“Everything.”
I wanted to tell her that I hated Eddie and that I hated her mother. Really hated them. But I didn’t think I should say anything. I heard my dad and Mrs. Diaz talking on the front porch. I could hear Mrs. Diaz raise her voice, and I could also tell that my dad was trying to calm her down. “Everything is not your fault. It’ll all be okay, Sam.” I wasn’t sure that everything was going to be all right. But I said it anyway. I gave her a crooked smile. “Want some coffee?”
She nodded.
We sat at the kitchen table and had coffee, the muffled conversation between her mother and my father in the distance.
I looked at her and said, “Everything is not your fault, Sam.” I wanted her to believe me.
And yeah, that urge to beat Eddie until he couldn’t walk was like a monster growing inside me. I was glad I didn’t know where he lived.
Sam. Promises.
BEFORE DAD AND I left for our forty-five-minute drive to Las Cruces to see Mima, I texted Sam: You OK?
She texted back: It sucks being me.
Me: Dnt say that Sam: Sorry bout evrythng Me: No worries Sam: U still love me?
Me: Always ?
Sam: I AM DONE W BAD BOYS!
Me: Hmmm
Sam: I SAID I WAS DONE
Me: Promise?
She didn’t text me back. One thing about Samantha, she didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep. She was like my dad in that way. There was a big difference, though. Sam hardly ever made any promises. That way, her conscience was clear.
Me. And Dad. Talking.
WE TOOK THE back roads to Las Cruces. Sometimes we did that. Much better than driving I-10. I wanted to ask Dad about his conversation with Mrs. Diaz, so I tried an indirect approach. “Dad, do you like Mrs. Diaz?”
“That’s an interesting question.”
“That’s an interesting answer.”
My dad grinned. “It’s not whether I like her or not that’s important.” I knew he was thinking. He was trying too hard to focus on the road. “Sylvia and I are friends.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, we are. It’s not that we really get along—?but we learned a long time ago that as long as you and Sam were friends, well, we were stuck with each other. We both respect your friendship.”
“But do you think she’s a good mother?”
“I think you already know the answer to that question.”
“It makes you mad, doesn’t it, that she’s so absent?”
“Yes, it does. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t tell Sylvia how to raise her own daughter. It’s none of my business.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “You love Sam. Don’t you?”
“I’ve known her since she was five. Of course I love her.”
“The only reason you love her is because you’ve known her since she was five?”
“Of course not. I love Sam for a lot of reasons. But I’m not her father.”
“You kinda are, Dad.”
He shook his head, but I could see him grinning. But I could also tell he was a little frustrated. “Look, I’ve always told Sylvia what I think. Always. Sylvia hasn’t always appreciated my opinions. But she knows I care for Sam and that I care very much what happens to her. She appreciates that. She more than appreciates it. And she knows that when Sam is at our place, she’s safe. And she’s grateful for that.”
“She has a funny way of showing her gratitude.”
“She’s hard, Salvie. She’s been through a lot.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said, “but I don’t like her.”
“I know you don’t. You don’t think she really loves Sam—?but she does. Everybody doesn’t love in the same way, Salvie. And just because she doesn’t love Sam the way you or I would like her to doesn’t mean she doesn’t love her daughter. It’s very difficult being a single mom.”
“Oh, and it’s so easy being a single dad.”
“I’m not complaining.”
I didn’t know what to say after that. And I didn’t even get to the part of what their conversation on our front porch had been about. Shit.
Dad and I were quiet for a while. I looked out at the autumn fields. If it weren’t for the river, the whole area would have been nothing but desert. But the river brought water to the fields and turned the landscape into a fertile valley. And I thought, My dad, he is like the river. He brought water to a lot of people—?mostly to me, but also to Sam.
The Story of Mima and Me
SAM ONCE SAID, “We are what we like.” My response: “Does that mean you’re a pair of shoes?” It sort of shut down the conversation. But I knew what she was getting at. I didn’t know why that popped into my head as we were driving up to Mima’s house. I texted Sam: We r what we remember.
Sam: Good one
Me: Mima said that
Sam: Knew it was too smart to be urs
“Get that out of your system before we go inside.” Dad hated when I texted in other people’s presence. It was the whole raised-by-wolves thing.
Me: Laters
Sam: Dad on ur ass lol laters
I showed my cell to my dad, smiled, and put it my pocket. “Happy now?”
“Very.”
Mima was sitting on the front porch dressed in a flowered pink dress and surrounded by the flowers in her garden—?roses, geraniums, and others I didn’t know the names of. In another few weeks the flowers would be gone.
When I reached out to her, she felt so small. I could feel her bones against her thin, aging body. “You didn’t call me this week, malcriado.” She always called me malcriado when I didn’t call her. It meant I hadn’t been brought up properly—?yeah, yeah, wolves. I laughed. “I love you,” I whispered. We were pretty much an I-love-you family—?especially with Mima.
“Mijito,” she said, “are you taller?”
“Probably.”
She wrapped her hands around my face and looked into my eyes. Her hands were old, but they were the softest, kindest hands that had ever touched me. She didn’t say anything. She just smiled.
Dad watched us. I always wondered what he was thinking when he saw Mima and me together. Good things. I knew he was thinking good things.
I was sitting at the kitchen table. Mima didn’t seem sick. Well, she looked a little tired, but there she was, rolling out flour tortillas, and there I sat, across from her, watching her. My uncles and aunts were watching a football game in the living room. Mostly my aunts talked and my uncles were lost in a sea of Dallas Cowboys uniforms. A Cowboys family. My dad and I weren’t much for football. Dad read the sports page. My theory was that he kept up with the sports world in order to be able to have a decent conversation with his brothers—?that was the way he loved them.
I watched Mima’s hands as she kneaded the dough.
She smiled at me. “You like to watch me make tortillas.”
I nodded. “Remember that day when I was mad at Conrad Franco?”
“Yes, I remember. You told me you hated him.”
“And you said, ‘Oh, mijito, you don’t hate anybody.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I do.’”
She laughed.
“Do you remember what you told me?”