Flor

Eric Odynocki

 

Flor Uribe Nowak hates her name. It is a jumble of vowels and consonants that forces the tongue to jump in the mouth. Her last names clash like two dissonant pianos never able to harmonize. Kindergarten classmates had said Uribe sounded like a disease and that Nowak rhymed with whack and hack and made chopping motions with their hands. But Flor hates her first name most of all. Not even Flora. Just Flor. So what if it means flower in Spanish? Do English-speakers back home in Brooklyn know that? The meaning does not make up for all the puzzled faces each time she introduces herself; does not make up for how it sounds like the surface that everyone walks all over. A place for dust. A place everyone takes for granted is always there. Beneath them.

It’s the summer before high school, the year 2000, a year of endings and beginnings, and Flor thinks of all these things while resting her chin on her palm, gazing out the open backseat window of a maroon Chrysler Town and Country that swerves around a bend in the highway to reveal Ensenada. Flor’s abuela sits next to her. Maricarmen’s bracelets clink with her gesticulations, chime as backup to her conversation peppered with “Oye” “¡Fíjate!” and “¡No me digas!” Not being fluent in Spanish, Flor gathers, based on her abuela’s rapture, that Maricarmen is getting caught up on all the gossip of childhood neighbors and other fulanos de tal. Araceli is providing all the details like second and third helpings of sopping tres leches. Araceli is the wife of Santiago, who sits in the driver’s seat. Santiago is Maricarmen’s nephew and somehow related to Flor. It was weird meeting him at the airport, shaking hands and exchanging kisses on the cheek with a salt-and-pepper haired man with a beer belly who up until that point had been a stranger wandering the opposite side of the continent.

Flor’s innards churn at the idea of spending a summer in her grandmother’s hometown with relatives she’s never known. She had only found out a week before school ended. Flor was reading in the kitchen. A hardcover. Because she prefers the sewn spine. Maricarmen had been wandering their one-bedroom apartment with the cordless phone, talking in an uncharacteristically hushed voice. When she hung up the phone in the kitchen she said, “We’re going to Mexico. You’ll get to meet your bisabuela. We have to see her. Before she’s gone.” Maricarmen left before Flor could ask any questions. Flor was only vaguely aware of her great-grandmother, Clara. A woman of a hundred and five who still lived in Mexico.

The highway descends a cliff and the wind pouring in through the windows roars within the cabin. Flor is grateful the din muffles the radio that is playing a song by Selena, her mother’s favorite singer. Flor’s lips draw up into a small smile. She thinks of her mother watering all the strings-of-pearls, the succulents, the African violets in their living room. Flor’s smile then shrinks. She wishes for what has been impossible for a year: for her mother to be with her. Flor rubs away the tears welling in her eyes but not before Maricarmen sees and looks at her askance. Her abuela reaches over and grabs her hand.

The ever-present hills embrace the town of bright white houses and stores resting at the rim of the turquoise cove that inspired its name. The highway turns into a boulevard lined with palm trees. Santiago points out the boardwalk; the cultural center that used to be a hotel and casino where Golden Age Hollywood celebrities would gamble and drink; the enormous Mexican flag waving over the harbor where American tourists disembark from sparkling cruise ships; the vendor who sells the best fish tacos. Maricarmen translates along the way, providing Flor with a distraction from her own thoughts, a momentary reprieve to inhabit anecdotes of different buildings and landmarks. As Maricarmen goes on in English, pointing from one side of the van to the other, Flor’s eyes follow and she catches Araceli’s curious gaze. It’s a familiar look. One of sympathy but mostly disappointment. One that reminds Flor how her monolingualism is like a leash that holds her lingering at the periphery of her own heritage. Flor reddens and shifts in her seat. Is it her fault she grew up monolingual for the first six years of her life? The daughter of two first-generation Americans. Mexican on her mother’s side, Polish on her father’s. The out-of-wedlock daughter of teenage sweethearts whose love first sparked at a basketball game of their two opposing high schools, whose love could overcome contrasting cultures and neighborhoods and disapproving parents but not the struggles of parenthood. A West Side Story that had beaten the odds their friends had joked.

They pull up to a house of unpainted stones and mortar. The roofline is straight except for a few decorative urns, one missing. Three rectangular windows, large enough for a tall person to stand in, are covered by black grates with straight rods that twist into floral patterns and daggers at the ends. Flor wonders about the time when such security measures were not necessary. If architecture were a language the message would be clear. Keep out. There is nothing to see here. Nothing for you.

