“I know a few Julias in school.”
“No. The one from the restaurant. The little girl.”
I remember Julia. I don’t think I’ll ever forget Julia. “Yes,” I say.
I was six. We were at our favorite Mexican restaurant for Día de los Muertos. We ordered dinner and, like always, right after we ordered Mom took me and Bruce to the bathroom. Bruce complained because he was fifteen and didn’t think he should be told to go to the bathroom anymore. Mom and I went into the ladies’ room and found only one stall open. The other stall had a roughly written OUT OF ORDER sign.
Mom said, “Just come in here with me and we’ll take turns.” We went into the stall and I got to pee first. While I was peeing, the ladies’ room door opened and a woman came in and started yelling at her kid. She was so mean, my pee stopped. She said, “Come here.” The kid made a little moan. “You can’t act like that at a restaurant!” Slap. “I told you to be good tonight!” Slap. “You need to behave, Julia!” Slap. At the third slap the little girl wailed. And when she did, I noticed she was really little. I was six and I didn’t wail like that. The woman said, “Are you ready to go back out? Stop crying! Are you ready?” The girl quieted down and huffed a few times. She finally said yes, and that was when Mom and I knew that the kid didn’t even really talk yet. She was probably, like, two years old.
Mom was frozen, a lump of toilet paper in one hand that she was handing to me, and her other hand on the door. By the time the ladies’ room door slammed shut, only about fifteen to twenty seconds had passed. I was able to finish peeing, but everything in the bathroom was different.
The fluorescent lights were flickering. I hadn’t noticed that before. I could hear one of the taps had been left running. Mom sat down to pee and even though we had a rule of turning our backs when we shared stalls, she said, “Look at me.”
Since she was sitting on a toilet, her eyes were at the same level as mine. She was crying a little. Tears were on her cheeks. Her face looked old. It looked tired. It looked scared. She just stared at me for what felt like a whole minute with this face. With those tears. I didn’t know what to say.
“I will never hit you, Sarah. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I will never ever hurt you.”
“Okay,” I said again. Then we hugged.
She motioned for me to turn back around after the hug. She finished peeing and flushed the toilet.
As we washed our hands, she took a bunch of deep breaths. She wiped her eyes with her used paper towel and she helped me dry my hands. At the time, I didn’t see what the big deal was. It was sad the little girl got spanked or whatever, but I never thought of anyone hitting me before, so I don’t know why Mom was so weird about it.
When we got back to the table, Mom looked around the restaurant for the woman and her daughter. I scooted into the booth next to Bruce and said, “Some lady just hit her baby in the bathroom and it made Mom cry.”
Mom looked down at her fork.
Bruce looked down at his place mat.
Dad looked at me like he was angry that I brought this scene back to the dinner table.
Then dinner came and I ate enchiladas. That’s the Julia story.
I look back at ten-year-old Sarah. “Yeah. I think about her sometimes. She’d be just a little older than you now.”
She says, “Anyway, you shouldn’t be embarrassed about whatever happened in school.”
“I’m not embarrassed.”
I am. I’m totally embarrassed even though I didn’t do anything wrong.
“Bruce was embarrassed, too. In Mexico. When it happened. You know.”
“I don’t know what Bruce would be embarrassed about.”
“Like Julia. Don’t you remember playing tooth fairy?” ten-year-old Sarah asks.
I stop walking.
I remember playing tooth fairy. To a nineteen-year-old boy. My brother.
I remember slipping my tiny hand under his pillow in our hotel room.
I remember leaving two dimes, three shells, and a note.
The note said, “I love you.”
The note said, “I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t me who’d done anything wrong, but I was still sorry. Just like the art club. Just like everything in my life. Things happen that aren’t my fault and I say I’m sorry.
“I don’t want to talk about Mexico anymore,” I say.
MEXICO—Day Three: Mango Tango
Bruce and I decided that after our kayaking adventure the day before, we wanted to do something indoors for the morning so Mom and Dad headed out to the beach and we went to play Ping-Pong, and we all agreed to meet up for lunch at one. Bruce beat me every other game. I was ten. He was nineteen. There was a clear advantage, but he let me win half the time because that way I’d want to keep playing.