September came and dragged me back to the city. School was a tedious blur. Days crawled. I watched minute after minute languidly tick by on every clock in every classroom. One hour in a classroom was an eternity. My gaze was either fixed on the clock, or drifting to the open window. I yearned to be outside, where I could breathe.
The afternoons at home made up for the tedium of the school day. Home was where the action was, for many reasons. First, it was crowded—my mother’s parents had moved in to babysit my sister and me while she worked. My grandmother was always angry about something. It was usually my grandfather’s fault. When it wasn’t my grandfather’s fault, it was my father’s fault.
On one occasion, amidst a fury of slamming pots and pans because my grandfather had forgotten to buy butter on his grocery run, I asked her, “If you hate him so much, why don’t you just get a divorce?”
I had heard the word “divorce” so much, and saw that it meant removing the evil man from the house, so clearly it was a logical solution to her hatred of my grandfather.
“Why bother now? I’m too old! I’m just waiting to die! Oh God, just take me already!” she wailed.
Another contributing factor to the perpetual excitement of my home life was my father’s unannounced visits. He had moved out and was not allowed to come over when my mother wasn’t home, but that didn’t stop him. His visits usually resulted in my grandmother brandishing a wooden spoon at him, ready to attack, me jumping between them, screaming at the top of my lungs, and then the police would show up.
It often went something like this, “Get out of here, you pig!” my grandmother would shout at the intruder.
“This is my house, you fat old whore!” he would snap back. “This is my house, MY house!” he repeated.
“Get away from me!” she would scream.
“I’m going to kill you and your whore daughter!”
The death threats were my signal to intervene. Even though I never called him “Dad,” I knew it would appease him and then he might listen to me.
“Dad! Please! Go!”
“No way! This is MY house! She needs to go!”
“DAD! Please, stop!” I would then start to cry as he turned back toward the door. He would leave, slamming the door so hard it shook the house.
__________
By the time I was seven, the divorce and all its drama were in full swing. Police were frequent visitors at my house. We even made the front page of the metro section in The New York Times.
On one occasion after we had finished eating dinner, the doorbell rang. My mother answered the door, and there they were in full uniform. I wondered why the cops were here at night, because they usually came during the day, when my father intruded on us.
“Hi Mariana, we have to take you down to the precinct for some questioning,” one officer began as my mother invited them in, and they stepped into the living room. I watched the intruders smear the dirt from their heavy black boots all over the rug in our living room. I was sitting on the couch in my pajamas, barefoot. My sister sat next to me, also in her pajamas and barefoot. I recognized the silent officer as one of the officers who often visited during the day. When he caught my stare, he looked away and then back at my mother.
Some conversation followed, but my grandmother scurried us to our bedroom. As she opened the door to let us in, I turned and saw my mother’s back, her wrists bound behind her in shiny silver handcuffs. With one shove, we were alone in our bedroom.
“What’s happening?” my sister asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. I should have tried to coax and comfort her, but the sight of my mother shackled helplessly with steel on her wrists sucked the wind out of my lungs. I couldn’t speak; a lump in my throat was choking me.
After some time passed, our grandfather opened the door. “Your mother will be back in the morning,” he said gruffly. “Go to sleep.”
Just as he shut the door, I heard my grandmother crying in the kitchen, over the water running on the clinking dishes she was washing in the sink.
Many years later, my mother told me that she had been arrested because my father had called the police and reported that she had threatened his life. Everyone knew it was a lie, not to mention a ridiculous one, but the cops still had to abide by their policies.