Santiago steps out of the minivan and opens wooden carriage doors on the side of the house and pulls the minivan into the passage. The passage turns into a cobbled tunnel of almost total darkness when Araceli closes and bolts the front doors. Flor stumbles over a suitcase as she gets out of the car. In the coolness, their voices and shuffling footsteps echo as they make their way out onto a patio of red clay tiles. Numerous pots crowd the corners bursting with marigolds, calla lilies, and orchids. Calidora, cacti, and philodendron. On the exterior white wall bubbles a fountain framed in cerulean tiles. Beyond the patio is an arbor from which spills bougainvillea like a cascade of magenta stars on supple clouds of green. A palm and lemon and orange trees peek above the arbor and cast shade on sheds in the back of the property. Large windows and doors open directly onto the veranda that creates a shaded L around the patio. Flor imagines her mother visiting this place as a child, remembers with another pang how she gushed about it every time they went to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, and thinks her descriptions do not do it justice.

An elderly couple steps out of an interior room pushing an even older woman in a wheelchair. Her wool-white hair is plaited and draped over delicate shoulders that are wrapped in a cotton shawl. Her face is oval and heavily lined. She wears glasses that magnify her hooded eyes. Her skin is the color of the surrounding hills and spotted with age. Flor can’t help but stare. She sees traces of her abuela and mother. In the eyes, the nose, the jawline. Flor searches for a feature she sees in her own mirror reflection.

“¡Mamá!” Maricarmen cries as she embraces Flor’s great-grandmother. Clara wraps frail but elegant hands around Maricarmen’s plump back, her voice soft and hoarse with age but thick like honey with joy at seeing her daughter. Flor stands by the mouth of the tunnel clutching the handle of her wheeled suitcase. She watches as Maricarmen embraces the elderly couple. There is non-stop chatter among the five until Maricarmen spots Flor being a wallflower. She swats a hand beckoning Flor to approach. “Mija, saluda. It’s rude not to say hello!”

Maricarmen cracks an embarrassed smile to her family and grips Flor’s arm when she steps forward. “This is your great uncle, Héctor,” Maricarmen says gesturing to the elderly gentleman. “My older brother. Santiago’s dad. And this is Lourdes, Héctor’s wife.”

With each relative Flor tries to put into practice what her abuela taught her. A kiss on the cheek and hug without hesitation. “Encantada.”

“Ay, mira qué preciosa la niña,” Lourdes says cupping Flor’s face. “¡Y tiene ojos de color!” For a few moments Flor stands there like a doll as Lourdes looks into her hazel eyes, excitedly caresses her dark brown hair, her alabaster cheek. Héctor and the others nod, look at her intently and say words like “güerita” and “hermosa.” Flor wants to pull away not so much from the physical touch but from this reminder that she’s an anomaly in her own family. But, not wanting to cause a scene or offend her hosts, Flor stifles the urge. As Flor blushes, Maricarmen confirms, “Salió a su papá.”

•

It was not long after her fourteenth birthday. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon in March. Flor lay on her bed by the window that looked out on the lightwell her building shared with another. Her abuela, on her day off from the salon where she worked, watched La Rosa de Guadalupe in the living room. Otherwise, it was quiet, the neighbors upstairs and downstairs apparently occupied or lulled into a stupor by the weather. Flor was content, reading a hardcover copy of The House on Mango Street from the library.

Just as Flor was about to finish a vignette, Maricarmen walked into the room, flashing a glossy magazine. “Mija, look what I got you.” Maricarmen sat on the bed, shooing Flor aside. “We can get some ideas for your quince.”

The minutes dragged as Maricarmen flipped through the pages, eyes wide as she pointed with her index finger tipped with red nail polish at different pictures of celebrities and models with various hairstyles and varying makeup. “What about this one? Oh, esa sí está buena. And what about this one? That’ll go good with your color.”

Maricarmen finally realized her excitement was met with mere uh-huhs and polite mm-hmms. “Flor, you not excited for your quince? We have to start planning for these things. Now.”

Flor avoided her grandmother’s eyes. There was a lava flow of words rising in her throat, threatening to erupt. But nothing she wanted to say came to mind in clear sentences, only jumbles of phrases and ideas. Rubble. Flor stifled the surge and shrugged.

