Eggs Again

“You have to visit Papi this weekend,” her mother reminded her for the third time since Monday.

And for the third time since Monday, MJ pretended not to hear her. Instead, she continued searching the ever-growing mess underneath her bed for the new Vans her mother had bought MJ for back-to-school. After half her body had disappeared into the darkness there, she found the left shoe under a couple of old Ms. Marvel comics.

MJ knew plenty of kids who only visited their fathers on weekends. Maya never thought she would be one of them. She especially didn’t think it would be like this.

She tried. Every day she tried, but she couldn’t stop being mad at her father for leaving, even in the quiet moments when she really, truly wanted to not feel that anger anymore, when she just wanted to miss him being there for her, just wanted to be sad about what was happening. That she actually wanted to be sad and couldn’t be just ended up making her even angrier, however.

“I know you hear me, Maya Jocelyn,” her mother repeated, adding MJ’s middle name in that way parents had probably been doing since the first time a parent yelled at their child.

“I hear you,” MJ grumbled, snatching her right shoe from behind a Corrina Que Rico action figure grappling with a Stevie Lord action figure (she liked to have her Corrina beat up on the guy wrestlers).

“Everyone understands what you’re going through,” her mother said, more gently. “Papi understands, too. I didn’t want to make you visit him until you were ready, but if you keep on like this, you’ll never be ready, and that’s not going to work, Maya. This is the way things are now. I’ve tried to give you time to get used to it on your own, but I have to start helping you do it. That’s my job. Your job is to try, okay?”

“I am trying,” MJ insisted. “I’m like the captain of the Get-Used-to-New-Stuff Team practically.”

Her mother sighed. MJ hated that sound. It was like a horn her mother blew every time MJ let her down.

“I know, baby. Get your shoes and your schoolbag and come to the kitchen, okay?”

Her mother left her bedroom. MJ waited until she heard cabinets opening and dishes rattling in the kitchen before she finally crawled out from underneath the bed. She folded her legs in front of her and put on her shoes. The carpet felt stiff and unfamiliar beneath her. It was brand new, like everything else in the small house they were renting. One of the reasons the room was such a mess was because MJ had just dumped out the few boxes she’d brought with them from their old house when they’d moved in four months ago, and then shoved the contents of each box under the bed.

MJ slipped the phone from her front pocket. She unlocked it and tapped the little talk bubble icon. Sure enough, Papi’s last voicemail was waiting for her. She didn’t listen to it. She also didn’t delete it. MJ hadn’t been able to bring herself to do either.

“Come eat your eggs!” her mother called.

MJ cringed. Almost every morning since Papi left them her mother had made MJ huevos rancheros for breakfast. It was the only dish her mother knew how to make, and she was terrible at it. Papi always did the cooking.

She put away her phone and forced herself to stand up. Her backpack, notebook, tablet, and schoolbooks were spread across the tangled sheets and blankets of her bed. MJ stuffed them into the backpack and zipped it up before running out of the room.

MJ’s mother called the kitchen a kitchenette because it wasn’t its own room like in their old house. It was narrow and separated from the living room by an ugly copper bar top. MJ sat at the little round table where they ate all their meals.

There were a bunch of papers scattered on the other side of the table. Her mother had been going over their bills last night after she sent MJ to bed. Before MJ fell asleep, she could hear her mother worrying out loud, sighing and muttering to herself.

She wouldn’t talk to her daughter about it, but MJ knew they didn’t have a lot of money, or at least they didn’t have as much as they used to. That’s why they were renting this small house, and why her mother had to sell the old one they’d lived in all of MJ’s life.

Because of that mess of papers on the table, and what the papers meant, it seemed like all her mother did these days was work, way more than she had before. When they were in their old house, before Papi left, they’d spent almost every weekend visiting with her father’s family. They’d barely seen any of the family since they’d moved, and they hadn’t even moved that far. Her mother was too busy, although MJ sometimes wondered if Mom liked having that as an excuse.

Her mother put a glass of milk and a plate of huevos rancheros atop a tortilla in front of her. MJ tried very hard not to make a face as the smell hit her nose. The eggs smelled like hot ketchup and they looked like brains heaped onto a plastic frisbee. Papi made his own tortillas from scratch. Abuelita had taught him how. Her mother bought the ones from the store that felt like rubber in your mouth and tasted like wet cardboard.

MJ poked at the red mess with her fork as her mother sat down next to her with a cup of coffee.

“Are you not hungry?” her mother asked.

“I don’t want to be late,” MJ lied.

“Oh, really? What’s happening at school today?”

She shrugged.

Her mother frowned at MJ over the rim of her coffee mug.

“When are gymnastics tryouts?”

It was MJ’s turn to frown. “It doesn’t matter, ’cuz I’m not going out this year. I told you.”

“You said you’d think about it, as I recall.”

“Oh. Well. I meant I’m not going out this year.”

“Maybe I can come to school with you and take a class in this new language you’ve been speaking lately.”

“Ha-ha,” MJ shot back at her.

“Why don’t you want to do gymnastics anymore? You were getting so good at it.”

“I don’t like the kids.”

“What’s wrong with the kids?”

“They’re kids.”

“And what are you?”

“Something else. At least that’s how they treat me.”

Her mother was quiet for a while.

“Why didn’t you tell me last year that was happening?” she finally asked MJ.

She shrugged again. “There was a lot going on.”

“Yeah, I guess there was. I’m sorry, Maya. Maybe we can—”

“Can I go now?”

Her mother treated her to another sigh, then said, “Take three good bites, then you can go.”

“How about one really big bite?”

“Stop negotiating with me and eat,” her mother ordered her.

MJ took a deep breath and quickly shoveled three forkfuls into her mouth, chasing each bite with a big gulp of milk to wash out the taste.

“Do you want something different tomorrow?” her mother asked her as MJ got up from the table.

MJ shouldered her backpack. “How about money to go to McDonald’s?”

“I hate you so much,” her mother said with a wicked grin, shaking her head.

“Hate you too, bye!” MJ called back to her cheerfully as she ran toward the front door.