from the almost derelict streets I call home. While the houses here have bars on their windows, the yards are filled with luscious green grass, and the laughter of children floats through the air. A sound that is sadly lacking in my neighborhood.
I throw my truck into park and sit for a minute, taking in the front yard. The grass is a couple inches past needing a cut and more than half of her bird feeders hanging from the branches of an old tree are empty.
Mama treats the birds like they’re her own pets, not that she’d admit it.
I glance at the clock. I should have plenty of time to fill the feeders before I leave.
“You gonna sit in the truck all night or are you going to come inside and see your mamá?” A wide grin stretches my face as my mom’s voice travels through my open window.
I hop out of my truck and follow the small pathway to the porch. “I was trying to decide if I could navigate through the jungle.” I pretend to get stuck in some overgrown weeds growing into her pathway.
Mama glares. “And whose fault is that, mi hijo? You would have your mamá on her old hands and knees to pick the weeds?”
“Ah, Mamá, you’re not that old.” I bend to kiss her cheek and she wraps her arms around my shoulders. Like always, I can’t help but sink into her familiar embrace and soak up the feeling of home her arms always provide.
“You feel thinner,” she mumbles into my chest as she pats my sides.
I shake my head and chuckle. “¿Qué? You can’t even wrap your arms all the way around me.”
I follow her inside, listening as she rambles in Spanish about mother’s intuition and needing to feed me more often. I grin. As if these weekly dinners aren’t enough. I’m a grown ass man and I still come home for dinner once a week. She can try all she wants, but if she pushes for two nights, I’ll have to put my foot down.
Mama goes into the kitchen to tend to what I’m sure is entirely too much food for just the two of us. My feet lead me to a stop in front of the mantle.
The whitewashed brick is the centerpiece of the living room. Hanging above the worn stone are various pictures of my mom and dad through the years.
Their smiling faces mock me from behind the glass. Lies frozen in time. Mementos of their life together are scattered among the length of the mantle. All of them centered around the nondescript urn in the center, a white candle burning beside it.
My parents immigrated here in search of a new life. Better opportunities for the children they’d yet to have. They had no idea the challenges that lay in wait for them. The racism and hate.
Years of being an expendable contract construction worker, working his ass off for hours on end, and getting paid pennies on the dollar took its toll on my dad.
My mom says the man me and my sisters got is not the one she fell in love with. Her stories of before he became jaded and filled with hate seem so surreal. I can’t imagine my dad as a man so in love with his life and family, and when I try to picture him that way there’s a lingering sense of loss. Grief for what could have been but never was.
A gentle hand curls around my bicep before my mom rests her head on my arm. “I miss him.”
“Lo siento, Mamá.” I’m sorry, Mamá
She pats my arm and looks up at me, the unshed tears of sorrow in her eyes forces me to close mine. I fucking hate that I put that look in her eyes. But I won't lie to her. There were too many nights where I woke to her screams as he used the arms she loved to beat her black and blue. As those nights became more frequent, my deep-seated hate for him grew. An infestation that burrowed beneath my skin and lives within me to this day.
“He was more than the man you knew.” She places her shaking hand on the urn.
I want to scream at her, to force her to see what he did to our family—what he did to her. Even after all these years, she’s loyal to him. I keep my voice soft so she can’t hear the anger that plagues me. “I’ll never understand how