Maricarmen’s plucked eyebrows knitted with impatience. “You want a party? Your mother didn’t get one, you know. But since she got that teaching job she saved some money. For you. So you can have the quince she never had. You want a party, no?”

Flor’s mind flashed with memories of her mother scribbling lesson plans and correcting tests at the kitchen table. Flashes of her mother stopping and looking up, smiling, and asking, “What are you doing up?” The guilt cut like a knife. But her abuela’s question opened a vent that Flor had been groping for. “No,” she finally answered. “I don’t want a party.”

“Well why not? You have friends? All the girls in the barrio are having their parties and my nieta is the only one who won’t? Why you have no friends? Why you in here reading and not with friends? Your mother was always out, talking with friends on the phone. Happy.”

And we all know how that ended, Flor wanted to say but she pressed her lips into a line. She clicked her tongue. “I have friends, abue, it’s just that, well…”

“Well, what! ¡Habla!” When Flor still fumbled for words Maricarmen stood up and stormed out the room. “Ay, if it weren’t for my Latina blood you’d be as cold as a corpse!”

Flor lay there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sting of her grandmother’s words to dissipate. It was frustrating. Everything. Her abuela. Her inability to explain herself. She could only see images, not voice them. Images of her cousins’ quinces. Images of the ceremonia del cambio de zapatos where her uncles, red faced and teary-eyed, knelt before their fifteen-year-old daughters to replace their flats with their first pair of high heels. Who would put symbols of womanhood on her feet? Would her father even realize she was turning fifteen? The only reason she knew he was still alive was from the postcards he would send sporadically from some random corner of the United States he happened to be passing through on his Harley. Everglades. Chicago. Grand Canyon. Sometimes they were photos of him leaning against his bike, arms crossed over his chest, long blonde hair framing his angular face and sunglasses hiding his gray eyes. Flor didn’t know who took the pictures. His handwriting was frenetic, that of someone accustomed to scrawling new grunge lyrics on a bar napkin. His brief messages consisted of platitudes and vague promises of returning without a return address. All signed, Be good, kid. Love, Dad.

Flor rolled over, burying her face into her pillow, wanting to scream, knowing her mother, gone for months by then, would have understood, could have been her interpreter.

•

It is approaching three o’clock and lunch is over. Everyone sits at the table under the arbor. It is cool in the shade. Araceli takes everyone’s plates still drenched with salsa verde in which the enchiladas suizas had bathed. She disappears into the kitchen and comes back holding a tray with flan, coffee and porcelain cups. Araceli serves everyone a wedge of flan, pours the coffee and milk. The air fills with the scent of coffee.

Araceli holds the pot in her direction. “¿Mi Flor?” It’s how they’ve been calling her. My Flor. Her tíos and cousins back home would just say Flor, or, worse, Flo. It’s funny to hear her name preceded by a possessive, to observe the artistry of terms of endearment in Hispanic culture. Flor can’t decide whether it makes her feel like she belongs or like an object that is owned.

Flor accepts the coffee and dessert hoping the caffeine will reverse her drowsiness from a long journey and full belly. She wishes she had her book as she sits in silence next to Maricarmen who drones on with the other adults. Laughter seasons their conversation, mixes with the music from the nearby radio. Ranchera, mariachi, and son. Music that Flor has heard since she was a baby. Music played while her mother or abuela cooked or cleaned. Neighbors in their building would blast Vicente Fernández or Juan Gabriel. Flor knows what the music means to her family, is aware of its role in Mexican identity, and for that she appreciates it. But to listen to it is a constant looking back. Music of the past, of dwelling not just in the heartache of romance that the songs often bewailed but of cultural nostalgia. A way to feel south-of-the-border homelands in New York walk-ups. Hymns of displacement. But like any soon-to-be high schooler and like the novelty-seeking American she is, Flor wishes the adults would change the radio station so she can hear music that rings of a new millennium. Songs she can understand in full. Even N’Sync would be a welcome change of genre. But she remains silent, again, not wanting to impose and knowing the look she’d get from her abuela if she went to get her discman.

A familiar melody cuts through Flor’s thoughts. It twists a heartstring. It’s Selena’s “Como la Flor.” The adults give cries of pleasant surprise and, to Flor’s horror, look in her direction. Before she can say anything, Santiago stands and stretches out his hand to invite her to dance. Maricarmen nudges Flor. Clara looks at Flor intently, a glint in her eye. In their shared glance, the moment lengthens and Flor wonders if Clara reminisces attending the Carnaval dances as she came of age in the twilight of the Porfiriato.

