How to Love You When You’re Gone

Chapter 1

Mayte

“FOR MY FUNERAL, I WANT YOU ALL TO DO THIS SHOW IN REAL LIFE—ALL los nietos get the same ingredients and have to make the best dessert with what they’re given. And then Padre Stefano will decide whose is best.”

My head swings around. “What the hell, Abuelita?”

Abuelita shrugs and points to the TV. A man is chopping chocolate like his life depends on it. “It is a very cool show. I want to have a very cool funeral.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t have to plan it now,” I say. I put the knitting needles and pile of yellow yarn on my lap, pass her one of the Cokes on the table, and take the other for myself. She puts her own needles and yarn down. We drink at the same time.

“You never know,” she replies.

“I don’t care,” I mutter, hoping she hears me.

“Do you remember that one? A very cool show? A very cool funeral? En espanol?”

“I don’t know ‘funeral’ and I don’t want to know,” I say. Before she can try to tell me, I say, “And show is película?”

“That’s movie. Programa,” she says.

“Programa,” I repeat, tripping over the r’s a little more than I wish I did.

“What about ‘very cool’?”

I screw up my face like I’ve tasted something gross, and that gross thing is my own personal latinidad. “Frío?” I say.

Abuelita smiles but she doesn’t tease me.

That’s probably the reason why I’ll only practice my Spanish with her and my prima/best friend, Leo.

I love my tías, but they always laugh when I mess things up or when my “carros” and “perros” come out a little too “caro” and “pero.” It makes me want to put on red lipstick, make arepas, dance the cumbia, and superglue my mouth shut.

“Chévere,” she says.

“Chévere,” I repeat.

“Pero es una palabra colombiana.” I translate it in my head as she talks slower than she usually does for me. But that’s a Colombian word. “Así que no la uses con El Otro Lado.”

I laugh. So don’t use it with The Other Side.

My dad’s side. The Mexican side. There’s no bad blood between the two or anything like that, no weird, internalized racism.

They’re just two very different parts of me.

I think sometimes people think all Spanish-speaking cultures are the same, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Just look at all the different types of tamales.

“Why is this all tangled?” Abuelita says, passing me her Coke and holding up her purple hat. Or what’s supposed to eventually be a hat. Right now it looks like a pile of yarn.

“You’re the abuela. Aren’t you supposed to know?” I grin and she swings a needle at me. “?Ay, Abuelita!” I’m never sure where the ay comes from. It’s like it lies dormant until I’m around my family. I dodge the needle and set both Cokes back on the coffee table.

“I don’t know how to make a hat. I don’t know how to knit. It will be a very ugly hat,” Abuelita says.

“Don’t say that,” I tell her. “But also, you pulled the needle out to threaten me. I don’t think you’re supposed to pull it out like that.”

“For threatening?” she asks.

“No, like, for correct hat-making,” I say. “I think the needle needs to stay in the hat.”

“I blame the cancer,” she says. She looks down at her chest. “I blame you, cancer.”

“For what? Making you knit an ugly hat?” I grin. “I think you’re just bad at knitting.”

“If I didn’t have cancer, I could just go to the Target and buy a hat.”

“You’re so dramatic,” I say. “You’re not trapped here. We can literally leave right now to go buy you a hat. The car’s outside. Target is, like, five minutes away.”

“No,” she says. “I am old and I have cancer and I must make a hat to pass away the time.” She points at the TV again. “That is the ugliest cake I have ever seen.”

I look at the screen. A woman is setting a crumbling cake on the judging table, pink and blue frosting slipping off to reveal a dark chocolate inside. “It wasn’t ugly the whole time. It’s just falling apart now.”

“An ugly cake,” she repeats and looks down at her purple mess. “Just like my ugly hat.”

“What if it tastes good?”

“It’s still ugly.”

“But what if I gave it to you while your eyes were closed and it tasted good?”

She ponders this for a moment. “Then it would be okay.”

“See,” I say. “If we knit the hats and then put them on with our eyes closed, we can keep our ears warm even if our hats are ugly.”

“I will not wear this outside this house,” Abuelita says. “And you will not wear this outside this house, do you hear me?”

“You’re so vain,” I say in a singsong voice. She pulls the knitting needle out again and I dodge, laughing. “Stop! It’s going to get uglier!”

“?Cuándo terminas de cuidar a la abuelita?”

“Huh?”

“When do you finish the Abuelita Duty?”

I reach in my pocket for my phone, but it’s at the front door in my purse. Mom said that when I’m on Abuelita Duty, I’m not allowed to be on my phone. Once I had it out and Abuelita told on me like a snitch.

“What time is it?” I ask.

Abuelita reaches for her phone because apparently she’s allowed to have hers during Mayte Time. “Five fifty.”

“Tía Dely will be here at six.”

