Page 110 of Mixed Signals
I roll over in bed and let myself run away with the fantasy. I picture myself coming down the steps, finding her at the stove in the soft, oversized t-shirt she liked to steal from my drawer. Nothing underneath. My chin at her shoulder and my arm around her waist. Something low on the radio. Coffee warm on the counter. Sunlight beaming in through the windows and her smile a brand against my skin.
But then I hear the muted sounds of a telenovela—a string of curses in faint Spanish and the squeak of my grandmother’s house slippers against freshly scrubbed floors—and I bury my face in my pillow.
“Abuela,” I greet as soon as I gather the motivation to leave my room, eyeballing the four pots she already has steaming on the stove top. I kiss her on both cheeks and then head directly for the coffee machine. “What are you doing here so early?” I ask in Spanish.
“No es temprano,” she responds.It’s not early.She turns halfway and arches an eyebrow. “Where is your shirt?”
I huff a laugh and nod towards the sweatshirt slung over the back of one of my kitchen chairs. I’m surprised it’s still here and she hasn’t tried to wash every textile in sight. I slip it over my bare shoulders and zip it up halfway. “Better?”
“Sí.” She hands me a heaping plate of eggs and chorizo, tetelas on the side still warm from the pan. I slip into a chair and try to settle into the comfort of a warm meal cooked by my grandmother, an old episode of her favorite show playing in the background, the odd notes of a song she used to sing to us when we were kids hummed every so often, preoccupied as she stirs.
“Have I told you the story of how your grandfather and I met?”
I pause with my fork halfway to my mouth, eyebrows raised. “Yes.”
About seven thousand times. It’s one of my favorites. I used to make her repeat it to me again and again when she’d put me to bed. The blankets tucked high to my chin and her hand gentle in my hair.
“It was at the market,” she says, like I didn’t just answer her question. “He—”
“Bought all of the shoes you were selling,” I answer, knowing the story by heart. “He walked you home and came back the day after. He kept coming back.”
My grandmother taps her wooden spoon on the edge of the pot and sets it down to the side. “No,” she says. “That is not how it happened.”
I frown. “Yes, it is.”
“Oh?” She turns to face me, arms crossed over her chest. “And you were there, were you?”
I fork a mouthful of eggs into my mouth, properly chastised. I swear my grandmother created the stern look when she had children, and honed it to perfection with her grandchildren. “No, abuela. Lo siento. Please continue.”
She makes a clicking sound with her tongue. “He did not buy all of my shoes in an attempt to woo me. He stumbled into my stand because he was not paying attention. He knocked an entire side down, and he had to buy all my shoes because he ruined them. Your abuelo did not look at me in adoration when he first met me. It was fear.”
I set my fork down on the table and stare at her. “What?”
She shrugs and goes back to stirring her pot. “I thought he was apeinabombillas.”
Someone who combs lightbulbs. It’s my grandmother’s favorite insult and it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
“Why—” I try to swallow around thirty years of lies. “Why did you tell the story differently?”
“Because your grandfather was a romantic man.” My grandmother smiles. It’s a soft and sad one, the kind you feel deep in the echoes of your heart when you’re remembering someone you’ve loved and lost. A bittersweet ache that ripples out. “Because he liked to be the hero of the story. That tale he told you about the shark was a lie, too.”
“He didn’t punch a shark in the nose while saving a boat full of children?”
A cackle bursts out of her. “No. You saw that man, osezno.” She rolls her eyes. “He had almost no upper body strength. He was a lover, not a fighter.”
“Huh.”
“I can’t believe you believed it as long as you did.”
“Neither can I, I guess.”
Good to know my whole life has been a lie. I cross my arms over my chest and lean back in my chair. My grandmother looks over her shoulder and makes anothertskingsound, turning off the burners and joining me at the table. She sets a bowl down in front of me, and one in front of herself.
“I tell you this because—” She scoops her spoon around the outer edge, eyes far away. “I tell you this because you are so like your grandfather.”
“I see things that aren’t really there?” My stomach swoops low. “I embellish?”
“No,” she says with a steely thread of determination. “Because you love with your whole, entire heart. And that is a beautiful thing.”