Flor gets up with a self-conscious smile and follows Santiago onto the patio. It’s a slow cumbia tejana so Flor does not have difficulty following Santiago. As he holds her hands, guiding her through the back and forth of the steps and the turns, her mouth muscles hurt from straining a smile. She wishes the song would just end, not because of her social discomfort but because the heartstring twisted by the first note snaps, shooting pain up Flor’s throat. She tries to swallow the tears, to think about something else, but she feels Maricarmen’s scrutiny and through the twirls catches Clara’s eyes, eyes like her mother’s, and she keeps hearing cómo me duele… cómo me duele and the rising pain seeps through her eyes. Santiago stops. “¿Estás bien? ¿Mi Flor? ¿Qué tienes?” She wants to answer but can only shake her head and sobs. There is the scraping of chair legs against the floor as the adults stand up, their voices rising in a collage of concern. Flor runs to the veranda, finds the bathroom, and shuts the door behind her. She slumps to the floor, hot tears streaking her cheeks. There is a knock at the door. It’s her abuela. “Flor, mija, what’s wrong? You okay?”

•

A year after Flor’s father left, she sat on her mother’s bed in their room. Inés stood at the vanity, making faces at Flor as she put on mascara. Flor was seven and could not imagine a woman more beautiful than her mother. Watching her mother put on makeup had become a ritual ever since Inés started taking night classes. Inés would come home from Sears where she worked as a cashier, eat the dinner abuela had cooked, and then get ready. They’d put on music, lip sync, and dance.

On that particular night Inés was listening to her Selena collection on shuffle. “Como la Flor” started playing and they both gasped in excitement. Inés turned to Flor and in a dramatic flourish offered her a comb. Flor stood up on the bed and took the magical microphone. They sang not caring if their neighbors heard. At the chorus they acted out the pantomime they choreographed when Flor was a toddler. Flor pointed to herself when the song mentioned her name and then pointed at her mother at “me diste tú.” Flor and Inés then hugged and howled the “ay ay ay cómo me duele.” They giggled when abuela yelled from the living room to keep it down, complaining she couldn’t hear her novelas.

The song ended and Flor sat back on the bed. With the chorus still stuck in her head, a word stood out. She had heard it a million times before but up until then she hadn’t noticed how it sounded like “march.” As Inés rummaged for shoes in her closet, Flor asked, “Mom, what does ‘marchitó’ mean?”

Inés hopped on one foot as she put on a shoe and then the other. “Marchitó? It means wither. Like a flower withers.”

Flor considered the word, not liking how much sadder it made the song she thought was named after her. When Inés saw Flor’s dismay, she leaned down and said, “Don’t worry, you’ll always be my fresh flower!” and pummeled her cheek with kisses before saying her goodbye.

•

Eventually, Maricarmen coaxes Flor out of the bathroom. They go to the bedroom they’ll stay in. They sit on the bed. Flor leans her head on her abuela’s chest. Maricarmen wraps her arms around Flor, strokes her hair. Light streams in through a small window on the exterior wall, pooling in a luminescent square on the floor. It is silent except for the sound of birds chirping outside and Maricarmen’s voice. “I know, I know. Shh, shh.”

When Flor’s cheeks are finally dry and her breath evens, Maricarmen cups her face and asks, “¿Estás bien, mija? Here, lie down, get some rest.”

Flor watches her grandmother leave. She closes her eyes. When she opens them, the square on the floor is in a different spot. Flor gets up and slips out of the room, though she is still mortified at her emotional outburst. Flor finds the arbor and patio deserted. The women are in the kitchen, Santiago and Héctor apparently having left to check things at the family store. Flor leans in the door frame with a sheepish smile and is greeted with smiles in return but the conversation does not stop. She is grateful no one asks her if she’s okay. Araceli is washing the dishes. Clara snoozes at the kitchen table. Lourdes and Maricarmen are at the counter making tortillas, rolling the masa in their hands before pressing it with the metal prensa.

“Abue, can I help?”

Maricarmen waves a dismissive hand. “No, mija, we’re fine. You’ll just get in the way.”

As Flor is about to insist, spurred by the thought that she should at least learn how to make a staple of her heritage, Clara, apparently having awakened at Flor’s voice, says something to Maricarmen who just shakes her head and rattles a response. Flor’s face reddens as she realizes Clara is talking about her. Clara turns to Araceli who stops washing the dishes. Araceli listens and wipes her hands on her apron. She looks at Flor and then back at Clara. Flor wonders what new drama she’s stirred. Maricarmen voices some sort of protest. Araceli starts wheeling Clara out of the kitchen and gestures Flor to follow.

