamá, this boy likes me.” Your eyes were big and the blood rushed in your face. Your skin was darker. “It’s a really important dance.” I could always tell it was important because you made your forehead all wrinkles when you were really serious. “Anybody who doesn’t show up will be an outcast for the rest of the school year.” Always many words to say simple things. “And no one is going with their brother.” Your whole life was in everything you said. “Why do I have go with Alejandro and his date?”

I didn’t say anything. What could I say to make you understand and at the same time not frighten you? You stomped your foot. “Mamá, why do I have to go with Alejandro?” Your brother had told me how he heard there might be a fight. Pachucos with guns. “Mamá, have you been paying attention to me?”

I looked up from my sewing. “I do not interrupt.”

“All right. I can never have anything I want. Everything has to be your way.” I didn’t want you to go, but Alejandro promised to keep you safe. “Cool. I will live with you forever because I’m going to die an old maid.” How could I let you go into the world and keep you safe, too? “No one will ever want to marry me. Ever.”

You slammed the door twice; my sewing fell from my lap. You didn’t talk to me the rest of the time before the dance. The night of the dance I sat in the dark, listening to the radio, drawing how beautiful you looked. When I heard the car, I checked in the window and saw how that good boy, Isidro, walked you to the door. I hurried to bed.

Rosaura sits in silence, watching her mother iron. “I was little and sitting in this kitchen, watching you just like you are now. I remember telling you that I would die if anything happened to you.”

“Like I died when you were in college and I never knew how you were or where you were?”

Ay, we’re back to that again.” Rosaura pops out of her chair, stomps to the kitchen sink, rinses her glass and drops it in the dish rack. “Mamá, don’t be telling Luz any more of your stories.”

Aura slows the stroke of the iron.

“She’s young. She believes everything you say and you frightened her. She doesn’t need it.”

Aura stares at the wall ahead of her.

Rosaura glances at her mother’s back. “She’s having a tough time with this competition. The things that are important to us are not the same things that are important to you.”

ROSAURA:

I was eight and there was this big, brown dog with big fangs that I had to pass every day on the way to school.

I ate my breakfast slow, searched for the right books to pack, and was the last to leave in the mornings. You scolded me every day for a week. Then on Monday morning, you told my brothers and sister to go on ahead of me. I thought you were going to beat me. They did, too. My brothers teased me. I wanted to cry.

Instead, you took me by the hand and led me into the living room. You sat on your padded rocking chair and told me to get on your lap. You wrapped your arms around me and rocked me for a very long time. Very softly, you were humming a tune. I could hardly hear it. After the ball in my stomach unraveled, I asked you to tell me what you were humming. You said you would tell me only if I told you what was the thing that was making it hard for me to get to school in the morning.

I went silent. You kept humming that tune and holding me tight. Soon I was sobbing, telling you about the big, brown dog with the huge teeth. You kept holding me tight.

You walked me to school that day and let me hide behind your skirts when we passed the house with the dog. You whispered in my ear when you left me off at the front of the school that you had been afraid of the dog, too.

After that, each morning my brothers walked me by the house with the dog. Several days later, I thought it was curious when I saw you leaving that house. You pretended that you had been standing on the sidewalk, waiting for us. You smiled and walked with us the rest of the way home. Then the dog disappeared. I never knew why.

Aura turns slowly and glares at her daughter. “Wanting the children to be safe is not important to you?”

Rosaura shifts uncomfortably under the weight of her mother’s gaze. “If you can tell me how to make it one hundred percent safe for Luz in the world we live in today, I’ll do it.”

“Don’t let her go.”

Rosaura grips the table. “For her to be safe and at the same time, be able to reach for whatever star she wants.”

Aura studies her daughter. “You have no fear for her? Of those who will do anything to keep her in her place?”

“I worry about her all the time.”

Aura cocks her head.

Rosaura explains, “Fear is what they are counting on to keep us down.”

“Who is they?”

“Society. The power structure. Economics.”

“You will let your daughter be among these theys if they are the ones wanting to hurt her?”

“It’s where the action is. It’s where she has to succeed to get anywhere. You see Mamá, I trust Luz to be smart enough to know what’s real and what’s not. That’s why I’ve talked to her so much about oppression and all the ism’s. If she can’t make it through this one thing, I haven’t done a good enough job. Hopefully, I’ve taught her to be strong in herself so she can do what she wants to do.”

“And you going to college…”

“Was because you raised me strong. You raised me to believe in myself. You taught me I was lovable and that’s what gave me the strength to believe in myself.”

“Even if it breaks the heart of your mother.”

“Oh, heck, we’re right back to where we started. Facing white people was easier than living with the guilt trips you put on me.”

Aura lets her shoulders drop then unplugs the iron. She walks out of the room pulling her black felt reservation hat down over her eyes.

Mamá, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it quite that way.” Rosaura speaks to an empty doorway.

Mamá,” Rosaura says, looking down the hallway, watching her mother enter the bedroom.

AURA:

I shake my head in sadness. Maybe someday my daughter will come around and see that what I have to say has some value. Maybe someday she’ll realize that what I care most about is the way she lives her life, and the way I live mine. I just do what I have to do.

ROSAURA:

I shake my head in sadness. Maybe someday my mother will come around and see that what I have to say has some value. Maybe some day she’ll realize that what I care most about is the way she lived her life, and the way I am living mine. I just do what I have to do.