Chapter 2
Mayte
MY MOM THOUGHT SHE WAS GOING TO BE A CLASSICAL VIOLINIST. IT started out when she was in middle school as a mariachi thing, which is funny considering years later she’d marry a man whose grandparents came from Mexico.
My mom’s abuelita found the violin at a garage sale.
She gave it to my mom for her birthday. Abuelita met a woman at church who brought up instrument classes and so she dropped my mom off one day after school.
Weeks later, my mom was walking around playing “Volver, volver” sin guitarrón, trumpets, guitar, etcetera. Abuelita did learn the words, though.
She joined the school orchestra in eighth grade.
She was the only Latina. She was also the violin soloist for the Spring Showcase’s rendition of “Amazing Grace.” Once, she overheard a group of girls whispering about how her skin was so brown that sometimes when she played, it looked like the violin was growing out of her chin.
She never addressed it. It wasn’t worth it.
She did practice enough, though, that she expected maybe the instrument could become a part of her.
Once, after one of her high school concerts, when she was sneaking up to surprise her family after getting off the stage, she heard her primos talk about her “Gringa blending.”
“You wouldn’t even be able to tell if they hadn’t put her last name in the program,” one of her primos said.
“I don’t think it’s blending,” another primo added. “I think she’s become…” He paused for dramatic effect. “One of them!”
Her abuelito laughed.
She never addressed it. It wasn’t worth it.
But she practiced more. Tried to get the violin to grow out of her brown chin. Tried to become something made only of music, no longer of skin or color or name.
We’ve never talked about it, but I guess that means my mom understands the way I feel.
That inability to fit in perfectly with either her Latina side or her US side.
Like she’s always walking a tightrope and can’t get herself to fall off—still held in the tension, still belonging neither to one side nor to the sky nor to the ground.
Mr. Nolan, my English teacher, would probably use the word liminal.
She was first chair violin from sophomore year all the way through fall of her senior year. Everyone was sure she was not only going to make it into Juilliard but would also probably go there on scholarship.
And then a cello player got her pregnant with Aida on the winter orchestra trip.
Nine months later, she was a high school dropout with a disabled baby.
I still don’t fully understand what happened to Aida.
I know half of her brain is atrophied, which left her with a limp, a left hand that curls into itself like the inside of a seashell, a developmental disability, and muteness.
Or selective muteness, I guess. She talks sometimes, but it’s mostly mimicking.
Apparently, she talked a lot more before I was born.
My mom named her Aida because that was one of her dream productions to play for.
I’m Mayte after the song “Pa’ Mayte” by Carlos Vives, one of the greatest Latin artists of all time, who also happens to be Colombian.
My mom wanted to make music but instead she made us, so I guess she tried to make us into music.
I never played an instrument. I was in elementary school choir, but mostly because it kept me at school later, which was helpful since my parents were still at work.
Aida is fourteen years older than me, and while I think she does musical stuff at the enrichment school she goes to during the day, she never had a chance to pursue it.
The selective muteness means I’ve never heard her sing or hum or anything, and she can’t hold an instrument because of her seashell hand.
I guess the only thing particularly musical about us is our names.
And the fact that I’m always down to watch a musical.
I guess so is Aida, or at least she hasn’t complained about watching West Side Story on the couch with me, which is probably not a fair gauge.
During the gym dance scene, she bounces her foot along to the beat, which I’ve seen her do at family parties too.
I guess that means something. I don’t know.
My phone buzzes on the table and I almost throw the yarn and needles off my lap to reach for it. Even a text breaks the silence somehow.
LEO: Abuelita and I are plotting.
Leo usually texts me every day, but I haven’t heard from her since the party last Friday where we met the hot baseball player and Pool Puker. I know, without even having to ask, that it’s because she’s been obsessively texting him instead. The hot baseball player, not Pool Puker.
Aida groans and I look over at her and then at the screen. Tony and Maria are kissing.
“I don’t like PDA either,” I say.
She looks at me for a moment and then back at the screen. I go back to my phone.
ME: Nice to know you remember me.
I put my phone down on the table and pick up the yarn.
I’m working on knitting the yellow hat that I’d started with Abuelita.
She told me to take it home and figure it out so I can help her with hers next time I’m on Abuelita Duty.
I can see the shape of the hat coming together, which feels like progress.
This is the first day I’ve been home alone with Aida after school, and to be honest, it’s been super awkward.
When she sat down after getting off the bus, I asked if she wanted a water and she shrugged, so I asked if she wanted a Coke and she shrugged, so I asked if she wanted milk and she shrugged.
So, I put a cup of each on the coffee table and she hasn’t touched any of them.
Then I turned on the movie and she settled into the couch and after, like, twenty minutes I took the Coke for myself.
Nothing else had been said. I guess this is just how this goes, but working the yarn puts my nervous energy somewhere.
Or my awkward energy. I’m not nervous; I just don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing.
It’s not like this is my first time around Aida, even though it feels like it.
I’ve probably seen her at least once a week since I was born.
She’s always lived with Abuelita, who lives, like, five minutes away, and we’re over there a lot—usually with all the primos and tías and my mom.
Aida ended up moving in with us because of Abuelita’s cancer diagnosis, and I guess the awkwardness I feel is because I’ve never been alone with her.
My phone buzzes again. I quickly let go of my hat-in-the-making and pick it up.
LEO: Shut up. You have Abuelita Duty on Friday, right?
ME: Yeah, why?
Aida shifts on the couch and I watch as she reaches over and takes the cup of Coke I was drinking off the table and downs the rest of it. Whatever, I guess.
LEO: Keep that night free.
ME: Abuelita forcing us to go to a party again?
LEO: Something like that.
