The Exiled

The Exiled

         



              Grandma lived alone in a trailer park for seniors by the time I moved in.  The trailers were lined up along neat little streets with gravel yards and Astroturf lawns.  Her yard shattered the mundane.  She planted roses, birds of paradise, cactus, and citrus fruits wherever she had room.  My dad built her a wooden cage for her parrots Pepita and Poly, which she pronounced Polee.  Pepita liked to crawl around on my belly and poop on my windowsill.  Pepita squawked at Maggie all the time.  I knew they must be conversing because Maggie answered by kicking me from the inside.  I lived with grandma in that squeaky double-wide trailer during my pregnancy and for three months after Maggie came.  I had a Geo, a little white egg-shell of a car, quite a step down from my dark maroon Mitsubishi Gallant.  I resented the exile.  I believed it was a step down into obscurity.

         I am in limbo now, banished to the isle of senior citizens, to live out my nine months in relative isolation.  I know now how my grandma feels.  I know I abandoned her when I stopped visiting.  I am a self-absorbed screw-up, sentenced to masochistic self-reflection. I take regular phone calls from Him.  We cry.  We scream.  We still see each other.  My mom knows I won’t be rude to grandma.  She put us together for a reason.

         I am here to change my attitude.  I am here to pay for my offenses.  I am here to make friends with the parrots and burn fresh grooves into the pavement.  I am here to restore a long lost friendship.  I am here to get to know my Maggie.



         Sobs.  Sobbing through the walls.  A panic swells up in my chest.  Why was she crying?  I don’t know what to do.  Should I intrude?  That kind of sobbing seems like a private affair.  I lie in my miniscule twin bed and let my hand caress the thin trailer walls.  I feel every groove in the cheap fake wooden paneling.  I let my hand drop to my swollen belly. I let it rest there.  I feel a strong kick.  Maggie’s right.  I get up slowly and walk out of my bedroom door.  I stand quietly outside her door.  Still sobbing.  I mean that kind of body shaking sobbing.  Should I go in?  Maggie kicks again.  Alright, I whisper.  I reach out for the knob.  I turn it and crack the door.  It squeaks.  I peek in.  She is sitting in a chair, the one by her nightstand, one of her Goodwill bargain buys.  She’s got her hands cupped on her face. She is sobbing into them.

         “Abuelita, estas bien?”          

                    No answer.

I come closer.  Her pain permeates the paneling; it hangs, hovering, thick like fog in the air.  I lay my hand on her shoulders—tentatively.  She startles.  She places one hand briefly over mine.

         “Abuelita, estas bien?” I ask again.

She can’t speak right now.  She takes her hand off mine, and with it makes a gesture waving me away.  I stand there, unsure if I should I go.  I move in front of her, lean over, and kiss her forehead.  She lays her forehead on my swollen belly.  Maggie bumps her on the head.  She gives a little chuckle.  We both smile through the tears.  I hadn’t realized I was crying.  I let my hand run over her wet cheek, then turn and walk away.  She continues sobbing.

         Grandma starts to tell me things about her life that I am shocked to hear.  She starts telling me the first night we stay up together reading Tarot cards.  She mourns a long lost love.  She met this man after grandpa.  She begins a love affair, but he is married.  She is Catholic.  She walks away, unwilling to split up a struggling family, and binds her life to another waiting in the wings.  Her pain transports itself through the thin aluminum walls.  It is embedded in the songs of Vicente Fernandez.  I grow to love this man who can sing his pain so shamelessly into the world.  Grandma prays incessantly every night.  Her words become the air.  Her words become my atmosphere.  I believe in redemption because I’ve heard it, night after night.

         Grandma’s life defines strength and beauty in mine.  When grandpa left her with five kids to work in the United States and never came back, she followed with three kids in tow, left the middle and oldest with relatives in Tijuana, crossed the border, set up camp in Capistrano Beach, and hunted him down.  When he turned her away, she worked in a foreign country with a foreign language.  She relied on her faith.  She used her sharp wit like a weapon, and earned enough money to retrieve those left behind and secure their survival.  She died with a smile on her face.