They enter the living room and then turn into the study. A large window facing the street floods the green walls and bookcases with light. There is a large desk in the center of the room with a leather chair that is wrinkled and cracked with age. In a corner sits a smaller desk with an IBM computer, a more recent addition that sticks out as much as Flor does. On the wall opposite the door is a large brick fireplace. Above the mantle hangs a portrait of a couple on their wedding day. It is more brown and yellow than black and white. The bride wears a long veil that is striking against her night-black hair. She wears an empire waist dress and holds a bouquet of calla lilies. The groom stands in a black tuxedo, a slight smile showing beneath his mustache. Both are extremely young, not much older than Flor is now. She marvels that the girl in the picture is the woman in the wheelchair.

Flor hesitates to step into the study. It is a chapel of family history too sacred for her to step into. Where her great-grandfather Isidro spent hours keeping the business accounts in order. The room that ensured the family’s livelihood. She imagines Isidro in his mustache scolding anyone entering his private study. But then Maricarmen and Lourdes appear at her side and urge her forward. Clara points to a book spine on one of the shelves and Araceli pulls out the volume and opens it on the ancient desk. They crowd around the photo album and Clara begins to narrate, pointing a long finger at various unsmiling figures. Maricarmen translates. Flor listens to her great-grandmother’s voice which sounds like the wind and blends with Maricarmen’s. It’s like a two-tonal prayer. Flor feels herself drift into the words as the stories unfold. How Clara was the daughter of a fisherman descended from Spaniards. How her mother was Tipai. How she can no longer speak her mother’s language though she can still hear the lullabies. How Clara met Isidro when she was seventeen and he was nineteen and then married before he went to fight in the Revolution. How he returned and opened a general store that the family still operates. How she bore ten children. Maricarmen was the baby and the most mischievous. All except for Héctor went north. This uncle’s misadventures at sea. That aunt’s spinsterhood. The paramours, the weddings, the births and the deaths.

Clara goes quiet. Her shoulders shudder. She doubles over, coughing. Her lap sprouts little red blooms.

Maricarmen’s eyes blaze. She kneels at Clara’s side. “¿Mamá? ¿Mamá?” Maricarmen turns to Lourdes and spits a myriad of questions. Araceli, who had darted out of the study when the attack first started, comes running in with medication. Maricarmen rips the bottle out of Araceli’s hands and administers it to Clara, stepping in Flor’s way. Flor stands transfixed by the fireplace, unsure how to help. She hears coughs and moans, the panicked exchanges between the women. The commotion subsides and Flor sees a bony hand reach up and pat Maricarmen’s back. She hears Clara’s raspy voice, “Ya, ya, estoy bien.”

Flor watches the three women wheel Clara out of the study. She remains in her spot, wondering if she had in some way caused the fit. But she refuses to pity herself and walks out onto the veranda. Lourdes and Araceli are pushing Clara into her bedroom to rest. But Maricarmen continues down the veranda and disappears behind a corner. Flor follows the echo of tacón and finds a side staircase. It leads to the roof where laundry dries. It is a world of terraces, chimneys, telephone wires and antennas. Flor does not see her abuela. Instead she hears abrupt intakes of breath and sniffling beyond rows of white sheets flapping languidly in the late afternoon breeze. Flor winds her way through the linens, parting them like clouds. She finds her abuela at the front of the house which faces west toward the harbor. Abuela’s small figure is dark against a canvas of orange and yellow, the setting sun igniting a trail of silver on the Pacific.

“Abue?”

Flor catches Maricarmen wiping her face before crossing her arms. “Sí, mija, dime.”

“Are you okay, abue?” Flor stands next to her grandmother.

“Sí, sí,” Maricarmen answers. “Just… thinking.” Without taking her eyes off of the horizon, Maricarmen links her arm with Flor’s. There is a silence in which Flor sees her abuela’s thoughts. The heart attack that widowed her. All the potted plants in their apartment back home crinkling and browning. “Just thinking how glad I am that we’re here. Now. And thinking about who is not.”

