See Me(50)

Though she’d been lying when she told Ken that she was having dinner with her parents, she wasn’t in the mood to be alone and found herself driving the familiar roads to the place she’d grown up.

The neighborhood was more blue collar than white, with homes showing signs of deferred maintenance and a few sporting FOR SALE signs. Older-model cars and trucks were parked in virtually every driveway. Their neighbors had always been plumbers and carpenters, clerical workers and secretaries. It was the kind of community where kids played in the front yards and young couples pushed strollers, where people would collect the mail for each other when they were out of town. Though her parents never talked about it, Maria had heard rumors growing up that when her dad had first bought the house, more than a few neighbors living at this end of the block had been upset. The Sanchezes were the first nonwhite family on the street, and people had quietly speculated about declining property values and rising crime, as though everyone who’d been born in Mexico was somehow connected to the drug cartels.

She supposed it was one of the reasons that her dad had always kept the yard immaculate and the bushes trimmed; he repainted the exterior in the same color every fifth year, always parked his cars in the garage instead of the driveway, and kept an American flag mounted on a pole on the front porch. He decorated the house for both Halloween and Christmas and in their first years would hand out restaurant coupons to any neighbor who happened to be outside, allowing them to eat at half price. Her mom regularly made trays of food on the weekend afternoons when she wasn’t at the restaurant – burritos and enchiladas, tacos or carnitas – which she would serve to any of the kids who were out playing kickball or soccer. Little by little, they’d been accepted in the neighborhood. Since then, most of the surrounding homes had been sold more than once, and in every instance, her parents showed up to welcome the new owners with a housewarming gift in the hopes of preventing future whispers.

Maria sometimes had trouble imagining how hard it had been, though in school, there’d been more than a couple of years when she’d been the only Mexican in her classroom. Because she’d been a good student, albeit a quiet one, she couldn’t remember feeling the sting of discrimination in the same way her parents had experienced it, but even if she had, her parents would have told her to do what they had done. They would have told her to be herself, to be kind and welcoming to everyone, and they would have warned her that she should never sink to others’ level. And then, she thought with a smile, they would have told her to study.

Unlike Serena, who was still reveling in finally being out from under her parents’ thumbs, Maria enjoyed coming home. She loved the old place: the green and orange walls; the wildly playful ceramic tile in the kitchen; the eclectic furniture her mother had collected over the years; a refrigerator door that was endlessly decorated with photos and information relating to the family, anything that had made Carmen particularly proud. She loved the way her mother hummed whenever she was happy and especially when she was cooking. Growing up, Maria had taken these things for granted, but beginning in college, she could remember a feeling of comfort whenever she pushed through the front door, even after just a few weeks away.

Knowing her parents would be offended if she knocked, she went straight in, moving through the living room and into the kitchen. She set her bag on the counter.

“Mom? Dad? Where are you?” she called out.

As always when at home, she spoke Spanish, the shift from English as simple as breathing and just as unconscious.

“Out here!” she heard her mom answer.

Maria turned toward the back porch, where she saw her mom and dad rising from the table. Happy she was here and leaning in for hugs, they both spoke at once.

“We didn’t know you were coming…”

“What a nice surprise…”

“You look wonderful…”

“You’re so skinny…”

“Are you hungry?”

Maria greeted her mom, then her dad, then her mom again, then her dad a second time. In her parents’ minds, Maria would always be their little girl. And though there’d been a period for a few teenage years when the idea had mortified her – especially when apparent in public – these days she had to admit that she kind of liked it.

“I’m okay. I can grab something later.”

“I’ll make you something,” her mom said decisively, moving toward the refrigerator. Her dad watched her go with obvious appreciation. He had always been a hopeless romantic.

In his midfifties, he was neither thin nor fat. He had little gray in his hair, but Maria noticed a lingering, almost constant weariness, the effect of too much work for too many years. Tonight he seemed even less energetic than usual.

“Making you dinner makes her feel like she’s still important to you,” he said.

“Of course she’s still important to me. Why would she think otherwise?”

“Because you don’t need her the way you once did.”

“I’m not a child.”

“But she’ll always be your mother,” he said firmly. He motioned toward the table on the porch. “Do you want to sit outside and enjoy some wine? Your mom and I were having a glass.”

“I can get it,” she said. “Let me talk to Mom for a bit and I’ll meet you out there.”