i hope it's not too cold, wherever you are

It always seems to be that Nadine and I remember Mom's funeral very differently.

I don't blame her--not really. Elena had been born that autumn,

and although she was my sister’s second, she seemed to cause her just as much

anxiety as her first. So I don't blame Nadine because having a baby only a

couple of months old when your mother passes is nothing to be envious of.

"Gabriela, I need a quick second. Take her?"

"Oh-"

But against my breastbone was a child, and far away, I could hear the back door open. If I tried hard enough, I imagined I could hear Heaven, too. Or something like that. A lot went through my mind then. A lot still does. Sitting there, on that old stairwell, in that old house, it occurred to me that I would mourn my mother in a language no one else could understand.

-

I used to see something akin to ghosts, but not in the way you’d

imagine. My ghosts were a glare in the window. A sob in the shower. It didn't

happen often, but there was a particular stillness in the air when it did. It

was as if someone I couldn’t see was

passing by, leaving a neatly folded note in my pocket in their wake.

A memory of me setting my elbows down on the aluminum table and mentioning these things to a neighbor. I don't know what I wanted them to say. Maybe I wanted them to tell me they saw them, too. Instead, they paused and sat back in their chair.

"You should go to therapy."

I looked into her earnest eyes and put my elbows back down.

"I'm Mexican. We don't really

do that kind of thing."

-

Mom lives in my ghosts now. She lives in my right birthmark and

in the shadow of the neighborhood mutt. Her funeral is happening yesterday and it’s

happening now and it’s happening over and over again.

-

I blink and I’m on that stairwell again, my sister’s baby in my arms. A premature like Nadine’s first. I remember going between those two hospitals. That taxi money. Cutting the end of my classes. I thought of my mother and my niece as two existences trying to stay alive. All those tubes. You couldn’t help thinking how it ended up like this. But now here is Elena, and she has become the spitting image of our women. That small curl. That freckle above her eyebrow like Anas. She is a plant cutting. A new growth from Mexican ivy. A crib in my old room with new memories taking over the old. Elena is too young to grieve. It’s hard not to be jealous of it. She begins to fuss, so I start rocking her.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

I rock Elena to sleep and imagine that if grief is this baby, I will hold it while it cries.

-

I think my sister and I live in a place where she sees what has to be done, and I see what has already been done. She’s got too much to do to stop and think about it. And by it, I mean everything. An eldest daughter at the forefront. A soldier. She knows the sound of our war cry better than anyone. And I am here. A postscript. A silhouette. I could stand in the corner of any room and wait until everyone forgot I was even there. It’s my heirloom. My mother thought too much and spoke too little. She would look into my eyes, and even though I was too young to know, too young to understand, I did. I grew up in that mourning. What’s that one bit about Mothers giving birth to their pain first? Immigrational trauma is my long-lost father, wouldn’t you know?

My family waits around the living room (next to that old stairway, in that old house), hoping to get a bit of something (it’s not said, but it’s in the silence.) I think to myself: Who even are you? I don’t know any of you. Where were you in that hospital room? Where was our phone call? Pry her gold bracelets off her cold, dry hands.

“Is everyone here?”

“Can we hurry? It’s already dark outside, yeesh.”

Her silence and silhouette. Yes. Those are only mine. I’ll be just fine.

-

Sometimes family is an ugly, misshapen creature. I can’t explain it anymore. Those aunties, those uncles, those twelve dozen cousins, those old friends of ours. Does anyone see it like I do? Someone looking in through the window of our living room rather than out of it. The glass is foggy, but I can still see our rose-colored carpet and Mary statues. It used to make me feel like a loner, but now I like to think of it as my clandestine.

My name gets called. I look up and it’s my sister with Elena in the crook of her arm once more. Always attached. A vein that never got cut. My heart pangs, and I wonder if my niece will inherit it too—her mother’s sadness which she got from ours which she got from hers.  

“There you are! Come on, we’re all on the couch. Go eat something too, we made soup. You hungry?”

I’ve always waited for something to bring me and Nadine closer. Not just her but to everyone. Even the damn house. I read somewhere in college “Your nostalgia has created a non-existent country.” I wished to grab Nadine’s hands. I always think: This time will be different. I always leave thinking: I should’ve known better.  When I stand up, my knees creak. Was it possible to feel so old when you were only so young? I have lived ten different lives and will probably live ten different ones more.

I sigh. “Starving.”

Christmas time draws close with a sort of haze outside. The window remains foggy, but I will continue to look in. My sister’s hands will one day be warm, and someday, someone (or maybe me) will be enough for the ghosts to disappear.

I will go about without wishing to be eaten alive, for my grief to be swallowed. I will one day wake up violently from it all, like you do when falling in a dream. Tomorrow night I will take my plane back to Vegas, and I will tell everyone at work that Yes, I’m okay. And one day I might just really mean it, too.

“I hope it’s not windy…wherever she is.”

“She always did hate the cold.”

“Yeah.”

I will hear a sound like Heaven.

Or something like that.

“ ‘Kay. Let’s get started.”