“You spend your Friday night knitting con tu abuelita.” She points her knitting needle at her Coke, and I pass it to her again. I watch the wrinkles in her neck ebb like an ocean in her skin as she glugs more soda than I expect. Then she points the needle at me. “I thought you were a teenager.”

“I am a teenager,” I say.

“When I was your age, I would go to parties.”

“Good for you.”

“And I’d kiss so many beautiful boys.” She sighs and then glares at me. “You kiss no one.”

“I don’t really care to talk about how many boys my abuelita has kissed.” I roll my eyes. “Besides, you don’t know anything about my love life. I could’ve kissed hundreds of boys.”

“Leo me dijo.”

Dammit, Leo.

“Why were you not invited to a party tonight?”

I shrug and sigh dramatically. “I don’t know, Abuelita.”

“Then you should call someone and find a party. And kiss a boy.”

I put my hat pile down and throw my arms out. “Okay, who do you want me to call to find a party? Do you know high schoolers throwing a party tonight, Abuelita? No, I thought not.”

“La Rubia,” she says.

“Claire?”

She nods. “Claire. O tu prima.”

“I don’t have my phone on me. I’ll call them after I leave here,” I say.

Which I actually might do. I don’t have any plans tonight and don’t think I’ve had a chance to hang out with Claire or even see Leo since, like, Tuesday of last week, which feels like forever considering how often I see my primos.

Homework. Helping move in Aida’s stuff. Abuelita Duty.

“Then go get your phone and call them now.”

“That’s a trap.” I grab my Coke and finish it off. “Last time I used my phone you told Mami.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You know that’s a lie.”

She holds her phone out to me. “Usa el mío.”

I take it from her. “So what? You just want me to call them and ask if they’re throwing a party tonight?”

She nods.

“Sure, whatever.” I scroll through Abuelita’s contacts until I get to my prima’s number. I press the phone to my ear.

“Put it on the speakerphone,” Abuelita says.

I groan but do so.

Leo answers, “?Aló? ?Abuelita?”

“?Aló? Eleanora?” I say in my best imitation of Abuelita’s accent.

“You on Abuelita Duty?” she asks, recognizing me right away.

“Yeah. You’re on speakerphone.”

“Hola, Abuelita,” she says.

“Hola, Angelita.” Abuelita sits up in her seat. “?Tienes una fiesta para ti y Mayte? ?Y La Rubia?”

Leo laughs. “?Crees que somos chicas aburridas?” And then proves why she’s my favorite prima and one of my best friends. “You think we’re boring girls?” she translates.

“Sí,” Abuelita says.

“So, I’m not throwing a party,” Leo replies. “But I do think Claire said she was invited to something going on tonight at Hamsa’s friend’s house. If you’re actually wanting to go—”

“She wants to go,” Abuelita says. “You both want to go.”

“I never said I didn’t want to go out tonight, Abuelita,” I say. “I just said I didn’t know of any parties.”

“Well, now you do,” she replies, content. Her needle is back in the yarn and she’s working it through again. “And make her kiss a boy.”

“Abuelita, stop!” I groan.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve tried that,” Leo says.

“Are you guys kidding me?” I lie back on the couch. “I do not have time for a boy. I’m already failing English and Aida’s moving in and I have to… I’d rather spend time with Abuelita because she’s a trillion times better than any stupid high school boy and—”

“A kiss does not take all this time,” Abuelita says. She kisses the air. “See, it is just that. And then you can write your essays.”

“Do you know how many guys would sell their souls to kiss you?” Leo says. “Do you know how many dudes I get with who are like, ‘Do you have a hot friend for my friend?’ and I could say yes, but I never get to because you don’t have time to kiss?”

“Literally, no,” I say. “We’re done with this conversation. I will go to the party because I miss you and Claire and—”

Abuelita waves her needle in the air. “And you will kiss a boy!”

“I’ll call you on my way home,” I tell Leo.

Leo laughs. “Cool. Later, gator.”

“Chévere,” I reply.

“Chao, Abuelita,” she says. “I’ll do my best.”

“Chao, Angelita.”

When I hang up the phone, Abuelita holds up her yarn and needles. “Purple is my favorite color,” she says.

“I know.”

“And the color of my birthstone.” She smiles. “And your birthstone, Mayte.”

Alert!

“Yep,” I say.

Here it comes. I won’t do it.

Abuelita groans as she stands up from the couch. “Adelia will be here any minute and there is something I have been wanting to give you—”

Nope. I won’t take it.

“—for a while now. And I think especially—”

No, no, no, no, no.

“With my condition, with the cancer—”

“Perdón,” I say, jumping up from the couch.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” I don’t turn back to her as I speed walk to the bathroom and lock the door behind me.

I sit on the edge of the bathtub and pick up a bottle of body wash.

Heavily scented and unnatural. I turn the bottle over for an ingredient list long enough to read until Tía Dely gets here.