•

A year before, only faceless people in headlines died in car accidents. The last time Flor saw her mother, the last time she did not feel hollow, did not feel like a hardcover with entire signatures ripped out, a book with the prologue and epilogue missing, was the night her mother’s tenure was to be officially announced at a Board meeting. Inés had been teaching biology in a posh suburban high school on Long Island. Flor was proud of her mother. Throughout her childhood she had witnessed how her mother grabbed the reins of adulthood when Peter left. Driven by memories of a childhood in a cherished community garden that had since been demolished, Inés turned her fascination with plants and flowers into a bachelor’s in biology and then a master’s in teaching. Theirs was a future of stability and it splayed in its splendor and opportunity across the ceiling at which they stared while lying in Inés’ bed. Rain pelted the window.

“We’ll start looking for a house this summer,” Inés said. Then, more to herself, “Can you imagine?”

“A big house?” Flor asked.

“I’m a teacher not a billionaire.”

“But will abuela have her own room?”

“Yes!”

“And will I be able to read in mine without any disruption? Will abuela have to knock?”

“You know abuela.”

“If there’s a yard, can we get a dog?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“But you’ll finally get your garden.”

Inés lay still, her lips piquing in the smallest but most satisfied crescent of a smile. A gust of wind splashed the window with rain. “Yes. A garden of my own. I want mine to be like abuela Clara’s. I’ll have a patch where we can grow our own chiles and tomatoes so we can have fresh salsas every day. Cilantro and onions. I can’t wait to feel the dampness of the soil. My own soil. And I’ll plant flowers.” She booped Flor on the nose. “So many flowers I want the neighbors to pass by and think a jungle grew overnight.”

Flor followed Inés to the door. “Are you sure I can’t come?” she asked.

“No, it’ll be boring,” Inés replied. “Besides, it’s a school night. Someone has to do homework!” Maricarmen walked over to give her blessing. Inés kissed her mother and Flor goodbye.

“I’m proud of you!” Flor said as Inés disappeared behind the door. Flor caught a glimpse of her mother’s hair swishing in black curtains, her red lips flashing a smile. Flor could not hear the jingle of keys, the bolting of the locks, her mother’s heels clicking away over the thunder outside.

•

Dinner is eaten in the dining room since outside has cooled down too much for Clara’s comfort. An iron chandelier casts light over the spread of homemade tortillas, beans, rice and mole poblano, a glistening pitcher of freshly pressed pomegranate juice. Like before, the adults are in deep conversation. Not like before, Flor sits and listens, still wishing she could do more than only catch isolated words that pop in the air like fireflies but she finds the banter musical. Sometimes they address her and ask a question, saying, “Mi Flor,” and she likes how it sounds, the letters of her name unwrapping like petals. She sees the laugh lines in the faces of the older family members stretch and thinks it endearing. She wonders what it’s like to reconnect after so many years, to recall the same memories. And suddenly Flor wants to stay in this moment. Or, rather, to capture this feeling of warmth, of security, to take its glow and put it in a glass chest where she can admire it whenever she’d like.

Héctor’s children and their spouses and their children will visit tomorrow to see Titi Maricarmen and their mysterious gringa cousin. Flor expects a series of awkward encounters. But she is also curious. There will be cousins her age. And the potential for more moments like this.

Flor notices Clara looking at her from across the table. Clara tells Araceli something. Araceli leaves and comes back with a book. It is small with a worn red hardcover and its gilded edge faded. Araceli hands Flor the book. “La Doña Clarita quiere regalarte esto.”

Flor looks up at Araceli and then at the book. It feels rough in her hands. Flor looks at Clara who is smiling. She says something and Maricarmen translates. “It’s the first book your bisabuela ever bought.”

Flor smiles broadly as she holds the book to her chest. “Gracias.”

Maricarmen stands up and calls everyone’s attention. “¡Tomemos una foto!” There is a chorus of agreement and shuffling to one side of the table. Araceli goes to fetch a Fuji disposable and comes back to stage the portrait. Clara sits in the center. Flor stands directly to her right.

“Toma mi mano,” says a soft voice. Flor looks down to see Clara offering her hand. The hand is delicate, the palm wrinkled from years of caring for the garden. Flor takes it, feels how their palms seal the distance of decades like a seam.

 

Eric Odynocki is a first-generation American writer whose parents come from Mexico and Ukraine. Eric’s work has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and has appeared in Jabberwock Review, The Brooklyn Review, PANK, and elsewhere. When not teaching Spanish or Italian, Eric is an MFA student at Stony Brook Southampton.