I’m very confused and slightly worried about the vagueness in her texts, especially if she’s with Abuelita. They’re obviously up to something. I grin as I try to spin it back on her.
ME: You tell her that you’re in love with a rando baseball player yet, or do I get that privilege on Friday?
She responds in seconds.
LEO: I’m not in love, but yes she knows about Janko.
Aida puts the cup on the table and settles back into the couch. Coke has dribbled onto her teal Little Mermaid T-shirt.
“Do you want some more?” I ask.
She shrugs, still staring at the TV.
“Is that an I Don’t Know Yes or an I Don’t Know No?”
She looks at me again, then grabs the cup of milk and takes a sip, going back to her movie-watching.
ME: Whatever. I’ll keep Friday night open.
I put my phone on the table again and pick up the yarn.
The ending of West Side Story is a huge bummer, which I had forgotten about. Maria’s on the floor screaming not to touch Tony, and Aida is silent on the couch, picking at her nails, moving on to the cup of water after finishing the milk. The hat is looking hatty.
“You hungry?” I ask.
Aida shrugs.
“Okay,” I say. We sit there for a moment. “Do you want to come see my room or something?”
She shrugs.
“Um, we can just go.” I stand up and wave for her to follow.
She groans and stands up.
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I say. She rolls her eyes and shrugs but follows me as I walk to my room. I sit on the bed and she stands against the wall. “You can sit on the bed with me, if you want.”
She shakes her head, her thick black hair fluttering and then resting, balled and heavy, on her shoulders.
“Okay.” I look at the ground, bite my thumbnail until I peel off the red nail polish and regret it. “Don’t you think that just makes it more awkward?”
When I glance up, Aida’s staring at the stuffed dog on my pillow.
“The dog?” I say. “Um, do you want to hold her or something?”
Aida grunts and turns around, walking out of my room.
I lie down on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I genuinely don’t know how I’m supposed to act in this situation.
When I was in elementary school, I would try to get Aida to trace letters with me for my homework. She’d just kind of scribble on the paper, which confused me since she was so much older than me. Why could I write my name and she couldn’t if she was an adult? I asked Abuelita that question one day.
“Stand on one leg,” she told me. I did so. “Now I will too.” She did and within seconds had to catch herself and get back on two legs. “Who’s better at standing on one leg?”
I was.
“And who makes better arepas?”
Abuelita did.
“There are some things Aida’s not very good at and some things she is very good at, just like everyone else. She is not very good at writing her name. She is very good at puzzles.”
Aida was, in fact, damn good at puzzles.
And that was how I had grown up seeing her. A lot of people treated her as if she was super fragile or a baby whenever we were at Abuelita’s, but I had always understood that she was an adult who just wasn’t good at some adult things, the same way I was a kid who wasn’t good at some kid things.
Had I offended her by asking if she wanted to hold the dog?
“Aida,” I call, jumping off my bed.
The front door opens as I run into the hall.
My mom has her cell phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear as she drops three grocery bags onto the floor.
One of them has broken open at the bottom and a bulb of garlic and two cans of chicken soup roll out.
She purses her lips in their direction, and I pick them up along with the broken bag, trying to keep the rest of the contents from falling out, and take them into the kitchen.
I glance at Aida as I put everything away.
She’s sitting on the couch again, looking at the TV.
The top half of the Netflix screen is playing the preview for a new baking show.
My mom joins me in the kitchen with the other two bags. “Por favor llámame inmediatamente, ?sí? Sí, Mami. Te quiero mucho. Chao.”
“?Te quiero, Abuelita!” I yell as my mom hangs up. “What was that about?”
She kisses me on the head and then pushes her fingers through her dark hair.
“Doctor’s visit on Friday,” she says. She walks over to the couch and kisses Aida on the head.
Or rather, tries to, because Aida groans and dodges, knocking her face into my mom’s chin.
“Hi, baby,” she says to her and then comes back into the kitchen.
She collapses into a chair while I continue putting groceries away.
“I’m so worried. I love your abuelita so much.
And every time she has to go back in, I’m just waiting for them to tell us how much worse it is again, like they always do. ” She buries her face in her hands.
I swallow so loud that I wonder if my mom hears it.
“So…” I drag off. Don’t panic. Do not panic. If you panic, she’ll panic. Or she’ll panic louder, at least. “Do they think something’s getting worse?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t think so. I mean—”
“Did she say that they think something’s getting worse?”
She takes a breath and looks at me. “No. I think it’s just routine.”
I paste on a smile and throw my hands out. “See! She’s fine. There’s nothing wrong.”
Nothing newly wrong is what I mean, because she’s already dying of cancer. But obviously I’m not going to say that because I am still avoiding The Louder Panic.
Instead, I put the last can of soup away and lean casually against the pantry door. “So, am I supposed to take her, or—”
“You think I’m going to have you illegally drive her to the hospital?”
“She’d let me,” I say. I walk across the kitchen and wrap my arms around her shoulders from behind.
“That’s why I try to keep you away from her,” Mami says, and I laugh. “I don’t want that rebel woman rubbing off on my perfect little angel baby.”
“That’s me. Perfect little angel baby.”
She stands up and grabs the empty grocery bags to tuck them into the grocery bag that’s full of grocery bags under the sink. “Tía Elisa will take her while you’re at school.”
“Cool,” I say. “Chévere. That’s fine.”
Because it has to be in this moment. So I can be the perfect little angel baby daughter. So I can be the comforter she needs.
So I can be her music.
But it doesn’t really feel cool or fine. I am imagining what the doctor will say this time. I am imagining myself walking through Abuelita’s front door. I am imagining her holding the amethyst ring. I am imagining myself accepting it.